CX leaders are often pressed to make budgets go further, but in uncertain economic times CX spending can be cut entirely. In this article, CX Network rounds up experts insights on how CX practitioners can do more with less.
Contents:
- Chip Bell: Look beyond your competition
- Yvette Mihelic: Connect CX to other parts of the organization
- Jaslyin Qiyu: Turn customers into advocates
- Shep Hyken: Don’t cut where the customer will notice
Look beyond your competition
As the saying goes, it is better to fail in originality than succeed in imitation and according to author, consultant and keynote speaker Chip Bell, this is also true for CX in 2023.
“We tend to think about what our competition is doing and being better than that. But sometimes that perspective misses the unique aspect we can bring to our organization,” he tells CX Network.
By way of example, Bell cites his recent work researching luxury brands. Part of this has seen him assess the CX characteristics when the purchase is a US$150m private jet or yacht before exploring what that would look like at other price levels.
“In hotels, for example, if the most expensive room in the world is $3,000 a night, what is that experience and are there features of that which can be brought to a lower-priced experience?”
“Look outside your world. Are there lessons to learn from other environments that may be completely different in terms of the customers they serve, but they are applicable to what we do?”
Bell shares more examples in this piece for Forbes, but it is important to remember the objective is to look beyond the direct competitors and into other industries and sectors to innovate on their ideas.
Bell says: “There is a limit to generosity, but there is no limit to ingenuity.”
Read more: Four ways to calculate ROI in customer experience
Connect CX to other parts of the organization
The delivery of great customer experiences is a team sport and it requires an interconnected CX function.
Yvette Mihelic, director of customer experience at John Holland and CX Network Advisory Board member, says that through demonstrating how operational events impact CX, it is possible to foster a culture based on delivering customer outcomes.
Advising on how this can be achieved, she says: “Have meaningful metrics that stretch across business functions and demonstrate the interconnectivity of CX to all parts of the organization.”
In public transport, for example, data on vehicle failures can be used as a metric.
Mihelic says: “We use the mean [average] time between failures for our vehicles as a metric as it directly impacts a highly weighted customer experience satisfaction driver, being reliability.”
She adds: “Through this interconnectivity we are able to cut down inter-departmental silos and foster a better working and a symbiotic relationship that is focused on continuous improvement to customer outcomes, while demonstrating the impact across the organization that each department has in the customer experience.”
As this article states, teams can be inspired by a shared vision of success and, if equipped with the skills and resources they need, are more likely to collaborate on projects that improve overall CX.
Turn customers into advocates
With more ways than ever to interact with customers, recent years have seen a rise in the number of brands leveraging the loyalty of their top customers to create communities and brand advocates.
Although it is far from free, in 2023 this is one of the most cost-effective means by which a brand can sustain its presence in the marketplace without spending millions of dollars on advertising.
“Start with your own employees who are also your customers,” says Jaslyin Qiyu, CX Network Advisory Board member and head of client, digital channels and content marketing at Citi Singapore. “Try to engage those who rarely use of your own products and services to find out why.”
She continues: “Also look at organic supporters of your own products and services through social listening and monitoring. When they say something good or bad, engage them and invite them for user testing and feedback sessions of your planned feature launches, customer journeys and new products or services.”
With so many different avenues of support, a social community engagement strategy is critical. This should also include a path to nurture organic supporters into influencers, for example, through content that can then be shared with their own networks. They can also be included when a company is shaping marketing campaigns, messaging and visual concepts.
Qiyu says: “Make them feel exclusive and valued beyond just giving them incentives to take up your offers. Make them feel like they belong to a valued tester group – with the necessary non-disclosure agreements in place, of course!”
Read more: Proving ROI in CX: a step-by-step guide
Don’t cut where the customer will notice
Sometimes cuts are an unavoidable part of business, but Shep Hyken says companies should not make the mistake of cutting in the wrong places.
“And that wrong place is anywhere where the customer is going to notice,” he says.
Early figures from 2022’s Golden Quarter suggest inflation and interest rates are not yet having a huge impact on consumer spending. But while revenues are steady, there could still be a pull back on investments as supply chain, employment and other issues force overheads to rise.
Hyken says: “We are going to see a pullback especially after the first half of the year when economic conditions will be a little tougher.”
Similar reactions were seen across the corporate world in the early 2000s and again during the Global Financial Crisis. Yet Hyken says: “The best companies, the smart companies, are probably going to use this time to ramp up on the service experience.”
He continues: “Let’s make sure customers don’t have to wait. If they have to wait on hold, they should be given the option for a call back, they should know how long the wait is likely to be. There is a huge disrespect of customers’ time. I don’t think it is on purpose, but that is the way the customer perceives it.”
While up until now customers have been willing to self-serve on digital channels, or in some cases spend more for convenience, in the current environment these behaviors can no longer be banked on.
Hyken says: “That is a big thing – respect the customer’s time because it is a huge friction point.”
Quick links
The new order of customer experience management