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Using statistical analysis to uncover hidden business priorities

Measuring customer experience is much bigger than simply measuring customer satisfaction. The main difference is that the latter is specific to an interaction while experience takes into account the entire customer journey.

Organisations spend a lot of money improving customer satisfaction levels and more recently on customer experience. There are various metrics, of which Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Satisfaction (CSat) are most widely used and well know due to their simplicity.

In truth, a customer’s experience is complex and comprises of many factors, both transactional/process related and behavioural/emotional. Customer satisfaction cannot be measured by answering one question only. A variety of aspects need to be combined to create a composite score which is then indicative of overall customer health.

So, when organisations spend millions of dollars on initiatives to improve customer experience, do they take into account what is actually important to the customer? And how do you find out? The answer to this critical question is actually in the data.

Take this example from a recent study that was conducted by Apptique in the health care industry.

A questionnaire was designed to measure the experience around the claim process and included 11 attributes that impact overall satisfaction. The sample included 660 responses which were used in a key driver analysis to plot the performance of each attribute (score out of 10) against the importance of each attribute (the importance score is a weight out of 100%).

The result of such an analysis ranks the key drivers in descending order. The insights, mind blowing. Why? Because it comes straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.

The statistical analysis revealed that:

  • Out of the 11 attributes measured, customer effort has the biggest impact on overall satisfaction with the claims experience. The importance weight of 28% means that a quarter of the experience is made up by how much effort the customer had to personally put in.
  • At a performance level of 7.9 out of 10, this is one of the lower rated attributes.
  • The second most important attribute is keeping a customer in the loop with the progress of the claim and makes up 12% of the overall experience. This aspect also rated quite low at 7.5 out of 10.
  • Some of the best performing attributes like helpfulness (8.6) and knowledge (8.3) of the agent or the satisfaction around waiting time (8) were not important to customers.
  • Customers rated their understanding of the monthly claim statements, contributions and payment benefits very low (6.5 and below) indicating poor performance.

The insight:
If these analytical methodologies are not deployed, organisations are very likely to spend money on initiatives that are not important. In this specific case study, the fact that claim statements, monthly contributions and benefits are not well understood would raise red flags and budgets could be diverted towards creating more awareness, training and education around these aspects.
Leaders already find it challenging enough to show return on investment during the current difficult economic conditions and cost-cutting cycles. Mistakes like these cannot be afforded.

Marna Lottering is the founder and MD at Apptique – Engagement Enabler.

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