Hi Team 👋

As I sat on a ☀️ beach in Mallorca last weekend, I started to think about why most #CX programs fail to get the adoption they deserve …

Also, why is it that CX leaders rarely have a seat at the Executive table … ?

Below, I’ve highlighted XX common mistakes I’ve observed with #CX functions / programs. I’d be interested to hear from ya’ll as to:

A) What you feel is missing from the list?

B) What your #CX function does well, and poorly?

Please excuse my way of writing for this email. It is a raw 🧠 dump of my thoughts …

11 Mistakes I Regularly See #CX Programs Making 🙅🏽

To make this content digestible & actionable, I’ve split the mistakes into 3 separate areas - People, Processes & Technology.

PEOPLE ♟️

#1 - CX Teams Struggle To Articulate The Value That They Deliver On A P&L Statement

Imagine that you are the CEO of the company that you’re working at. Now think about the top 3 things that you would be worried about. I bet it’s something to do with making money, saving money and mitigating risk.

Whilst I don’t doubt that the CEO cares about your NPS score, he / she will care more if you’re able to demonstrate how great customer experience has lead to:

• Reduced costs - cost to serve, operational efficiencies etc

• Increased revenue - acquisition of new customers, or improved retention

If the CX team can’t justify how they’ve impacted a P&L statement, they probably don’t deserve a seat at the Executive table.

#2 - Customers Rarely Hear About What Orgs Are Doing With Their Feedback

When was the last time you received an email from a company explaining what they did with your survey feedback? I assume the answer is … never! No wonder survey response rates are dwindling …

In a day & age where customers can easily switch to your competitor, it’s absolutely critical that you’re demonstrating the ways that you’re looking to continuously improve your service. If marketing teams are willing to email customers weekly, surely the #CX team can schedule a quarterly update on outer loop activities they’ve been working on!

#3 - CX Teams Articulate Insights Well, But Struggle To Tie Them Back To Business Outcomes

How many times have you heard a CX insights analyst talk about communication being the largest topic coming out of customer surveys?

This is a useful insight but it doesn’t provide business units with any reason to act.

Instead, what if the CX team was able to estimate that poor communication was leading to $1m in repeat contacts coming into the contact centre? This would require the #CX team to attach the insight to a tangible business outcome. It’s more effort, but it is also going to give business units a reason to act.

#4 - Single Point Of Failure #CX Teams

It is commonplace for a #CX team or function to be established within an organisation. This team often sits separately from functional business units and can subsequently become very disconnected from day to day operations.

Whilst I tend to agree with having a #CX function which can govern overall programs, it is absolutely critical to have cross-functional champions who are able to add colour & context to the insights being obtained.

PROCESSES 🎯

#5 - Outer Loop Initiatives Are Rarely Measured To Determine Impact

An outer loop initiative is a project that stems from a systemic issue which has been identified via customer feedback.

There are often dedicated continuous improvement teams who have a responsibility to deliver better processes in accordance with identified customer pain points.

The problem? They very rarely measure the actual impact of these changes. If I had a penny for every time I’ve been asked to measure the impact of a change after the change has been operational for a few months, I’d probably have 5 pennies.

But seriously - if you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it. CX Teams should always be thinking about the measure of success before implementing anything.

#6 - VoC Programs Struggle To Connect The Dots Across Multiple Touch-Points

I bet that 99% of organisations have some form of CSAT or NPS program in place. The problem with the majority of these programs is that they measure a certain point in time, usually at a certain touch-point.

Very few organisations are able to actually connect the dots between different touch-points, channels & journeys. The reason for this is two-fold; firstly, different teams typically manage different touch-points i.e. contact centre VS digital. Second, connecting journeys can be quite difficult to do, and it usually requires sophisticated technology to do so.

Not saying that it can’t be done (*cough cough* Medallia 👀), but I just don’t see it being done very well too often.

#7 - Too Much Dependence On Headline Metrics (CSAT, NPS); Not Enough Time Spent Measuring Business Challenges

Teams spend way too much time trying to figure out meaningless shifts in vanity metrics like CSAT & NPS.

Instead, what they should be trying to use quantitative data for is to measure the impact that business solutions are having on identified customer challenges.

Bill Staikos explained this very eloquently last week:

TECHNOLOGY 🛠️

#8 - Closed Loop Activities Aren’t Tightly Embedded Into Day To Day Workflows

Let’s face it - closing the loop with customers is a time-consuming & resource intensive task. In saying this - the value of doing so is immense - there are numerous studies out there which show a significant uplift in customer spend and/or retention when organisations close the loop with customer detractors.

To operationalise closed-loop processes within your organisation, it has to feel like a frictionless process. The most successful organisations embed closed loop activities into daily workflows by adding them to the queue of tasks that teams need to complete.

By creating new cases or tickets, the closed loop process becomes apart of daily operations, similar to any other operational item. The benefit here is that this task does not feel mundane yet it has significant & measurable benefits to the customer experience.

#9 - Not Connecting CX Data To Other Data Sources

I’m going to keep this point short and sweet. If you are not connecting CX data to all other data sources within your organisation, there is no way that your CX program will deliver valuable insights, nor will it get adopted from the wider business.

Find a technology solution that can help you build the 360-degree view of the customer, and visualise this information in an action-oriented manner.

#10 - Not Enough Focus On The Silent Majority

In 2021, McKinsey found that approximately 7% of the entire population will ever complete a survey. If this statistic is true, it means that a traditional CX program is making decisions without hearing from 93% of their customers.

In this day and age, any type of customer signal can be analysed - agent notes, emails, chat transcripts, call transcripts, digital analytics, video feedback etc.

The best CX programs are doing their best to listen to 100% of their customers, and are using these datasets to make more informed decisions.

#11 - Lack Of Predictive Analytics; Past Performance Isn’t Being Used To Predict Future Outcomes

Let’s imagine John has just churned after having a poor experience with your organisation. After looking at John’s profile, you notice that he provided 3 separate detractor surveys and called the contact centre twice about payment issues.

Whilst it’s unlikely that you will be able to retain John as a customer, you can definitely apply the patterns observed in John’s scenario to highlight other customers who may be heading on the same trajectory.

With this intelligence at hand, you can proactively flag churn indicators and subsequently intervene into these journeys before you have 10,000 John’s.

This is not hard to do, but is rarely being done.

Follow me on LinkedIn 👇