KEY TAKEAWAY:
--Misconceptions can be created that the customer experience is positive, simply because certain touchpoints in the journey are scoring well in a survey or seem to have other positive measurables.
--To get started on a better approach, narrow your measurement focus to a few key journeys rather than trying to measure too much.
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Insurance firms are increasingly investing resources to map and manage customer journeys to improve experiences and drive business results. Yet measurement of customer journeys is still being approached from a very siloed perspective. Data and metrics related to the various steps of the customer journey are trapped within the business units and are difficult to aggregate, let alone connect to the journey.
The challenges are twofold. First, the effectiveness of journey improvement efforts is hard to determine, and it’s difficult to connect those efforts to business outcomes. Second, misconceptions are created that the customer experience is good, simply because certain touchpoints in the journey are scoring well in a survey or seem to have other positive measurables. Meanwhile from the customer’s perspective, the overall experience could be suffering. Customers measure their experience from the perspective of a lifecycle – the sum of all their interactions. Firms measure the experience from a single snapshot in time.
A McKinsey study highlighted a story that illustrates this common issue. A company faced customer retention challenges despite high satisfaction scores at individual touchpoints. When the company decided to view the experience from the customer journey perspective, they found that the accumulation of negatives experiences was the issue, often involving multiple functions of the business. Despite satisfaction with individual touchpoints, the journey itself was driving customers away. Measuring touchpoints alone can often hide poor experiences. That’s why customer journey measurement is critical to unlocking the true potential of your experience.
See also: Tips for Improving Customer Experience
Why Customer Journey Measurement Matters
Customer journey measurement can be likened to using a fitness tracker for personal health. Your fitness tracker lets you view your health metrics on a dashboard to measure progress and personalize actions for better outcomes. Similarly, in a business context, customer journey health measurement quantifies the quality of experiences and their link to business key performance indicators.
While it can be easy to understand why journey measurement is important in theory, putting it into practice is another story. A study by the Nielsen Norman Group found that around 80% of journey maps lack implemented measurement. Starting down the path of customer journey measurement can seem intimidating. But the good news is that it doesn’t have to be a hard process. Let’s look at a simplified approach to help you get started.
Getting Started With Customer Journey Measurement
Insurance firms likely have a handful of customer journeys they have prioritized for impact on their overall business strategy and the connections of these journeys to the firm’s mission and vision. Narrow your measurement focus to these key journeys rather than trying to measure too much.
- Start with one journey to measure:
- Start small, focusing on a key journey crucial to your organization and customers.
- This approach allows quick wins, builds buy-in, enables agility and positions you to scale to the other key journeys once your practice is established.
- Define and Align:
- Identify the key journey steps or moments of truth and align metrics with the customer and business goals. You can think of business outcomes as traditional key performance indicators (KPIs). Metrics that measure outcomes aligned to customer goals are called CPIs, or customer performance indicators.
- Collect existing metrics and align on metrics that may need to be developed, identify data sources and define roles within the team.
- Gather Data, Test, Learn and Adapt:
- Start collecting data and metrics for the selected journey.
- Test metrics alignment to business objectives and adapt based on insights.
- Repeat phases as needed, acknowledging the continuing nature of this process.
- Tell the Story:
- Share CX insights through various channels, such as monthly reviews, dashboards or reports.
- Celebrate wins, capture opportunities and agree on actions.
See also: How to Improve the Customer Experience
The Future of Journey Measurement
The landscape of data and analytics, powered by generative AI, is rapidly advancing. However, journey measurement is a practice, not just a tool. The practices shared here are timeless and can be applied with technology as an accelerant, but they are not technology-dependent.
Whether you are in a firm that has access to cutting-edge technology and has ready access to connected data or you are in a firm with fewer resources and disconnected or limited data, there is some element of journey measurement you can execute. The key is to start with what you have and mature as your capabilities, skills and data improve.
Journey measurement is itself a journey. As the industry evolves, adopting a robust journey measurement practice, founded on best practices, remains key. Technology should be viewed as an enabler, not a replacement for a solid foundation.
Investing in customer journey measurement is valuable for businesses, translating the intrinsic belief that helping customers win enables the business to win into actionable insights. As CX professionals, instilling this belief and quantifying what "winning" means can empower organizations to drive positive outcomes for both customers and the business.
