What do you know today that was unknown to everyone a year ago? In an immature field like Customer Experience Management, there are plenty of new things to discover! Here are 23 superior CXM approaches I've shared in 2023:
- Brand integrity is the primary role of a CX team: Minding the gap for a 1-to-1 ratio between what's promised and what's received is the key to magnetic attraction for both new and existing customers, at far lower cost.
- Ideal customer profile is the first step to CXM ROI: Show your Biz Dev team the customer profile with lowest cost to serve. Agree on your operational sweet spot. Then, focus CXM on issue-free CX for ideal customers. You gain internal relevance and clout, and what you learn blesses all other customers.
- 9700% CXM ROI is possible for everyone: Show execs how a one-time cost to eradicate a prevalent issue offsets the issue's total remedy/churn costs. Estimates are amazingly convincing; you do not need exact figures.
- CX data informs status, while CX patterns inspire managers to make a difference for customers' prosperity as the path to your prosperity.
- CXM savings drive growth when you permanently remove a pebble from all customers' shoes. (This is NOT self-service, offshoring, etc.) Aim for massive wins, not just quick wins, for indispensable and indisputable CXM ROI.
- Customer Service (CS) is a value center, not a cost/revenue center: Data-mine what customers contact you about: "I was trying to do X, but Y happened, and Z is my consequence." CS primarily makes up for sloppy management. Show each P&L and functional area how they can prevent costs to serve.
- CS ROI may exceed revenue: Show execs the total revenue represented by every customer who contacted you with a frustrated mood that turned to a calm/happy mood. You've turned around negative word-of-mouth and churn. This saves Marketing & Sales budget from having to make up for that!
- CXM is a functional area, not a "program": Follow the precedent of IT and HR in holistic management that requires personal stewardship of issue-free customer experience (like issue-free privacy, etc.) by everyone companywide.
- Position CXM as a facilitator of alignment companywide to expectations: Executives do this for investor expectations, but nobody is doing it for customer expectations. The horse is the customer, investors are the cart.
- Silo-smoothing is the most impactful CXM: 5 execution silos are at the heart of 5 operations silos. This is a powerful key to great CX, ROI, and maturity. Your CXM team has more power than HR in changing your culture.
- Speak executives' language instead of CXM lingo. Phrase CX gains as contributors to financial ratios, and show execs how to excel with your ideal customer profile. Make this their North Star for all managerial decisions.
- 6 A's of CXM success are Ask, Absorb, Adopt, Apply, Account, Applaud.
- CX-inspired corporate strategy emboldens expansions, straightens strategies of every business unit, and converts costs to value streams.
- Maximum lifetime value is the ultimate aim of your CXM team. This requires experience leadership: driving increased trust, value, and consistency both internally and externally.
- Walking the CX talk companywide is top priority of your CX leader.
- Synchronization drives CXM maturity. Synchronize vision, motivation, expectations and deliverables, customer-centered management, CX/EX, outer-loop and inner-loop, CX gap closure, and CXM itself.
- Since EX=CX, your CXM team must guide both CX and EX. 58% to 80% of employees in every industry are NOT very motivated! It's costing you dearly, but customers suffer most. Your CXM team holds the keys to reversing this.
- Design CX value without industry limitations. Elevate your view of customers' aims, segments, personas, and value.
- Shift managers out of tolerating mediocrity: show percentages and money associated with repetitive issues.
- Beware of CXM artificial intelligence: AI is as good as the data its based on. Double-check the completeness and freshness of sources before automating. Build-in feedback loops at every step and ongoing.
- NPS is not your top KPI (key performance indicator); financials aren't either. You can't see those metrics until customers experienced them. Instead, make your top KPI what you're doing about it: what you're doing that customers will soon experience. This is a true leading indicator of CX and financials.
- Urgency to solve root causes is a primary key to better EX and CX. The other primary key is asking about them, instead of asking about you.
- Your CX Leader is your CEO's most valuable player: CX insights are a 2-sided coin with the keys to most wisely (a) prevent risks and costs and (b) maximize value in every aspect of managing your enterprise.
My advice this year started with 23 Customer Experience Practices You Should Stop in 2023. Gear-up now for MANY new CXM ideas I'm brewing for 2024!
What have you stopped and what have you started this year to make your CXM smarter now?
Author Lynn Hunsaker started her career in Strategic Planning, using VoC to inspire growth strategies. She coined the phrase "Experience Leadership" to represent what's needed in the 2020s to pivot to far greater trust, respect, values, and value.
To fast-track your pivot, Experience Leadership Mastery guides you within 2 to 10 hours across every managerial level (Senior Leadership Team to supervisors) in customer, partner, and employee experience combined.
