At this point, a new customer-oriented (outward-looking) approach should be followed rather than a production-oriented (inward-looking) approach. Customer feedback analyses should be conducted by taking the customer to the focus of the business using scientific methods which offer measurable results. Customer-oriented evaluations create an indispensable competitive advantage for businesses. Customer experience emerges as a tool that facilitates taking strategic actions that will ensure sustainable profitability.

Of course, customer experience is quite different from the concept of customer satisfaction, which is now commonly addressed.

So, what is customer experience?
Actually, the meaning of this concept is somewhat hidden in the word "experience". I think the shortest and most clear definition of the word "experience" is that it includes something that we lived. Since experience means living something in a particular field, customer experience also refers to something that we lived.

So, what do our customers experience when we offer our products and services to them? What kind of experience marks do we leave on them? That is the question.

It is a simple but vital or deadly question. Perhaps, it is a question hiding the delicate strategy of competition. Maybe, it is a field waiting to be explored by companies. Maybe, it is not. Actually, it is. The most important secret of the business is the need to measure customer experience, which should be quickly performed by professional managers. Of course, it is necessary to plan all steps and take the required actions immediately.

The following quote will be very important to explain the customer experience more. The following statement of the CEO of Starbucks is very thought-provoking:

"Anyone who comes to Starbucks and pays $7 to drink coffee spends $1 to coffee and $6 for the Starbucks experience". This is exactly true. We need to touch on several other values besides a simple shopping system to explain a global brand like Starbucks with 21 thousand branches around the world.

The fact that there are still fan clubs for the Volkswagen cars of the 70s must prove that brands can actually create an experience and establish emotional bonds.

According to expert opinions, another example is as follows: "There is a big difference between a person coming to a restaurant twice and two different persons coming there once…" Yes, it's very thought-provoking. Theoretically, the probable revenue obtained from one person's two visits is almost the same as that of two different persons' one visit. However, it means that the customer experience in the first case is satisfying enough to create loyal customers.

As a result, measuring these meanings, reporting, evaluating in terms of management, taking strategic decisions, determining the steps to be taken, and taking these steps immediately constitute the purpose and subjects of the customer experience studies.

So how do we measure customer experience? Which parameters should we use? Where does the concept of customer satisfaction stand in this process? Let us answer these questions together.

We can consider customer satisfaction as a milestone leading to customer experience. In this sense, first of all, we should briefly address the advantages and disadvantages of customer satisfaction surveys.

Customer surveys are usually conducted to seek statistically significant answers to many questions specific to the company and sector studied. In practice, while the number of questions varies, usually about 20-22 questions including 4-5 open-ended questions are asked. We should mention that questions must be prepared by a professional team.

Of course, customer surveys also have some disadvantages. We should keep in mind that the audience we define as our customers are also customers of other companies for other products and services. As various companies conduct customer surveys in their own way, customers may find it bothering and get bored. Therefore, surveys with long questions are not answered by customers or they answer these questions randomly. Of course, this seriously affects the results of the survey.

In the light of all these factors, another alternative for our evaluations is to measure the Customer Net Promoter Score (NPS). NPS, which is highly practical and eliminates other disadvantages, actually facilitates creating important data within the company. The net promoter score method is applied as follows:

The NPS questions usually ask "How much would you recommend X brand/product/service to people around you?", and customers are requested to give a score between 0 to 10. Those who score between 0 to 6 are grouped as detractors, those who score 7 and 8 are passives, and those who score 9 and 10 are grouped as promoters. Those who score 7 and 8 are not subjected to any action and are considered neutral. Then, the NPS value is calculated by subtracting the percentage of those detractors from the percentage of promoters. For example, assume that this question is asked to 10 people, there are 5 promoters and 3 detractors, in this case, the NPS value of the company will be 50% - 30% = 20%, i.e. 20.

Another important reason why NPS is a better rating score is that this score is related to the recommendation behavior of individuals. We actually demonstrate our reputation while recommending a brand/person/service/product to someone else. Therefore, we may not recommend a service/product/brand/person/profession/job that we are satisfied with to someone else because we can recommend something only if we are very sure that it will be liked. Therefore, I believe that NPS, which is indispensable for businesses, should be measured.

While managing their companies, the business owners and senior executives can be likened to pilots in the plane cockpit. Think for a moment about what would happen if there were deficiencies in the dashboard? What would happen if the dashboard showed the wrong data? One of the most important of these dashboards is actually the customer experience indicator.

We invite you to develop professional solutions together using our measurement systems, which are consistent with the sector and company, and whose numerical results are significant and suitable for the company's own genetics.


Bahadır SINAY / Director
VALURA