This Valentine’s Get To The Heart Of What Your Audience Loves

While many couples will be using the opportunity of Valentine’s Day, to reacquaint themselves with what they most love about one another, it can also lead you to think about the strength of other relationships in your life, particularly in business.

Whatever audience you’re most concerned about, whether it’s your customers, your employees or your patients. It begs the question. Do you know how much your customers love your brand? Whether your employees love working for you? Or, how much your patients love your practice?

Knowing the answers to these questions is crucial, as the strength of these relationships will ultimately determine how successful you will be. But you won’t know what these audiences think about what you’re doing well and what you need to improve, without asking for their feedback in a survey first.

Once you have that, you can do your utmost to maximise the strength of these relationships, by delivering experiences that these audiences love.

So, what do we mean by customer experience, employee experience and patient experience?

In this blog, we’ll give you an overview of what each of these mean, why they matter and some of the key metrics you can use to gauge how these audiences really feel about the experiences you’re delivering for them.

What is Customer Experience?

Customer Experience, which is also known as CX, is concerned with your customers’ holistic perception of your business or brand, based on the experiences they’ve had with it and the feelings this evokes in them. This includes all the interactions they’ve ever had on their customer journey with you, from their initial awareness and consideration of your business, through to purchase, retention and advocacy.

Why customer experience is important

When you consider that it costs around 5 times more to get a new customer than to retain one, the importance of delivering great experiences, in order to delight customers and keep them loyal and happy becomes a lot more obvious.

However, it’s not quite as simple as that. To get a better all-round appreciation of why customer experience matters, you also need to consider the growing number or interactions and touchpoints that the average customer has with a brand, while on their customer journey.

The issue here is that while many people remember great experiences, many more are likely to remember the bad ones and worse still, tell others about those bad experiences. Unfortunately, it only takes a single negative comment initially spread by word of mouth and then quickly shared by a customer with hundreds more people on social media or review sites to harm a business reputation.

When you also factor in that the internet provides customers with a plethora of alternative options to choose from that could better meet their requirements than you, it also makes delivering consistently high-quality customer experiences even more important.

Positive experiences help promote loyalty, which can help you to retain customers and encourage greater brand advocacy. And given that your customers are probably the best resource you have for growing your brand awareness in a positive way, it’s in your best interests to keep them happy.

Metrics to measure customer experience

While it’s crucial to deliver positive experiences, the first thing you need to know is what your customers currently think of their interaction experiences with your products, services, support and brand. This way you’ll know what you’re already doing well and what needs improving.

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)

A good place to start is with the CSAT metric, which is typically included as a question in a wider customer satisfaction survey, to measure how happy, or unhappy a customer is with your business. However, this satisfaction also applies to the wider performance of your products or services and any support you’ve been delivering for your customers.

To work out your CSAT, you need to ask your customers the following question.

‘How satisfied were you with our (product, service or support interaction)?

Each customer then needs to rate their satisfaction on a 5-point scale ranging from very dissatisfied to very satisfied.

CSAT is then calculated by dividing all the positive responses you’ve received by your total number of responses and then multiplying this figure by 100, to leave a CSAT percentage. You can also work out that crucial figure using our CSAT score calculator instead.

Scores closest to 100% will indicate the highest levels of satisfaction, while those at the other end of the scale the lowest levels of satisfaction.

Customer Effort Score (CES)

Knowing how simple you make it for customers to interact with you is also important, as the easier you make it, the better their overall experience is likely to be.

The CES metric is ideal for this as it measures how much effort your customers need to put in to complete a task with you.  This could include anything from how easy they found it to make a transaction on your website to getting an issue resolved with your support team.

In the case of the latter, customers would be asked to rate how much effort they needed to expend in order to get that issue resolved. The rating scores of every customer’s answer would then be combined and added up, before being divided by the total number of customers who responded to that question, to leave the final overall score. The lower the score, the more desirable it would be.

More in-depth detail about CES and how to calculate it, can be found on our Customer Effort Score page. We also have a CES calculator if you need a quicker and simpler way of working out your CES score.

Net Promoter Score (NPS) ®

The final CX metric you can use to better gauge how effective the experiences you’re currently delivering to customers are, is to use the NPS metric.

By measuring the loyalty of your customers, by their willingness to recommend you to others, the NPS metric can give you a good idea of their overall satisfaction with your business and the experiences you’re delivering for them.

Your NPS can then be measured by asking your customers the following question.

‘On a scale of 0 – 10, how likely would you be to recommend our company to a friend or a colleague? (given that 0 represents not likely and 10 very likely)

Scores will then be grouped into the following classifications.

• 9-10 – Promoters (representing those clients who love your company and actively promote it)
• 7-8 – Passives (customers who like your company but don’t love it yet)
• 0-6 – Detractors (clients who are unhappy with your business and are at risk of churning)

To calculate your NPS score, simply subtract your number of detractors from your number of promoters. You should then be left with a positive or negative number, which you will need to divide by your total number of survey responses and then multiply by 100. This should leave you with a number between 100 and –100. The higher your score the more desirable it will be.

For a much faster and simpler way of working out your NPS score, you could also try out our NPS calculator.

What is Employee Experience?

When we refer to the term Employee Experience (EX), we’re essentially talking about the employees’ perception of all the touchpoints and key stages they go through during their employment journey with you, from their initial recruitment and onboarding, through development, retention and company exit. EX also refers to the physical workspace and technology provided by the employer and the wider culture at that business, which can all impact EX.

Why employee experience is important

Given that revenue can increase by as much as 20% in organisations with highly engaged staff compared to those that have not, it makes good business sense to develop and maintain as positive an employee experience as you can. However, the importance of employee experience goes far beyond that.

From increased staff contentment, innovation and performance to a better ability to attract and retain the best talent. There are wide ranging benefits to be gained from delivering better experiences for your employees, which can all significantly boost your bottom line and long-term prospects.

Ultimately the aim of EX is to make employees excited, proud, happy and confident in their work and their employer. However, you can only create the positive employee experience needed to achieve this, if you’re surveying your staff, as this will reveal what they’re happy or unhappy about and want changed.

Metrics to measure employee experience

Similarly, to customer experience, if you’re to deliver experiences that really motivate your staff and make them go the extra mile for you, you need to be able to measure how they currently perceive you as an employer. Again, once you know this, you’ll have much better idea about what you need to improve.

Employee Satisfaction Score (ESAT)

While the insight from an employee satisfaction survey will give you a steer for areas where you need to improve, the ESAT metric will give you a much better idea of overall staff contentment with your business. It can also provide a gauge for how well they feel you have met their wants and needs.

To work out ESAT, you need to ask your staff the following question.

‘How satisfied are you with the organisation you work for?

Each employee is then asked to their experience using a 5-point scale, where 1 represents “very dissatisfied” and 5 denotes “very satisfied”.

To calculate your ESAT score, take the number of your satisfied employees (who rated you with either a 4 or a 5), divide this by your total number of responses and then multiply this by 100.

For example, if 60 out of 100 of your employees gave you a rating of 4 or 5, your overall ESAT score would be 60.

Your total ESAT score should lie somewhere between zero and 100.

Employee Effort Score (EES)

Another useful barometer of staff sentiment can be provided by using the employee effort score.

As the name suggests, this metric question looks to measure how much effort your employees need to put in to perform various work tasks. And it’s related to wider organisational factors including the onboarding, tools, work processes and ongoing training you’ve provided to help your staff to their jobs.

Having rated how easy or not you’ve made it to perform their jobs, once calculated your overall employee effort score, should give you a better idea of which areas you need to improve to boost staff performance.

Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) ®

Similarly, to how the NPS metric is used for customers, by measuring the loyalty of your staff and their willingness to recommend you to others, the eNPS metric can give you a better idea of their overall satisfaction with you as an employer and the experiences you’re delivering for them.

Your eNPS be measured by asking your employees the following question.

‘On a scale of zero to ten, how likely are you to recommend our company to others as a great place to work? (given that those closest to zero will be the least likely and those closer to ten most likely to promote you)

Having reviewed their scores, you can then divide your staff into the following classifications.

• 9-10 – Promoters (representing those employees who love working for your company and can offer a lot of valuable insight into what you’re doing well)
• 7-8 – Passives (are your staff that don’t feel strongly either way, but who you’ll want to turn into promoters rather than risk becoming detractors)
• 0-6 – Detractors (represent employees who are unhappy with their jobs and most at risk of leaving. But are useful as they can tell you a lot about what you need to improve)

To calculate your eNPS, you’ll need to subtract your percentage of detractors from your percentage of promoters, to leave you with a score of between –100 and 100. Alternatively, you could work that crucial figure using our eNPS calculator. The higher your score the more desirable it will be.

What is Patient Experience?

Patient Experience, which is also known as PX, is focused on measuring your patients’ perception of your healthcare organisation, based on the experiences they’ve had with it. This includes all the interactions they’ve ever had on their patient journey with you.

For healthcare organisations, measuring and working to improve the patient experience has become an essential requirement, as it’s viewed as key to supporting the improvement of healthcare quality, governance and public accountability.

The ability to maintain a positive patient experience is also seen as critical to your ability to attract and retain patients.

Why patient experience is important

The patient experience has become increasingly important for a number of reasons.

Firstly, in the era of the internet, more information about healthcare is available than ever before. Subsequently, this has led to better informed patients with higher expectations about what they perceive to be a satisfactory level of healthcare.

In addition to this, there is also an improved understanding about the link between patient experiences and patient outcomes. Consequently, patients who have a positive patient experience and feel more settled, comfortable and less anxious, are more likely to be ready and able to engage with their health and care, resulting in improved patient outcomes.

Metrics to measure patient experience

As with customer experience and employee experience, it can be helpful to have some metrics to call on, which will help you to gauge how well you’re currently doing with your patient experience and what you need to improve.

So, here’s some useful metrics to help you with this.

Patient Satisfaction Survey

A good place to start is by issuing a patient satisfaction survey, which will help provide you with a good overview of your patient’s overall contentment with many aspects of your service.

From their satisfaction with their initial appointment booking experience to their contentment with the treatment they received from your practice. There’s lots you can measure and find out by issuing satisfaction surveys to your patients at frequent intervals during their health journey with you.

For data that’s quick to obtain, measure and analyse, rating style questions, which ask patients to rate their satisfaction on a one to five scale can be particularly effective.

Patient NPS Score ®

You could also use the patient NPS score metric. Similarly, to the NPS metric for customers and employees, by measuring the loyalty of your patients and their willingness to recommend your practice or healthcare organisation to others, it will help give you a better idea of their overall satisfaction with the experiences you’re delivering for them.

You can measure your patient NPS by asking your patients to answer the following question.

‘On a scale of 0 – 10, how likely are you to recommend our practice and the service we provide to a friend or a colleague? (given that 0 represents not likely and 10 very likely)

Each score is then grouped using the following classifications.

• 9-10 – Promoters (patients who love your practice and are actively promoting it)
• 7-8 – Passives (patients who like your practice but don’t love it yet)
• 0-6 – Detractors (patients who are unhappy with your practice and could be at risk of churning)

You can then calculate your patient NPS score by subtracting your number of detractors from your number of promoters. This should leave you with a positive or negative number, which you will need to divide by your total number of survey responses and then multiply by 100.

You should then be left with a number between 100 and –100. The higher your score the more desirable it will be, as this indicates that you’re getting things right and your patients are noticing and appreciating this.

The Friends and Family Test (FFT)

Finally, if you’re in the NHS, one of the key staples for measuring the patient experience is The Friends and Family Test (FFT).

Built on the principle that people who use NHS services should have the opportunity to feedback about their experience, the FFT, was set up to give patients the chance to comment on the treatment and care they received, in their own words.

Following changes introduced in 2022, the FFT is now comprised of a single mandatory default question followed by one or more open free-text questions.

The new question is as follows.

‘Overall, how was your experience of our service?

[ ] Very good

[ ] Good

[ ] Neither good nor poor

[ ] Poor

[ ] Very poor

[ ] Don’t know

In addition to this, new preceding text has now been added to make it as clear as possible which setting the feedback refers to. So, following on from the words: “Thinking about”, providers should choose the most appropriate option, from the examples below including:

Your GP practice, your stay in hospital, your dental practice, your recent visit to A&E and many other possible healthcare settings that could apply.

Strengthening your connection with key stakeholders

We hope you enjoyed reading this blog and appreciate just how important it is to deliver the right experiences to your stakeholders, whether that’s your customers, your staff or your patients.

The key thing to remember is that many of the answers to improving these experiences are already out there, you just need to reach out to your stakeholders and ask them.

With the right surveys and metrics in place, you can really strengthen your stakeholder connections and keep delivering the experiences they love.

Give your customers, employees and patients more of what they love

To keep any audience fully satisfied you need to keep delivering more of what they want including great experiences. But you won’t be able to do that unless you have the right surveys tools and feedback to get you there.

Find out more