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How to measure if what I do in UX/CX is good for business
In today's competitive and changing world, companies must ensure that their user experience (UX) and customer experience (CX) initiatives truly deliver value and contribute to their sustainability. To achieve this, it is essential to understand how our actions affect customer/user loyalty and their willingness to recommend our brand. This is where the XP-Gap comes in, a key metric that connects expectations with results and helps us evaluate the true impact of our strategies.
What is XP-Gap?
We have already written a previous post about XP-Gap. Recall that it is based on the theory of Disconfirmation of Expectations, which examines the gap between what the customer expects and what they actually experience. This metric provides an accurate measure of satisfaction by capturing the discrepancy between expectations and reality, going beyond simple positive or negative ratings.
It is used to measure the performance of a company immediately after any event experienced by the user or customer along their journey or at the end of it. Simply ask a question with the options you can find in the following image:
Why invest in CX/UX?
Companies undertake CX and UX-related initiatives because they understand that a business is longer lasting and healthier when customers and users not only return but also recommend the brand to others.
Prior to any experience, each person is positioned within a "Scale of Expectations" that is unique to each person and contains a Maximum Expectation, an Acceptance Zone and a Minimum Expectation. Expectations determine the range within which the customer expects the experience to fall.
In turn, these expectations are conditioned by different factors, as can be seen in the following illustration.
To understand how these factors influence, it is necessary to understand what each of them is:
- Personal factors: Individual wants and needs as well as the customer's past experiences that shape their expectations. If someone has had positive past experiences with a brand, their expectations for future interactions are likely to be high.
- Third-party influence: The opinions of friends, family and social networks also play an important role. Recommendations and comments can raise or lower customer and user expectations.
- Brand influence: The explicit and implicit promises made by the company through its marketing and communication create a framework of expectations. Consistency between what is promised and what is delivered is critical to customer satisfaction.
- Industry influence: Industry reputation and competition also affect expectations. A customer may expect a certain level of service based on industry standards or competitors' practices.
In the following table you will find the factors synthetically explained:
The context in which an experience is lived also influences expectations:
- Alterations in context: Events such as economic fluctuations or special days (e.g., Black Friday) can make people more tolerant of experiences.
- Consistency of service: When failures in the experience are perceived as systematic, the scale of expectations does not widen.
As can be seen, the context influences the scale of expectations of our client/user.
Types of experience and expectations
The expectation scale prepares the user for different types of experiences:
- The Desirable Experience is that which is efficient and satisfactory and corresponds to the Maximum Expectation within the scale
- The Expected Experience is anticipated to be probable or adequate and is located in the Zone of Acceptance within the scale
- Tolerable Experience is considered acceptable, even if it does not meet the highest expectations. It aligns with the Minimum Expectation within the scale.
This correspondence between experiences and expectations is reflected in the following graph:
However, to really stand out, it is not enough to fulfill the desirable experience. It has been proven that the loyalty and recommendation effect only occurs when the experience exceeds what the user or customer believes to be expected. When this happens, we achieve a Memorable Experience, that is, an experience that not only meets expectations, but significantly exceeds them, leaving a lasting impression on the person. This experience is characterized by its ability to generate intense emotions, create a deep and positive impact, and establish a personal or emotional connection that persists over time, influencing the perception and future behavior of the user or customer. As shown in Figure 6, within our scale, Exceeding Expectations corresponds to the Memorable Experience.
Using XP-Gap as a KPI
To evaluate whether you are achieving memorable experiences, the XP-Gap is a key tool. Here's how to use it as a KPI:
- Immediate measurement: After an experience, ask the customer how he/she would rate it using the scale of expectations shared below (Figure 7). For each category, there is a numerical rating:
- Far exceeded my expectations = 1 point
- Exceeded my expectations = 2 points
- It was what I expected = 3 points
- Below my expectations = 4 points
- Far below my expectations = 5 points
- Top Box: This more rigorous indicator helps identify the highest levels of satisfaction and the likelihood of loyalty. It should take the responses in the category "greatly exceeded my expectations" and divide them by the total number of effective responses. In this way, we will obtain the percentage.
- Top Two Boxes: The percentage of responses that fall into the categories "greatly exceeded" and "exceeded" expectations is calculated. This metric provides an overview of the proportion of customers willing to be loyal and recommend the brand.
Conclusion
Measuring the real impact of UX and CX initiatives requires a detailed and targeted approach, such as the one provided by XP-Gap. This approach not only facilitates the identification of areas for improvement, but also helps to foster customer loyalty and their willingness to recommend the brand, thus contributing to the success and sustainability of the business.