CX Metrics That Speak Volumes – CSAT, NPS, CES

Do you truly understand how your customers perceive your services? Are you equipped with the right tools to measure customer satisfaction and capture authentic feedback? How do you translate these insights into actions that elevate the overall customer experience?

The answer lies in tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) such as CSAT (customer satisfaction score), NPS (net promoter score), and CES (customer effort score). Measuring customer satisfaction is crucial to evaluate the overall relationship of a customer with your brand and fix what matters most.

Contact centers today use a variety of metrics to capture every facet of customer sentiment, but CSAT, NPS, and CES are right there at the top. By evaluating how happy your customers are, tracking the difficulties they experienced while resolving an issue, and gauging long-term loyalty, these three metrics give you a complete picture of the support experience you provide.

In this blog, we have shared our insights on how you can use these metrics to measure customer satisfaction and combine their strengths to achieve your customer experience (CX) objectives.

Also read: Introducing Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Survey For A Five-Star CX Program

Unlocking a better customer experience with three key metrics

First, let us take a closer look at each of the metrics and understand what they mean and how they work.

1. Customer satisfaction score (CSAT): This is the most widely adopted metric to measure how your customers feel about your products and services. When a customer interacts with a support agent, or when they have just completed a purchase, the brand sends them a CSAT survey to understand how their overall experience was.
   
   To give you a quick example, a CSAT survey will include a question such as, “How satisfied are you with your experience today?” The rating scale will be often between 0-5 and 1-10, where higher numbers indicate most satisfied. The rating scale also has different formats that use star ratings, emojis, or even a Likert scale (using options like strongly disagree to strongly agree).
   
2. Net Promoter Score (NPS): An NPS tool is the go-to metric to measure your customers’ loyalty and satisfaction and their willingness to recommend your brand to others. This is a simple but powerful tool to understand your customer’s potential for word-of-mouth marketing and their long-term retention.
   
   With this one simple question – “How likely are you to recommend us to a friend?” – your customers can pick a number between 0-10 on a rating scale. Their response will help you understand who are your brand’s promoters (if they picked above 7) and your most unsatisfied customers (if they picked a number between 0-6).
3. Customer Effort Score (CES): CES measures the difficulties your customers faced while getting their issue resolved and interacting with your customer support agent. This metric zooms in on process efficiency and self-service usability, rather than focusing on happiness or loyalty.
   
   “How easy was it to resolve your issue with [Company/Product]?” is a typical question that brands use with a rating scale of 1-7 or 1-5. Here, if a customer picks a higher number, then it means it took them less or minimal effort to resolve their issue. You can remove obstacles and make it easier for customers to do business with you with a CES survey.
   

CSAT vs. NPS vs. CES: What is the difference?

Now that we know what each metric means, let us understand how they are different from each other.

How is CSAT different from NPS and CES?

Focuses on: Measuring customer satisfaction.
Why to use: To identify areas of improvement in specific processes, track agent performance, and identify training opportunities.
Timing: A CSAT feedback jumps right in after a customer makes a purchase or interacts with a support agent.
How it is calculated: CSAT (%) = (Number of positive responses/Total responses) x 100

How is NPS different from CSAT and CES?

Focuses on: Measuring customer loyalty and a customer’s willingness to recommend your brand.
Why to use: NPS segregates your customers to help you understand where your brand stands among the specific groups.
Timing: You can right away send NPS surveys to new customers, and for the rest, you can send out the survey on a quarterly or yearly basis.
How it is calculated: NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of promoters (customers who choose a number above 7) from the percentage of detractors (customers who rate you below 7).

How is CES different from CSAT and NPS?

Focuses on: Customer efforts and the ease of customer experience.
Why to use: To identify specific points of friction in the customer journey.
Timing: CES is immediately used after a customer interaction or after resolving a service ticket.
How it is calculated: CES (average score) = Sum of all responses / Number of responses

Why all three metrics matter

When you ask yourself what your customer experience goals are, you will understand which specific metric will help you achieve them. In our opinion, every organization should prioritize improving all aspects of CX, and that is only possible by using all three metrics. 

Together, CSAT, NPS, and CES give you a 360° view of customer sentiments by collecting customer feedback, understanding customer loyalty, and improving areas of customer friction.

Using a combination of these metrics is the smartest approach to create a feedback strategy and proactively fix issues in the customer journey. With this comprehensive approach, you will have all the data at your disposal to make targeted improvements, such as improving agent performance, optimizing workflows, and introducing customer loyalty programs.

Also read: Agent Scorecard: The Key To Measuring And Mastering Service Delivery

From data to action: Analyzing customer feedback to deliver stellar CX

Conduct real-time surveys using ThinkOwl's Survey tool. It helps to gather feedback from clients, drive improvements across the customer journey, and measure their level of satisfaction. Creating a survey in ThinkOwl is super easy. You only have to set parameters such as Survey Question, Rating Scale, Rating order, Text Labels, and the mode of sending the survey, and your survey will be ready to launch.

ThinkOwl’s Survey displays the results of all client feedback where it showcases reports on Response Rate, Satisfaction Score, Promoter Score, and Percentage of Customer Ratings. With automated survey data and robust analytics, you can identify unhappy clients and take action to prevent them from churning and ensure a five-star customer experience.

To get the most out of your customer satisfaction strategy by using these metrics, you need to follow a few key practices.

1. Keep surveys short and contextual: Right after a customer interacts with your brand, ensure you send them a survey immediately to get their genuine feedback. Ideally, do not use more than 2 questions, as this will significantly increase the response rate.
2. Act on data: To truly benefit from carrying out surveys through these metrics, you need to take action on the insights you gather. ‘Closing the feedback loop’ leads to real changes and shows customers that their opinions truly made a difference.
3. Segregate data: Segregating data based on customer type, product, or channel will help you uncover specific problems. This detailed understanding will enable you to make targeted improvements instead of broad, ineffective changes.
4. Leverage automation: Using AI automation allows you to not just send surveys without manual effort but also process large volumes of customer feedback through AI-powered analysis. You get instant and accurate insights into customer sentiments.

Conclusion

Each metric provides unique insights into the customer experience you deliver. With ThinkOwl, you can start measuring customer satisfaction with survey tools and improve service quality. ThinkOwl summarizes your survey results in a centralized view so that you know exactly what your customers feel about your brand. Explore such smart solutions by ThinkOwl, and sign up for a free demo today!