The days when prospective customers drooled over store windows to get a sneak peek of your products and services are indeed gone. Today, they traverse the internet, hopping from one website to another as they seek the best solutions for their needs. eCommerce is growing at superspeed, with approximately half a million websites launched every day.
It is becoming increasingly difficult for online businesses to stand out in a crowded and busy digital market. Every effort you make to stand out (from offers, incentives, discounts to cutting-edge tech) is quickly duplicated on your competitor's website. So how do you stand out?
Did you know even your closest competitors cannot copy how you treat your customers? If you offer an unbeatable customer experience, then your customers will come back again and again.
What is Customer Experience?
Customer experience (CX) is what the customer thinks about their online interactions with your company. It is the entire business relationship from the moment a prospect hears about your brand to researching your company, reading your website content, reaching out to your sales team, and converting to a customer.
It is important to have good yardsticks to measure the experience of your customers when they interact with your brand online. Only then can you identify the overlooked pain points and better understand how to improve the customer journey.
Measuring and Improving Customer Experience
Here are the standard customer experience metrics to help you determine your customers' experience and possibly give you actionable insights to make improvements.
1. Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Net Promoter Score is a gold-standard metric for measuring customer experience. It assesses your customers' loyalty by asking them a simple question: "On a 0-10 scale, how likely are you to recommend our brand to a friend and why?"
Based on the answers, respondents are categorized as follows:
- Detractors - These are respondents who score 0-6. They are usually disgruntled and can discredit your brand through word of mouth
- Passives - Respondents who score 7-8 are satisfied, but they may not be your diehard campaigners. They are also not the most loyal and can be swayed by your competitors.
- Promoters - These are customers who score 9-10. They have had a positive customer experience with your brand and are active advocates for your products and service.
NPS allows you to determine your customer's satisfaction level and brand perception and give you valuable insights into customer advocacy. This assessment is essential because your potential customers will want to ask their peers and read reviews before deciding to purchase.
2. Customer Effort Score (CES)
Think about how fast your customers' queries or concerns are resolved. CES is used to measure your customers perceived level of ease or effort when accomplishing a task. Your customers don't want to work too hard to acquire your product or service.
To enhance your customer's online experience, make sure you do not require them to fill in too many details, or you are not taking them to so many pages before they can make a purchase. The modern consumer prioritizes products and services that do not need too much effort to buy and use. They want to solve their problems fast, easy, and efficiently.
You can measure CES by using customer survey questions such as, "How much effort did you need to put in to get your issue resolved?" Users and customers will rate your brand using a scale of "Very Low Effort" to "Very High Effort."
The more you move towards "Low Effort," the better your CES score and the higher the chances of your online business thriving. Consider using website features that help your customers find the right product or resolve possible issues instantly.
3. Conversion Rate
This metric is a ratio of the number of people who visited your website versus the number of visitors that converted into customers. eCommerce businesses are in the biggest rush of all time as they try to push this ratio upwards. The current average conversion rate across all sectors in the U.S is less than 3 percent.
Although the conversion rate has been traditionally perceived as a business goal, it is a valuable indicator of your customers' online experience. An important factor affecting your conversion rates is cart abandonment. This is when potential customers add a product(s) to the cart, but then they disappear in a puff of virtual smoke without completing the transaction.
It shows that your products or services are good enough to generate interest in your target audience, but something hinders them from closing the sale. There could be many reasons why your customers do not make a final purchase, including lack of clarity, unsuitable payment options, lack of trust, and expensive shipping costs, among others.
Analyze and resolve these issues to boost your customers' experiences and increase your sales. You can leverage different payment modes, convenient shipping, and platforms that customers can use to manage and track their orders to foster trust and increase sales. Working with an experienced 3PL company that provides eCommerce fulfillment services can help you improve conversion rates.
4. Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)
This customer experience metric is a satisfaction score derived from a survey filled by your customers classifying how satisfied they are with your brand, product, or service. You can calculate your customers' satisfaction by sending surveys to your customers after a support interaction or purchase.
They will rate your services on a scale of Very Satisfied to Very Dissatisfied. The responses will depend on the experience your customers had when they interacted online with your brand.
If your online customers fill in too many details, they probably will be less satisfied. Or if your customers wait long in the queue before speaking to a customer care assistant, they are likely to be dissatisfied with your services.
5. Customer Life Time Value (CLV)
CLV is another key statistic in evaluating your customers' experience. It is an assessment of a customer's worth to your company, not just on a purchase-to-purchase basis but across the entire relationship. CLV can be calculated as follows:
- Average Revenue Per User X Gross Margin X Average Retention Time
Whereas it is essential to actively search for new customers, repeat customers are the real deal to increase CLV while maintaining profit margins. Customers who come back to your online store are happy and will probably refer others to you. Research indicates that cross-selling and up-selling accounts for an average of 10-30 percent of eCommerce revenues.
However, a business can only realize repeat customers if the previous customer experiences were good. As such, Customer Lifetime Value is a significant metric to assess the CX of your online store.
6. Average Resolution Time
This is the average time it takes to resolve a customer's issue from the moment the problem is brought to your attention. This number includes all the time spent interacting with the customers, whether via emails, calls, chats, etc., and the interval of those interactions.
It can be calculated by adding the total time taken to resolve issues in a time frame divided by the total number of issues resolved in the said time frame. Less average resolution time translates to better customer experience and higher chances that they will come back to you again and again.
7. First Contact Resolution Rate (FCR)
Customers are happier with their experience if their issue, problem, or concern is promptly solved. FCR is regarded as the average time it takes your customers to get the first response upon a support request.
You can determine your FCR by dividing the number of resolved cases on the first request by the total number of incidents. A shorter response time leads to superior customer experiences and fosters customer trust.
We Can Enhance Customer Experience for Your Online Business
Is customer experience the weak link in your brand's growth strategy? Rakuten Super Logistics is a premier eCommerce order fulfillment company that provides you with the scalability and flexibility you need without breaking the bank.
We envision being a global network that offers online businesses and customers fast, efficient, and dependable 3PL fulfillment solutions for seamless eCommerce. Our client support team is comprised of eCommerce shipping savants with our sleeves rolled up to guarantee your fulfillment services go over and beyond the box.
For information on how to measure and improve your business's customer experience or regarding our order fulfillment services, feel free to contact us today at (866) 722-9687 to request a quote.
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The days when prospective customers drooled over store windows to get a sneak peek of your products and services are indeed gone. Today, they traverse the internet, hopping from one website to another as they seek the best solutions for their needs. eCommerce is growing at superspeed, with approximately half a million websites launched every day.
It is becoming increasingly difficult for online businesses to stand out in a crowded and busy digital market. Every effort you make to stand out (from offers, incentives, discounts to cutting-edge tech) is quickly duplicated on your competitor's website. So how do you stand out?
Did you know even your closest competitors cannot copy how you treat your customers? If you offer an unbeatable customer experience, then your customers will come back again and again.
What is Customer Experience?
Customer experience (CX) is what the customer thinks about their online interactions with your company. It is the entire business relationship from the moment a prospect hears about your brand to researching your company, reading your website content, reaching out to your sales team, and converting to a customer.
It is important to have good yardsticks to measure the experience of your customers when they interact with your brand online. Only then can you identify the overlooked pain points and better understand how to improve the customer journey.
Measuring and Improving Customer Experience
Here are the standard customer experience metrics to help you determine your customers' experience and possibly give you actionable insights to make improvements.
1. Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Net Promoter Score is a gold-standard metric for measuring customer experience. It assesses your customers' loyalty by asking them a simple question: "On a 0-10 scale, how likely are you to recommend our brand to a friend and why?"
Based on the answers, respondents are categorized as follows:
- Detractors - These are respondents who score 0-6. They are usually disgruntled and can discredit your brand through word of mouth
- Passives - Respondents who score 7-8 are satisfied, but they may not be your diehard campaigners. They are also not the most loyal and can be swayed by your competitors.
- Promoters - These are customers who score 9-10. They have had a positive customer experience with your brand and are active advocates for your products and service.
NPS allows you to determine your customer's satisfaction level and brand perception and give you valuable insights into customer advocacy. This assessment is essential because your potential customers will want to ask their peers and read reviews before deciding to purchase.
2. Customer Effort Score (CES)
Think about how fast your customers' queries or concerns are resolved. CES is used to measure your customers perceived level of ease or effort when accomplishing a task. Your customers don't want to work too hard to acquire your product or service.
To enhance your customer's online experience, make sure you do not require them to fill in too many details, or you are not taking them to so many pages before they can make a purchase. The modern consumer prioritizes products and services that do not need too much effort to buy and use. They want to solve their problems fast, easy, and efficiently.
You can measure CES by using customer survey questions such as, "How much effort did you need to put in to get your issue resolved?" Users and customers will rate your brand using a scale of "Very Low Effort" to "Very High Effort."
The more you move towards "Low Effort," the better your CES score and the higher the chances of your online business thriving. Consider using website features that help your customers find the right product or resolve possible issues instantly.
3. Conversion Rate
This metric is a ratio of the number of people who visited your website versus the number of visitors that converted into customers. eCommerce businesses are in the biggest rush of all time as they try to push this ratio upwards. The current average conversion rate across all sectors in the U.S is less than 3 percent.
Although the conversion rate has been traditionally perceived as a business goal, it is a valuable indicator of your customers' online experience. An important factor affecting your conversion rates is cart abandonment. This is when potential customers add a product(s) to the cart, but then they disappear in a puff of virtual smoke without completing the transaction.
It shows that your products or services are good enough to generate interest in your target audience, but something hinders them from closing the sale. There could be many reasons why your customers do not make a final purchase, including lack of clarity, unsuitable payment options, lack of trust, and expensive shipping costs, among others.
Analyze and resolve these issues to boost your customers' experiences and increase your sales. You can leverage different payment modes, convenient shipping, and platforms that customers can use to manage and track their orders to foster trust and increase sales. Working with an experienced 3PL company that provides eCommerce fulfillment services can help you improve conversion rates.
4. Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)
This customer experience metric is a satisfaction score derived from a survey filled by your customers classifying how satisfied they are with your brand, product, or service. You can calculate your customers' satisfaction by sending surveys to your customers after a support interaction or purchase.
They will rate your services on a scale of Very Satisfied to Very Dissatisfied. The responses will depend on the experience your customers had when they interacted online with your brand.
If your online customers fill in too many details, they probably will be less satisfied. Or if your customers wait long in the queue before speaking to a customer care assistant, they are likely to be dissatisfied with your services.
5. Customer Life Time Value (CLV)
CLV is another key statistic in evaluating your customers' experience. It is an assessment of a customer's worth to your company, not just on a purchase-to-purchase basis but across the entire relationship. CLV can be calculated as follows:
- Average Revenue Per User X Gross Margin X Average Retention Time
Whereas it is essential to actively search for new customers, repeat customers are the real deal to increase CLV while maintaining profit margins. Customers who come back to your online store are happy and will probably refer others to you. Research indicates that cross-selling and up-selling accounts for an average of 10-30 percent of eCommerce revenues.
However, a business can only realize repeat customers if the previous customer experiences were good. As such, Customer Lifetime Value is a significant metric to assess the CX of your online store.
6. Average Resolution Time
This is the average time it takes to resolve a customer's issue from the moment the problem is brought to your attention. This number includes all the time spent interacting with the customers, whether via emails, calls, chats, etc., and the interval of those interactions.
It can be calculated by adding the total time taken to resolve issues in a time frame divided by the total number of issues resolved in the said time frame. Less average resolution time translates to better customer experience and higher chances that they will come back to you again and again.
7. First Contact Resolution Rate (FCR)
Customers are happier with their experience if their issue, problem, or concern is promptly solved. FCR is regarded as the average time it takes your customers to get the first response upon a support request.
You can determine your FCR by dividing the number of resolved cases on the first request by the total number of incidents. A shorter response time leads to superior customer experiences and fosters customer trust.
We Can Enhance Customer Experience for Your Online Business
Is customer experience the weak link in your brand's growth strategy? Rakuten Super Logistics is a premier eCommerce order fulfillment company that provides you with the scalability and flexibility you need without breaking the bank.
We envision being a global network that offers online businesses and customers fast, efficient, and dependable 3PL fulfillment solutions for seamless eCommerce. Our client support team is comprised of eCommerce shipping savants with our sleeves rolled up to guarantee your fulfillment services go over and beyond the box.
For information on how to measure and improve your business's customer experience or regarding our order fulfillment services, feel free to contact us today at (866) 722-9687 to request a quote.