Customer Experience (CX) professionals must prove the value of customer experience for their organizations now more than ever.
Failure to make the monetary connection between efforts to measure, monitor, improve and manage customer experience can have detrimental impact on funding for these critical workstreams and efforts which may lead to drastic personal consequences for the individuals responsible for managing CX.
There are a few fundamental CX truths that we hold to be self-evident. For instance, we know that providing outstanding customer experience, customer service and products builds loyalty, fosters customer retention, and drives new customer acquisition. We also know that customers will not tolerate poor customer experience, customer service or substandard products. PWC quantified these accepted truths showing that 73% of US consumers cite customer experience as a very important factor in their purchase decision process. More importantly, most US consumers (59%) will walk away from a brand/organization after living through multiple bad experiences with nearly one-in-five consumers breaking-up with a brand after just one bad experience.
Despite the general acceptance of these facts, simply knowing that we need to treat customers well to keep them is not enough. To keep corporate interest in CX efforts and investment flowing, CX professionals must show their executive sponsors the money. Rightfully so, investors want to know what they are getting in return for their efforts and capital. As companies mature in their approach and strategy around customer experience, the simple truths have lost their potency.
So why have these truths that no one really disputes come under such scrutiny?
Over several years of working with clients across a diverse set of industries to identify the key components of their CX the answer falls in one of three common themes – inertia, siloed organizational cultures and insufficient support. Regardless of how your challenges are categorized, the resulting question is the same – what is the value of our customer experience efforts?
The answer executive sponsors are looking for filters through a few finite options with the final stop in a translation of CX into currency. Those finite stops could follow a few routes focused on the key pillars of business:
- New customer acquisition = new revenue
- Current customer retention/loyalty/increased share of wallet or basket = guaranteed repeat revenue and organic growth in revenue
- Reduction of overhead costs = saved revenue
As many CX professionals can likely relate, while our leaderships’ “show me the money” request is reasonable and justified, it’s not a simple equation to solve. The stakes are high in getting it right, after all, we have accepted the premise that CX impacts business performance. When we are asked to prove our program’s value, we are also in very real terms being asked to justify our own personal value. While this is a bit daunting, the math is there and conducting the analysis will benefit the CX professionals, their executives and the entire organization when done thoroughly and correctly.
Big Village’s CX analytics team works with our clients to translate their organization’s CX into currency. Rooted in predictive analytics and modeling, we identify the necessary components/inputs to the overall equation. We will then work with your team and your organization’s culture to identify challenges and opportunities to advance your CX efforts to move beyond defining the current value or ROI of your CX efforts to enhance efforts for maximum return.
Customer experience analytics support strategic planning across all areas of the business.
The key benefit of translating current CX into currency is that everyone in the organization can understand and see the critical role CX plays in business outcomes. CX is not a siloed discipline. It stretches horizontally across the organization, whether or not the culture recognizes that now or needs some guidance to get there. Our approach is customized to our client’s unique situation, culture, and goals. Our team speaks CX and truly empathizes with CX professionals and the challenges they face daily. As an extension of your team, we are here to help you prove the value of your programs and work with you to advance CX maturity to continue to enhance the value.
Sounds good right? But let’s remember we are being asked to show the value or the money connected to CX, and we are working under constraints of limited resources, support, CX understanding and silos. This is why we created a simulator to help guide efforts, direct the conversation, and tell your organization’s comprehensive customer experience possibility story. We will map your customer’s journey, identify the critical visible and hidden touchpoints of CX along that journey and uncover the impact of each on overall experience. We will then connect that overall experience to business metrics, customer behavioral data and financial performance. Not only will this provide you the ability to show the incremental value of improved CX on business outcomes (retention, new customer acquisition, reduced cost, etc.), it will show the cost of declining performance.
So, the next time you are asked to prove your/your customer experience program’s value, know that you are not alone. Big Village is ready to translate CX into currency and partner with your organization to not only define but improve the overall value of your CX.
To get a better understanding of the tools we use at Big Village, we have prepared a summary and are happy to share a virtual coffee while discussing your situation. Click here to view our CX analytics catalog.