Customer experience has never been so important. Beyond your goods and services, it’s the reason people chose you over your competitors and the reason they’ll come back for more.
In fact, according to PwC’s Future of Customer Experience survey, 73% of respondents point to customer experience (CX) as an important factor in purchasing decisions and 65% find a positive experience to be more influential than great advertising.
So how do you go about turning data into actionable customer experience insights that can make a meaningful difference to your bottom line? This is where CX analytics comes in.
“Customer analytics and data are vital for our business,” says Matt Jones, founder and managing director of online course provider Oxbridge. “We learn a great deal from where and how customers find us to how they interact once on-site as well the pain points of the user experience. We use these insights to better inform our activity with the aim of refining the customer experience and improving conversion.”
So how can small businesses harness CX analytics to improve their business and retain more customers? Let’s start with the basics.
What is CX analytics?
They say data is the new oil, but its true value lies in understanding what to do with it. According to research from Adobe and Forrester, businesses that place great value on customer experience see almost two times higher year-on-year growth in customer retention, repeat purchase rates, and customer lifetime value than other businesses.
“Before you start planning improvements to your customer experience, you need the right data and metrics to help you establish goals and initiatives, as well as setting benchmarks to see what kind of impact these goals and initiatives will have on your customers,” says Colin Campbell, a consultant at the cloud communications firm, Olive.
Common examples of CX metrics to focus on
- Net Promoter Score (NPS) – measures the loyalty of customers
- Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) – looks at customer satisfaction
- Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) – the average monetary value of a customer relationship
- Retention Rate – the percentage of customers you retain in a period
Consumers may not know it, but they help businesses to calculate their NPS all of the time whenever they are asked: “How likely are you to recommend this product or service?” “This is the current favourite customer experience metric across most business sectors,” says Campbell.
Businesses can gather this insight in a number of ways, explains Matthew Ashford, director of analytics at Gobeyond Partners. “For instance, they could conduct surveys, capture comments made about the business on social media and review sites, collate insight from conversations (such as call listening, speech, and text analytics) and, of course, use feedback from frontline staff too.”
How CX analytics can be useful for your small business
1. Identifying pain points to reduce customer turnover
Data can point to certain parts of the customer journey that turn people off or slow down their purchasing decision – by knowing what these are, you can start to implement changes.
“We found from our analytics data that the search function was frequently used and often to search for very specific courses,” says Jones. “So we restructured the homepage and made the search bar more prominent. This shortened the user journey by a number of clicks, and we saw improvements across all stages of the customer funnel.”
If you have an e-commerce business, it's worth looking into further improving the design of your website through Conversion Rate Optimisation, as it can potentially boost your sales.
2. Personalise customer journeys and marketing
Data can be used to segment audiences based on their buying preferences and habits. If you can understand more about these customers, you will be able to reach them with personalised marketing that answers their needs. For example, a beautician could group people who regularly buy nail polish or get manicures and send this group news about a new colour or service on offer.
Reaching people with the right offers at the right time, increases their likelihood to purchase and makes them feel special.
3. Quickly and efficiently respond to customer needs with new products
Data not only tell you what your customers’ favourite products and services are – it can also help you to come up with some new ones. Analytics could point to something that people keep searching for, but you don’t have yet. Also, by understanding what people typically buy together, you could offer bundles and increase sales.
CX analytics data is at its most effective when you utilise it in a timely manner. The American Express® Business Gold Card¹ enables you to make quick purchases or investments, giving you up to 54 days to pay off your balance and extra flexibility in your budget.
Plus, you will earn Membership Rewards® points² for your spending, which can be redeemed as statement credit to help offset your bills.
- Platinum and Gold Business cards the maximum payment period on purchases is 54 calendar days and is obtained only if you spend on the first day of the new statement period and repay the balance in full on the due date.
- If you'd prefer a Card with no annual fee, rewards or other features, an alternative option is available – the Business Basic Card.
- Membership Rewards points are earned on every full £1 spent and charged, per transaction. Enrolment required. Terms apply.
