In our previous article we shared the latest Forrester report, which predicts one in four CX professionals will lose their job this year due to a lack of clarity on CX ROI.
Naturally, The Proto team don’t take this lightly and will be focusing on how to support CX leaders to improve the ability to measure what matters and prove CX ROI.
If you haven’t done so already, there is no better time to establish the right practices to prove financial return from your customer experience initiatives this year.
To align your Customer plans with your Senior management’s goals, look at undertaking the following three approaches first:
1. Help executives imagine a (bleak) future without CX investments today
Designer and futurist Anab Jain helps organisations imagine remote futures because "one of the most powerful means of effecting change is when people can directly, tangibly and emotionally experience some of the future consequences of their actions today."
When we worked with Sydney Water, we demonstrated this to a group of executives an exercise: First, we shared compelling evidence that while customers five years ago accepted that utility experiences might not be great, expectations had changed. The group (and their customers) then assessed Sydney Water's current state of CX and the gap between Sydney Water and CX leaders. Next, we projected what Sydney Water's CX would look like in five years. We showed that not investing would widen the gap, which became a call to action for executives.
2. Use business casing to demonstrate the urgency in CX improvements
Stakeholders may not see any urgency in improving the customer experience because they aren’t presented with the associated financial impact. Establishing CX buy-in from senior execs is key to receiving company-wide support, funding and ultimately becoming customer-centric.
We showed a recent client the $4.5 million annual cost of their sales process falling short. Before pinpointing why this was happening and connecting it to customer experience, they had no way of knowing how much payback improved customer experience could deliver.
3. Show that breakdown and breakeven on CX investment
To decide which rocks to tackle it is a good strategy to understand the exact benefit by segment. List the necessary investments, including common investment categories like training, technology purchases, professional services, and program operation. Then assess what the benefits would have to be to offset the costs.
A recent Travel Client make the case for investing in a Marketing Automation tool that designed a nurture series to meet customer needs. The investment for the CRM tool was $200,000 per annum and the margin from each holiday was $400. While offsetting the CRM investment would require a small increase in 10 additional holiday bookings per week. The investment would more than pay for itself and increase sales conversion to the tens or hundreds of thousands.
To read our thoughts on where some CX Leaders are going wrong, read our last article which provides five of the biggest challenges of proving CX ROI:
- Tech Has Trumped Customer
- Too many ideas, not enough validation
- Initiatives aren’t timed to maximise cashflow
- Monitoring and measurement loses momentum
- Misaligned KPIS that aren’t customer focused
This is going to be a big year of change. Without knowing exactly what matters to measure and making the right connections between cause and effect, CX value will continue to evade the link to commercial return.
