If customers have a great experience with you, they’ll keep coming back for more. So it’s no surprise that businesses are investing in customer experience (CX) like never before.
Digital technologies are automating processes and making it easier for customers to communicate with and buy from you. The assumption is that all this will translate into bottom line impacts – increased revenue, profitability and business growth.
There’s no doubt that customer experience initiatives pay dividends. Temkin Group found that companies that earn $1 billion annually can expect to earn an additional $700 million on average within the first three years of investing in customer experience.
If you can measure it, you can manage it. That’s a business school basic. Perhaps more importantly, if you can measure it, you can change your approach where needed and finance CX initiatives that work.
Automating CX
Proving ROI to the satisfaction of budget holders comes down to the finances.
An uptick in revenue, profits or stock prices will make the C-level and the investors happy. As well as driving revenue, effective automation of the customer experience also brings cost savings.
After struggling with customer satisfaction results in surveys, the Bank of America turned to digital technologies to improve its customer experience. By investing in technology focused on digital experience and switching from a product and fee-driven approach to a more relationship-driven approach, it turned this around completely.
In practice, that meant that staff who used to carry out repetitive admin could be trained in higher level customer services skills instead. A year later, customers put the bank at the top of the satisfaction ratings table.
Relationship building is at the heart of effective CX metrics, which focus on:
Quality not quantity. Time spent on high-quality client interactions increases profits. Rather than measuring cost savings brought by more efficient digital working – or using traditional contact centre metrics such as average call handle time or the time it takes to answer a call – look for more relevant KPIs. Are customers satisfied after they have interacted with you? Do they buy from you again?
Individual customer experiences. To get the best returns, measuring customer experience must first focus in detail on individual experiences. Combining data from customer relationship management systems, marketing technology and customer feedback can help you create a more personalised customer experience that delivers higher returns on marketing spend, and boosts sales.
Budget-holder aspirations. If the CIO has put their neck on the line for a digital transformation project, it’s a good idea to measure customer metrics that align specifically with the CIO’s aspirations for that project. If customer experience metrics show that a new digital experience is driving sales, higher levels of customer loyalty or NPS scores, everyone is happy.
The long and the short term. It’s important to put a timescale on CX benefits. Increased customer loyalty resulting from the convenience of self-service may translate to sales over the long term.
Theentire customer journey. It’s no good having super-efficient support response times if customers aren’t buying from you in the first place because of clunky and unintuitive self-service e-commerce technology. Ensure you’re measuring and monitoring each section of the customer journey. Join the dots between sales, marketing, customer services, support and accounts.
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to measuring return on investment. Tap into the experiences and resources of those who have laid the groundwork for you. Overlay your business-specific goals on top – and the results of your investment in customer experience will reveal themselves.
