Track these metrics to measure your customer experience

Over the course of a brand’s relationship with customers, the brand should strive to continually engage them to help establish healthy, long-standing connections. After all, happy, loyal customers mean more value for your business down the line, as we found in our Customer Expectations Report — 72% of shoppers would spend more on a brand that provides excellent service.

To fundamentally improve your CX performance and find sustainable success, you first need to understand the key metrics to measure customer experience, as well as the hierarchical nature of this data and how this “value chain” builds over time. Once you’ve mastered this concept and secured the tools you need to optimize relationship building, you’ll be on your way to creating lasting value and a sustainable, profitable business.

How can you measure customer experience?

To measure your customer experience, you need to take a high-level look at the different elements of your relationships with customers, improving baseline metrics — like average wait time — in order to improve more nuanced metrics, like internal quality score. But how do all these customer experience metrics work together to form a pathway to success?

Introducing the CX metric value chain

Below, you’ll see a diagram for something called the customer experience metric value chain. The customer experience metric value chain is a hierarchical framework that shows how shoppers engage with businesses, building from fundamental interactions all the way up to loyalty.

Screenshot of a list of The Hierarchy of Customer Experience

From superficial monetary exchanges to powerful, long-term connections, this chart shows the progression toward lasting relationships that truly defines great businesses. In referring to this chart, you can see how improving your customer experience can set your business apart from others that are stuck further down the CX chain.

How to use the CX metric value chain

This value chain allows you to view the process of developing more substantial customer experiences as a clear, navigable journey of improvement. Mastering each set can leapfrog you into further stages along the chain, helping you focus carefully on each element of CX performance and maintain consistency in your path to success.

Metrics that matter in customer experience

CX leaders can quantify each of the value chain’s six phases with certain metrics, but by focusing on the factors that drive the higher ends of the pyramid, you’ll set yourself up to reach that peak of strong relationships. In particular, as you move up through the value chain, make sure you stay consistent in your performance along the way, ensuring no aspect of your experience gets left behind. Next, we’ll cover each step of the hierarchy in detail, as well as the metrics that tie into each.

Interactions and transactions

These basic levels of customer engagement deal with important but fundamentally superficial aspects of the experience. Still, these are essential to measuring customer experience and building a foundation for growing satisfaction, trust, and loyalty. With these metrics under your belt, you’ll be able to build upon that success toward more consistent, valuable customer relationships.

Customer experience metrics to measure

Average Wait Time (AWT) — Measures the average amount of time a customer is on hold before they are able to reach an agent to deal with their request or issue
Average Handle Time (AHT) — Measures the average of the entire amount of time it takes to resolve a customer request, including wait time, time spent fixing the issue, and any additional work done after by the agent

Satisfaction

With an established ability to handle the basics of service, your next step is to work toward satisfying — even delighting — customers with your service experiences. This level of performance proves you're ready to move along the value chain to provide excellent service.

Customer experience metrics to measure

First Contact Resolution (FCR) — Measures the number of conversations closed upon the first contact with your service center
Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) — Measures on a 1–10 scale or a similar scale how satisfied, on average, your customers are with your service, often gathered through surveys or direct responses
Net Promoter Score (NPS) — Measures on a 1–10 scale or similar scale how likely, on average, your customers would be to recommend your business to a friend or relative

Relationship and trust

Now that you’ve created a system of quality and satisfaction that consistently proves to customers that your brand is worth their business, you have an opportunity to turn that emotion into something more long-standing, building a deeper relationship through trust that leads to customer loyalty. Continue that focus by optimizing the metrics that quantify consistency in the customer relationship.

Customer Effort Score (CES) — Measures how much work customers need to put in, on average, to solve their requests or issues, often gathered through surveys or direct responses
Internal Quality Score (IQS) — An internally sourced metric gauging how well your service center is performing against your predetermined support standards, service level agreements (SLAs), or other barometers of success

Improving metrics that impact customer experience

Mastering these metrics to measure customer experience — and then appropriately acting on the insights you gain — requires carefully crafted support center technology. With Gladly, numerous ecommerce businesses have leveraged an intelligent, personalized service solution to foster deeper relationships with shoppers and drive valuable, long-term customer loyalty.

Read more about how we can help you achieve new heights on the hierarchy of customer experience in our latest guide.

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