ClearlyRated Glossary

Dive into our comprehensive glossary to discover key terms and concepts related to surveys, customer feedback, and service excellence.

360 customer view

A 360-degree customer view is a complete understanding of your customers. It brings together information from various sources into one clear picture. This helps you engage better with your customers.

The abandonment rate measures the percentage of users or customers who start but do not complete a specific action, such as a purchase, inquiry, or service interaction. It’s essentially the percentage of potential conversions that were "abandoned."

Average first response time

Average Response Time (ART) is the amount of time it takes for a customer service team to respond to customer inquiries. It's a key performance metric that reflects how quickly a company addresses its customers' concerns.

Average speed of answer (ASA)

The Average Speed of Answer (ASA) refers to the average time it takes for a customer service agent to respond to an incoming call or inquiry. It's typically measured from the moment the call enters the queue to when it’s answered. ASA is a crucial metric for evaluating the efficiency of a call center.

Brand advocate

A brand advocate is someone who genuinely loves your brand and is eager to share their positive experiences with others. Unlike influencers who often require payment, brand advocates promote your products or services because they truly believe in them.

Churn/Churn Rate

Customer churn, often referred to as customer attrition, occurs when customers stop using a product or service. This could mean they cancel a subscription, stop buying a product, or switch to a competitor. Essentially, it’s a clear signal that your business is losing customers.

Closed Feedback Loop

Closed-loop feedback is a system where businesses actively seek input, respond to it, and then take action to address concerns or enhance positive experiences. It’s not just about listening; it’s about closing the loop by following up with customers after their issues are resolved or suggestions are implemented.

Closed-ended question

Close-ended questions are questions designed to elicit specific, predetermined responses. Typically, they are structured in such a way that respondents choose from a set of provided options. For example, a simple yes/no question like “Do you enjoy reading?” is a classic example of a close-ended question.

Completion rate

Conversational customer service refers to a method of engaging customers through real-time, dialogue-driven interactions. Unlike traditional ticket-based support, it focuses on seamless conversations across platforms like live chat, social media, or messaging apps.

Conversational feedback

Conversational feedback is a two-way communication process where feedback is exchanged in a natural, dialogue-like manner. It’s more about interaction than instruction—think of it as having a casual yet constructive conversation. Whether it's verbal or non-verbal, it involves actively engaging with the other person to foster understanding and improvement.

Customer Churn

A customer community is a dedicated space where customers can connect, engage, and interact with a brand and each other. Think of it as a hub where shared interests, common goals, and mutual support bring people together. These communities often serve as a platform for discussions, problem-solving, and sharing experiences.

Customer Experience Strategy

A customer experience strategy is a comprehensive plan designed to enhance how customers interact with your business. It focuses on meeting customer needs, resolving pain points, and exceeding expectations across all channels.

Customer Journey

The customer journey refers to the complete experience a customer has with a brand from the initial awareness stage to the final purchase and beyond. It's like the roadmap your customers follow as they interact with your business. Understanding this journey helps businesses identify touchpoints that influence customer decisions and craft strategies to enhance satisfaction.

Customer Loyalty

Customer loyalty refers to the ongoing relationship between a business and its customers, where customers consistently choose the business over its competitors. It’s not just about repeat purchases; it’s about trust and preference.

Customer Retention

Customer retention refers to a business's ability to keep its existing customers over a specific period. It’s about creating lasting relationships and ensuring customers continue choosing your products or services instead of switching to competitors.

Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction refers to how well a product or service meets or exceeds a customer’s expectations. It’s not just about fulfilling needs—it’s about creating memorable experiences that leave customers feeling valued. When businesses consistently align their offerings with customer expectations, satisfaction grows.

Customer Satisfaction Score

CSAT is a simple metric that measures how satisfied customers are with a specific interaction, product, or service. It typically asks customers to rate their satisfaction on a scale, such as 1 to 5 or 1 to 10.

Customer analytics

Customer analytics involves analyzing customer data to understand behaviors, preferences, and patterns. It combines data from multiple sources like sales, social media, and customer service to give businesses actionable insights.

Customer care

Customer care is the process of ensuring that customers feel valued and supported at every interaction with your business. It involves meeting their needs, resolving concerns, and exceeding their expectations to create a positive experience.

Customer data

Customer data refers to the information businesses collect about their customers to better understand their preferences, behaviors, and needs. This data helps companies make informed decisions, improve customer experiences, and develop effective marketing strategies. Customer data can range from basic demographic details, such as age and location, to more complex insights like purchasing habits, browsing behavior, and feedback.

Customer database

A customer database is a centralized collection of information about your customers. It stores valuable details such as names, contact information, purchase history, and even preferences. Think of it as your business's personal address book but supercharged with actionable insights.

Customer dissatisfaction

Customer dissatisfaction occurs when a product or service fails to meet the expectations of the customer. This gap between expectation and reality often leads to frustration, disappointment, or even anger, directly affecting the customer’s loyalty.

Customer engagement

Customer engagement refers to the interaction and connection between a business and its customers. It's more than just selling products—it’s about creating a meaningful and lasting relationship.

Customer expectations

Customer expectations are the perceptions and assumptions customers have about a business's products, services, and overall experience. Meeting these expectations is essential because it directly influences satisfaction, loyalty, and word-of-mouth marketing.

Customer experience (CX)

Customer experience refers to how customers perceive their interactions with a brand throughout their journey—from the first point of contact to post-purchase services. It encompasses every touchpoint, whether it’s browsing a website, engaging with customer support, or using a product.

Customer experience management (CEM)

Customer Experience Management (CXM) refers to the strategies, processes, and technologies businesses use to monitor, manage, and improve every interaction a customer has with their brand. It's all about putting the customer at the center of your business decisions.

Customer experience maturity

Customer experience maturity refers to how well an organization manages, optimizes, and integrates its CX strategies and processes. It’s a measure of how customer-centric a company truly is, from its culture to its operations.

Customer experience platform

In today’s digital age, creating memorable customer experiences isn’t just a perk—it’s a necessity. Enter the Customer Experience Platform (CXP), a transformative tool for businesses aiming to understand and enhance their customer interactions.

Customer feedback

Customer feedback refers to the insights, opinions, and experiences shared by customers about your products or services. It's a vital tool for understanding their needs and ensuring they feel heard.

Customer insights

Customer insight refers to the deep understanding of your customers' behaviors, preferences, motivations, and needs. It’s about uncovering the “why” behind their actions, such as why they prefer one product over another or why they remain loyal to a specific brand. These insights are gathered through analyzing customer data and interpreting patterns, enabling businesses to tailor their strategies to meet customer expectations.

Customer intelligence

Customer intelligence is the process of gathering, analyzing, and leveraging data about your customers to make informed business decisions. Unlike traditional data analysis, CI focuses on creating a 360-degree view of the customer, combining demographic, behavioral, and transactional data to uncover trends and patterns.

Customer needs

Customer needs refer to the specific wants and expectations that drive individuals to seek products or services. These needs can range from basic functional requirements to emotional or social desires.

Customer relationship management (CRM)

CRM refers to the strategies, technologies, and practices companies use to manage and analyze customer interactions throughout the customer lifecycle. It aims to improve relationships, drive sales, and increase retention.

Customer segmentation analysis

Customer segmentation is the process of dividing a company’s customer base into smaller groups based on shared characteristics. Think of it like putting customers into "buckets" that make sense for targeted strategies. These segments can be based on demographics, location, behaviors, or even buying patterns.

Customer success

Customer success is the proactive approach businesses take to ensure their customers achieve their desired outcomes while using a product or service. Unlike customer support, which is reactive and addresses issues as they arise, customer success focuses on anticipating challenges and delivering solutions that ensure ongoing satisfaction and value.

Customer support

Customer support involves helping customers resolve technical or usage issues with a product or service. Unlike general service inquiries, support often requires in-depth knowledge of the product and troubleshooting expertise.

Customer survey

A customer survey is a method of collecting feedback directly from customers. It helps businesses gain insights into customer satisfaction, expectations, and areas needing improvement.

Demographic questions

Demographic survey questions gather information about a respondent’s background, such as their age, gender, location, income, and education level. These questions are crucial for understanding the characteristics of a group or audience. Businesses, researchers, and organizations use demographic data to make informed decisions and tailor their strategies effectively.

Detractor Recovery

A detractor is a customer who expresses dissatisfaction with your business, product, or service, often scoring between 0-6 on a Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey. These customers are likely to spread negative feedback and discourage others from engaging with your brand.

Digital Customer Experience

Digital Customer Experience (DCX) refers to the interactions customers have with a brand through digital platforms, such as websites, mobile apps, social media, and chatbots. It encompasses everything from navigation ease to personalization in the digital environment.

Digital experience analytics

Digital Experience Analytics (DXA) refers to the process of collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data about how users interact with digital platforms like websites, apps, and other online services. It dives deep into user behaviors, preferences, and pain points to create an optimized and seamless digital journey.

Digital experience optimization

Digital Experience Optimization (DXO) refers to enhancing every aspect of a user’s interaction with a brand's digital platforms. It involves analyzing user behavior and leveraging tools like AI, data analytics, and automation to create seamless, engaging, and personalized online experiences.

Direct Employee Feedback

Employee feedback is a cornerstone of workplace growth and communication. Among the various forms of feedback, direct employee feedback stands out as a practical approach to fostering open communication and improving performance. Let’s dive into what it entails, its benefits, and how it can be effectively implemented in an organization.

Direct feedback

Customer direct feedback refers to the insights and opinions shared by customers directly with a business. This feedback is usually collected through channels like surveys, emails, or face-to-face conversations. Unlike indirect feedback, which may be inferred from sales data or website analytics, direct feedback provides firsthand insights into customer experiences and expectations.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI), Diversity & Inclusion (D&I), Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging (DIB)

A double-barreled question is a single question that asks about two or more issues at once, making it difficult for respondents to provide a clear answer. These questions often confuse respondents because they don’t know which part of the question to address.

Drop-outs

Double-barreled questions are a common pitfall in communication and research. At their core, these questions combine two or more issues into one, making it hard for respondents to provide clear and meaningful answers. Think of them as tangled wires—you have to untangle them to get a proper connection.

Employee Engagement

Employee engagement refers to the emotional connection and commitment employees have toward their organization and its goals. Engaged employees are enthusiastic about their work, take pride in their contributions, and actively participate in achieving organizational success. It's not just about job satisfaction; it's about motivation, productivity, and a sense of belonging.

Employee experience (EX)

Employee experience is the sum of all interactions and perceptions an employee has throughout their journey with an organization—from recruitment to exit. It includes their physical, emotional, and social engagement at work.

Employee experience action platform

Employee experience refers to the sum of interactions, perceptions, and emotions an employee has throughout their journey with an organization. It encompasses everything from onboarding to daily work tasks and eventual offboarding.

Employee journey and employee lifecycle

The employee journey refers to the complete lifecycle of an employee within a company, starting from their first interaction with the organization to their departure. It encapsulates every touchpoint, including recruitment, onboarding, development, retention, and offboarding.

Employee satisfaction

Employee satisfaction refers to how happy and content employees feel about their jobs, workplace, and overall work experience. It's not just about enjoying the work; it encompasses feelings about compensation, leadership, growth opportunities, and workplace culture.

Engagement rate

Engagement rate is a crucial metric that evaluates how actively users interact with your content. It’s often used to measure performance on social media, websites, or even in workplace environments.

Engagement score

First Response Time (FRT) refers to the time it takes for a customer service team to respond to a customer’s query after it has been submitted. It begins the moment the query is logged and ends when the first meaningful response is sent.

Leading question

Leading questions are inquiries designed to subtly guide the respondent toward a particular answer. These questions often include hints, assumptions, or bias within their phrasing. For instance, instead of asking, "What do you think about the weather today?" a leading question might ask, "Isn’t it a beautiful day today?

Loaded question

A loaded question is a question that contains a presumption or assumption within it, often designed to manipulate or corner the person answering. These questions often force the respondent into a position where any answer implies agreement with the embedded presumption.

NPS Dashboard

An NPS dashboard is a centralized tool that allows businesses to track, monitor, and analyze their Net Promoter Score (NPS) data. It serves as a visual representation of customer feedback, showcasing how likely your customers are to recommend your product or service.

NPS Detractors

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a widely used metric to measure customer satisfaction and loyalty. It gauges the likelihood of your customers recommending your product or service to others on a scale of 0 to 10.

NPS Passives

NPS Passives are customers who rate your product or service a 7 or 8 on the NPS scale. They are content with your offerings but aren’t emotionally invested enough to actively promote your business.

NPS Scale

The standard 0-10 scale is recommended for NPS. This scale is intuitive for respondents and provides a clear segmentation of customer feedback. It is also universally accepted, making it easier to benchmark scores across industries.

Online reputation management

Online Reputation Management, or ORM, involves tracking and managing online mentions of your brand to ensure it remains positive and credible. Think of it as a proactive approach to guard your reputation in the virtual space.

Open-ended question

An open-ended question is one that cannot be answered with a simple "yes" or "no." Instead, it encourages the respondent to elaborate, share details, and express their thoughts. Example: Instead of asking, "Did you enjoy the meeting?" ask, "What were your thoughts on the meeting?"

People analytics

People analytics is the use of data-driven approaches to understand, manage, and optimize human resources in an organization. Think of it as the science of making better workplace decisions using insights derived from employee data. This field leverages metrics and predictive analysis to address challenges like hiring, employee satisfaction, and performance management.

Promoter Engagement

Promoters are your brand’s biggest cheerleaders. These are the customers who are not just satisfied with your products or services but are genuinely enthusiastic about recommending your brand to others. Think of them as your unofficial marketing team—only they do it out of love for your brand, not a paycheck.

Questionnaire

A questionnaire is a structured set of questions designed to collect specific information from respondents. It serves as a fundamental tool in research, enabling systematic data gathering from large groups of people.

Respondent

Survey respondents are individuals who provide answers to questions in a survey. They can represent a specific demographic, geographic, or psychographic group, depending on the survey’s goal. Their responses form the foundation of data analysis.

Response Rate

The response rate refers to the percentage of individuals who take the desired action in a given communication. Whether it’s replying to an email, completing a survey, or responding to a customer support ticket, this metric helps gauge engagement and effectiveness.

Retention

Retention refers to a business’s ability to keep its customers or employees engaged over time. In simple terms, it’s about maintaining relationships rather than constantly seeking new ones. Whether you're talking about customer retention or employee retention, the goal remains the same: building long-term trust and loyalty.

Screening question

A screening question is a pre-qualifying question designed to determine if a respondent fits the criteria for participating in the survey. It’s like a bouncer at the door of a club, ensuring only the right crowd gets in.

Service-level agreements

An SLA, or Service Level Agreement, is a formal document that defines the expected level of service between a service provider and its client. It acts as a roadmap to ensure that both parties are on the same page regarding deliverables, quality, and responsibilities.

Survey

A survey is a tool or method used to collect information from a group of people to gain insights, opinions, or feedback. Think of it as a way of asking people what they think, need, or feel about a specific topic.

Survey response rate

The survey response rate is a metric that tells you the percentage of people who participated in your survey out of the total number invited. It’s like a report card for your survey’s effectiveness. A high response rate means your survey captured the attention of your audience, which is crucial for collecting meaningful insights.

Touchpoint NPS

Touchpoint NPS (Net Promoter Score) measures customer satisfaction and loyalty at specific interactions or "touchpoints" along the customer journey. It helps businesses pinpoint areas of strength and identify where improvements are needed.

Transactional NPS

Transactional Net Promoter Score (tNPS) measures customer satisfaction immediately after a specific interaction or transaction. Unlike traditional NPS, which assesses overall loyalty, tNPS hones in on the quality of individual customer experiences.

Voice of the Customer (VoC) Program/ Voice of the Customer (VoC)

Voice of the Customer (VoC) refers to the process of capturing customer feedback, analyzing it, and acting on it to meet and exceed customer expectations. It’s about understanding what your customers think, feel, and want regarding your products or services. In a competitive marketplace, knowing your customers inside out is the key to standing out.

Voice of the employee

The Voice of the Employee refers to the collective insights, opinions, and feedback that employees share about their work experience. This concept revolves around giving employees a platform to express their views, from their role and team dynamics to organizational strategies and policies.

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