All market research is about your customers’ experience.
But not all market research is customer experience (CX) market research.
Confused? Let us explain…
CX market research is about your customers’ entire experience, not a single transaction or interaction.
Your goal is to look at the whole customer journey and understand many of the “touchpoints” which impact their motivations, loyalty and engagement.
By stepping back and looking at every channel, touchpoint and stop on the way will you understand how each affects your customers’ overall experience.
When you’ve done this you can prioritize the points with the biggest impact on customer loyalty.
To help you get your CX market research right, here are four crucial features you must include.
1. Touchpoints
You must get information and comments for each individual touchpoint your customers have with you.
Your research isn’t a single project. It’s a collection – including surveys, social monitoring tools, trackers, etc. – which gives you the “world view” you must have.
2. Cross-Analysis
As I just said, your research is a collection.
So you need to tie together the metrics you get from each element. This is your key to understanding customer loyalty.
Done right, it will identify the root causes affecting your NPS or customer loyalty.
For example:
Imagine you’re a bank with a mobile app
– an app your customers either love or hate.
The ones who love it are more likely to bank online more often …
… the people who bank online more often and are happy with the mobile tools you provide, engage more strongly with Facebook and Twitter …
… the people who engage more with social networks are more likely to recommend you to others – whichalso strengthens your Net Promoter Score (NPS).
And all those are four different, measured touchpoints – as well as your app – which combine to increase your market share and the likelihood your customers will recommend you.
3. Think long term
Remember: CX market research is about your customers’ entire experience, not a single transaction or interaction.
So your research needs to take place as often as your customers engage with you – be that daily, weekly, or monthly.
One way to make this easier is to use APIs to prompt surveys after certain actions such as invoicing.
For example, emailing customers a survey immediately after they place an order on your website.
4. Case Management and Immediate Action
There’s no point doing CX market research – or any market research – unless you act on the results.
If, as just recommended, you automatically run surveys after your customers have completed a particular activity…
… you should further automate the process so someone – or a whole team – is made aware of any results requiring action.
So if you’ve asked customers how likely they are to recommend your company, product or brand on a scale of 0 – 10, when someone answers with a 6 or less, ensure your customer service people know.
This way you can not only make that particular customer happy, you might also spot a trend requiring correction – which you can do before it’s too late.
If you’d like help with your CX – or any – market research, or want to find out more about working with us, drop us a line.