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One of our SaaS clients was seeing a measurable improvement in their CSAT Score but continued to experience poor social reputation.

The company simply focused on the internal quality measure but this was not having a significant impact. Equinox Live Agents introduced the idea of using leading indicators to identify future potential issues before they transpired. The idea was to segment their users into categories, based on usage and proactively reach out to customers who fell into one of the following four categories:

1. Role Model: These were customers who had high usage scores and were generating significant results using the software
2. Potential Star: These were customers who had low usage scores but were still generating great results
3. Laggards: These were customers who had high usage scores but minimal results
4. On The Ledge: These were customers with low usage and low results.

Equinox Agents recommended an action plan for each category and implemented the outreach program. We reached out to clients in each category and engaged with them to move them up the levels.

For example, we worked with the Potential Stars and provided simple strategies using our Proactive Support prioritization model to move them up to the Role Model status and as a result achieving even better results for the clients by simply increasing their usage.

For the On the Ledge and Laggards group, we also reached out to individual clients to provide strategies to achieve better results with a goal to get them to Role Model status.

Once fully executed, the number of negative posts in social media dropped drastically and we were able to generate a positive buzz.

Most support teams track metrics that they learn in Contact Centre Management 101. These include CSAT (customer satisfaction), ASA (average speed of answer), AHT (average handle time), Abandonment Rate and some form of an Internal Quality Score. These are great indicators of CX but may not tell you the whole story.

While these metrics are helpful to measure the performance, they are lagging indicators of performance and thus limit the ability for teams to make changes based on their values. It can be compared to driving a car by looking in the rear mirror. While this information is important, it does not tell you what is coming ahead of you and how you can make better decisions going forward.

After working with many clients, we found that teams need more insight into how they can influence the performance of their agents based on leading indicators. To provide improved customer sentiment and experience you need to know how to improve the experience NOW and what decisions need to be made to ensure agents continue to improve.

Here are the five additional CX Metrics that can help your team to better serve your customers and provide a beneficial experience:

1. Contact Rate: This is the number of times a customer reaches out to Support per month. You will need to create buckets for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5+ contacts per month. This can be further drilled down to Channel (Chat, Phone, Social, etc) and by Problem Category. This will help you create a plan of action to lower these numbers. This will also assist you in providing your Dev Team with Product and User Experience (UX) enhancements.
2. Health Score: This is a single measure of your customer’s usage of your product. This can be calculated using multiple parameters such as logins, number of contacts, users, campaigns, rate of adding contacts to the system and other usage indicators. This can help you quickly segment your users into categories so you can proactively reach out the correct audience with the right message to turn them into staunch supporters.
3. First Contact Resolution: This metric tracks what percentage of support requests are closed at first contact. The higher the number, the better the CX. If a customer must reach out for support more than once for the same issue, the level of frustration goes up and trust goes down. This can quickly impact your reputation.
4. Internal TouchPoints: This measures how many different people the customer will have to interact with to resolve a single issue. In “best in class” companies, the number is one.
5. Social Reputation: This the measure of positive mentions minus negative mentions about the company’s support across all social platforms.

Pro-Tip:  Respond to negative comments as quickly as possible and resolve them at a higher priority.

Your clients purchase your software because they have heard about your reputation, know about your culture, and are excited to sign up. However, they experience your software through your front-line agents who sell them the product and support them through their journey.

It can typically take a few weeks to a couple of months before your clients realize the full benefits of the software. Throughout this period, clients interact with your support staff to reach that goal and if they do not have a satisfactory experience through this learning curve they may be inclined to switch to a competitor. And as the company grows, your founder’s vision can be lost or diluted. Why? Because
new clients do not tend to interact with the founder and the expanding team is not able to deliver on that vision. After spending a great deal of time in building their software, team, and reputation, it is a shame to see a new client leave due to one poor experience with a support agent. You may have also invested substantially in the training of your support agents but inconsistent experiences easily frustrate new
and tenured clients and they begin to lose trust in your ability to provide value.

The challenges that leaders face when building a support team is to ensure that every agent is on the same page as the founder, or in line with the company’s vision and purpose. However, when done correctly, the Support Team and indeed the entire company are living and breathing the same values. This results in an overall positive customer experience through their journey with you.

So how would you overcome this problem? As Richard Branson said: “Take care of your employees and they will take care of your customers”

Here is a 5-step process to achieve this outcome:

1. Express the importance to potential applicants of aligning with your core values.
   Set up your hiring gauntlet (tests) to measure their alignment to your core
   values to filter out individuals who don’t align.
2. Ensure that your induction program covers the purpose and core values
   on day one.
3. During daily huddles, ensure that your team leaders talk about core values and
   recognize agents who are living up to them.
4. Use core values in your daily communication with your team and make sure
   your team leaders repeat the words found in the purpose and core values in all
   their communication – verbal and written text.
5. If you follow these five steps your support agents should be completely aligned with
   the vision of the company, displaying the care needed to maintain your reputation.

Within our own support team, we ensure that we continuously expose our agents to
our vision from the moment we first interview them through to daily practice.