Think your customer experience (CX) is up to scratch? Your customers might disagree. Expectations are shifting faster than ever, and businesses that don’t keep up risk losing customers to those that do.
When we talk about CX, we're not just talking about a smooth interaction, we’re talking about consistently meeting and exceeding evolving customer demands to build loyalty, retention, and revenue.
But how do you know if you’re actually delivering great CX? That’s where benchmarking comes in. Without measuring where you stand — against competitors, industry standards, and customer expectations — you’re flying blind. Benchmarking gives you a reality check, helping you identify what’s working, what’s not, and where to improve.Â
If you’re feeling the pressure to level up your CX but aren’t sure where to start, you’re in the right place. In this guide, we’ll show you how to measure CX effectively, compare it against meaningful benchmarks, and turn insights into real, impactful improvements.
Customer experience benchmarking is the process of measuring your CX performance against industry standards, competitors, or your own past performance. It provides a clear picture of where you stand and helps set realistic, data-driven goals for improvement and optimization. Instead of guessing whether your customer experience is strong enough, benchmarking gives you actionable insights to track progress and make informed decisions.
A customer support team might use benchmarking to compare its average response time to industry benchmarks to see if it’s meeting customer expectations. While a home services provider could use it to analyze net promoter score (NPS) trends to identify which locations deliver exceptional service and which need improvement. Even a SaaS company might track customer effort scores to refine its onboarding process and reduce friction.
By leveraging benchmarking data, businesses can identify strengths, uncover weak spots, and take strategic action to improve customer satisfaction, retention, and overall experience.
If you’re not measuring your customer experience against a standard, how do you know if you’re falling behind? Benchmarking helps uncover hidden inefficiencies, friction points, and missed opportunities in the customer journey. These insights can mean the difference between a loyal customer and a churned one.
Example of using benchmarking
Imagine a support team notices a steady decline in its customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores. Customers aren’t complaining more than usual, and nothing major has changed in their processes. So, what’s going wrong? By benchmarking their performance against industry leaders, they discover that their average response time is significantly slower than competitors. Customers aren’t upset about the quality of support, they’re frustrated by how long it takes to get help. Armed with this insight, the company prioritizes faster response times, leading to improved satisfaction and better retention.
Benchmarking delivers a range of benefits that go beyond simply knowing where you stand:
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to customer experience benchmarking. The right method, or combination of methods, depends on your company’s goals, industry, and specific CX challenges. Most businesses use multiple benchmarking strategies to get a well-rounded view of their performance.
The most common types of CX benchmarking include:
Internal benchmarking involves comparing CX performance across different teams, departments, or time periods within the same organization. It helps track progress, identify best practices, and set internal performance goals. For example, a multi-location dental provider compares NPS scores across clinics to identify top-performing locations and replicate their best practices elsewhere. A single location business might compare their NPS score year-over-year or month-over-month to track changes in satisfaction.
Competitive benchmarking measures your CX against direct competitors, revealing how you stack up in key areas like customer satisfaction, response times, and service quality. This type of benchmarking highlights competitive advantages and areas where you need to improve.
For example, a pest control business could compare its customer effort score (CES) with industry rivals and discover its billing process is more complicated than that of competitors, leading to targeted improvements.
Industry benchmarking compares your CX metrics to broader industry standards or averages. It provides context for what "good" looks like in your sector and helps set realistic targets. For example, a SaaS company could evaluate its customer churn rate against industry averages and realize it needs to refine its digital experience to improve retention.
Best-in-class benchmarking goes beyond direct competitors, analyzing CX leaders across industries to adopt world-class practices. This approach helps businesses innovate and elevate their customer experience beyond industry norms. E.g. An auto services business could study how top e-commerce brands personalize customer interactions, and apply similar strategies to improve the customer experience.
By leveraging different benchmarking types, you can gain a clearer picture of your CX performance and develop strategies to meet and exceed customer expectations.
No single metric can fully capture customer experience performance. To get a complete picture, track multiple key performance indicators (KPIs) that measure satisfaction, loyalty, effort, and financial impact. By benchmarking these metrics against industry standards, competitors, or past performance, you can uncover strengths, identify gaps, and take action to improve CX.Â
Here are some of the most important CX benchmarking metrics:
Net promoter score measures customer loyalty by asking: “How likely are you to recommend our company to a friend or colleague?” on a scale of 0 to 10. It helps businesses understand how many promoters (loyal fans) versus detractors (unhappy customers) they have.
What benchmarking reveals: A company might compare its NPS against competitors and find it lags behind, prompting an investigation into what industry leaders do differently to create more promoters.
Ultimate guide to NPS:Â
Customer satisfaction score gauges how satisfied customers are with a specific interaction, product, or service. It typically asks: “How satisfied were you with your experience?” with responses on a scale (e.g., 1-5 or 1-7).
What benchmarking reveals: A customer support team could benchmark CSAT scores against industry standards and discover that while satisfaction with technical support is high, satisfaction with response time is low, signaling a need for process improvements.
Customer effort score measures how easy or difficult it is for customers to complete a task, like resolving an issue or completing a purchase. The lower the effort, the better the experience.
What benchmarking reveals: A SaaS company could compare its CES scores against industry averages and realize its onboarding process is more complex than competitors, leading to usability enhancements.
Retention rate tracks the percentage of customers who continue doing business with a company over a given period. A high retention rate often indicates strong CX and customer loyalty.
What benchmarking reveals: A subscription service might find its retention rate is below industry benchmarks, leading to an investigation into whether churn is driven by poor customer support, pricing issues, or product dissatisfaction.
‍
Custom lifetime value measures the total revenue a business expects from a customer over their entire relationship. Companies with high CLV typically deliver strong customer experiences that keep people engaged long-term.
What benchmarking reveals: A company could benchmark CLV against competitors and find it’s lower than industry leaders, indicating an opportunity to improve post-purchase engagement and upsell strategies.
Customer reviews on platforms like Google, Trustpilot, G2, or Yelp provide qualitative and quantitative insights into CX performance. As expected, a high volume of positive reviews suggests strong customer satisfaction, while recurring complaints highlight areas for improvement.
What benchmarking reveals: A financial services company may see that competitors with higher customer ratings on Trustpilot tend to emphasize faster response times and personalized service. By benchmarking against these industry leaders, the company can identify gaps — such as long wait times or unclear communication — and implement targeted improvements to boost customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Benchmarking customer experience sounds straightforward: measure, compare, improve. But in reality, teams often struggle with data overload, unclear priorities, or the challenge of turning insights into meaningful action. Without the right approach, benchmarking can become just another report that sits in a dashboard rather than a tool for real CX improvement.
To make benchmarking work for your business, follow these best practices:
Customer expectations shift constantly, so benchmarking should be an ongoing, omnichannel process, not a once-a-year project. Regularly tracking CX metrics ensures you catch trends early, respond to emerging challenges, and avoid falling behind competitors.
Best practice: Set up automated feedback loops through NPS, CSAT, and CES surveys so you always have up-to-date data to benchmark against industry standards.
Data is only valuable if it leads to action. Many companies get stuck analyzing numbers without implementing real change. The key is to identify patterns and use valuable insights to drive improvements.
Best practice: If benchmarking reveals slow response times are hurting satisfaction, focus on streamlining support workflows rather than spending months dissecting the data further.Â
Looking at company-wide CX benchmarks can be helpful, but drilling down into specific customer segments, regions, or touchpoints provides much richer insights.
Best practice: Instead of just benchmarking your overall NPS, break it down by location, customer tier, or interaction type to pinpoint where improvements are needed most.
Customers don’t compare your experience only to direct competitors, they compare it to the best service they’ve ever received, no matter the industry. Looking at CX leaders outside your space can spark fresh ideas.
Best practice: A bank might study how top e-commerce brands personalize customer interactions and apply similar tactics to improve digital banking experiences.
CX data shouldn’t live only in executive reports. The people closest to customers (support reps, sales teams, contact center employees, store employees) should have access to benchmarking insights and be empowered to drive improvements.
Best practice: Share benchmark data in real-time through dashboards or team meetings, and encourage frontline staff to contribute ideas based on their customer interactions.
Customer experience benchmarking is only valuable if it leads to action, and that’s where AskNicely comes in. As a customer experience program designed for service businesses, AskNicely helps teams go beyond tracking metrics by turning insights into frontline action.
With real-time customer feedback, team analytics, and automated coaching, AskNicely makes it easy to benchmark CX performance, identify improvement areas, and empower frontline teams to deliver consistently exceptional experiences.Â
Businesses using AskNicely don’t just measure CX, they actively improve it, leading to higher customer satisfaction, retention, and revenue growth. See how they do it in our customer stories below:Â
Frontline accountability and appreciation: The secret weapon driving awesome CX at Moxie
Big Blue Bug Solutions achieves new heights with AskNicely
%20AskNicely.jpg)
%20(1).png)