Sujay Saha is the president of Acquis Cortico-X.
Having a great product is no longer enough to guarantee business growth. Exceptional products must be surrounded by other aspects of experiences that are just as exceptional. Although many business leaders see the value of customer experience (CX), it’s still often misunderstood and perceived as a “soft” measure without a clear return on investment. The risks are of course higher for companies that neglect CX.
The customer journey is composed of myriad touchpoints with sales, marketing, product, customer service and other functional areas, and each one is critical to the overall experience. All touchpoints must be aligned around the needs and desires of the customer—and customer expectations are rising. I believe leaders in all industries need to understand every aspect of customer experience—the why, what and how—to improve engagement, loyalty and business performance.
Why Customer Experience Matters More Than Ever
According to Forrester’s 2024 US Customer Experience Index, “CX quality among brands in the US sits at an all-time low after declining for an unprecedented third year in a row. Several factors, including brands’ inability to provide seamless customer and employee experiences; underwhelming digital experiences using chatbots; and consumers’ concerns about their personal financial situations, society, and the economy at large, contributed to the decline.” Only 3% of companies were classified as “customer-obsessed,” meaning they center all business decisions on their customers’ wants and needs. The report also quantified the obvious—“customer-obsessed organizations reported 41% faster revenue growth, 49% faster profit growth, and 51% better customer retention than other organizations”.
Customers and employees are facing enormous pressures and challenges in all aspects of their lives. Overall mental health is suffering. U.S. clinical depression rates are at an all-time high, based on 2023 Gallup data, and in a 2022 CNN/Kaiser Family Foundation poll, 90% of adults said the country is in the midst of a mental health crisis. Advancing technologies, such as generative AI, have increased efficiencies in everyday life but have also stoked valid new anxieties. Customers are concerned about the security of their personal data in an AI-driven environment, and employees are worried about the implications AI will have on their jobs. Economic uncertainties are causing these customers to be more discerning about where they spend their money.
These challenges present both risks and opportunities for businesses. The stakes are high. CX leaders have been shown to outperform laggards by 108 points in the S&P 500, and customers have reported to be willing to pay up to a 16% premium on products and services that offer a great experience. Yet many organizations still struggle to move the needle on CX improvements.
What Customer Experience Really Means
Creating an excellent customer experience requires adopting a people-centric approach to business decisions and actions. Just by pivoting your perspective by 90 degrees to view any business problem or opportunity through the lens of what people want and need, you can anticipate the magnitude of change and develop more relevant solutions for your audience. This mindset shift will help you optimize product-market fit, develop more effective rollout strategies and inspire behavioral change—ultimately driving better business results and sustainable growth.
Becoming a CX leader won’t happen overnight. Organizations face strong headwinds on the path to transformation, including departmental silos, disparate technologies, legacy systems and processes, inconsistent KPIs, and cultural resistance. To overcome these obstacles, we need a clear and unified vision, top-down commitment from leadership and buy-in at every level of the organization. CX efforts have to be integrated throughout the entire customer journey, from awareness to consideration to purchase to retention and, ideally, to advocacy.
How To Embed Customer Experience In Your Company’s DNA
1. Foster Empathy For All Stakeholders
Empathy is a virtuous circle. Cultivate empathy within your organizational culture, starting with the example set by top leadership, and encourage employees to understand the perspectives and experiences of their colleagues, partners and customers. As I’ve written about in the past on the concept of return on experience (ROX), redesigning CX, leadership experience (LX) and employee experience (EX) together is one of the most effective and scalable ways to shape a company’s culture and future. If good CX is a trajectory of appealing touchpoints, and good EX is like a social movement in the way it inspires commitment, then good LX is a catalyst to change the rest of the enterprise.
2. Connect Customer Insights To Business Impact
Continuously listening to customer and employee voices is just a start. It’s a no-brainer to focus on what your customers are saying online or on customer service calls, but integrating that information with what they are posting on social media and other public forums will start to create a more holistic picture. Augmenting that view with operational data will help you drill down into the root causes of problems and the magnitude of opportunities. While these insights can spark thought-provoking conversations, the holy grail is connecting them to measurable, tangible and meaningful business outcomes. Think of your CFO as the primary audience for this reporting. This is a good litmus test to verify that your organization is serious about investing in identified opportunities.
3. Amplify Impact With Rigorous Management Practice
Transformations often fail if leaders fail to communicate insights with a clear tone and intention of improvement, versus an audit of the current state. Get curious instead of defensive. Where are these perceptions coming from? How are good and bad experiences affecting your customers and your bottom line? How can you learn more? Help your employees see the direct link between customer experience and business impact. Showcase stories that illustrate how improved CX leads to results, such as increased revenue and customer loyalty. Bring ROX metrics to life so that past successes (and failures) can create more credibility as you plan the organization’s future goals. Empower employees to drive continuous improvement and hold teams accountable for these outcomes.
Following these three steps with precision and scale will help show everyone in your organization that CX is more than just a soft metric; it’s a strategic growth imperative. By focusing on CX at every level of the organization, you can cultivate sustainable growth and an enduring competitive advantage.
Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. Do I qualify?
Read the full article here
