Measuring customer experience: 4 metrics for the second step

Last week I shared with you five metrics you can monitor to see how your business is performing during the first step of the customer experience: triggering a need.

Once you’ve chosen your target customer and the need you can solve for them, the next step is to earn their consideration. At this second step common to any customer experience, your prospect has realized they have a need and have begun to look for options available to them to solve it.  As your prospects learn about the options worth exploring further, your goal is to simply make their short list.

(While these metrics can be used in nearly every kind of organization, the photo I’ve used here got me thinking about retailers. There, a product on a shelf has mere seconds to earn consideration. Where do your prospects learn about you? How long does it take?)

As I did for experience step 1, I’ve noted here which metrics are leading performance indicators — those that are predictive of future performance, and which are lagging –those that reactively measure performance outcomes.

To see how you’re performing at the Learn step of the customer experience, check these metrics:

• Leading: Number of prospects who consider your product, brand, and company.
• Leading: Return on the sales/selling expenses you invest to earn consideration from your target customers.
• Leading: Return on investment of marketing expenses to generate leads or prospects, and to establish your product, service, and company.
• Lagging: Gap between your brand’s reputation and your desired position in the marketplace (i.e. for the problem you want to solve).

I imagine you have or track most of these metrics already. I hear them most often discussed as measures of functional performance, as in “our marketing performance is X” or “our selling productivity is Y.”  Yet here we have 4 clear indicators of the reward or punishment your customers are giving you in return for the customer experience you are giving them. These metrics should be pulling double duty for you.

How are you doing at this step? Are you making the short list of options for your target customers? If you’re feeling secure in your performance against the metrics here, you’ve made it easy for your customers to find you, delivered a message that makes you an option worthy of consideration to solve their need, and done it all for a potent return on your investment.

Do you use these metrics to measure your performance at this second step of the customer experience?

Related Resources

Customer Experience Steps:

Step 1: The Triggering Need
Step 2: Earning Consideration
Step 3: Demonstrating Your Solution
Step 4: Affirming Customers’ Decision
Step 5: Proving Your Promise
Step 6: Anticipating Your Customer’s Next Need

How-to Help

If you’re looking  for more detail about these measures and their connection to each step of the customer experience, pick up a copy of Domino. You’ll also find peer examples, customer experience mapping exercises and useful ways to demonstrate the link between your customer experience and better financial performance.