Contact Solutions Blog

Best Options for Measuring Customer Experience and Satisfaction with Your IVR Solution

We recently outlined the business case for measuring your customers’ satisfaction with your IVR solution. That may seem unimportant compared to customer satisfaction with products and services, but it makes sense if your IVR solution is the first interaction your customers have with your company.

In fact, your customer dissatisfaction with your IVR solution could be the impetus for dissatisfaction with your company as a whole. Customer experience usually equates to customer loyalty.

At Contact Solutions, we recommend and implement a method of continual monitoring and adjusting your IVR solution to keep track of dynamic customer needs. In addition to that, you also should survey your customers on occasion to benchmark satisfaction levels and compare over time.

What are the best methods for measuring your customers’ satisfaction levels? Many companies look to the traditional CSAT method, but this is usually part of a broader initiative, and we have found that the questions posed don’t get down to the level of detail needed for measuring customer experience with an IVR solution.

Tools like the Net Promoter Score (NPS) measure customer interaction with a company and provide a simple segmentation into promoters, passives and detractors. You can use it to identify which of your customers may be most likely to tell positive stories about you, and which won’t.  While NPS measures at a company level, what is really needed is a granular measure at the customer’s self-service interaction.

We recommend two:

–        Post-event surveys

–        Customer Experience Measurements

Post-event surveys are short surveys conducted at the end of a self-service event.  For example, asking the customer a few questions about the experience when she finishes using your company’s IVR.  These surveys capture valuable direct feedback at the time of the service.  We have found powerful insights by also linking step-by-step operational performance data back to survey results.

Customer Experience measurements are expert assessments of the self-service channel to determine if the channel is optimally aligned to the customers’ needs.  Two great frameworks to consider are the Forrester Customer Experience Index (CxPi) and the Corporate Executive Board’s Effort Audit Tool.  Both tools can be used to assess any self-service channel with questions such as:

1. Usefulness – Thinking about your recent interactions with these firms, how effective were they at meeting your needs?  1 – Didn’t meet any of my needs to 5 – Met all of my needs
2. Ease of Use – Thinking about your recent interactions with these firms, how easy was it to work with these firms?  1 – Very difficult to 5 – Very easy
3. Enjoyability – Thinking about your recent interactions with these firms, how enjoyable were the interactions?  1 – Not at all enjoyable to 5 – Very enjoyable

Using the CxPi or the Effort Audit Tool, you can measure how your IVR solution is meeting customer needs and use it to spur change if needed.

Are you measuring your customer satisfaction with your IVR solution?

Tags: Contact Automation, Continuous Improvement, Continuous Improvement Practice, customer satisfaction, IVR, ivr solutions, Self-service