The secret to customer happiness as an email metric
Hitting the Send button remains a bit of a nerve-racking activity, doesn’t it? Maybe you’ve already sent over 1,000,000 emails over the past 10 years, or maybe you’ve just made your entrance in the email marketing field. No matter your experience, knowing what the mailing’s click-through and conversion rate remains essential knowledge. However, can you explain to your management team what customers really liked about the email? Why did they click through or why didn’t they accept your offer? Find out now by measuring your customer happiness.
Email marketing has changed, why haven't your metrics?
This field has developed tremendously over the last couple of years. Contrary to the sales-driven bulk emails sent during the 90’s, nowadays, in order to stay competitive, every touchpoint is expected to be customer-centric and relationship-driven. Despite this change, email marketing metrics have remained largely the same over the years. And it’s absolutely astonishing to me that marketeers still haven’t added customer happiness as a measurement to the standard metrics set!
Why a high CTR doesn't equal satisfied customers
You might think: “Hey, but if my CTR increases every month, why would I also need to pay attention to my customers’ happiness when sending emails? I know that I’m doing well!”
Sure, your traditional metrics tell you what your customers actually do when they receive the message, and they may actually do the thing you want them to (click through). I totally encourage you to continue analysing this!
However, coming back to one of my initial questions; wouldn't it be interesting to know why your customers display that behavior? It may not at all be the reason you have in mind. With this extra insight you will be able to draw more detailed conclusions about their needs, wants and expectations and take action to improve your emails. Subsequently, your customers grow happier and more loyal to your company. Don’t let them become one of the 57% that has stopped buying from a company because a competitor provided a better experience!
The wins of measuring happiness
Let me tell you about a remarkable example. Back in the days, one of our e-commerce clients sent out a birthday campaign. Solely focusing on the traditional metrics, this was their third best performing campaign. However, once they incorporated a feedback widget, the company found out the message didn’t actually make its customers happy! Based on what the customers told them, the company decided to improve the offering. Once this was done, the email satisfaction score steadily increased, and so did the email’s conversion.
In the example below, you see an overview of email metrics after an email send, including the CloseAlert Email sentiment score.
Conclusion
So, email marketing has changed, but your metrics haven’t. The traditional metrics won’t give you the full picture of your email performance. Just because an email was opened or clicked doesn't mean you offer your customers what they are looking for. However, by combining e.g. your click-to-open-rate and conversion rate with the customer sentiment score, you will find out the why behind the numbers. Subsequently, you will be able to put yourself in your customers’ shoes and offer them that little extra which makes them happier and more engaged with every email you send.
Curious how measuring customer happiness with CloseAlert looks like? We’ve selected 10 real life examples for you, take a look to get inspired!