Measuring Customer Service

by Andrew D. ShamRao, Ph.D.

There are two types of customer service metrics, descriptive and functional. A descriptive metric indicates what the customer thinks about service, for example, whether it was good or bad. A functional metric measures the occurrence of those events that we assume are responsible for customer satisfaction and loyalty.

The following is a customer satisfaction index for a restaurant that asks people to rate their experience. This index has descriptive metrics. It is focused on obtaining a picture of the customer’s satisfaction or dissatisfaction at a general level and specifically does not address what is in the performer’s control.

In contrast, the customer satisfaction index below shows functional metrics. This is because the first four items are about the behaviors that we assume will impact customer satisfaction. A functional metric is always in the performers’ control. The 5^th metric is descriptive because it targets the customer’s overall experience with the wait person.

How do we know what functional metrics to select?

Initially, our functional metrics will be based on intuition or assumptions. That is, we may decide, based on experience, that eye contact and smiling are important because customer in the past have complained about wait staff who are stoic. However, eye contact and smiling, while necessary, may not be sufficient to retain customer loyalty. Our data will have to tell us whether we have the right or complete functional metrics. Our data should also tell us what the wait person could do differently to improve.

Therefore, organizing metrics into an integrated set of measures that correlate with each other is at the heart of designing a measurement system. Such a measurement system will give us the information required to continuously improve our behaviors, policies, procedures, processes, and systems to positively impact customer satisfaction and loyalty.

A behavioral approach to measurement will yield descriptive and functional customer-focused metrics. It is important to have both types of metrics because the correlation between them indicates whether the focus of functional metrics is having the desired impact on the descriptive metric(s) for customer satisfaction and loyalty. For example, item #5 in the second customer satisfaction index, above, should correlate with whether the wait person did the behaviors listed in items 1-4. Items 1-4 are functional metrics. Item 5 is a descriptive metric. The assumption is that if the customer’s experience was not good, he or she would not recommend the wait person.

If customers keep indicating on the index that the wait staff is not doing a behavior, then this also indicates that there is no positive reinforcement in doing the behavior. The intervention in such a case is to examine how the whole serving process impacts doing the behavior and what kind of changes can be made to the process to increase reinforcement. In addition to that, social reinforcement for doing the behavior can be applied. Improvements in the number customers who would recommend the wait staff can be rewarded with a tangible.

In most organization, there is a heavy focus on descriptive metrics because it is difficult to determine the correct functional metrics. For example, it is easier to ask a customer whether the service was to their satisfaction than to determine what the wait person should have done (or did) to make the customer feel satisfied. What makes it even more difficult is that two wait persons may have serviced the same customer and have been successful from the standpoint of doing all of the behaviors listed on the index, but the customer may be more satisfied with one wait person than the other. Something else turned off the customer for one of the wait staff. The question is, what turned off the customer and how do we capture that data in a manner that is useful. The comment space that asks the customer what the wait person could have done to make the customer’s experience outstanding allows customers to indicate what is important to them that was not listed among the other metrics.

Building a Measurement System

A measurement system must be built around a framework for understanding customer experience. No single event is responsible for customer satisfaction and loyalty. However, a single event can destroy the same. Therefore it is easier to pinpoint what wait persons should not do than what they should. Attempts at pinpointing what people should do to provide excellent customer service can be futile because the list will never be complete. This has a tendency to prompt us to create a "minimum required" list.

How do we go beyond the "minimum required" and build a customer focus into our metrics? To do this, we have to understand what customers are looking for. Organizations have done many surveys in an attempt to determine what customers want. The biggest problem with the answers received is that they are ambiguous and therefore, difficult to pinpoint. For example, a response such as "I want to be treated as Number One" is difficult to pinpoint. What does it mean to make someone feel that way? The feeling of being treated as "Number One" can be evoked in others by doing many different actions. Some of these actions will be effective with some people and other actions will be effective with others. How do we collect data on what was effective?

Divaker provides a comprehensive solution for building a measurement system for customer service in all types of industries, and a system for encouraging the right behaviors through positive reinforcement and constructive feedback.

What customer service measurement brings to the table are the following:

1. A way to make customers’ feedback useful by categorizing their concerns in functional terms based on our framework for understanding the customer experience.
2. A method for integrating and correlating descriptive and functional measures.
3. A method for determining what functional metrics we should use.
4. A focal point for organizing how you implement the current initiative.
5. Expertise in behavioral management methods that we can transfer to you through education and consulting.

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