Banking Managing Director | FinTech Exec | Generating Sustainable Value from Customer Initiatives | Data-led Value Realisation | Organisational Transformation | Passionate about Culture and People-Centric Transformations
A recent post from Hazel Jackson of Biz Group reminded me of a budget conversation many years ago. I presented a detailed budget proposal for new product features that would improve customer satisfaction and create stickiness. My proposal was met with … “Why should we give you this funding?” I thought I had explained so repeated the key points; improved satisfaction would drive higher retention and new revenue opportunies - improved lifetime value. Obvious to me. My explanation was met with … “We get that but why should we give you this funding when our customers aren’t leaving us in droves?” and … “Why is your $1 of investment more commercially important that anyone else’s $1 of investment?” So, in a non-confrontational way, I openly asked if the exec team was happy to accept a level of dissatisfaction (or a base level of poor satisfaction) that meant we were highly likely to lose some customers, accept that our reputation might be tarnished and also that our competitors might invest and take more market share from us. The answer was … “Yes, on all counts” I was initially amazed. That was the moment I realised that customer satisfaction is a commercial decision - and it really is a science. So I created a framework on which we built the science - the levers that showed the impacts of cost versus commerical return (eg retention, new revenue opportunities). And allowed us to become more predictive. Some questions/ analysis included: - Where is our baseline (our ‘must haves’) in order to be compliant (eg regulation, security)? - Where is our detractor baseline level? If we don’t achieve this level, what’s the impact? - Do we want to be an aspirational brand where our customers are promoters? - If we invest in hyper personalisation and bespoke experiences, are the returns worth the investment? These are examples of what needs to be considered in the context of changes in customer needs (and a desire to drive new customer behaviours), competition (traditional and non-traditional) and regulation. We often talk about CX as a linear equation - the more one invests, the greater the returns. This isn’t the case and companies do need to consciously determine the level of satisfaction they want, at what cost, and at what shareholder value. They also need to appreciate that this level is dynamic and needs to be regularly reassessed and measured (a great use for AI) These are important decisions as the cost - and, depending on sector, the returns - gets exponentially higher the higher one goes up the “customer satisfaction” scale. My lesson was an important one too, one that has stuck with me since the shock of my budget request! #customerexperience #customerloyalty #cx #customerretention #customerservice #churn #businessstrategy #customersuccess #brandreputation #customercentric #consumerbehaviour #profitability Lumoa Netigate FourNet Zendesk Gartner HubSpot Forrester Gainsight Medallia CX ALL Change Gap
