5 essential tips for starting out in CX
It is a given that establishing a CX program, in tandem with a customer-centric culture, will help you become more connected to your customers and deliver positive business outcomes. Right?
Well, as straightforward as that may seem, the reality of implementing a CX program and deriving value from it can be somewhat different.
While we all set out with the best intentions, our experience has shown the most common things that differentiate successful CX Programs from others are:
1. Get buy-in from senior management
While you may have great aspirations to get a CX program up and running, you will quite likely encounter some roadblocks along the way. Your journey will be a lot smoother with the support of senior management early on.
There are several ways to do this.
A good starting point is to align your CX aspirations with the broader business goals. Consider this in the context of your business model. A subscription model, for instance, will rely on customer acquisition and retention, so try to align your CX goals accordingly.
Another approach is to find (and leverage) your CEO’s passions. For example, is your CEO driven by competition? If so, perhaps talk about competitors who have launched CX programs and are enjoying growth.
Also consider highlighting the opportunity cost of doing nothing. Keep in mind that a CX program is not just about increasing revenue but also about decreasing cost and minimising loss. Cost to serve, for example, can be reduced with a well-structured CX program.
2. Embed CX across the entire business
Even if you have buy-in from senior stakeholders, it is important that your CX program is embedded across your business. If it isn’t, it will be difficult to take action to improve experience.
One way to do this is to appoint customer advocates in each department who can champion the voice of the customer and who are empowered to make changes to improve experience.
All departments should be customer-focussed – not just the customer experience, customer service, marketing or insights departments.
3. Focus on taking action, not collecting data
Too many businesses only focus on monitoring metrics and reporting back to the business. While this is a required starting point, taking action to improve experience should be where you invest your energy.
A lot of CX programs are good at resolving individual customer issues, but the real benefits come from identifying recurring problems and making systematic changes across the organisation to address those.
4. Stop siloing data within business units
This goes back to point 2. To get the most value out of a CX program, ideally the results need to be shared across the entire business in real-time. Try and avoid programs that have a limited number of user seats or, for that matter, survey completes. Ideally, you want to capture the most customer feedback you can and share it across the broader organisation, without limitation.
5. Linking CX back to business value
Be mindful that you really need to be able to illustrate business value to justify the investment in a CX program.
One way to illustrate value is to pick a metric that delivers value to your business - don’t focus on a metric that is only relevant to your lowest-value customers. Consider a combination of top line benefits (retention, recommendation etc.) and bottom-line benefits (cost to serve, acquisition costs etc.)
Also consider the relationship between CX metrics and financial metrics.
Is the objective of the investment to increase sales, decrease cost or increase customer spend?
An investment aimed at increasing customer satisfaction, for example, will likely result in a higher purchase frequency and/or increase in the average spend per customer.
At Potentiate, we have been designing and implementing CX programs for over a decade so have a fair few runs on the board! We pride ourselves on our unique “Solutions with a Service” (SwaS) approach and don’t just deliver the tech but, importantly, also support and share best practice, to help you get the most from your CX program.
If you would like to learn more, please reach out to us at info@platform1.cx.
