Customer experience vanity metrics
Stop fishing for compliments .. it’s not about you. Stay focused on the customer.
The difference between needs and barriers
The reason customers engage with any business is because they have their own problems to solve and they reach out to find solutions that will help them get what they want (Strategyn).
To put it short:
Every customer is motivated to action by their own need.
As they are trying to resolve their need any designed experience (email, website, app, social, f2f, store etc.) is a only barrier (180/360/720) — something they don’t need, but have to go through in order to get what they want.
e.g. customers use a website because they need new shoes, but they are not there for the website, they are there for the shoes.
Importantly then there is a very big difference between delivering to the customers’ needs (what motivates them) and reducing the friction of the barrier between the customer and their need.
e.g. you are not buying a cookie because it was easy to get you are eating it because you craved it
The vanity metrics
Customer experiencer vanity metrics like Net Promoter Scores (3) or Customer Satisfaction Scores (4) are popular as customer experience metrics, but are they? I will argue these metrics don’t care about the customer. They only care about themselves.*
*Now, I’m not saying these measures are not important. Every metric produces value in the right context. I’m saying we should not confuse them with being about the customer or the customer need.
Net Promoter scores (NPS) literally ask: “based on this experience how likely is it that you would recommend us ..”
Could you possibly be more self-centric? The only thing this question cares about is if we did a good job or not? It only cares about itself. It has no interest in what is valuable to the customer (remember the customer is trying to achieve some personal progress, not use an e.g. website).
Customer Satisfactions scores (CSAT) are the same: “how satisfied where you with x”?.
Both of these questions are only focused on the design, the barrier, the channel. They are only interested in finding out if we did a good job or not.
They have no interest in knowing what the customer is trying to achieve, what they need, what is valuable to them, or if we helped them get any closer to their own goal.
Let’s not forget what makes us human — and drives the business
I’m not suggesting that metrics like NPS or CSAT are not important, everything in its own right. I just want to argue that they are not about the customer — they are about the channel.
they are not about the customer — they are about the channel
And if we pretend they are about the customer we will start confusing our customers with our channels (5).
We will miss out on asking the more important questions (like e.g. why you crave cookies?).
The world we see through these simple metrics (6) might be easier to program, might fit better into an excel spread sheet cell or paint a nice graph. But it will also be void of emotions, motivations, needs etc., everything that makes us human .. and drives the business.
Sources:
(Strategyn) The Jobs-to-be-done theory, by Strategyn, https://strategyn.com/jobs-to-be-done/
(180/360/720) Why every company is a gaming company, https://www.180360720.no/?p=5196
(3) Net Promoter Score, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_promoter_score
(4) Customer Satisfaction Score, Hubspot, https://blog.hubspot.com/service/customer-satisfaction-score
(5) You can’t measure customers the same way you measure channels, https://uxdesign.cc/you-cant-measure-customers-the-same-way-you-measure-channels-225bcdf609f6
(6) Manage in complexity don’t simplify it, https://everythingnewisdangerous.medium.com/manage-in-complexity-dont-simplify-it-bcd830e18d14
