With two-thirds of companies currently competing on customer experience (nearly double the 36% that reported competing on customer experience in 2010), it’s no surprise that organizations are targeting CX initiatives as top priorities in 2020.
But the development and execution of a successful CX strategy can present serious organizational challenges. Here are several tips to help your business maintain company-wide alignment and reap the benefits of CX transformation.
Assemble the right team.
The first step in any successful project is choosing the right team—you need to identify hard-working employees who possess the skills and authority to plan and execute your CX strategy.
By selecting the appropriate internal resources or outsourcing to a trusted CX partner, you can increase the likelihood of success over the long term. To bring your initiative across the finish line, you will likely need a hybrid team of planners (project managers, executives, team leaders) and doers (web development, creative, marketing teams).
Choose the right metrics.
Measurement is valuable, but not all metrics are useful. To eliminate noise, focus on metrics that gauge progress toward specific business outcomes. By exercising intentionality in the development of a measurement framework upfront, you can reduce the risk of a confused, data pile-up later in the process.
Additionally, it’s important to ensure that the metrics you target deliver insights across the entire process and tie into larger business goals—in many ways, your ability to achieve these goals will determine the success or failure of the initiative.
Leverage internal & external resources.
In a perfect world (and workplace), your employees would possess the necessary skills, experience, and bandwidth to tackle any CX issue. But this isn’t usually the reality. By leveraging both internal and external resources, you can achieve a 360-degree view that expedites solutions to CX roadblocks.
When conducting internal CX conversations, try to avoid including unnecessary voices—but be sure to include people who have answers to critical questions. For example, are you hitting a wall on a web issue? Instead of asking the entire team for answers, speak to the developers. And when it comes to external conversations, create an avenue open for unstructured CX feedback to gain deeper, more informed insights.
Use intelligent data tools.
An intelligent data tool can play a key role in a successful CX strategy. To actually improve the customer experience, your organization needs an intelligence platform that delivers more than just insights. It needs to provide recommendations for actions that solve current problems and prevent future ones before they arise.
With a tool like our XI Platform, you can leverage intelligence about your brand, customers, employees and the market. These insights help define the elements of a meaningful experience, and help you make the necessary adjustments for better revenue and business performance.
Demonstrate value.
Like any major project, it’s important to telegraph the success of a CX initiative. At the end of the day, you’ll need to prove the initiative generates real value for the organization.
Although you should tailor your approach to the specific goals you hoped to achieve, there are several questions you can ask to demonstrate the initiative’s value:
Did the initiative:
. . . enable the business to acquire new customers?
. . . help retain existing customers?
. . . lead to additional cross-sell or upsell opportunities?
. . . reduce internal costs?
Going forward, the customer experience will continue to separate winners from losers in the marketplace. Your business can’t afford to leave the success of critical CX initiatives to chance. By adopting a more intentional and informed approach to your CX strategy, you can achieve your customer experience goals for the coming year and lay the groundwork for long-term business success.
Want to unlock more CX insights? Check out our InMoment Resources Center today for more tips and best practices from CX experts!
