The end of the year is approaching, and for many of us, that means holiday preparations. I’ve already seen some houses decorated with lights and trees, and I must admit, I’m enjoying them. For some of us, this time of year also means year-end reporting of financials and performance metrics. Included in that may be your annual customer experience (CX) relationship study key metrics such as Net Promoter Score℠ (NPS) or overall satisfaction (OSat).

And if your dashboard includes results from other CX or voice of the customer (VoC) studies, you might see noticeably different results for your relationship study compared to your transaction studies. Are you prepared to explain to your leaders and business partners why the organization’s relationship metric (let’s say rNPS) is lower than transactional NPS (tNPS) scores for the same time frame or with the same set of customers? It’s a question I’m hearing more often. Here’s what you should know.

You’re Not Alone

We see this pattern not only in our own research but also in data shared by clients who are seeking help explaining VoC output. We see it across industries, across countries, and in both B2C and B2B measurment efforts. So this is most likely not a shortcoming in your own measurement program. It’s a broader phenomenon.

The Survey Context Drives The Differences

A transactional survey, when administered correctly, asks about a specific interaction, such as a purchase, delivery, or customer service contact. It covers a short period of time, typically one channel, perhaps one person, and is often tied to a specific need. This makes it easier for your customers to wrap their head around the experience and provide an evaluation. Recall is easier and ties their willingness to recommend more readily to that very specific experience.

A relationship study, on the other hand, asks about a broader set of attributes, some less tangible that require more thought. It’s designed to assess the strength of your company’s relationship with a customer. The survey may ask about brand value statements (e.g., on attributes such as trustworthy or innovative) or about the relationship itself (Does the customer feel valued? Is that customer treated respectfully?). Experiences may have occurred further in the past, making them harder to recall.

Both Types Of Surveys Play Important Roles

Is one more important than the other in your CX efforts? No. Each has its own purpose for you and your business leaders. The relationship-level metric is key to demonstrating the linkage among customer perceptions, behaviors, and business outcomes. Transactional-level metrics are key in closing the loop with unhappy customers, identifying opportunities for coaching and channel improvement, and identifying cyclical trends or shifts in customer perceptions about that channel. The latter is likely more closely tied to business unit-level goals and objectives while the former supports organizational-level goals. (Note of caution: Because of the closer link to unit goals, transaction-level metrics are also more susceptible to manipulation, which would exacerbate discrepancies between the relationship and transaction scores.)

What Should I Tell My Executives?

With a lower relationship-level score, the story from the data is that there are specific aspects of the broader relationship that are (negatively) impacting customers’ loyalty and subsequent behaviors that are not being captured in the transaction surveys. One or more elements of the experience are of lower quality, are less effective at meeting the customer’s needs, or don’t make customers feel as positive overall as that one specific transaction measured in a separate survey.

You may be able to look at performance across the attributes included in your relationship study that will help you pinpoint what is driving down scores. If it’s not readily apparent, you may need to add attributes to your survey in the next cycle. At the very least, it’s a message to leaders that your customer relationships are more than just the individual transactions they have with you. It’s thinking about the emotions that are inherent in relationships and the glue that keeps your customers loyal if one experience goes bad.

So think of the difference in the results from the two studies as a new insight to share, not a problem that needs to be explained away. I might even stretch to say that it’s a gift to your business partners, an added perspective that helps them better understand customers — which reminds me that I should go unravel and test my lights. The holidays will be here in no time.

If you are a Forrester client and would like to discuss this issue in more detail, please schedule time to talk.