Why CX Strategy Is Not Aligned With MarTech Execution?

Have you ever wondered why companies, despite spending a fortune on MarTech and intense effort on CX journeys, are still struggling to win over their customers.

Meet Sarah, the Chief Customer Officer at a leading apparel retailer. She understood the importance of delivering seamless, personalized customer experiences. She and her team had developed a robust CX strategy, meticulously mapping out the ideal end-to-end journey for their consumers.

Yet, when the time came to translating that vision into reality, Sarah and team hit a wall. "Our marketing team has invested heavily in the latest personalization engines, analytics dashboards, and automation tools. But it is just not connecting with the experiences we want to deliver," she worries.

This disconnect between CX strategy and MarTech execution is a common challenge facing many enterprises today.

Reasons for CX Strategy and MarTech Disconnect

Let us explore a few key reasons it occurs.

Siloed Mindsets

CX and marketing teams often operate in their own functional bubbles. They use different tools, metrics, and success criteria. It gets even worse when you add IT to the mix. This silo mentality is what prevents true alignment.

Lack of Capability Mapping

This is my favorite topic and an area of active research now. Companies are not doing a good job of actively linking their CX touchpoints and journeys to the specific marketing capabilities required to enable them.

In other words, the "what" and the "how" are not connected well enough. This comes with its own negative consequences.

Technology Overload

Enterprises tend to get caught up in what is the latest in MarTech. However, they do not have a clear plan to integrate these tools into their overall CX ecosystem. What I mean is the latest and greatest tech gets implemented, but then it is not fully optimized. We have a Ferrari but do not know to fully maximize the adoption of all of its features.

Misaligned Metrics

We do not do a good job of measuring outcomes. Performance is measured using internally focused operational indicators but however they are not indicative of true, outward looking customer outcomes.

CX and MarTech go about their business with different measurement tracks

The Need for a More Holistic, Capability Driven Approach

To overcome these challenges, we need a more holistic approach based on an assessment of our capabilities. Here is how we can bridge the gap between CX strategy and MarTech execution:

Map CX Touchpoints to MarTech Capabilities

First, you need to ensure that the CX touchpoints and journeys are clearly and unambiguously mapped to the specific marketing capabilities that are needed to enable those journeys. This ensures the "what" and the "how" are aligned and capability gaps if any are well documented and included in your strategy. Enlist your business or enterprise architects to get this job done.

Begin by mapping key customer journey touchpoints to the specific marketing capabilities required to enable them

Embed MarTech into the Tech Ecosystem

Next, you must integrate your MarTech stack into the broader technology landscape and CX ecosystem, rather than maintaining it as a siloed function. This allows your MarTech tools to fully embrace the true capabilities of your IT and CX Tech investments to render that magical, yet elusive 360 degree experience to truly enhance the overall customer experience.

Have a North Star architecture for your enterprise that reflects this synergy

A few things for you to consider.

• Have a customer data platform which acts as the central hub for customer profiles and behaviors
• Marketing automation tools that are connected to the e-commerce platform and call center systems
• Advanced analytics that feed directly into merchandising, pricing, and customer service decisions.

Align Customer Focused CX and MarTech Metrics

Define performance metrics that focus on achieving tangible customer outcomes, and not just achieving internal operational efficiency. Focus on increasing online conversion rates, growing average order value, reducing customer care tickets, and improving your customer retention and loyalty. Ensure that these metrics are adequately socialized so that everyone understands and embraces these metrics.

A well defined and understood performance metrics framework is vital to create a shared language and accountability across the CX, MarTech and IT teams

Communicate the Vision and Roadmap

Last but not the least is to clearly articulate the integrated CX-MarTech vision and the phased plan to get there. Ensure that you have gained buy-in from stakeholders and set realistic expectations for progress. Your initiatives should factor in conflicting objectives among your business units and realign them with a business wide perspective and corresponding priorities.

Start Small, Think Big

Begin by identifying a few critical CX touchpoints, map them to your underlying capabilities. Address your capability gaps by incorporating the gaps as CX objectives into your CX strategy. Translate these CX objectives into phased initiatives and draft your corresponding MarTech strategy and architecture. Select high-impact MarTech tools, define shared success metrics and then only proceed with execution.

The key is to start small and build momentum.

Remember that Rome wasn't built in a day, and the path to CX-MarTech alignment is an ongoing journey. So where do you begin? What is the first step you can take to close this gap in your organization?

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All opinions are my own and not those of my employer.