You don’t need a crystal ball to improve your company’s customer experience. By creating an effective customer experience measurement program, you can gain valuable insights that help you take targeted action to increase customer satisfaction and build brand loyalty.

Beyond the Arc was one of the firms Forrester® Research interviewed about best practices for successfully measuring customer experience. Their report, “Seven Steps to Successful Customer Experience Measurement Programs,” outlines steps companies can take to measure customer experience on an ongoing basis, tie quality to business outcomes, and systematically act on customer experience metrics.

Here are some highlights from the Forrester report to help you build a successful customer experience measurement program and keep it on track.

7 proven steps to a successful customer experience program

  1. Target specific customer segmentsAs each customer may have different expectations and experiences, segment your customers by their journeys, identifying and targeting the specific segments that matter most to growth and success.
  2. Be selective on which customer experiences you measure Don’t just track customers, measure the customer experience. Zero in on customer relationships, journeys, and interactions, and then prioritize by what matters most to your business.Forrester cited our work with an insurance client in identifying the critical experiences that deliver the most business value. As the report noted, to get there, Beyond the Arc mapped out the whole customer life cycle, because improving the prospect experience brought the highest immediate ROI.
  3. Use customer experience to determine your metrics strategyDefine metrics that align with your key business objectives (such as increasing revenue, reducing attrition), and measure outcomes to determine how well your customer experience efforts are meeting those objectives.
  4. Form a strategy for collecting customer data Analyze survey results and track customer feedback across multiple channels and touch points to measure what your customers value. Ask meaningful, consistent questions, and get help from frontline employees to encourage customers to provide feedback.
  5. Set specific targets for every customer experience metric To achieve key objectives, your company will want to understand what customers consider to be a great experience, and how to prevent potential problems. Target the results you want to achieve by examining levels of achievement in past CX efforts to establish benchmarks, and analyze competitive models./
  6. Identify, analyze, prioritize, and take action Plan how you’ll use analytics to identify and prioritize trouble spots that produce negative customer experience ratings, then develop an action plan to target specific issues throughout your organization. Finally, use open-ended surveys, social media, and other direct interactions with customers to capture feedback on how well your changes have improved the customer experience.
  7. Share findings across business units Develop a robust communication strategy to share your findings about customer experience challenges and opportunities in real time across your company’s business units. Effective communications can help create the buy-in and collaboration needed for building a customer-centric company culture.

Keep your customer experience measurement program relevant

Once you’ve put these seven steps into action, establish a consistent review process that gives your customer experience program a periodic checkup. Reviewing decisions at each step in the process on an ongoing basis tests whether your standards for customer experience and quality are consistently relevant to your customer experience goals.