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What 5 Years of XM Data Tells Us: Predictive Analytics for the Customer Experience

2024 marks our 5th year as an Experience Management (XM)-focused organization. In that time, we have gathered more than 1.3 million customer sentiments regarding their relocation experience. Much can be discovered by blending this qualitative experience (X) data with traditional quantitative operational (O) data.

What drives a positive customer experience? In corporate relocation, we may assume that factors like how generous the employee’s relocation benefits package is, if they are moving alone or with family, and whether the customer is traveling a short distance domestically or thousands of miles to a new country would play a major role in overall satisfaction.

As part of our Experience Management (XM) approach, we connect with customers (our clients’ relocating employees) via a series of X-checks – what we call pulse surveys – at key moments that matter along the relocation journey. In the first touchpoint, the Welcome X-check, we gather pertinent insight into the customer’s frame of mind and most important factors as they prepare for the relocation process. Our data from the past five years seemingly supports the general assumptions on how socioeconomic and demographic factors like large family size and familiarity of destination could impact satisfaction: one-third of relocating employees have never lived or even visited their destination before, 33% have no social connections in their destination, 66% are moving solo while 34% have their partner and/or children along, and 20% move with pets.

But we all know what happens when we make assumptions. Through our experience insights, we have found that the key driver of a positive relocation doesn’t rest in the nuances, but in the basics. Enter: Customer effort.

Measuring Customer Effort

Imagine the last time you checked out at the grocery store, contacted the support agent for an airline, sought a refund from a retailer, or booked a hotel room. How easy or exhausting were those tasks? For companies with a complex experience journey, Customer Effort Score (CES) is invaluable.

CES is a satisfaction metric that measures how much effort your customers put into interactions with your company. This includes how easy it is for customers to interact with you, get a question answered, have an issue resolved, and find information they need. CES is not a metric traditionally tracked and reported in the mobility industry; it is commonly utilized by experience-focused brands that employ the voice of the customer to direct their investments and innovations. At Altair Global, we measure CES at multiple points throughout the customer journey.

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This is a distinct metric from customer satisfaction (CSAT). While CSAT measures overall satisfaction with experience, CES measures how much or little effort a customer exerts to engage with an organization, thereby telling a deeper story into experience. Both are important satisfaction metrics assessed and analyzed by Altair.

Monitoring customer effort allows Altair’s Customer Experience Consultants the ability to provide a more individualistic experience. They can improve and course-correct while the relocation is in process when it matters most versus concluded, when it is more challenging to make a difference in how the customer feels.

Drivers of Experience

In response to Altair’s Welcome X-check, our customers express desire for an easy relocation process and a positive experience as a significant factor influencing their move – at a frequency rivaling housing options, finances, family size, and other fundamental and preferential themes typical to a relocation or assignment.

In addition to playing a role in the customer’s initial outlook on the relocation, CES is also prominent in the ending evaluation of the journey. To study customer trends, we narrowed our focus to roughly 500,000 customer journey sentiments, supplemented by another 500,000 operational data points, representing nearly 14,000 customer moves. The analysis reveals the following key drivers for a positive or negative mobility experience.

As a primary driver of a positive experience, customers who feel Altair made the relocation process easy for them (CES) are: 6.5 times more likely to have a positive experience with Altair, 2.4 times more likely to have a positive experience with their Altair Customer Experience Consultant, and 3.3 times more likely to have an overall positive impression of their employer’s mobility program.

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On the flipside, as a key driver of a negative experience, customers who feel Altair did not make the relocation process easy for them are all but certain to be dissatisfied with their overall experience with Altair, their Altair Customer Experience Consultant, and their employer’s mobility program.

While customer effort is certainly the most impactful driver of experience, we have also identified three additional individual drivers of a positive or negative experience that cannot be discounted: Communication, operational integrity, and financial administration.

Customers who were satisfied with the effectiveness of their Altair Customer Experience Consultant communication are: 2.5 times more likely to have a positive experience with Altair, 1.9 times more likely to have a positive experience with their Altair Customer Experience Consultant, and 1.8 times more likely to have an overall positive impression of their employer’s mobility program. Likewise, customers with confidence that Altair operates with integrity are: 3.2 times more likely to have a positive experience with Altair, 2.1 times more likely to have a positive experience with their Altair Customer Experience Consultant, and 2.2 times more likely to have an overall positive impression of their employer’s mobility program. And lastly, customers who feel that Altair effectively administers financial benefits are: 2.3 times more likely to have a positive experience with Altair, 1.7 times more likely to have a positive experience with their Altair Customer Experience Consultant, and 1.8 times more likely to have an overall positive impression of their employer’s mobility program.

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While these four fundamental themes are all individual driving forces of the customer experience, they can also be highly correlated. For example, if the Altair Customer Experience Consultant clearly explains the relocation process, the customer is more likely to be highly satisfied with ease of the relocation overall.

“This is a significant discovery and contrary to established thinking about customer satisfaction in the industry,” said Chad Sterling, CEO at Altair Global. “This data tells us that ease of process and a positive experience is equal to or even more impactful than many of the stressors once thought to be significant drivers in a customer’s journey.”

Kelly Tepera, SVP of Customer Experience at Altair Global, elaborates, “When we began our XM journey, we all had preconceived ideas of what the data would eventually tell us. What we have now discovered has surpassed our wildest expectations. To see that customer effort ease, communications, integrity, and financial delivery act as a multiplier on how our Customer Experience Consultants and our organization is evaluated is significant in our process and technology design, training and development, and experience delivery. Furthermore, to see that these factors play a key role in how relocating employees evaluate their employer’s mobility program directly extends the value of XM to our client’s employee experience. This is the power of XM.”

“To see that customer effort ease, communications, integrity, and financial delivery act as a multiplier on how our Customer Experience Consultants and our organization is evaluated is significant in our process and technology design, training and development, and experience delivery. Furthermore, to see that these factors play a key role in how relocating employees evaluate their employer’s mobility program directly extends the value of XM to our client’s employee experience. This is the power of XM.”

– Kelly Tepera, SVP of Customer Experience at Altair Global

Shaping Mobility Success for Our Customers and Clients

Research by Gartner, Harvard Business Review, and many more underscores the importance of CES as the strongest indicator of predicting customer behavior. For corporate relocation, it could foresee a satisfied or dissatisfied employee as they enter their new location.

At this stage in our XM journey, we have procured sufficient feedback to predict the future experiences of similar customers. Monitoring and measuring customer experiences through a unique combination of X and O data over the past five years has prepared Altair to predict the needs, preferences, and satisfaction levels of the customers we are yet to serve.

As an XM company, we have the opportunity to listen and put the learnings from CES and other XM data points to work in the business. Following the outside-in ethos of our XM philosophy, we incorporate this feedback to help guide decisions, innovation, and investment. In 2023 alone, Altair completed 64 product enhancements spurred by XM feedback, all aimed at improved experiences. The launch of Ali, our generative AI-powered virtual assistant for relocating customers; leveraging hybrid SSO in the STAR Customer Portal; and new training programs for Customer Experience Consultants are just three examples of product enhancements this year aimed at improving communication and creating added ease of use for our customers.

The ripple effect of these CES-tailored improvements benefits our clients. The data shows that CES is a signification factor in an employee’s evaluation of not only their experience with Altair but also their employer’s relocation benefits program. By identifying and improving high-effort factors, we are helping our clients’ employees settle into their new location faster and support productivity. Our dedicated XM, Global Consulting Services, and Experience Management Center teams provide further guidance to help improve and modernize programs to meet the needs of a mobility population.

Altair’s mission is to deliver low-effort, exceptional mobility experiences marked by effective and empathetic communication, proactive and personalized support, and timely issue resolution through our Close-the-loop Customer Experience (CX) process, all supported by convenient technology.

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So, what are the influencing factors of a positive relocation experience? The truth is in the data. It’s not that a customer is moving domestically with a dog or internationally with three kids. It’s the fundamental elements of working with an XM company like Altair: The ease and simplicity of working with us.

“By measuring customer effort in the world of global mobility, Altair is benefiting from a valuable metric that takes our understanding of the customer experience to a deeper level. Through data analysis and predictive analytics, these learnings are put to work in the business to enhance our technology innovation, training, and service delivery to our customers and client partners. We are enthusiastic about the potential of this data and the advancements the next five years of our XM approach will bring.”

– Kathryn Cassidy, President & COO at Altair Global

Published On: October 3, 2024

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