Hi Team,

Recently, I was privileged enough to stumble upon this great visual produced by Medallia. It elegantly demonstrates how organisations should be thinking about CX maturity in 2023:

Before I get into the 4 step maturity curve, it’s worth mentioning a recent inflection point that I’ve noticed within the CX stratosphere. I refer to it as LaaaaS 👇

Don’t Let Competitors Kick Your LaaaaS

Everyone you speak to in the CX world at the moment has the same narrative - Listen, Analyse, Act.

You have to measure CX at critical touch-points, analyse these touch-points and close the loop with relevant customers, right?

Whilst I believe the above is still true (and relevant in 2023), the best companies are taking things a step further by acting at scale.

Here’s how I now think about CX management:

• Listen: capture customer signals (solicited & behavioural)

• Analyse: leverage AI & ML tools to synthesise data

• Act: proactively identify at risk customers & remediate

• Act At Scale: activate first-party data to deliver personalised experiences across every touch-point

If you’re not thinking about how to activate your first-party data in 2023, it’s highly likely that the competition will soon begin to kick your LaaaaS!

The CX Maturity Curve In 2023

Are surveys dead? No, but you’re definitely behind the curve if the only customer insight you have is from surveys.

Step 1: Solicited - “The Vocal Minority”

Capturing solicited feedback from customers (in the form of surveys) is just a small piece of the puzzle.

In 2023, it is commonplace for organisations to have sophisticated program designs, measuring transactional, episodic & relationship experiences with surveys.

Whilst surveys still serve a purpose, they only yield feedback from a small proportion of customers. As per this McKinsey report, the “typical CX survey samples only 7 percent of a company’s customers, providing an extremely limited view of what customers experience and value”.

So if surveys won’t allow your organisation to understand the entire customer experience, what will? Observed data 👇

Step 2: Observed - “The Silent Majority”

Observed data identifies the behaviour of customers without actually asking the customer directly. Some would argue that this data is more objective in nature, compared to the biased view of customer feedback.

The substantial benefit associated with observed data is that it allows you to understand 100% of interactions, giving you a more representative view of how your customers are behaving & feeling.

So what is observed data? It can vary in nature, but some examples are below:

• Digital Experience Analytics - measures and understands the user experience on desktop, mobile & app devices.
  

• Speech Analytics - applies sentiment & analytics to call recordings to surface associated insights pertaining to that call.
  

• Text Analytics - applies sentiment & analytics to any unstructured data record (social comment, email, webchat transcript) to surface associated insights.

Now whilst these insights are valuable, it’s extremely common for different teams within your organisation to use these tools in isolation. However, the real value occurs when you’re able to CONNECT the data together 👇

Step 3: Connected - “Single View Of Customer”

As companies evolve in their CX maturity, the amount of data that they collect on their customers also increases.

It’s commonplace for different teams to “own” elements of the customer experience (and the associated data). For example, a contact centre may leverage speech analytics, a centralised CX team may manage the VOC program, and a digital team may be responsible for using digital experience analytics to deliver better UX.

At some point, companies begin realise that they actually need to connect this data together to build a “single view” or “omnichannel” view of the customer. A view which transgresses across multiple systems or business units.

Unfortunately, creating a single view of the customer is difficult to do, for two reasons:

1. Limited cross-department alignment

2. Siloed systems & technologies

BUT if you can get this right, we can guarantee you that you’ll make substantial progress to becoming a CX leader.

Creating a Connected Customer is a critical prerequisite for driving real-time journey orchestration. Or in other words, it is a critical prerequisite to ensure you’re providing the best possible experience to your customers, no matter where they interact in your business:

PS, if you’re wondering how to best build that connected customer view, let me know - I can get you in touch with the right people!

Step 4: Orchestrated - “Personalised Experiences”

If you’re able to stitch the dots of your customers together, you’ll begin to identify areas of opportunity across the entire journey. Whilst journey orchestration sounds extremely intimidating, it really isn’t.

Journey orchestration is simply leveraging the information you know about your customers to provide a more unique & personalised experience to them.

Examples of how journey orchestration could work in your organisation are below:

• The staff at your local Supermarket apologise for the missing items in your recent online order
  

• The contact centre rep asks whether you need advice on a certain Insurance product as they know that you’ve visited a certain webpage on multiple occasions
  

• The car salesperson has prepared finance options for you according to the calculator specs you filled out online
  

• Your mobile provider personalises the homepage banner with the iPhone that you’re interested in purchasing

All of the above examples leverage first-party data provided by the customer to deliver a unique experience. This is something that’s expected by customers in 2023, but is still poorly done by most companies:

Fortunately, CX leaders are beginning to get this right. The best thing is that it’s usually a win-win. Customers appreciate the fact that their data is being used to deliver a better experience, and companies typically generate 10-15% more revenue by delivering personalised experiences.

So … What’s stopping your organisation from doing the same?

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