“How will this make us more efficient?”

“What’s the impact on our bottom line?”

These questions echo through boardrooms as leaders wrestle with what feels like a logical trade-off: customer satisfaction versus performance. But this perceived conflict is a false dilemma, costing organisations millions in missed opportunities.

In truth, experience and efficiency aren’t at odds. They’re fundamentally connected.

We’ve previously shown how first principles thinking can help you become more efficient by starting with experience. Now we turn to the next big question: how do you know when you’ve hit the sweet spot between experience and efficiency, and how do you prove it?

Why your metrics are failing you

Look across your organisation today, and you'll likely see this division:

This separation creates three critical problems:

• Blind investment decisions: Initiatives are funded without clear insight into their impact on customer experience or financial outcomes.‍
• Misaligned priorities: Leaders push for better experiences and lower costs, without understanding how the two interact.
• Ongoing justification cycles: Teams struggle to quantify the value of improvements that feel right but lack measurable backing.
  

Connecting experience and efficiency metrics

Successful measurement approaches link CX to operational and financial outcomes.

This connected approach shifts decision-making from intuition to evidence. It helps you demonstrate how investments in what customers value also drive cost-efficiency and business performance.

Your measurement approach should cover three lenses or types of metrics:

Customer Experience Metrics: What your customers value

For example:

• Communication quality and frequency
• Timeliness of services
• Clarity of information

Operational Metrics: How efficiently you deliver

For example:

• Follow-up inquiry rates
• Processing times
• Digital adoption rates

Financial Outcomes: The business impact

For example:

• Contact handling costs
• Resource utilisation
• Service sustainability

How to build a connected measurement approach

Step 1: Ensure your strategic and tactical measures are aligned

To start, make sure you know what to measure.

Strong measurement approaches have a clear connection between high-level strategic measures and day-to-day tactical measures. This helps everyone understand how their work contributes to the bigger picture.

You should also think about when to measure. Strategic measures like ‘trust’ or NPS need less frequent checking, while tactical measures need to be tracked regularly.

Step 2: Connect CX measures to business outcomes

This is an important step that most organisations miss.

Link metrics across domains:

• Pair customer value indicators with efficiency metrics
• Tie operational performance to cost outcomes
• Quantify business impact where possible

This uncovers the full value of efficiency improvements.

Step 3: Prioritise what to measure

Don't dilute your focus with too many metrics. Trying to measure everything will create noise instead of clarity.

Be selective with your metrics, and prioritise measuring things that will help you move towards your goals.

Think about:

• What decisions do you need to make?
• What information (and metrics) do you need to make those decisions?

Evolve your measurement approach and priorities over time, as your capability grows.

Examples in action

A $200K investment that saved $1.4M a year

Before: No one could clearly show if spending on marketing automation was worth it. Teams couldn't agree on whether to invest in proactive customer communications.

After: Measuring both customer experience and business metrics showed that sending timely, relevant updates to customers was one of the top three influencers of customer satisfaction. Better yet, these updates cut customer inquiries by 60%, with each inquiry costing $42 for the business to respond.

Result: The $200K spent on improving customer communications saved $1.4M yearly and boosted customer satisfaction by 12%. Both customer service and finance teams celebrated the win.

Avoiding a $300K mistake

Before: Everyone assumed answering phone calls faster would make customers happier. The company was ready to spend $300K to reduce wait times.

After: When they measured what mattered to customers, they discovered faster phone response ranked only 8th in importance. Customers cared about other things much more.

Result: The company redirected the $300K to improvements customers actually valued, avoiding a costly investment that wouldn't have made much difference.

The bottom line

A connected measurement approach unlocks continuous improvement. It helps you:

• Identify initiatives that lift both satisfaction and efficiency.
• Make targeted, evidence-based adjustments.
• Align teams around shared, high-impact goals.

This is the power of connected metrics. What seems like “just a CX initiative” becomes a strategic business decision, also helping to drive efficiency.

The real “sweet spot” lies in understanding how human experience, operational performance, and financial outcomes reinforce one another. Connect those dots, and you gain the clarity to invest in what truly works for your customers and your organisation.

At The Customer Experience Company, we help organisations design measurement frameworks that connect the dots between experience, efficiency and outcomes. Want to learn more? Contact us.