Customer Experience Health Check – 4 Questions to Ask

What Key Questions Should You Ask When It Comes To The Health And Well-Being Of Your Customer Experience Strategy?

Recently my wife and I took our infant daughter to the Doctor for a checkup and after they measured her from head to toe and took her weight (thank goodness she didn’t decide to pee on the scale like my son once did), the Doctor asked us some questions:

• How are her feedings going?
• How many wet diapers is she producing a day?
• What are her sleep patterns like?

We didn’t have to go down memory lane to get the answers since caring for her was all we did every minute of the day (and night). When asking these questions, I thought our Doctor was making conversation, but what I realized is that our Doctor was actually assessing the health of our baby from the answers and information we provided. Interesting, huh?

Our Doctor could determine if everything was fine or not just by asking us a few key questions.

So, What Key Questions Should We Ask When It Comes To Our CX Strategy?

There are 4. Let’s dive in, shall we?

Customer Experience Health Check:

Q1. Can You Explain In 1-2 Sentences What Your CX Mission Is?

American businessman and entrepreneur J.C. Penny said “Give me a stock clerk with a goal and I’ll give you a man who will make history. Give me a man with no goals and I’ll give you a stock clerk.”

A CX Specialist with no mission has no idea where they want their company’s CX condition to be, whose philosophy and business they’d like to emulate, and has no idea on how to get there. The first step towards creating a CX mission is to look at companies who have achieved what you want to achieve. Learn from them. And then create a mission around what you aspire to achieve.

Q2. Do You Track Your Metrics – CSAT, Online Review Ratings, User Logins, # Of Customer Calls, Email Open Rates, etc. – At Least On A Monthly Basis?

I’m not a statistician or metric stickler, but when I don’t measure and track the performance of something, that thing eventually starts to rot. For example, weight loss goals. I can say “I want to lose 5lb.” all day long, but until I’m keeping track of my weight and the calories I’m eating, I’m never going to get serious and make any real progress.

Q3. Do You Have 3-4 Specific, Measurable, Realistic, Attainable Goals Set For Your Organization This Year And Do You Have Them Posted Somewhere That You Can See On A Daily Basis?

Just wanting to address and fix all the issues Detractors voice about in my mind is okay, especially since there is a wealth of insight and information on how to improve your existing product or service.

However, customers are almost never going to tell you that you need a strategy to improve your online customer reviews, the benefits of sending segmented email communication, what tools to use to solicit customer feedback, or how to implement A/B tests that show changes in business outcomes as a result of a customer experience improvement. These days it’s easy to get caught up in just improving NPS as a goal, but there’s so many more measurable and attainable goals a CX professional can set for the organization that will have a positive impact on the business. Think about what they are, write them down, and post them.

Handy resource: Get my free CX Accelerator Planning Worksheet and No. B.S. Friendly CX Roadmap

Q4. Do You Know What CX Areas You’re Weak At?

Being a CX professional is one of the most demanding and rewarding roles I’ve ever had. When I jumped into the role, I really had no idea what I was going to focus on. So, I began networking with other CX professionals who’ve been in the role for a while and asked them a lot of great questions. The wonderful Jennifer Neeley from Medallia was kind enough to send me some really good books like Outside In and Driven to Delight. After learning about what others have achieved, the next step was building a CX roadmap that showed where I wanted to go and all the various customer experience responsibilities I could focus on. Then I gave my honest opinions about each area – is this an area we’re weak in or strong in? Which area needs most attention? Which area would have the most impact?

Doing this simple exercise has made CX planning and strategizing a piece of cake. As the saying goes – “You are strong when you know your weaknesses.”

Hi, I’m Eric Melchor, the founder of ElevateMyCX – your source for help with developing and implementing your own killer, more repeat sales getting, transform into loyal, more referrals, better customer reviews, CX strategy. I seldom think of CX more than 18 hours a day.

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