What do you do if stakeholders don't see the value in your innovative customer experience ideas?

The real issue is that most "innovative" CX ideas aren't actually innovative at all. And many stakeholders can smell fluff from a mile away. If they're not seeing value, maybe it's because there is no real value. Be brutally honest with yourself first - are the ideas truly groundbreaking or just trendy nonsense? Stakeholders care about results, not buzzwords.

Let's rename this step "Overcoming Objections" instead. Concerns by stakeholders arise from the failure to see the link of CX initiatives to tangible business outcomes. Like any good pitch, what problem are you trying to solve? Do the stakeholders care about it? If not, HOW to make them care would be your approach.

Sempre trabalhe com dados! Minha abordagem é educativa e baseada em dados. Primeiro, apresento pesquisas e casos de sucesso relevantes que demonstrem os benefícios e os retornos positivos de ideias semelhantes. Além disso, proponho a realiza??o de um projeto piloto ou de um teste A/B, permitindo que as partes interessadas vejam os resultados práticos e os impactos diretos antes de um compromisso maior. Essa estratégia ajuda a construir confian?a e a alinhar expectativas, facilitando a aceita??o de novas iniciativas.

If stakeholders do not see the value in your innovative customer experience ideas, demonstrate their potential through data and case studies. Outline clear benefits, such as increased customer satisfaction, retention rates, or potential revenue growth. Propose a pilot project to showcase the practical impact and gather real-world data. Engage stakeholders in the process, allowing them to provide input and see the transformation firsthand, which can help in gaining their support and commitment.

Understanding the stakeholder's reservations is a primary step. An open mind, being a good listener, and being assertive can help you to transform someone that is blocking into someone that can be your advocate. Invest time to know your stakeholders, their pain points, and priorities to define the best strategy.

A data-driven idea is generally preferable to one without data. However, even with data, it's crucial to understand the metrics that will resonate with decision-makers or budget holders regarding your idea. For instance, if you possess data on conversation trends on your omnichannel platform or website traffic, does it correlate with direct revenue impact? Presenting the data and making rational judgments on how these metrics can lead to increased sales conversions is essential

Ever data point you present needs to link right back to your customers goals. Data is amazing, but meaningless if it has no context. "Customer satisfaction can improve by 5% by using this feature" is useless if I have no blockers with customer satisfaction. It takes extra work to put everything into context that's relevant to your customer, but the extra time will lead to a tighter relationship between you both.

Utilizing concrete data to support your ideas can significantly change the conversation. By presenting case studies, analytics, or benchmarking data, we can visually demonstrate the potential impact of our ideas. It's about making the benefits tangible and showing the real value of what might seem like a risk.

"Value" in an innovative idea is best communicated with data. One of the issues that people in customer experience deal with is trying to provide "emotional arguments" for why an Innovative idea should be used. To be fair, that typically happens because people in CX deal first-hand with customers who make requests for new Innovations and will often complain if they're not given. For example, customers may ask for a company to offer many different payment solutions, and use arguments that the customer's always right or the customer will withhold money. An emotional argument would be telling someone, "everyone is asking for it". Data-driven arguments may present data showing how it will drive revenue and save the company money.

I like this. 'Alignment' can be achieved through: - fact-based, data-driven CX performance tracking - pressure from top executives - crises-driven responses (to bad press, etc) Again, how you persuade/cajole/scare/enthuse stakeholders will also come down to how you present those arguments.

Stakeholders SHOULD have different interests and that's a good thing. If everyone is completely aligned, it leads to dangerous groupthink and blind spots. Some friction is healthy. The key is finding enough common ground to move forward while still allowing different perspectives. Total alignment is for cults, not innovative companies.

Nobody wants to buy a solution; they want to buy the value a solution provides! Two perspectives that are critical to apply when ensuring initial alignment as well as communicating future value are: The Business impact and the Financial outcome. Too often value is assumed based on previous customer experiences or data that “suggests” a solution is valuable. Value is unique to every opportunity. Gaining, and maintaining stakeholder support requires the ability to communicate that you understand how a solution will impact their business from a process standpoint as well as how those impacts will be measured. Alignment requires the “Seller” to see and talk about the “Buyers” business as they do. Solutions by themselves are not valuable.

Finding common ground is key. It’s important to frame innovations in terms of how they align with overall business objectives or stakeholders' specific goals. When stakeholders see how your ideas contribute to broader company targets or resolve pain points, resistance often decreases

Pilot programs are often used as a stalling tactic to avoid real commitment. It's easy to do endless tests and tweaks without ever fully taking the plunge. And if the pilots succeeds, there are often a million excuses why it won't scale. At some point, you need to jump in with both feet. Half-measures don't lead to breakthroughs.

When initiating a new idea, it's crucial to begin on a small scale. We can commence by collaborating with various revenue-generating functions. This approach enables us to gauge the potential impact of our ideas on the business. Subsequently, we can analyze the metrics and present how the initiative has influenced the business. This phase remains challenging for me because when there are limitations on measuring the performance of your idea, it becomes difficult to convincingly demonstrate its business impact to others

When pitching a pilot program, there are 4 words you should always keep at the front of your proposal" "Fail small, grow big". Make sure your customer can see that if this doesn't take off, then it's not a huge amount of time lost. But if it does work, the potential that follows it is huge and they will benefit from being an early adopter and having the chance to influence a project to meat their exact needs or challenges.

Starting small can lead to big wins. By proposing a pilot program, you minimize risk and allow stakeholders to see the potential of your idea in a controlled setting. This approach provides real-world evidence of effectiveness and can help scale up the idea based on proven results.

Be prepared to discuss any stakeholder concerns during your updates. Offering solutions to potential problems or adjustments to the plan based on initial results can help reassure stakeholders and demonstrate your commitment to the project’s success.

More important than sharing your wins is to also own your mistakes and failures. If we didn't meet your customers expectations, why? We can learn so much more from our failures, yet we shy away from them for fear of how others will perceive us. But if we ignore them, not only are we not giving ourselves the chance to do better, but we also don't educate others on how to avoid these mistakes and risk the same mistakes occurring for someone else.

Em situa??es onde as partes interessadas n?o veem o valor em minhas ideias inovadoras de experiência do cliente, minha abordagem sempre foi destacar os sucessos e resultados positivos alcan?ados através dessas iniciativas. Comunicar vitórias é essencial para mostrar o impacto tangível das ideias e demonstrar seu valor real. Utilizando dados e métricas relevantes, destaco os ganhos obtidos em termos de satisfa??o do cliente, reten??o, aumento de receita e outros indicadores-chave de desempenho. Essa estratégia n?o apenas valida a relevancia das ideias, mas também ajuda a conquistar a confian?a e o apoio das partes interessadas, incentivando uma mentalidade mais aberta à inova??o na experiência do cliente.

Sharing successes early and often helps build momentum. Communicating the positive outcomes of the pilot, no matter how small, can boost stakeholder confidence and support for broader implementation. It's about creating a narrative of success around the innovation.

Flexibility is essential. Be open to adjusting your strategies based on feedback and results from initial implementations. This adaptability not only shows your commitment to the company’s success but also demonstrates a pragmatic approach to innovation.

A question I ask participants in our sales programs is "do you know why the prospect is talking to you?" As a seller, we know why we want to talk to the prospect but how many times do we really ask ourselves why are they talking to me? The dangerous assumption is "they need our solutions or services"...this is wrong. Buyers dont care about a "solution" they want to buy the value the solution brings to their organization. That value can differ based on a number of things, the industry, size, capacity, time frames, strategy and more. When preparing for prospect/client meeting it is time well spent to ask yourself why they are willing to talk to you. What do they truly want from your solution? Can you see "value" from their perspective?