Moving beyond NPS: A comprehensive approach to measuring CX

Brands have been using social media to promote themselves and gather new audiences to drive sales. However, customers have also been using it to share their experiences—both positive and negative.

Recently, we’ve seen how negative feedback has seriously affected some brands, sometimes even leading to a serious dent in their reputation. But this doesn’t happen all at once.

Customers usually give brands multiple chances, offering opportunities to improve. Yet, brands often overlook the early signals of poor customer experiences, which can eventually escalate into bigger problems. Monitoring these signals and taking timely action is crucial.

Typically, brands have relied on Net Promoter Score (NPS) as their go-to metric for understanding customer satisfaction. While NPS offers valuable insights, it doesn’t provide the full picture of customer experiences.

To build a truly customer-centric strategy, brands need to adopt a more comprehensive approach. This involves leveraging a combination of three key approaches:

● Gathering direct feedback from customers

● Listening to customers on public platforms

● The role of customer experience in driving business growth

Let's explore how each of these works, what they reveal about customer experience, and how brands can use them together for a more complete understanding:

Direct feedback from the customer

The best way to measure customer experience is by asking customers directly. Surveys and ratings help customers share their thoughts about their experience with the brand. These are key to understanding how they feel right after an interaction.

Key metrics for direct feedback:

● Net Promoter Score (NPS): NPS is ideal for understanding overall customer loyalty and predicting long-term growth. It measures customer loyalty post-purchase by asking how likely customers are to recommend a brand.

● Customer Satisfaction (CSAT): CSAT is best for immediate feedback on specific transactions or experiences. It evaluates satisfaction after specific interactions, like customer service.

● Customer Effort Score (CES): Customer Effort Score (CES) tracks how easy it is for customers to resolve issues, making it a more actionable metric than Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT).

While CSAT measures satisfaction with a response, CES highlights the effort involved. For example, placing a return request with a single click requires minimal effort, whereas making 2-3 calls indicates a higher effort.

Even if the issue is resolved, high effort can frustrate customers. That’s why CES focuses on reducing friction, offering deeper insights into improving the overall experience.

Listening to customers on public platforms

Customers often share their thoughts on reviews, social media, and forums. Monitoring these spaces helps brands understand customer feelings and improve experiences.

CX covers every step of the customer journey—ads, apps, purchases, support, and more. Each moment shapes how customers see your brand, making CX essential.

Key metrics for public feedback:

There are two key KPIs to focus on: the overall review score and the comments. Reviews provide a snapshot of customer satisfaction, while comments offer deeper insights through sentiment analysis.

Together, these metrics help brands understand customer experiences better. It’s crucial for brands to organically collect reviews and ratings and respond promptly to them, especially on public forums.

Customer experience driving business growth

Great customer experiences don’t just make people happy. They help a brand grow. Happy customers stay loyal, bring in new customers, and increase revenue. 

Key metrics for CX growth:

● Organic revenue: This is the revenue brands earn from loyal customers and word-of-mouth, without extra marketing costs. It shows how much customers love the brand.

● Customer retention: Retention shows how many customers keep coming back. Loyal customers mean more sales and lower costs to find new ones.

● Customer referrals: When satisfied customers tell others about the brand, they bring in new business. More referrals mean stronger growth.

“The best advertising you can have is a loyal customer spreading the word.”

Shep Hyken, customer service and experience expert-

Whose responsibility is CX?

Customer experience (CX) is not the sole responsibility of one person or department. While titles like Chief Experience Officer (CXO) have emerged to help coordinate efforts, CX is much more.

It includes the product, packaging, quality, returns, refunds, and every interaction along the customer journey—each aspect contributes to the overall experience. Even how an app performs plays a role in shaping customer perceptions. Ultimately, every department has a part to play in creating a seamless experience.

The CXO or similar title helps to align these efforts and provide strategic input to the CEO or brand leadership to ensure consistency across all touchpoints. 

If you build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.

Jeff Bezos, Executive Chairman, Amazon-

Measuring customer experience isn’t about one single metric. By focusing on the above-mentioned three areas, brands can build a clear framework to improve CX.

The power lies with customers today. Brands that focus on creating exceptional customer experiences will build trust, loyalty, and long-term success. When you get CX right, the customers will reward you with continued business and advocacy.

(Our guest author, Saurabh Agrawal, is the CEO of DAiOM, a consulting firm helping brands grow omni-channel with the use of analytics and growth marketing. In the past, has worked in CXO roles with American Express, Lenskart, and Tata Group.)