Picture the scene: You’ve decided that you need to begin collecting customer feedback in a survey tool, but you’re not sure where to start or which CX metric to choose. From annual questionnaires to automated, single-question surveys following a purchase, you have a lot of choice. In this article, we summarise the three key metrics you can use to measure, monitor and improve various aspects of the customer experience at your company.

Download the full guide to choosing a CX metric here

Customer Effort Score (CES)

How easy is it for your customers to conduct business with you? A CES survey can help you to find out. After all, one of the best ways to keep customers satisfied is to minimise the effort and time that it takes to get things done with your company.

The Customer Effort Score is a good example of a transactional survey. This is because it evaluates a specific transaction rather than the general relationship a customer has with your business, like the NPS.

Customer satisfaction Score (CSAT)

The CSAT does what it says on the tin: it measures how satisfied customers are with your business. This can be at particular touch points along the customer journey or with your business as a whole. You can include the CSAT question as part of bigger customer satisfaction surveys or use it alone with a CSAT survey tool.

Star ratings are one of the most common visual representations of this CX metric.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

NPS software is designed to help you understand how customers feel about your business. It’s the perfect metric for getting an overall sense of brand health, and it can also be a good predictor of business growth.

The key difference between the NPS and CSAT is that the CSAT is useful for measuring short-term satisfaction with a specific aspect of your business, while the relational/standard NPS gives a good overall picture of more long-term customer loyalty and satisfaction.