FEBRUARY 2024 | VOL. 19

“If you’re competitor-focused, you have to wait until there is a competitor doing something. Being customer-focused allows you to be more pioneering.”

Jeff Bezos, Amazon

Verde Group Whitepaper

Driving Improved Business Outcomes via Customer Experience Excellence

Excerpt Below:

In conversations with leading CX practitioners, we hear it time and time again: They’re frustrated despite mountains of data being generated. They're searching for ways to increase the meaning and importance of their work, and to make a difference in the outcomes of their business enterprise.

Why are they frustrated? What is driving this challenge? After all, the customer experience industry is growing at a rapid pace. According to a 2023 Yahoo Finance article, the customer experience industry is expected to grow at a 7% compounded annual growth rate for the foreseeable future, reaching $120 billion by 2026. Even the U.S. economy would be envious of such a rapid trajectory. 

A key driver of the growth of the industry is the importance placed on improving the customer experience by Executive Leadership. This point is clearly demonstrated in Forrester’s 2023 customer experience study where 80% of businesses stated that improving their CX is a high priority. It makes sense. Who wouldn’t want to deliver a better experience to their customers? But there’s a catch, after investments in very bright people, dedication to process changes and licensing of voice-of-customer insight technology, only 6% of businesses saw a significant increase in the performance of their customer experience. And it hasn’t gone unnoticed by the customer. According to a CCW survey, over half of customers stated that customer service has gotten somewhat or much worse this past year.

How is this possible? Companies are dedicating considerable resources to improve the experience their customers have with their brand, products, and services every day, yet progress is elusive.

The Truth: CX Insights Are Not Consistently Used to Drive Business Decisions

There is a great debate going on across global boardrooms. Will investing in improving the customer experience truly yield improved business outcomes? Intuitively one would think the answer is clear. Of course, a better experience should drive an increase in revenues and profits. However, what part of the experience should companies focus on? What specific interactions should be triaged and improved? If investments have been made using existing insights, has the company realized improved financial outcomes? If no, why not?

The hard truth is that the customer experience is complex. Sifting through all the noise to find a signal is a challenge and let’s face it, focusing on improving one attitudinal metric is likely not going to get it done.

In a 2023 Verde Edition reader survey, we found that 66% of businesses are not consistently using CX insights to guide their decisions

Why? Our belief is that organizations are not widely using CX insights to drive business decisions due to the lack of connection to their financial performance data. This was substantiated in a separate Verde Group survey where we found that only 20% of companies link CX insights to financial results.

Read the rest of this whitepaper HERE.

 At the Verde Group, understanding the specific problems that create market damage is what we do. To learn more, visit our approach page or contact us to learn more about how we can help you take action and drive revenues and profits.

January Poll Results

In January, we asked our readers to share their greatest challenge in connecting CX insights to financial business performance. And while we should applaud the 26% of readers who are successfully accomplishing this goal, three-fourths of readers lack the ability to use CX data to meaningfully drive financial success. This is in large part due to the persistent focus on measuring attitudinal metrics and the granularity of insights. This is where the innovative Verde Group approach and E-A-B model differentiate from others. To learn more about how we can help take your CX insight program to the next level, CLICK HERE.

READY TO TALK? Book an intro session with Dennis Armbruster, Verde Group Executive VP, to discover how you can enhance the impact of your CX program. We want to help you find methods to anchor your customer insights firmly within your business framework, driving stronger ROI and increasing executive buy-in. We want to learn more about your current challenges.

February 2024 Poll

How impactful would it be to your organization if you were able to consistently link CX insights to the financial goals of your business?

In this episode of the CX Chronicles podcast, Dennis Armbruster and Adrian Brady-Cesana chat through how Dennis has tackled The Four CX Pillars: Team, Tools, Process, & Feedback. He also shares tips and best practices that have worked across his own customer-focused business leader journey.

Highlights:

1. Understanding how to leverage market research to boost customer loyalty
2. Identifying the core friction points in your customer experiences
3. Involving your customer-facing team in the interpretation of your customer data
4. Attaching potential ROI projections on all of your CX/CS-focused CTAs
5. Educating your team in the financial metrics that help fuel growth and revenues

Bad Customer Service Threatens $3.7 Trillion Globally

Bad customer service threatens $3.7 trillion annually for organizations around the globe, according to new research from the Qualtrics XM Institute. Additionally, this is a $600 billion increase compared to projections from last year.

"The price tag on delivering a bad customer experience has surged, even as many industries managed to reduce the frequency of bad experiences in 2023," Bruce Temkin, head of Qualtrics XM Institute, said in a press release. "While many industries reduced the frequency of their bad customer experiences, the price tag associated with those mistakes has surged."

Is the answer the use of artificial intelligence? Read more in this article from Utah's KSL.com:

"Customer experience is not an afterthought. It should be at the core

of your mission and vision."

- Jeanne Bliss, Customer Experience Pioneer and Author

February 2024's Question:

Why is linking CX insights to financial outcomes so challenging?

Answer: This is perhaps the question we receive most often. CX practitioners strive to increase the import of their CX insight efforts, challenging the organization to leverage findings to guide investments in operational improvements, capital planning and expense management. Yet, the methodology and overall approach of their programs do not set them up for success.

The key is to focus on measuring experiences (especially CX friction) and explicitly linking those experiences to customer behaviors. This can unlock tremendous power and increase your ability to connect the dots between specific CX touchpoints and their impact on business outcomes.