The Digital Experience Score (DXS ) · for measuring customer experience online. ... processed into smart experience metrics based on categories including distance, velocity, movement,

The Digital Experience Score (DXS®):

The Revolutionary New Metric for Measuring Experiences Online

W W W . D E C I B E L I N S I G H T . C O M

2The Digital Experience Score (DXS): the Revolutionary New Metric for Measuring Experiences Online

Contents04 Introduction

04 YourCustomer’sExperienceDefinestheSuccessofYourBusiness

05 If You Can’t Measure it, You Can’t Manage it

06 MakingCustomerExperienceaScience

08 IntroducingtheDigitalExperienceScore(DXS)

09 How DXS is Calculated

09 The Digital Experience Framework

11 How to Improve Your DXS: The Five Pillars of Digital Experience

11 TheNavigationExperienceScore

12 TheFrustrationScore

14 TheEngagementScore

15 TheTechnicalExperienceScore

16 TheFormExperienceScore

17 Conclusion

17 Putting it All Together

17 WhatDXSMeansforYourBusiness

19 DiscoverYourDXS

3Digital Experience Transformation: Beyond Conversion Optimization

Your Customer’s Experience Defines the Success of Your Business


IntroductionYour Customer’s Experience Defines the Success of Your Business

Customer experience. Passionate speeches imploring its importance echo across every

marketing conference around the world.

With $62bn lost each year by businesses due to poor experiences1, perhaps that’s not

surprising.Bynow,weshouldallknowhowcrucialitistoprovidegoodcustomerexperiences

online. If your company isn’t focusing its efforts on the huge opportunity represented by

providing the best customer experience, you can be sure your competition is.

In today’s market, the battle for providing the best customer experience online is well and

truly on.

Buthowcancompaniesimprovetheirofferingwhenthenatureof‘experience’issoelusive,

and the attempt to measure it so complicated and seemingly subjective? How can companies

progress when they have no visibility into what works and what doesn’t?

1‘DecibelExperienceTransformation:BeyondConversionOptimization’,https://www.decibelinsight.com/digital-experience-transformation/


Introduction

If You Can’t Measure it, You Can’t Manage it

Experienceissubjective,personal,qualitativeinnature.Thismakesitdifficulttoquantify–

especially across your digital offering, where visibility into how customers behave and feel is

obscured by a transaction that takes place remotely on a personal device.

Butifyouhavenorealvisibilityintothenatureorqualityofcustomerexperienceonyour

websites and apps, you have limited hope of making it any better.

To arm yourself in the battle for providing the best customer experience online, you may

checkvariousreports,sampledcustomersurveys,andlookatmetricslikeNPS,bouncerates,

conversion rates, and dwell time in an attempt to understand how customers behave and feel.

But,evenwithallthisvaryingdata,youknowthere’ssomethingmissing.

‘What’sthecustomer’sexperienceactuallylike?’

Saysomeonebuysacoatfromyouronlinestore.Doesthismeantheyhadagoodexperience

on your website or app? Or did they just really want the coat? Will they buy from you again?

Unless each customer actively tells you the answers to these questions in rich, accurate detail

–somethingbothhighlyimprobableandimpractical–youhavenorealwayofknowing.

At Decibel, we’re changing this.

“If you have no real visibility into the nature or quality of customer experience on your websites and apps, you have limited hope of making it any better”


Introduction

Making Customer Experience a Science

Over the past few years, here at Decibel we’ve dedicated our energy to building the world’s

firstDigitalExperienceIntelligencePlatform:aplatformdesignedspecificallytoaddressthe

knowledge gap enterprises have when it comes to understanding and improving

digital experiences.

Our mission is to make the measurement of digital customer experience an objective science

–wheretheimprovementofexperiencesneedn’tbebasedontrialanderror,butonclear,

evidentialfindings.

We’vedevelopedsmartnewtechnologythatautomaticallyidentifiesthestateofmindofall

visitors. This has manifested itself in features that alert digital teams to user behaviors that

indicate frustration, engagement and confusion across their digital properties2.

Now,we’retakingittothenextlevel.We’reprovidingcompanieswiththefirst

comprehensive,quantifiablemeasureofcustomerexperienceonline:theDigitalExperience

Score,orDXS®.

2‘RevealingDigitalBehavior:ApplyingDataScienceto2.2BillionUserSessions’https://www.decibelinsight.com/reports/revealing-digital-behavior-data-science-2-billion-user-sessions


The Digital Experience Score (DXS) is the first ever all-encompassing metric for measuring customer experience online


Introduction

Introducing the Digital Experience Score (DXS)

TheDigitalExperienceScore(DXS)isthefirsteverall-encompassingmetricformeasuring

customer experience online. It provides objective measurement of customer experiences on

your websites, web applications, and native apps.

Poweredbymachine-learning,Decibel’sproprietaryalgorithmsprocesshundredsof

smartnewdigitalinteractionmetrics–purpose-builttomeasureexperienceonline–and

automatically calculate an experience score for every visit to your websites and apps.

TheDXSisbasedonfivepillarsofdigitalexperience:navigation,engagement,frustration,

technicalandformexperience.Reporting-wise,itrollsupfromindividualsessions,to

individualpages,totheentirewebsiteorapp–soyouhavevisibilityintoopportunitiesfor

improvement at every level of the online customer experience.

WiththeDigitalExperienceScore,companiesnolongerneedtosiftthroughdozensof

reports or maintain custom KPIs to track the quality of experience on their digital properties.

Instead,theyhaveago-to,universalmetricthatcanbesegmentedacrosstheirentireoffering

andaudienceforimmediateinsightintowherethebiggestwinslie–allwithouthavingtoask

customers a single question.

ThisreportoutlineshowtheDigitalExperienceScoreiscalculated,discussesthefive

experience pillars that go into it, and advises on how companies can use it to understand and

improve experiences on their websites, applications and native apps.


How DXS is calculatedThe Digital Experience Framework

DXStakesthemanualworkoutofdigitalexperienceanalytics;buthowisitcalculated?

Startingfromthecollectionofdigitalexperiencedataandculminatingwithanactionable

peakattheDigitalExperienceScore,theDigitalExperienceFrameworkcanbethoughtofas

pyramid-likeinstructure.Thediagrambelowillustratesthis.

Fundamental to the Digital Experience

Framework is the collection of every

customer interaction across each of your

digital properties. Decibel captures

every moment of interaction

within a session, from mouse

movements, hovers and

touches, to scrolling,

device rotations and

pinches–allthe

while associating

these events

with the

underlying context of the content being viewed. Moving a level up, this experience data is

processed into smart experience metrics based on categories including distance, velocity,

movement, focus, and hesitation.

The enriched data feeds our behavior detection algorithms, the next level of the framework,

whereDecibelautomaticallyalertsteamstospecificuserbehaviorsthatinturnindicatethe

visitor’sstateofmind–frustration,engagement,orconfusion.Thesebehaviorsincludemulti-

10TheDigitalExperienceScore(DXS):theRevolutionaryNewMetricforMeasuringExperiencesOnline

How DXS is Calculated

clicks/touches3, bird’s nests4, select and copy5, as well as scroll engagement6 and mouse

reading behaviors7.

Thisintelligenceformsthebasisofeachexperiencepillar,whichultimatelyfeedthefinal

DigitalExperienceScore.Indeed,DXSisnotjustoneopaquenumber;Decibelexposesthe

workingsofthecalculationwiththefiveexperiencepillars,enablingyoutodiagnoseareas

that require most attention.

Focusingonimprovingthescoresofeachexperiencepillar–navigation,frustration,

engagement,aswellastechnicalandformexperience–isthemosteffectivewaytoimprove

experiences on websites and apps overall.

3‘https://www.decibelinsight.com/digital-experience-glossary/multiclick-behavior

4‘https://www.decibelinsight.com/digital-experience-glossary/birds-nest-behavior

5‘https://www.decibelinsight.com/digital-experience-glossary/select-copy-behavior

6‘https://www.decibelinsight.com/digital-experience-glossary/scroll-engagement-behavior

7‘https://www.decibelinsight.com/digital-experience-glossary/mouse-reading-behavior


How to improve your DXS: The five pillars of digital experience

The Navigation Experience Score Is the customer journey smooth?

The quality of navigation is one of those things that we only notice when it goes wrong.

Whensimpleandefficient,wetakeitforgranted;whenit’sbad,theinjusticeburnsthrough

our veins.

Sayyou’replanningavisittoyourfriend’shouse.Yougetinyourcar,hittheroad,andarrivein

goodtime.Allprettysmooth.You’dratethatasapainless,maybeevenenjoyablejourney.But

whathappenswhenthere’saloadoftrafficontheroads?Youtakediversions,haveflashes

ofroadrage,andendupatyourdestinationmuchlaterthanplanned–ifatall.Yourratingfor

thatjourneywouldbethroughthefloor.

And so it is when navigating through websites and apps. When we instinctively follow a

natural path, we’re almost on autopilot. It’s when confronted by weird, unintuitive layouts that

our experience is suddenly jarred, and the inadequacy of the design laid bare. If we need to

jump back and forth between pages, spend time using footer links to get around, or repeatedly

usetextsearchtofindrelevantcontentorproducts,chancesarethenavigationofthewebsite

or app could be improved.

TheNavigationExperienceScoreiscalculatedinDecibelwiththeseconsiderationsinmind.

Just as a car journey with no forced diversions is rated highly by a human, so a seamless

“The quality of navigation is one of those things that we only notice when it goes wrong.”



journeythroughawebsiteisrewardedandscoredhighlybyouralgorithm.Segmentingthe

Navigationscoreacrossyouraudience–usersondifferentdevices,forexample–allowsfor

efficientidentificationofareasthatneedwork.

The Frustration Score Is the customer annoyed?

Frustrationisn’tbinary;it’saprogressivephenomenon.Justasyourheartratetakesawhileto

get back to its resting rhythm after exercise, so your anger levels take a while to reduce after

aflashoffrustration.Justoneprovocativeinstancecanruinanentireexperience.

Sayyou’relookingatapairofshoesonline.Afteramoment’sconsideration,youconclude

that, yes, they’re very much you. You add them to your basket, but the button’s unresponsive.

Your eyes narrow. You hammer away at the button with your mouse, but still no luck.

And then, suddenly, 17 pairs of the shoes are added to your basket at once. Already annoyed,

yourangersoarsasyourealizeyoumustgothroughandindividuallyremoveeachitem,one

by one.

Youstillgothroughwiththepurchase,becauseyoureallywanttheshoes–butwhatan

annoying experience. You won’t be shopping here again if you can avoid it.

Decibel’sFrustrationScoreactslikeaheartratemonitorforuserfrustration.Eachinstance

offrustration–abird’snestbehavior,amulti-click/touch,erraticscrolling–impactstheend

result,andouralgorithmintelligentlycalculatesafinalscorebasedonthesefactorsandmore.

The score rolls up from a session level to a page level, so you can instantly see the pages

causing most visitor frustration across your website and app.

Trackingfrustrationkeepspulseacrossyourdigitalproperties,immediatelyflaggingany

areas that require your attention.

“Tracking frustration keeps pulse across your digital properties, immediately flagging any areas that require your attention.”


The Decibel Engagement Score provides a holistic measure of how engaged a user is online, weighing up a host of metrics relating to the content on the page



The Engagement Score Is the customer captivated?

Imagine a library wants to judge how engaged its visitors are. They decide the metric

they’lltiethisbacktois‘BookDuration’:thelengthoftimesomeoneissatwithanopen

book in front of them. You and your friend visit the library, and each sit down with a copy of

Heidegger’sBeingandTimeforalight,fun,easymid-afternoonread.Youopenthefirstpage,

and the librarians start their stopwatches.

Youbeginreading…‘TheNecessityofanExplicitRetrieveoftheQuestionofBeing…’

you recoil and, leaving the book open on the table, immediately take your phone out and

lose yourself in Candy Crush for over an hour. Your friend, by contrast, pores over the

impenetrabletextfortwentyminutes–browfurrowingwitheachurgentturnofthepage–

before suffering an existential crisis and going home.

AsyoufinallytearyourselfawayfromCandyCrushandexitthelibrary,thelibrarians

congratulateyouforbeingthreetimesmoreengagedwithBeingandTimethanyourfriend.

‘YourBookDurationwashuge–youmustloveHeidegger!’

‘WhoonearthisHeidegger?’youlaughback.

Thelibrarians’mistakeinjudgingyoutobemoreengagedthanyourfriendliesinusingBook

Duration as an accurate representation of engagement. If they’d judged the amount of time

you spent actively holding the book, as well as your reading and page turning behavior, they’d

haverightlyconcludedthatyourfriendwasfarmoreengagedthanyouwere–andthat,in

fact, you weren’t really engaged at all.

JustasthelibrariansattachtoomuchimportancetoBookDurationasarepresentation

of engagement with a book, so digital teams can attach too much importance to Page or

SessionDurationwhenitcomestoengagementwithawebsiteorapp.

A user could have a tab open on your website and then go make themselves a coffee, or

watchTV,orgoonathree-hourwalk–ortheycouldinstantlyscrolltothebottomofapage

and navigate away. They’re not engaged at all.

TheDecibelEngagementScoreprovidesaholisticmeasureofhowengagedauserisonline.

Itweighsupahostofmetricsrelatingtothecontentonthepage–includingfocustime,scroll

depth,aswellasuserbehaviorslikemousereadingandscrollengagement–andquantifies

this into a single score, offering a much more sophisticated and complete look at engagement

than the traditional view of page duration.



LikewiththeFrustrationScore,whiletheEngagementScoreiscalculatedonasessionby

session basis, it rolls up to the page level, so digital teams can see exactly where they need to

focus their attention.

The Technical Experience Score Does the experience load promptly without errors?

Anenginehasmanyconstituentparts.Olderenginesareinefficient,spewingoutpollution,

consumingmorepower,andareabigturnoffinthemodernworld.Finely-tuned,clean

engines that perform well in even the most hideous conditions are the way forward.

Andsoitiswithwebsites.Poorlyoptimizedwebsitesbuiltonoldertechnology,witha

larger demand on resources are a big turn off for visitors. Our report on website and app

performance found that, on average, slow loaders have a 72% higher bounce rate than fast

loaders,view68%fewerpages,andhavesignificantlylowerfocus8.

The Technical Experience score judges all the constituent parts of your website to

ensurethey’rerunningasefficientlyaspossible.Beitinitialloadtime,JavaScripterrors,

responsiveness–ouralgorithmislikeathoroughengineinspectorthatratesyourwebsite’s

technicalperformance–andoffersafrankdiagnosticreportofthefindings.

Liketheotherscores,theTechnicalExperienceScorecanbesegmentedacrossyouraudience

and rolled up into website and app pages, instantly showing you areas that could do with

some tweaking under the hood.

“Slow loaders have a 72% higher bounce rate than fast loaders, view 68% fewer pages, and have significantly lower focus.”

8‘HowPerformanceImpactsUserBehavioracrossDevices’,https://www.decibelinsight.com/reports/load-times-impact-on-user-behavior



The Form Experience Score Does the customer have trouble filling in their details?

Nobodywakesupandthinks,‘Youknowwhat,Ireallywanttofilloutaformtoday.’It’snot

a fun or stimulating activity. Unfortunately for all involved, however, forms are one of the

onlywaystoexchangeinformationandsecuretransactionsonline.Inflictingthemonvisitors

across websites and apps is thus a necessary evil.

Forms can range from relatively painless and intuitive, to merely annoying, to downright

heinous.We’veallbeenthere:youpainstakinglyfilloutyourdetailsonawebsiteorapp,only

foranunannouncedformvalidationerrortotriggerapagerefresh,andblankfieldsstareback

at you, daring you to enter your details into them again…

Badformsmeanfewerimmediateconversions;buttheyalsoerodetrustinabrandand

impact negatively on customer loyalty and lifetime value. For instance, if you have a terrible

experiencewhileenteringyourcarddetails–oneofthemosttrustingactivitiesyoucan

performonline–you’renotgoingtorushbacktowhicheverwebsiteorappletyoudown.

Intuitive forms, by contrast, put the user at ease, and facilitate both an association of trust and

a good lasting impression of your brand, encouraging repeat visits and conversions.

TheFormExperienceScorecalculatesaratingforeachformonyourwebsiteorapp.

Beittechnicaldetailslikeresponsiveness,thequalityofformvalidationerrors,oruser

actionsincludinghesitationandabandonment–Decibel’salgorithmweighsallrelevant

considerations when it comes to judging the performance of your online forms, so you can

see areas that need attention at a glance.

“Bad forms mean fewer immediate conversions; but they also erode trust in a brand and impact negatively on customer loyalty and lifetime value.”


ConclusionPutting it All Together

TheDigitalExperienceScoreisfedbyeachexperiencepillar–theweightingofwhichis

intelligentlycalculatedaccordingtoitsinfluenceoneachcustomer’sindividualjourney.In

otherwords,DXSiscontext-aware:ifavisitordoesn’tencounteranyformsontheirjourney,

forexample,theirFormExperienceScorewon’tberelevanttothefinalDXS.

Likewise,ifacustomerbrowsespagesthatdon’trequiremuchengagement–aquick

checkoutfunnel,forexample,wherethefocusisonconversion–thenthiswillbereflectedin

theweightingoftheEngagementScorewhenitcomestocalculatingthefinalDXS.

What DXS Means for Your Business

TheDigitalExperienceScoreoffersanall-encompassingratingofdigitalexperience.Itequips

companies with the way to benchmark experiences online, and can be tracked over time

as a key performance indicator for your digital properties.

Aswellasenablingcompaniestocomprehensivelymeasureexperiences,DXSisapredictor

of growth across your digital offering. Indeed, providing good experiences to your customers

online establishes trust, increases brand loyalty, encourages repeat business, and ultimately

increasesmarketshareandrevenue.AhighDXS,therefore,meansyourcompanyisripe

forgrowth–anddrivingmoretrafficwith,say,digitaladvertisingcampaignsisasensible

investment.AlowDXS,meanwhile,suggestsadvertisingspendwillbewasted:customers

will arrive, have a bad experience, and not return. Resources would thus be better spent on

optimizingon-siteandin-appexperiences.

“Providing good experiences to your customers online establishes trust, increases brand loyalty, encourages repeat business, and ultimately increases market share and revenue.”


Conclusion

And to see exactly howtooptimizethoseon-siteandin-appexperiences,DXScanbebroken

down into its constituent parts, allowing companies to truly get to the heart of the nature of

experiences on their websites and apps, and understand how to improve them.

AswellashavingtheabilitytoseetheworkingsoftheDXSpyramidwithaccesstoindividual

experience pillars, digital teams can granularly segment the scores across their entire

audience and offering. This means companies can have solid, simple, immediate answers to

formerlyawkwardquestions,suchasthefollowing:

• Do customers coming from search have a better navigational experience than those

coming direct? Why?

• Do tablet users have a better technical score than mobile users? What’s

causing this?

• Which stage of our checkout process causes most frustration?

• Which pages are visitors most engaged with, and how can I replicate this

engagement for underperforming pages?

After serving the answers to these questions, Decibel’s Digital Experience Intelligence

platformprovidesawholehostoftoolsforfurtherforensicanalysis–includingsession

replays,heatmaps,andpagediscovery–sodigitalteamscanseewhyexperiencesare

playing out the way they are, and understand exactly what they can do to improve things.

So,aswellasgivingyoufullvisibilityintohowyourdigitalpropertiesareperformingwith

DXS–andguidanceonwheretoprioritize–Decibelequipsyouwiththetoolstoimprove

them too.


Conclusion

Discover Your DXS

TheDigitalExperienceScoreisthefirstuniversal,comprehensive,objectivemeasureofdigital

experience. It enables businesses to benchmark and report on customer experience at every

digital touchpoint, and allows digital teams to quickly get to the heart of issues across their

digitaloffering,fromhoninginonanomaloussessionsandquirkstozoomingoutforthebig

picture across their entire stack.

Bykeepingpulseofcustomerexperienceonline,youcanbesureyou’rearmingyourselfas

well as you can in the battle for providing the best digital customer experience.

TodiscoveryourDigitalExperienceScore,bookademowithDecibeltodayat:

decibelinsight.com/demo.

Integrating Digital Experience

TheintelligentinsightprovidedbyDXSisnotlimited totheDecibelDigitalExperience

Intelligenceplatform.AsanAPI-Firstproduct,Decibeliswellplacedtointegrateintothe

broaderdisciplineofcustomerexperienceoptimizationacrossacompany’sentire marketing

stack.

Inpractice,thismeansDXS–aswellasanyofitsunderlyingpillarsandmetrics–canbe

passed from Decibel into DMP or CDP, informing and improving decisions around

marketing, personalization–evenguidingtheprovisionofservicefromcallcenters.Itcan

alsobemodelledbyyourdatascientistsin-house.

Additionally,Decibel’sabilitytoacceptthird-partydataopensopportunitiestofurther

optimizethemeasurementofexperienceinlinewiththespecificproductsorservices

offeredby your websites and apps.

WithDXSandDecibel,you’reempoweredtoadduniqueintelligenceandinsighttoyour

entire approach to and strategy for customer experience.


This ebook was brought to you by digital experience analytics platform Decibel Insight.

Decibel Insight reveals exactly how users behave on websites and apps, making it easy for enterprise

businesses to quantify and improve the customer experience across every digital touchpoint.

Poweredbymachinelearning,ouraward-winningtechnologyprocesseshundredsofrevolutionarybehavioral

metrics–frommousemovementsanddevicerotations,topopupsanderrors–capturinganaccuratepicture

ofeveryuser’son-pageexperience.Theworld’slargestbrands–includingLego,GeneralMotors,Tesco,Credit

Suisse,BritishAirways,andAllStateInsurance–useDecibelInsighttopinpointopportunitiestoimprovethe

customerexperienceandcollaborateacrosstheirorganizationstoputthecustomerfirst.

Copyright © Decibel Insight 2018, All Rights Reserved

Revealing Digital Behavior

www.decibelinsight.com | [email protected]

The Digital Experience Score (DXS ) · for measuring customer experience online. ... processed into smart experience metrics based on categories including distance, velocity, movement,

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