Effective User Experience: Cost of Support Per User (SCPU) Return on Investment

Effective User Experience: Cost of Support Per User (SCPU) Return on Investment

In a recent article series published under the UX Daily tab on our website, Futurelab provided an example of calculating the Return on Investment (ROI) for Customer Experience (CX) initiatives. The example used the Support Costs Per User (SCPU) as a key metric, demonstrating a decrease in SCPU from $2 to $1 per month per customer.

The direct costs associated with SCPU calculation include customer care wages, shipping costs for replacements, and so on. Indirect costs, on the other hand, include office costs, utility costs, and other expenses that the customer care department is responsible for.

This example project is expected to pay for itself in just two months. After covering its initial costs, the project is projected to generate a net return of $10,000 a month for every month the SCPU remains at $1.

However, it's important to note that this example is a simplification of ROI calculations using SCPU. For a more comprehensive understanding, we recommend reading the remaining parts of the series, published on Monday and Tuesday.

While the article does highlight the savings from the SCPU decrease, it does not discuss the impact of this decrease on customer retention, customer spend, or customer loyalty. It's crucial to ensure that cost savings do not negatively affect these areas.

It's also worth mentioning that every product sold requires support, even simple ones like spoons. Therefore, the SCPU can be a valuable metric for ROI calculations, especially when the total number of users remains the same or increases.

However, a sudden dramatic drop in the number of users should be a major warning sign when using SCPU for ROI calculations. This could indicate a problem with the product or service that may need to be addressed.

Unfortunately, the article does not provide specific details about the improvement project or the calculation of indirect costs for SCPU. For more information on these topics and other aspects of calculating the ROI of UX work, we encourage you to read the entire series.