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Customer Experience

Loyalty Marketing Programs: How CX Insights Can Inform Incentives

loyalty marketing program incentives from CX insights

It’s easy to confuse loyalty marketing programs with customer experience (CX) programs; both seek to drive positive customer relationships and retention. But it’s crucial to define each individually before we parse out how a CX mindset can inform what incentives your business should provide customers. 

The Difference Between Loyalty Marketing Programs and Customer Experience

Loyalty marketing uses a traditional company-wide approach to grow and retain customers by selling them more. Selling them more aptly summarizes the loyalty marketing mindset. It focuses on selling through incentives. 

On the other hand, customer experience invests more in the ongoing conversation through the customer journey. And the goal of that process is to drive a deeper sense of loyalty.

There is clearly some overlap between both programs, so how can brands utilize one to inform the other? Here are three specific ways that the insights you gain from your CX program can—and should—help inform the incentives you choose for your loyalty marketing program:

Insight #1: Customers Are Less Likely to Share Without the Right Incentives

Organizations have to first understand what’s at stake when the right incentives aren’t given. The biggest drawback is that you risk losing a loyal customer. If a customer isn’t satisfied with the proposed exchange your loyalty program offers, they won’t buy in.

For example, according to our CX Trends report, customers are less likely to share their info when a program only offers to make interactions easier, more efficient, or to deliver personalized recommendations. What we can learn about this is that customers value their personal info highly. The thing is, loyalty programs almost always ask for customers to share that data.

Insight #2: Customers Want VIP Treatment

So the question is, what incentives do customers really want? In Microsoft’s study, The Consumer Data Value Exchange, 99.6% of those surveyed said they would give information if there’s a cash reward and 89.3% would if a discount is involved.  

To truly drive brand loyalty, you need to promise substantial VIP benefits. Because if you expect customers to invest in a loyalty program, you need to show that you will invest in them as well. The more your program raises its value, the more it will raise customers’ view of your brand and willingness to share data.

Insight #3: Find Out What Really Drives Participation for Your Loyalty Marketing Program

Of course, incentives can differ greatly depending on the industry and individual organization. The best practice is to find out from your own customers what would incentivize them to participate in your loyalty program. And that begins with listening capabilities.

By listening to the Voice of Customer (VoC) with a CX platform, your business can find the golden nuggets in collected data and analyze them to find out what customers truly desire from you. Don’t let other brands within your industry narrow the range of what your perks can be. And neither should you expand your perks beyond what’s relevant to your customers. Keep your incentives specific to who your customers are.

A CX mindset can be a game-changer for how to incentivize your loyalty program and these three insights are just to get you started. Read this paper to learn how a CX mindset can transform your entire loyalty marketing program to one that cultivates strong customer relationships.

Watch the Video – Get More Out of Your CX Program

Watch this demo video to see how InMoment’s award-winning AI tech does the heavy lifting on analysis so you can spend more time lifting CX results.

Unlock Expert Guidance on Today’s CX Challenges & Opportunities

From proving ROI and navigating budget constraints to adopting AI and creating seamless omnichannel experiences, these challenges are shaping the future of customer experience. In this report, discover actionable insights and recommendations from our CX experts to help you overcome these obstacles and drive growth.

2025 Consumer Trends Report

The One Report You Don't Want to MIss: The way customers interact with brands is evolving faster than ever. Our free 2025 Consumer Trends Report highlights the key shifts transforming customer experience (CX) and what your business needs to stay competitive.

Reducing Customer Churn: Do You Need Prediction, Interpretation, or Both?

Customer Churn Prediction

Customer behaviour prediction—including customer churn prediction—is at the top of our clients’ agenda—and for good reason. Who doesn’t want to be able to predict the future for their customers, employees, and business? 

What Is Predictive Modelling?

In the world of customer experience, predictive modelling means using data to predict the future needs, wants, and behaviours of your customers and employees. 

My name is Ton Luijten, and I’m a Customer Success Director for InMoment, as well as the Data Science Lead for the APAC region. I’ve come across many interesting case studies that show how predictive models can be really powerful when trying to sell products or services to your consumers. However, when it comes to actually improving the experiences of your customers, it becomes more complex. 

In order to take action and make the right improvements to your CX, it’s vital to understand why something will happen. If you do not have those actionable insights, you will know what or who to target, but you don’t know how best to target them. In this post, I’ll take you through why you need both prediction and interpretation to make the best business decisions.

What’s the Difference Between Prediction and Interpretation?

Let’s take a step back and talk about the difference between prediction and interpretation. In data science, there’s a trade off between prediction accuracy and model interpretability. We have very flexible approaches that tend to come with great prediction accuracy, we’ll call these “black box” models. We also have more restrictive approaches that lend itself to better interpretation, which we’ll call “white box” models. While at first glance it might be appealing to always go for black box models (i.e. the flexible approach with the higher prediction accuracy), you might want to opt for white box models, which leave room for greater interpretation.

To Decide Which Prediction Model, Identify Your Goal

The best model for your business will depend on what you’re trying to achieve. If you’re in a situation where you just want to be able to predict who will buy your products or services, then you don’t really have a need for interpretation, because you just need to target that audience with your ads. However, if you need to have a conversation with a customer that’s very likely to churn, it might be useful to understand why they’re going to leave, so you can have a more relevant conversation.

Bringing Employee and Customer Churn Prediction to Life

The most common use case for predictive models in CX and EX tends to be employee or customer churn, which means customers or employees are intending to leave your brand. Of course businesses are motivated to retain their customers and employees, as it takes time and money to replace both customers and talent. 

When we build predictive models for churn, I typically create at least two—one black box model, where I use a flexible approach that tends to achieve good prediction accuracy and a white box model that provides more insights. When we do this, it becomes very easy for clients to understand why it’s important to have interpretation alongside your prediction accuracy.

Recently we went through this exercise with one of our clients and the black box model provided a great fit, however the only output it provided was relative importance of the variables. In this case it showed tenure as the most important driver. Now this might not be a surprise for most of you, as tenure tends to be quite important when it comes to churn. It’s also not very useful and just throws up more questions; the key question would be at what tenure do my clients start to churn? 

Taking Action Post-Churn Prediction

The most important part of predicting churn is taking action on those insights. Churn prediction won’t give you all the answers to why customers or employees might be leaving, but it will direct you where to focus. You’ll need to identify the best way to avoid the churn—and there are right ways and wrong ways of actioning your churn insights. 

The wrong way of taking action might look like contacting your at-risk customers and explaining why they shouldn’t leave, or perhaps explain how easy it is to use our product or service. It’s also a bad idea to call at-risk customers to confirm they are leaving, then try and talk them out of it. 

These approaches are highly problematic and could cause customers or employees who weren’t actually going to leave to consider doing so. After all, some customers or employees are not looking to leave but are also not very engaged or loyal, so these types of actions could make them rethink the relationship.

The right way to take action on churn insights is to think broader and make a proactive plan. From the “white box” approach, we could actually see that there were high churn groups across the tenure range. At one end there was a group with very low tenure (less than 1 year) who never really used the service and on the other end we have clients who had been with the company for many years and had done many transactions, but they never bothered to use certain services, which made the service harder to use. 

Now this obviously gives us a much better idea of how to take action and reduce churn. For new customers, you might consider introducing incentive programs to start using the service when they sign up, while for customers with a longer tenure, you could intervene and make them aware of the services they could take advantage of to make their lives easier.

So, Do You Need Prediction, Interpretation, or Both?

When it comes to Experience Improvement, we need both prediction and interpretation. We want to be as accurate as possible when we predict churning customers or employees but we also want to understand why they’re leaving—and this is not just a one size fits all. 

Different segments might be leaving for different reasons and have different propensities to leave. Having insights into why customers or employees might be leaving gives you a better idea of what to do about it. Of course, this might lead to a slightly less accurate predictive model, but the trade off is worth it, because what good is an accurate prediction if you cannot take effective action on the back of it?

Want to learn more about how you can reduce employee and customer churn with your experience program efforts? Check out this eBook, “How to Improve Customer Retention & Generate Revenue with Your CX Program”

Watch the Video – Get More Out of Your CX Program

Watch this demo video to see how InMoment’s award-winning AI tech does the heavy lifting on analysis so you can spend more time lifting CX results.

Unlock Expert Guidance on Today’s CX Challenges & Opportunities

From proving ROI and navigating budget constraints to adopting AI and creating seamless omnichannel experiences, these challenges are shaping the future of customer experience. In this report, discover actionable insights and recommendations from our CX experts to help you overcome these obstacles and drive growth.

2025 Consumer Trends Report

The One Report You Don't Want to MIss: The way customers interact with brands is evolving faster than ever. Our free 2025 Consumer Trends Report highlights the key shifts transforming customer experience (CX) and what your business needs to stay competitive.

Luxury Retail: Three Elements to Closing the Physical and Digital Experience Gap

Retail shopper looking at clothes

Black Friday is right around the corner and you know what that means. Shopping, shopping, and more shopping! But not just any kind of shopping. This once a year occasion means customers are looking for the perfect gift for someone special—and the best deals they can find for the best and most luxurious products on the market.

The thing is, any customer making a luxury purchase will have high expectations for not only the product, but the experience—whether it’s online or in store.Bridging that physical and digital gap is about as easy as finding a parking spot at the mall on Black Friday, and the need for an accessible online experience is only growing as customers prioritize ease and convenience. 

Here are three elements for luxury retail brands’ to consider when closing the gap and delivering that premium level customer journey!

Element #1: Let Customers Speak—and Listen When They Do

Just as you ask for feedback in store, provide those same opportunities for customers when they shop online. Physical and online shopping experiences are significantly different, so you need to collect and analyze feedback from both channels. 

Knowing what’s working and what’s not in each type of experience can teach you how to create a smoother and more connected experience for customers. And it’s most important to communicate back to your customers that you’re listening, you’ve acted, and change is quickly coming.

Element #2: Don’t Choose Online Retail Over Physical, You Need Both

Digital experiences aren’t meant to entirely replace physical ones. They’re meant to allow customers other options that might better suit their needs. Factors like flexibility and convenience influence how customers shop, but it doesn’t mean one experience is objectively better than the other. The best experience isn’t digital or physical. It’s one that fully matches the customer’s preferences. The goal then is to make physical and digital experiences work in harmony. 

Element #3: Keep Your Brand on Point to Tell a Consistent Story

Your digital and physical customer journeys must not only match in quality, but in branding as well. The way you communicate to customers along each digital touchpoint, whether it be a newsletter sent out by email or a personalized message on the website after they purchase something, should keep consistent with your brand’s style, messaging, and tone of voice.

It’s also vital that the digital experience adheres to human-like interactions as if the customer was actually in the store. And that comes through with a unique branding voice and character. Customers shouldn’t feel like they’re purchasing from a robot dispensing products and services, but a human being behind their screen.

Of course, we know that digital and physical experiences aren’t the only aspect of the customer journey that luxury retail brands need to pay attention to. Read this report if you want to learn more about bridging the experience gap and how to improve personalization and emotional intelligence in the new luxury retail age.

Watch the Video – Get More Out of Your CX Program

Watch this demo video to see how InMoment’s award-winning AI tech does the heavy lifting on analysis so you can spend more time lifting CX results.

Unlock Expert Guidance on Today’s CX Challenges & Opportunities

From proving ROI and navigating budget constraints to adopting AI and creating seamless omnichannel experiences, these challenges are shaping the future of customer experience. In this report, discover actionable insights and recommendations from our CX experts to help you overcome these obstacles and drive growth.

2025 Consumer Trends Report

The One Report You Don't Want to MIss: The way customers interact with brands is evolving faster than ever. Our free 2025 Consumer Trends Report highlights the key shifts transforming customer experience (CX) and what your business needs to stay competitive.

What the Supply Chain Crisis Means for Your Customer Experience

supply chain crisis and the customer experience

The ongoing global supply chain woes have created massive headaches for both customers and the brands that serve them. One of the many products of lingering COVID uncertainty, the supply chain crisis has resulted in steeper prices, logistics chaos, and a markedly lower supply of everything from video game consoles to garden furniture. Today’s discussion covers three factors brands should be aware of as they consider supply chain issues within the context of customer experience (CX).

3 Supply Chain Crisis Factors to Consider for the Customer Experience

  1. Manufacturing
  2. Logistics
  3. Commodity Prices

Factor #1: Manufacturing

The manufacturing gap is not the only cause of the supply chain’s current state, but it’s certainly one of the most important. As I’m sure you remember during the early days of the pandemic, COVID lockdowns weren’t restricted to offices and restaurants—many manufacturing facilities were also closed due to a combination of quarantine guidelines and falling demand. Now, as the world reawakens after what is hopefully the worst of the pandemic, the manufacturing sector is struggling to match the speed of reemergent customer demand. As a result, many brands find themselves with insufficient stock to actually meet that demand, which poses an obvious threat to customer experience.

Factor #2: Logistics

We’re all hopeful that manufacturing will eventually catch back up to demand, but production capacity is, unfortunately, just one reason the supply chain is currently creaking. The second factor to consider here is logistics, and how both shipping queues and an enduring truck driver shortage are preventing what goods can be manufactured from actually reaching store shelves. Many ships find themselves idling in harbors the world over, which of course increases shipping prices, while the aforementioned driver shortage is an outgrowth of the mass-quitting phenomenon the media have dubbed The Great Recession. Both problems further complicate acquiring stock and providing the experiences that your customers expect.

Factor #3: Commodity Prices

This is a more subtle element than the previous two, but no less important to understanding the supply chain. As it turns out, the higher prices that coffee, sugar, wheat, and other staples command right now aren’t strictly a byproduct of shipping or manufacturing problems. Rather, the reason they’re so high is because, to put it simply, customers bought and cooked with them all while stuck at home! This phenomenon feeds directly into the higher prices you’ve no doubt noticed while grocery shopping, and, of course, brands’ ability to purchase and make use of those same staples for their customers.

How Your Brand Can Respond

The problems I’ve touched on represent significant obstacles for any CX programme. Almost every industry is somehow being affected by the supply chain crisis, and though we all hope that things will improve soon, it’s imperative for your brand to take meaningful action in the meantime. Taking action will help you not just make the best of this problem, but will also help protect your customer experience and to maintain the connective relationships you’ve worked so hard to create. This is what the supply chain crisis means for your brand: action is more important now than ever before.

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You Ask, We Tell: How Do I Increase Survey Response Rates? Should I Shorten My Survey?

Survey Response Rate

I’ve been looking back over my 20+ years of various research consulting roles and during that time, I’ve continuously fielded questions from clients and others within the industry. In this blog, I’m going to focus on one question that continues to come up in conversations with CX practitioners and data analysts and my answer may surprise you.

How Do I Increase Survey Response Rates? Should I Shorten My Survey? 

My first instinct when asked this question is to ask, “are you really interested in only increasing your survey response rate, or are you interested in getting more responses?” Those are two different things. Survey response rates are the percentage of responses you receive from the survey invitations you send out. Responses are the absolute number of responses you receive, regardless of response rates. In many cases, you can actually increase the number of responses you receive while decreasing survey response rates by sending out more invitations.

In most cases survey response rates matter little in terms of your sample providing representation of a population. What’s most important is the absolute number of responses you have. For example, if I’m trying to represent the United States population of approximately 325 million people, I only need a little over 1000 respondents for a confidence level of +/- 3 percentage points. It doesn’t matter if those 1000 respondents are acquired from sending a survey invitation to 5000 people (20% response rate) or 100,000 people (1% response rate). 

The only caveat here is that a lower survey response rate may be an indicator that some sort of response bias is occurring: certain types of people may be responding more in comparison to other types. If that’s the case, it doesn’t matter how many responses you have. Your sample will still not represent the population. If you fear response bias, you should do a response bias study, but that’s a topic for another blog post.

Usually, when I point out to clients that they should be more interested in increasing the absolute number of responses they receive rather than just increasing survey response rates, they agree. 

Begin By Increasing the Number of Outgoing Survey Invitations 

You should begin your efforts to increase responses by deciding if it makes sense to send out more survey invitations. Below, I’ve identified three specific things you can do: 

  1. Consider Doing a Census: Some CX programs still engage in sampling instead of sending survey invitations to all eligible customers. If your program is sampling, consider doing a census. This will both increase the number of responses you receive and give you the opportunity to identify and rescue more at-risk customers.
  1. Scrutinize Your Contact Data: Are a significant portion of your records getting removed because contact information is either missing or wrong? If you obtain customer contact information from business units, such as stores, hotels, dealerships, etc., it’s important to look at sample quality at the unit level. It’s also helpful to examine the amount of sample records received from business units compared to their number of transactions. Units with low samples in proportion to their transactions probably need to focus on better ways to obtain customer contact information.
  1. Invite All Customer Segments: Are you missing some segments of your customer population? Not obtaining contact information for specific customer segments often has to do with information system issues. For instance, in the earlier days of automotive CX research most companies only surveyed warranty-service customers. They didn’t survey customers that went to a dealership and paid for the repair/service themselves (customer-pay events). The reason was simply a system issue. Companies didn’t receive those transaction records from their dealerships. Now, most automotive companies have remedied that issue and they survey both warranty and customer-pay service customers.

Next, Revise Your Survey Invitation

The next step is to look at your survey invitation process and the survey invitation itself. You should look for two general things. First, is there anything that might prohibit customers from receiving the invitation?

  • Are You Triggering Spam Filters? Sending out too many invitations in too short a time frame can trigger spam filters. Sending out too many invitations with invalid email addresses can also trigger spam filters or even get your project’s IP address black-listed by internet service providers. Therefore, make sure to check to see if email addresses are correctly formatted. If you’re really worried about the quality of your contact information, there are services available to pre-identify valid email addresses. 
  • Are You Sending Survey Invitations to the Wrong Customers? Outdated databases can cause you to send surveys to people that are no longer customers. Obviously, these people probably won’t respond to your survey, thus reducing response rates.
  • Are Your Customers Receiving the Invitations but Never Seeing Them: Most email domains use algorithms to sort emails into various folders such as Primary/Inbox, Promotions, and Spam. Keywords in your subject lines and invitation text can affect where your invitations go. Do some testing of your invitations to make sure they end up in the Primary/Inbox folder for the biggest email domains. Also, you need to repeat your tests periodically because sorting algorithms can change unexpectedly. An invitation that goes to the Primary/Inbox folder today will not necessarily go there next week or next year.

Second, is the invitation compelling enough that a customer or prospect will open it and take action?

  • Is the Subject Line of the Email Engaging to the Customer? The subject line is the first thing the customer sees. If it’s not engaging, the customer won’t open the invitation email. It’s helpful to test various versions of the invitation with different subject lines to determine which yields the highest open rates.
  • Does the Invitation Display Well on a Smartphone? Over half of InMoment’s survey respondents are now completing their surveys on smartphones. Make sure your invitation (and the survey itself) displays well on smaller devices. You should also check to see how well your invitation and survey display in all major browsers.
  • Do You Include a Realistic Time Estimate for How Long the Survey Will Take To Complete? This is especially important for shorter surveys, so that potential respondents know there will be only a small time commitment. It’s also a good idea for longer surveys because respondents will know what time commitment they’re getting into and they’ll be less likely to abandon the survey. If you are reluctant to tell the customer how long the survey will take to complete, your survey is probably too long.
  • Is the Response Option Visible? When a customer opens the invitation, is the link or button to respond to the survey visible (front and center) without having to scroll down? Remember, this should be the case on a smartphone as well as on a tablet or computer.
  • Is There a Call to Action? Your invitation should ask customers to respond and tell them why responding is important and what you’ll be doing with the information that will make their world and interaction with your product or service better. 
  • Are You Using Incentives to Increase Your Response Rate? Using incentives is complex and can be a bit tricky. But it’s always worth seeing if it is something that might work for you and your company. If you’re interested in testing it out, learn more about using incentives here.

Last but Not Least, Look at Revising the Survey Itself

Revising the survey itself may help increase responses. However, remember that revising the survey will only increase responses by reducing the number of people who abandon the survey after starting it. Typically, that number is quite small (about 5% for most CX surveys), so reducing abandonment probably won’t lead to a meaningful increase in the absolute number of responses. That being said, some of the things you should look for, in addition to the possibility that your survey is too long, are:

  • Is Your Survey Simple and Easy to Use? You should keep your survey focused on the topic it is intended to measure and avoid “nice to know questions.” In addition, avoid mixing response scales as much as possible, as this can lead to confusion for the respondent.
  • Does Your Survey Look Engaging? Your CX survey represents your brand. It should have the same voice and look and feel you use throughout all customer touch points-physical location, mobile app, website etc.
  • Is the Language in Your Survey Easy for Customers To Understand? Don’t use industry jargon. That turns off respondents and can lead to confusion. Be your brand, upfront with your requests, and transparent.
  • Does Your Survey Follow a Logical Flow to Walk the Customer Through the Experience Being Measured? This not only helps in reducing abandonment, but also helps customers recall the event accurately so they can give more thorough feedback.

When you want to increase the number of responses you receive, you should look beyond increasing your survey response rate and shortening your survey. There are much more effective ways to increase the number of responses that are often overlooked. 

Remember that we’re here with the latest tips and tricks to help you figure out the best way to listen to your customers (via surveys or other feedback channels like social media, websites, apps, reviews etc.), understand customer behaviors and wants and needs, and act upon what customers are saying to create better experiences and ultimately drive business success.

Want to learn more about how you can boost your customer experience survey response rate? Check out these InMoment Assets to learn more:

Watch the Video – Get More Out of Your CX Program

Watch this demo video to see how InMoment’s award-winning AI tech does the heavy lifting on analysis so you can spend more time lifting CX results.

Unlock Expert Guidance on Today’s CX Challenges & Opportunities

From proving ROI and navigating budget constraints to adopting AI and creating seamless omnichannel experiences, these challenges are shaping the future of customer experience. In this report, discover actionable insights and recommendations from our CX experts to help you overcome these obstacles and drive growth.

2025 Consumer Trends Report

The One Report You Don't Want to MIss: The way customers interact with brands is evolving faster than ever. Our free 2025 Consumer Trends Report highlights the key shifts transforming customer experience (CX) and what your business needs to stay competitive.

What Is the First Step in a Customer Experience Transformation Roadmap?

Customer Experience Transformation

Whether your program is just getting started or has stagnated over the years, this post is for you! 

Every brand—across industries and around the globe—has a unique opportunity to overhaul outdated ways of managing customer experiences, and move toward actually improving experiences for customers and employees. Achieving this is no small task, and often requires customer experience transformation. At InMoment, we’re here with you every step of the way and ready to take on the challenge, together.

So, what is the first step in a CX transformation roadmap? Set up your program with the end in mind!

Whether you are taking on a program for the first time, or redesigning an old one, this is the most fundamental step of a customer experience transformation. For a lasting impact, we can’t emphasise enough how important it is to take the time up front to outline your CX vision, align it with your corporate objectives, and make a tactical strategy for how your CX program will ladder up to expectations. 

Three Ideas for Taking Action Toward Customer Experience Transformation:

Action Item #1: Outline Success

Decide what success looks like for your CX program in six months, one year, and three years. Without a vision to point to, it’s difficult to make any progress. An example of a program goal could be: 20% increase in customer retention, 10% reduction in cost to serve, +10% increase in revenue per store year on year.

Decide how often your team will check in to make sure you are still tracking toward your targets. As for the best cadence, plan to check in once a month with a program roadmap or visit these goals in quarterly board meetings—and don’t forget to schedule those calendar reminders!

Action Item #2: Consider Employees

Get super clear on how your customer experience program will impact employees. These frontline workers are your biggest resource to transforming customer experiences, and it’s important to help them understand what delivering success looks like in their unique roles. 

You should develop a solid comms plan to bring staff on the journey, co-design and embed processes and training for closing the loop, or perhaps train employees to reach out to happy customers with a personal ‘thank you’.

Action Point #3: Decide What ‘Solving For X’ Looks Like For You 

Decide which initiative you will tackle first—will it be customer retention, reducing costs, cross- or upselling, or customer acquisition? Pick one of these, which is your ‘X’, and make a plan for tackling financial linkage. 

Action Point #4: Settle on a Program Soundbite

Ensure you understand the business benefit of transforming customer experiences so that you can communicate far and wide across the business. Prepare a soundbite or elevator pitch so you are prepared to communicate why CX transformation is so important and what it means to people in their roles.

At InMoment, our team of experts are the best in the business for helping you design innovative, continually evolving experience initiatives. In fact, for three consecutive years, our clients have won the award for “Best CX Transformation” through the CX Awards! To learn the next five steps to an award-winning CX transformation, download the full guide here!

Watch the Video – Get More Out of Your CX Program

Watch this demo video to see how InMoment’s award-winning AI tech does the heavy lifting on analysis so you can spend more time lifting CX results.

Unlock Expert Guidance on Today’s CX Challenges & Opportunities

From proving ROI and navigating budget constraints to adopting AI and creating seamless omnichannel experiences, these challenges are shaping the future of customer experience. In this report, discover actionable insights and recommendations from our CX experts to help you overcome these obstacles and drive growth.

2025 Consumer Trends Report

The One Report You Don't Want to MIss: The way customers interact with brands is evolving faster than ever. Our free 2025 Consumer Trends Report highlights the key shifts transforming customer experience (CX) and what your business needs to stay competitive.

Three Steps to Align Your CX Program Goals with Business Initiatives

CX Program Goals

Has your customer experience (CX) program matured or just begun? Or is it somewhere in the middle? No matter where you’re at, CX program goals need consistent tweaking to be aligned to greater business initiatives. And with the proper alignment, your company can drive better decisions that will positively impact your customers, employees, and bottom line.

In our recent experience forum with Forrester, Goldilocks and the CX Paradigm: Too Little, Too Much, Just Right, we broke down the mystical process of melding a program and business together to work in harmony. It starts with three important steps:

Step #1: Develop a Strategic Plan

Okay, maybe you’ve been thinking, “this program’s been in the game for years, what do I do now?” or “I don’t even know where to start.” Do yourself a favor and take a step back. 

To develop a strategic plan, you need to zoom out so that you can focus on the overarching CX program goals that matter. What’s your company’s vision and how can this program play a key role? When you first identify the big-picture mission, the smaller decisions become easier. And then you can start to set trail marker goals that’ll push you towards the finish line. This will only work, however, if the CX goals you create are practical ones. Goals that are too aspirational will inevitably cause your business to lose organizational efficacy and buy-in. Make sure anything you set your program for is actually achievable. Remember: Quick wins build momentum for major buy-in in the long run.

Step #2: Establish Customer, Employee, and Stakeholder Essentials

Just because developing a strategic plan is step one doesn’t mean you’ll never have to revisit that strategy down the road. Your plan will need to continuously adapt according to several factors. Namely, who are your customers, employees, and stakeholders?

To flesh these core groups out, try analyzing the trends in your market from both global, regional, and local perspectives. What benchmarks does your CX program need to meet to stand against competitors and how will that fit into your company’s business plans? If that’s still not enough information, it’s also useful to look at how your specific industry (in terms of CX maturity) is evolving. Some industries are in the early stages and some have a long-established history. And that history makes a difference. 

Gathering these broader insights into the industry and market will help you to realize realistic goals and give better direction on how to move your CX program forward.

Step #3: Design & Assemble CX Leadership

You can’t have CX program goals without a CX team. There needs to be dedicated leaders consistently working on customer experience as your business initiatives and the business world changes over time.

One might think, “Why don’t I just have a few CX experts figure this out?” And you should let your CX pros do what they do best. But when customer experience exists in a vacuum, it ignores one crucial reality. Customer experience programs should be owned by and should encompass all parts of a business because it informs all parts of the business. Your program needs to be cross-functional to be truly successful and aligned with big-picture business goals. The more experts from various departments you bring in, the greater the perspective and outcome. The ideal CX leadership doesn’t look like a single team—it looks like multiple teams overlapping.

Watch the Video – Get More Out of Your CX Program

Watch this demo video to see how InMoment’s award-winning AI tech does the heavy lifting on analysis so you can spend more time lifting CX results.

Unlock Expert Guidance on Today’s CX Challenges & Opportunities

From proving ROI and navigating budget constraints to adopting AI and creating seamless omnichannel experiences, these challenges are shaping the future of customer experience. In this report, discover actionable insights and recommendations from our CX experts to help you overcome these obstacles and drive growth.

2025 Consumer Trends Report

The One Report You Don't Want to MIss: The way customers interact with brands is evolving faster than ever. Our free 2025 Consumer Trends Report highlights the key shifts transforming customer experience (CX) and what your business needs to stay competitive.

Who Owns Your CX Program? (Hint: It’s Everyone)

CX Program

In my last post, we discussed the difference between interactions, engagement, and customer experience.  Now, I’d like to dive deeper into customer experience and the role everyone in your organization plays in delivering that experience. You heard me right: not one department owns the customer experience—it’s every department!

I often talk about customer experience lying at the intersection of communications, operations, technology, and employees.  Which really means it encompasses all aspects of your organization.  As Jan Carlzon, former CEO of Scandinavian airline SAS, once said, “If you’re not serving the customer, your job is to be serving someone who is.”

Every Team Owns Part of the Customer Experience

Marketing and Sales have to correctly position your products and services, and set proper expectations for how customers can use them and, more importantly, what benefit(s) they will derive.  Operations then has to deliver an experience that matches, or better yet, exceeds those expectations.  

All of these teams are supported by HR in terms of the people they hire and how they onboard and train them.  The org is also supported by IT and the technology platforms—such as apps and websites—that customers can use, as well as the internal systems that enable employees to deliver a great experience.  And of course, Customer Care is the safety net if something goes wrong along the way.  

Let’s Take a Closer Look at Revenue Management/ Pricing

As Mr. Carlzon suggested, there are also supporting functions that are in service to those who serve the customer. The one supporting function that I’d like to consider in terms of the role it can play in the overall customer experience is Revenue Management or Pricing.  

Recently, I was stuck in the middle of a prime example of how pricing can impact the customer experience when my family and I tried a new burger place in town.  The burgers, Cajun fries, and parmesan truffle fries that we ordered at the counter were outstanding.  But 4 burgers, fries, and drinks set me back $75 (and I don’t live in NYC, Los Angeles, or San Francisco).  It made me consider the role that price plays in my perception of value and more importantly, my overall experience.  We enjoyed the food, but at that price point, we are not likely to return, or at a minimum, it won’t be the regular Friday night meal after a long week.

CX Success Is One Motion

In my previous role leading customer experience for Hertz, I was also responsible for Voice of the Customer, CRM, and Loyalty.  This was intentional, as we wanted to closely tie together:

  • Understanding customer needs, wants and expectations (VOC)
  • Experience design to meet/exceed those expectations (CX)
  • Delivering the right message to the right customer at the right time (CRM)
  • Member acquisition, retention and frequency to drive business growth (Loyalty)

We also had a Customer Experience Council to engage the rest of the organization.  This governance component is critical to ensuring alignment and accountability in the organization around the customer experience.  Nearly all companies are organized around functional silos—sales, marketing, operations, pricing, finance, HR, IT, etc.  But the customer doesn’t care about your org structure, and managing the customer experience requires a shared understanding of customer expectations, and clean communications and executional handoffs between functions. 

At InMoment, our Continuous Improvement Framework has 5 stages: 

  1. Design
  2. Listen
  3. Understand
  4. Transform
  5. Realize 

Too many companies get stuck in the Listen and Understand phases because they are too focused on capturing and analyzing customer feedback and not focused enough (or organized properly) to take action on the data and then measure the ROI improvements from those actions. 

The organization component here is key. To make sure that you are facilitating transformational action across the org that will lead to tangible experience improvement, you must consider your internal communication methods and your organizational orientation and compare it to the customer experience.

Want to learn more about how you can put in place foundational tools that facilitate CX transformation? Check out Eric’s recent webinar “CX Transformation: The Key to a Truly Valuable CX Program” here and learn how to organize, action plan, and manage your portfolio for success!

Watch the Video – Get More Out of Your CX Program

Watch this demo video to see how InMoment’s award-winning AI tech does the heavy lifting on analysis so you can spend more time lifting CX results.

Unlock Expert Guidance on Today’s CX Challenges & Opportunities

From proving ROI and navigating budget constraints to adopting AI and creating seamless omnichannel experiences, these challenges are shaping the future of customer experience. In this report, discover actionable insights and recommendations from our CX experts to help you overcome these obstacles and drive growth.

2025 Consumer Trends Report

The One Report You Don't Want to MIss: The way customers interact with brands is evolving faster than ever. Our free 2025 Consumer Trends Report highlights the key shifts transforming customer experience (CX) and what your business needs to stay competitive.

3 Elements to Consider When Selling CX to Your Boardroom

Selling CX

Getting your C-suite onboard with customer experience (CX) programs can be a real challenge. If you’re reading this, chances are it’s the same story at your organization! While there’s no silver bullet for getting boardroom approval on more CX resources or program renewals, we’re going to break down three elements that can help warm the execs to your Experience Improvement (XI) initiatives. Those three elements are:

  1. Reporting Frequency
  2. Content Formatting
  3. Cross-Functional Teamwork

Element #1: Reporting Frequency

One of the most important elements to consider when speaking your C-suite’s language is its preferred reporting frequency. You can figure out how often your C-suite would like reports by considering each executive’s thinking style, as well as those of your teammates. Some leaders are quantitative, and may want numbers-heavy reports more frequently. Others are qualitative and more concerned with the aspirational elements of your program. Reporting frequency preferences vary wildly between brands, but understanding those preferences is crucial to winning—and maintaining—that support!

Element #2: Content Formatting

This piece dovetails with reporting frequency quite a bit, which only makes sense, right? Once you determine how frequently your executives want reports, it’s vital to press that advantage by figuring out how best to present them. Usually, this presentation takes the form of scorecards, but we challenge you to use something much more powerful if you aren’t already: customer stories! Executives love seeing their brand vision presented in a human light, and stories of how that vision creates genuine connections with people go a long way toward program approval.

Element #3: Cross-Functional Teamwork

This is a big one. If you want to make sure your program is presented from all its best angles, you need a cross-functional team to do just that. Identifying and recruiting the folks you need from other departments is never a quick or easy process, but it’s essential for so much more than ‘just’ more budget. In fact, desiloing program data and uniting your organization around it can provide everyone the exact same customer profile. And when everyone is working off of that holistic, united customer view, every experience you provide will be meaningfully improved. Powerful stuff for your next presentation!

Going Deeper

How else can your team speak the C-suite’s language when it comes to Experience Improvement? Asia-Pacific Managing Director David Blakers has written a full-length point of view on this subject that you can read by clicking here. Check it out to gain additional, powerful insights on how to speak to executives, gain the program approval you need for brand success, and maintain those connections over time!

Watch the Video – Get More Out of Your CX Program

Watch this demo video to see how InMoment’s award-winning AI tech does the heavy lifting on analysis so you can spend more time lifting CX results.

Unlock Expert Guidance on Today’s CX Challenges & Opportunities

From proving ROI and navigating budget constraints to adopting AI and creating seamless omnichannel experiences, these challenges are shaping the future of customer experience. In this report, discover actionable insights and recommendations from our CX experts to help you overcome these obstacles and drive growth.

2025 Consumer Trends Report

The One Report You Don't Want to MIss: The way customers interact with brands is evolving faster than ever. Our free 2025 Consumer Trends Report highlights the key shifts transforming customer experience (CX) and what your business needs to stay competitive.

The Difference Between Customer Interactions and Customer Experiences

Customer Incentives Customer Experience

Recently, a client asked me what we at InMoment thought defines a “customer interaction,” as there had been some debate on the subject within his team. I pondered the subject and brought it back to my colleagues. Quickly, we were asking ourselves not only about the characteristics of an interaction, but beyond that, what falls under the larger umbrella of customer experience? Is there a difference? Today, we’ll be diving deeper into these questions.

What Is a Customer Interaction?

Webster’s defines “interaction” as:

  • Mutual or reciprocal action or influence
  • To act upon one another

From this definition, we see clearly that two or more parties are required for an interaction; for example, a company or brand and a prospect or customer.  

What Is a Customer Experience?

Harley Manning, VP, Research Director at Forrester, once defined customer experience as: How customers perceive their interactions with your company.  He went on to define an interaction as when you and your customers have a two-way exchange.1

Neither Here, Nor There

So what does that mean when a prospect or customer browses your website but does not make a purchase? Or a customer clicks a link in your brand’s email, but does not go any further? According to the definitions above, those are not interactions.  But there are a lot of people in companies working very hard to get these actions to happen (click through rate and time on website/app are very common marketing and ecommerce metrics).  

If they are not interactions, what are they? I would classify them as engagements.  A customer has engaged with your brand, but there was no interaction, because it was only unilateral. Thus, not all engagements are interactions.

And here is where it gets interesting.  If the examples listed above are not interactions, but engagements, are they considered part of your customer experience? You better believe it.  

The Intersection Between Customer Engagements and Customer Experiences

Customer experience is generally held to be the sum of all interactions someone has with your brand and the resulting feelings they have about your brand. But are experiences limited to interactions or engagements? Do customers have to interact with your people, products, services, or digital properties for their engagement to fall under customer experience?  

Today, a company’s policies regarding diversity and inclusion, for example, or the politics, causes, and charities they choose to support have an impact on people’s feelings about the brand. I would argue that these are part of the customer experience as well.  There are prospects out there that will choose to never do business with your company based on these issues and other customers who become more loyal for the same reasons.

Returning to the Question

To return to the original question, I would like to suggest that customer interactions and customer experience are concentric circles. An interaction is a subset of engagement, which in turn is a subset of experience.

Customer Experience versus Customer Engagement vs customer Interactions

And companies have to be attentive to all of the ways customers experience their brands, products, and services. Whether or not an engagement ever advances to the level of interaction is an integral piece of the CX puzzle.

Want to hear more from Eric about customer interactions, engagements, and experiences? Stay tuned for the next post in the series!

Watch the Video – See InMoment in Action

Check out a quick demo video to learn more about how our solutions can help your team grow your business.

A Winning Combination: Unstructured & Structured Data Analytics in Today’s Customer Experience Environment

Structured Data

Over the last few weeks, there have been several announcements from large tech players in the world of VoC (voice of customer) and CX (customer experience). My name is Melanie Disse and I have over 10 years of industry experience—most recently in a VoC role at Mercury New Zealand. I thought I’d spend a moment explaining what these announcements mean for those of us who are VoC, CX and Customer Insights professionals. Before we get started, let’s check out what I’m referring to:  

You might be thinking, so what? Should I be excited about this? Let’s look into it. 

What the Acquisition and Partnership Means in a Nutshell

In a nutshell, Lexalytics, and Tethr are data analytics platforms focusing on structured and unstructured customer data, as well as solicited and unsolicited feedback. With such acquisition/partnership, companies like InMoment strengthen their capabilities in the “text analytics” space, meaning their ability to analyze unstructured data and extract meaning and actionable insights. But also in a broader way to be able to connect unstructured and structured data sources to generate insights from within one platform.

The Humble Beginnings of Surveys 

Before I jump into the deep end, let’s start at the beginning. Not that long ago, if we wanted to know what a customer thought, how they felt about interacting with your brand (website, store, call center, etc.), or how loyal they are to you, we had to ask them. We sent a survey and asked them what we wanted to know. In fact, almost every company sent surveys, to an extent that customers got rather fed up with it. We ran into the problem of survey fatigue, which plagues many of us. 

But it’s not just survey fatigue that challenges the trusted old survey, it’s also the accuracy of insights we gain from it. We sometimes ask questions the customer may or may not know the answer to—for example, did we resolve your issue today? The customer is likely thinking “hmm, well I hope so, the agent promised me to fix it..” We also ask questions we should know the answer to, like “did you travel with us in the last 30 days?”  And finally, we ask questions that seem irrelevant or unimportant to the customer, but we want to know more about it, like “did you remember seeing any advertisements on your flight today?” So, we kinda capture the “voice of the customer”, at least on things that are important to the company, and from those customers that can be bothered to respond. 

In addition to that, we tend to look at survey results in isolation, and then look at things like financial results, churn reporting, or customer complaints data, in isolation as well. Depending on the data maturity level in your business, you may combine some of your data, but not all of it. You may analyze some of your data, but not all of it—which we know is limiting, as data is best utilized when combined with various sources, rather than analyzed in isolation. 

So that’s why I’m excited about the recent announcements. It’s not that I oppose using surveys—absolutely not. They are a great tool in our toolbox, but they are only one tool, not THE tool. 

Extracting Meaning from Unstructured Data 

There’s one resource that has long been underutilized for mining data—the contact centre! The contact centre is an absolute treasure trove of customer insights and has long been underutilized from a customer insights perspective. It’s an amazing source of customer feedback. We have agents on the phone, email, live chat, and social media messaging. We have bots, call notes, and so much more. So instead of sending a survey, we can now analyze the data we already have, and potentially supplement what’s missing with a survey. 

Conversational analytics is also powerful as we are no longer limited to low numbers of survey responses, or hearing only from those customers that take the time to respond. Analyzing the conversation that just took place between your company and a customer means we have 100% of the conversation to use to generate insights from. It means more volume, but also a deeper understanding of your customers’ experiences, as we “hear” from all customers that interact with us.

With acquisitions and partnerships, companies like InMoment strengthened their capabilities in this space, using ML (Machine Learning) and NLP (Natural Language Processing) to extract as much insight as possible from those unstructured data sources to tell us what the conversation was about, how the customer (and agent) felt about the interaction, and even predict what the experience was like (e.g. customer effort). Effort and ease, or CES (Customer Effort Score), is a super valuable metric to use in the interaction environment, as it tells us so much about how an experience went from a customer point of view, and is strongly correlated to customer loyalty. Based on unstructured data (the conversation that just took place between agent and customer) as well as operational data (e.g. call history, wait times, transfers, channel hopping) we can predict the level of effort the customer had to put forth to get their query resolved, all without a survey. 

Analyzing call or chat data helps us understand the conversation that took place, but also what it was all about. It allows you to narrow down on your customer “intent”, or reason for contacting. While we typically rely on agents to choose a “call reason” from a drop down menu, if you work in this space you probably know the accuracy levels of that data. That’s not just because an agent may opt to take a short cut and choose whatever option is right at the top of the drop down menu, it’s also limited to the options we provide, and one option only. Often calls may cover more than one reason, or the contact reason differs from the actual problem that needs to get addressed. Some telephone platforms now offer “intent recognition” and we can also get that information from our VoC platforms if we ingest that data. 

Beyond our contact centre data we can also leverage external sources such as social media or reviews. It’s another source of “free” customer feedback we can leverage to better understand our customers, their needs, and potential improvement areas. And again, we pull it into the same platform to have it in the same place as our other customer feedback data for enriched analytical capabilities. 

The Power and Limitations of Technology 

While those VoC platform announcements are super exciting, it’s not as simple as plugging them into our company tech environment and we have full access to all the shiny toys. You may end up with an (expensive) Ferrari in the garage, unable to drive it. The more data we can ingest into these VoC platforms, the better the quality of our customer and employee insights. However, which data we can share—from a policy, privacy, or tech point of view—determines to what extent we can leverage the tools. If you’re faced with a stack of legacy systems that don’t integrate easily, or can’t even connect the (data) dots between your systems, things become more challenging. 

Another incredibly exciting area is predicting experiences, or rather experience metrics. A word of caution here as well—we all know how unique and unpredictable we are as humans. A lot of testing is required before you have satisfactory accuracy levels for your particular organization (similar to intent work). So again, a great example of how we can leverage survey data to gain insights into customers’ perceptions of experiences. Expectations and perceptions make predicting experiences rather interesting. 

Wrapping Up

So to wrap up, from a conversational analytics point of view, we’re heading to a state where we know why the customer got in touch and what the interaction was about, what the experience was like from a customer point of view, how the customer felt (emotion and sentiment), and the impact the agent may have had. It’s pretty powerful to have that all in one place, but what do we do with this information? 

Firstly, we can enrich it even further with not “just” unstructured data from internal sources, but external sources like social media as well. We can also add key operational or financial data we have on the customer (e.g. call metrics such as handle time, customer tenure, value segments, churn risk, and others). 

Secondly, when we bring it all together we see a picture emerging on two levels, the operational level and the strategic level. 

  1. On an operational level we may gain insights to help us train our agents or uncover root causes that we can tackle. Those are typically limited to a specific area, e.g. a call center team, and smaller in nature. 
  2. On a strategic level we are able to uncover an end-to-end view of the customer experience, enabling us to look at company-wide experience improvement areas. Whether that’s overall, or broken down e.g. by specific journey stages. Again, effort is a great metric to use here as you can map out friction areas (aka areas for improvement) across journey stages by channel, or intent. You can also view this by e.g. product or specific services, overlay churn risk or value segments, the list is endless. It should give you a clear idea where to focus your improvement efforts and track performance over time. 

Many VoC tools can do parts of what I outlined here, but what we’re seeing now is a strong focus within our industry to mature our capabilities further, particularly in the conversational analytics space. It enables us to use the data we already have and use surveys only when we really need them. And that, in my humble opinion, is fantastic! 

Thanks for “listening”.

Watch the Video – Get More Out of Your CX Program

Watch this demo video to see how InMoment’s award-winning AI tech does the heavy lifting on analysis so you can spend more time lifting CX results.

Unlock Expert Guidance on Today’s CX Challenges & Opportunities

From proving ROI and navigating budget constraints to adopting AI and creating seamless omnichannel experiences, these challenges are shaping the future of customer experience. In this report, discover actionable insights and recommendations from our CX experts to help you overcome these obstacles and drive growth.

2025 Consumer Trends Report

The One Report You Don't Want to MIss: The way customers interact with brands is evolving faster than ever. Our free 2025 Consumer Trends Report highlights the key shifts transforming customer experience (CX) and what your business needs to stay competitive.

Thinking About Employee & Customer Journey Mapping? 3 Reasons to Dive In

Customer Journey Mapping

There are a lot of elements to building a successful customer experience (CX) or employee experience (EX) program, but one of the most fundamental is employee and customer journey mapping. Journey mapping allows organizations to better understand the interactions and relationships that various audiences share with you, which allows you to create Experience Improvement (XI). Here are three quick reasons why journey mapping is essential:

  1. Optimizing Program Investment
  2. Expanding Your Program
  3. Figuring Out What Comes Next

Reason 1: Optimizing Program Investment

Understanding which touchpoints your audience uses and why they may or may not be functioning well is key to optimizing program investment. You can use employee and customer journey mapping to identify those touchpoints, listen in, and gather quantifiable data that proves your program’s success. The end result of this element is being able to go back to the boardroom with hard numbers, which goes a long way toward getting more funding for your program’s next cycle!

Reason 2: Expanding Your Program

When you map your journeys, you get a much better idea of which stakeholders need to be involved in your experience world. Employee and customer journey mapping is therefore a great way to rope new departments and teams into your program. This process also gives your entire organization a holistic, 360-degree view of your audience, which gives everyone a chance to work off of the same profile and create a more united brand mission.

Reason 3: Figuring Out What Comes Next

Sometimes, it’s good to stop and take stock of your CX program. If you’re not sure what the next stage of that program looks like, journey mapping can help tell you. This process gives everyone a full view of the customer or employee journey, which means that you can deduce what needs to come next in order to meaningfully improve your experiences.

With all of that in mind, how can organizations like yours start or refurbish the employee or customer journey mapping process? Click here to read Stacy Bolger’s full-length point of view on journey mapping. She’ll take you through more reasons you should journey map if you aren’t already, and some best practices on how to get started in the most beneficial way for you, your customers, and your employees!

Watch the Video – Get More Out of Your CX Program

Watch this demo video to see how InMoment’s award-winning AI tech does the heavy lifting on analysis so you can spend more time lifting CX results.

Unlock Expert Guidance on Today’s CX Challenges & Opportunities

From proving ROI and navigating budget constraints to adopting AI and creating seamless omnichannel experiences, these challenges are shaping the future of customer experience. In this report, discover actionable insights and recommendations from our CX experts to help you overcome these obstacles and drive growth.

2025 Consumer Trends Report

The One Report You Don't Want to MIss: The way customers interact with brands is evolving faster than ever. Our free 2025 Consumer Trends Report highlights the key shifts transforming customer experience (CX) and what your business needs to stay competitive.

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