When it comes to measuring metrics, your marketing team goes to great lengths to ensure they’re understanding your customers and creating content that specifically targets their motivations, interests, and buying patterns. This analysis ultimately turns into buyer personas and customer journeys—both of which help you home in on your messaging so you can use data points to make informed decisions about the content you put out into the world.
Of course, you’re not a customer-centric company if you only focus on metrics that revolve around your organization itself; if you really want to get ahead of the customer journey curve, you need to take a look at customer performance indicators (CPIs) in addition to your standard KPIs. In doing so, you’ll be measuring customer-centric benchmarks that put the people who pay you at the front of the line.
So, What Exactly Are Customer Performance Indicators?
Customer performance indicators help you better understand your customers’ needs and motivations by quantifying and measuring elements such as:
- Time savings
- Cost savings
- Convenience
- Flexibility
- Sense of security
Really, any number of factors that customers see as valuable when they think of your brand are important measurements that you should try to quantify as best as possible. Like most things in life, the elements your unique organization chooses to measure as part of your CPIs may vary greatly from other industries, or even from those of your closest competitors.
Be mindful, however, that the measurement of KPIs and CPIs are not necessarily mutually exclusive; there’s a strong correlation between the two, particularly when you examine companies that have uncovered the secrets to success and long-term growth within their organizations. In other words, when you achieve your goals with a certain CPI, you’re likely to see a similarly associated KPI get bumped up the ladder, as well.
CPIs You Should be Analyzing in Your Organization
Now that you know the importance of CPIs, you’re probably asking yourself what customer performance indicators you should be looking into. After all, it’s hard to build a plan if you don’t know the path you’re supposed to follow, right?
Here are a few important CPIs your team should investigate on a regular basis:
1. Value Your Customers Receive
You need to understand the value your customers are receiving from your products and services. You can increase your customers’ lifetime values if you focus on making sure there is a minimum, measurable value that you’re providing to your customers.
For example, let’s say you offer loyalty cards. In this instance, you might strive to save each customers at least $100 a year.
KPI supported by this CPI: Customer lifetime value
2. In-Person Customer Touches & Online Chat Availability
Today’s customers expect personalized, dedicated service when they have questions or need additional information about your products and services. This often presents obstacles for organizations that are already strapped as far as employee bandwidth is concerned; however, when you have the right tools in your toolbelt, you’ll be able to deliver quick responses to the people who are likely to become paying customers if they receive the information they need in a timely manner.
It’s imperative to understand the type of service interactions your particular customers value so you can implement CPIs around these foundational needs. In turn, you’ll meet (or exceed) prospective customers’ expectations and win them over in the end.
KPI supported by this CPI: Customer satisfaction scores
3. Ease and Expense of Product Returns
Examine your product return rate. If it’s low, at first glance, you might think you’re doing a great job because few people are dissatisfied with your product. That’s not always the case, though. It’s possible that your product return process is difficult or expensive, which will leave dissatisfied customers even more frustrated when they’re stuck with a product they can’t use.
You need to track and optimize the return experience for your customers so you can gain greater insights into the reasons you’re seeing the product return rate that you are.
KPI supported by this CPI: Product return rate
4. Quote Turnaround Time
There are a lot of factors that influence your quote-to-close ratio. It’s important that you understand what your customers value—are they looking for fast quote turnarounds? Flexible pricing plans? Something else?
When you’re armed with this information, you can start measuring the metrics around your customers’ needs and expectations.
KPI supported by this CPI: Quote-to-close ratio
Finding Your Own Customer Performance Indicators
As you begin to uncover what outcomes your customers value, you’ll be better able to focus on delivering solutions that optimize those outcomes. Each CPI should be identified, quantified, and measured. With this information, you’ll be able to open new discoveries and bring in fresh opportunities.
Remember, it’s not enough to solely measure what’s important to your organization; if you want to truly optimize your customers’ experiences, you need to focus on what’s important to them, too.
So, how can you accomplish these goals? Let MIBAR help! We’re a leading business software consulting firm that provides solutions to help you work smarter and grow faster. One of those solutions is Microsoft Dynamics 365 – the next generation of intelligent business applications that enable organizations to grow, evolve, and transform. These applications unify CRM and ERP capabilities by delivering new purpose-built applications that work together seamlessly to help manage specific business functions. As one of the leading Microsoft Dynamics partners in the nation, MIBAR offers business and technology consulting as well as software implementation, training, and support to ensure your success with Microsoft Dynamics 365.
Schedule your free consultation to learn more or browse some Dynamics 365 resources:
4 Essentials for Cross-Organizational Collaboration
New Feature Summary: Power BI Embedded Dashboards for Dynamics 365
