NPS is Losing Traction as the Primary Metric for CX

Story by: Chandni U

“The biggest challenge however, that I see, is that NPS requires activity as a proxy for loyalty. I can love a company and yet rarely interact with them, take for example my superannuation – great product, company and service but I’m lucky if I interact with them once a year. NPS is losing traction as the primary metric for CX and loyalty and Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) is taking over. I think this is a good thing however there is no standard measurement of CSAT like there is with NPS,” says Luke Jamieson , a global influencer in customer experience and employee engagement from Australia.?

Luke is also the Solutions Consultant for Upland Software . He is currently working on his upcoming book More Sense, Less Incentive, which delves into creating sustainable employee engagement without relying on extrinsic rewards.

Chatting with Martechvibe, Luke offers a comprehensive view about his perspective on employee engagement, loyalty, and the role of CX practitioners.?

Excerpts from the interview:

Describe your rebellious and unconventional approach to customer experience and employee engagement?

My idea of being rebellious is not coming from a place of stirring up trouble or even flat-out defiance. It’s not leather jackets, cigarettes and loud motorcycles, rebellion to me is a matter of perspective not perception. If we only approach things without our own perception then it is often tinted with bias and little will ever change.

Perspective, however, puts you in other people’s shoes and when you do this you can be a voice for something or someone that may not have one. I like to attempt things that have not been done before. Sometimes in my career, they have resulted in spectacular failure the first time around but then with some adjustments, have been some of my greatest accomplishments.?

For example, when I scrapped 5 KPIs in a contact centre in favour of over 200 gamified behaviours. Some people thought I was nuts but the result was not confusion but instead an understanding and buy-in of what was expected of people to achieve personal and company goals.?

How are customer expectations changing in Australia?

Customers in Australia continue to expect more personalisation without it feeling creepy and of course, there is this notion that as technology improves, there is less friction in all interactions.?

On the matter of loyalty I believe that the meaning of it is not changing but how we measure it is. For a long time Net Promoter Score (NPS) has dominated as a metric of loyalty. There are many challenges with this metric such as it tends to capture only the extremities and is often misunderstood as a question by customers.?

The biggest challenge however, that I see, is that NPS requires activity as a proxy for loyalty. I can love a company and yet rarely interact with them, take for example my superannuation – great product, company and service but I’m lucky if I interact with them once a year. NPS is losing traction as the primary metric for CX and loyalty and Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) is taking over. I think this is a good thing however there is no standard measurement of CSAT like there is with NPS.

What are some common misconceptions about employee experience, and how do your insights challenge these notions?

I think the biggest misconception is the notion that employee experience and employee engagement are the same thing. I explain the difference in this article highlighting that employee experience happens to you and employee engagement happens within you. Why I challenge this notion is that employee experience can be measured and if you are in a role that is in charge of the employee experience you should be rewarded for creating a great experience.?

However employee engagement on the other hand can be measured but I believe it should not be rewarded. Rewarding or incentivising leaders or even employees on employee engagement scores sets up an organisation to get misleading results on culture and impact.

Also Read: Link CX Deliverables with Business Deliverables

If you could design an employee experience metric, what would it be and how would it work?

It would be how confident someone feels to do their job. Confidence comes from trust and autonomy. When we trust the information, training, coaching, people around us and then are given the autonomy to use and choose what resources we use to accomplish our jobs, we have confidence.?

Confident (not cocky) employees give customers confidence and this I believe leads to loyalty from a customer and employee perspective.?

With several CMOs and CXOs losing their jobs worldwide, do you think it is also because the C suite roles and perspectives are merging together?

I think we messed up as CX practitioners. We put too much emphasis on the role on certain tools like journey maps and not enough focus on getting the metrics right. Nate Brown once told me in an interview that CX is about finding friction and removing it. That description has never left me and sums up exactly what we as CX professionals should be focused on.?

Instead I see so many CXO’s focused on the panacea, on fringe experiences that became use cases and the envy of other companies who then tried to replicate or create their own viral CX. Most fail miserably at this because they are so focused on the hype, not on the gripe (I might coin that phrase). I think there is still a place for a CXO but their remit should include 75% operations and 25% strategy. It’s in the dirt you find gold. So CXOs’, time to roll up your sleeves.