Customers are the lifeblood of your company, they fuel growth, and without them, your business would not exist. Customer Performance Indicators (CPIs) are powerful metrics companies can use to measure their effectiveness in meeting customers’ needs. How well a company performs against CPIs often serves as a powerful indicator and accurate predictor of growth.
Let’s think about this – Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are company-centric measures that measure how your customers are performing for your company – Sales Revenue, Sales Growth, Conversion Rate, Average Order Value, and so on.
As a leader, why aren’t you measuring how your company is performing for your customers? By shifting focus to CPIs, customer-centric measures, you can gain valuable insight into your customer’s needs, values, preferences, and behaviors.
Simply put, CPIs are what your customers actually care about and value. By tracking what’s important to your customers, your company will have better visibility into actions it can take to improve customer outcomes, positively impacting business performance.
An article featured in Harvard Business Review, “The Most Important Metric You’re Not Tracking (Yet),” explains that there are two elements that qualify a metric as a CPI:
- It must be an outcome customers say is important to them
- The CPI must be measurable in increments that customers actually value
- Time
- Quality
- Convenience
- Number of Options
- Price/Dollars Saved
- Security
- Customer Service
- Trust
- Personalization
- Social Responsibility
- Reputation
- Emotional Connection
Here are a few customer-centric CPI examples:
Number of Sales Calls with Value-added Messages: This measures the frequency of communication between your sales team and customers and the effectiveness of each interaction. The objective is to consistently provide valuable information and service to your customers, enhancing overall satisfaction.
First-Time Resolution Rate: This measures how well your customer believes that their service requests were addressed during the initial contact. This is valuable information that can be a good indicator of overall customer service satisfaction.
Quote Turnaround Time: This measures the time it takes for your customer to receive a finalized quote. The quicker and more efficiently you deliver the quote, the higher the success rate.
Implementing CPIs in your company can be a daunting task, but it’s worth the effort.
Here are a few tips for getting started:
Set Clear Goals: Before you begin tracking CPIs, it’s important to set clear goals for what you want to achieve. This will help you select the right metrics to track and ensure that you are measuring the right things.
Select the Right Metrics: There are many different CPIs to choose from, so selecting the ones most relevant to your business and your customers is crucial. Consider your industry, customer base, and business goals when selecting metrics to track.
Use Data Visualization Tools: Data visualization tools can help you make sense of the data you collect and make it easier to identify trends and patterns. Consider using tools like dashboards and charts to help you visualize your CPI data.
Customer Performance Indicators are a powerful tool that can help your business improve its performance by focusing on what your customers value. By tracking CPIs, you can identify areas for improvement, make data-driven decisions, improve customer satisfaction, and increase customer retention. Implementing CPIs in your company may take effort, but the benefits are well worth it. So why not start tracking CPIs today and see how they can help you improve your company’s performance?
