Design Solutions

The customer-centric process is about building products and services with customers in mind. Once you’ve drawn insightful customer information, you can design for better adoption and use.

How can you measure customer satisfaction and create feedback loops to co-design improved customer experience?

The voice of the customer (VoC) is at the core of every customer-centric organization. VoC is broadly defined as the customer’s voice, expectations, preferences, and feedback on a particular product or service. It’s a source of guidance for listening to and better understanding insights and customer needs, and responding as you adapt products and services to improve customer experience.

VoC solutions may include “immersion sprints” where staff directly interacts with customers in a structured, rapid feedback approach to quickly gain insights to act upon, interactive SMS dialogues that respond to the needs of mobile money customers, or other solutions.

Metrics that track VoC solutions and customer experience improvements are not one-size-fits-all. Helpful metrics may include leading indicators such as:

  • Loyalty Measure Index ­– asks questions on the likelihood of customers buying again, buying other services, and recommending to others
  • Customer Effort Score – usually asks customers to rate effort on a scale, and often more effective in tandem with customer experience metrics such as improvement in customer satisfaction scores, reduction in customer complaints, improvement in complaints resolution, and improvement in loyalty scores
  • Return on Customer Experience – a more holistic indicator that looks at the cost benefit of engagement initiatives

Key Resources

Ethiopia | A Somali-Ethiopian woman explains how you type numbers into the phone to complete a mobile money transaction. Photo by Sara Murray, CGAP Photo Contest

How do you measure the value of business and customer solutions once they’re designed and delivered?

It takes time and resources to design and deliver solutions that result in positive experiences and empowered customers. It requires changing interactions with customers and helping employees adopt a customer empowerment mindset. The shift in attitude starts with simple steps that are not too costly or time-consuming. Think of it as an evolving process – not a sudden transformation.

2 ways to measure value for customers:

  1. Test solutions on a small scale – with two branches or 30 customers, for example. Document results and customer satisfaction. Build consensus in your organization then slowly scale up.
  2. Look for clear results. Initially, measure satisfaction by asking customers how they experienced improved services. As prototypes or tests mature, look for obvious changes in use throughout the customer journey.

If customers feel empowered and satisfied they’re more likely to route their money through your organization and encourage friends and relatives to do the same. On the other hand, an account that’s never used or a transfer payment that goes astray can cost customers time and money they cannot afford.

Perceived value shows up as trackable changes, including:

  • Number of marketing contacts that turn into customer sign-ups
  • Share of spontaneous new customer referrals from agent networks
  • Share of active customers in your overall client base
  • Average number/value of transactions per customer
  • Products adopted by customers over time
  • Customer satisfaction/net promoter scores
Desk with materials for brainstorming and prototyping sessions, with the goal of delivering financial services targeted to the needs of specific low-income customer segments.

How do you share results with your organization?

When sharing results, anecdotes and human insights can be as impressive as statistics and numbers.

Include 4 key elements in your presentation:

  1. Process. What you did and how you did it.
  2. Results. Quantitative and qualitative impacts.
  3. Stories. Vivid details that reveal insights about people and places.
  4. Learnings. Positive (and negative) takeaways to inform future projects.

Best practices for sharing results:

  • Balance process and outcome, formal and informal.
  • Focus on people – not just products and services.
  • Consider which insights may be useful to colleagues’ work.
  • Appeal to a diverse audience. Satisfy the skeptic (and the cheerleader).
  • Balance story, numbers, and images.

Key Resources

Women in Pakistan gather in a group to discuss financial habits, needs, and challenges with using formal financial services.

What’s the best way to showcase the impact of customer experience?

Most stakeholders want to hear outcomes first, so focus on results and why they’re useful. Link findings back to business objectives and offer recommendations on improving customer experience. Remember that some care more about data points and processes, so be prepared for their questions as well.

Include 3 main ingredients:

  1. A market strategy analysis that supports your case, including business objectives, benefits, intangible benefits, and profitability when possible.
  2. Impact mapping of your project throughout the organization, including a product road map and experience ecosystem.
  3. Next steps.

Bring results to life through personas rather than simply through tables and charts. Add examples of comments you might hear from customers. For those who prefer to “see the numbers,” pull out 3-5 findings that were new to you and the data points that support them. 

Key Resources

Woman at her street cart. Low-income entrepreneurs like this woman benefit from financial services that offer improved customer experience.