A Results-Proven Approach To The ROI Of Customer Experience
Bryan Sander, Head of CX, Market Research, Digital at AAA

A Results-Proven Approach To The ROI Of Customer Experience

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The biggest challenge for customer experience teams often isn’t learning new technology, staying on top of trends, or connecting with customers--it’s getting buy-in from executives and proving the ROI of their efforts.

Bryan Sander, CCXP, MBA Head of CX, Market Research, Digital at AAA , recommends that customer experience practitioners take a unique approach: do CX on the leaders they’re trying to engage with. 

The first step of customer experience is empathy and understanding. That means finding out what’s important to leaders, walking a mile in their shoes, and learning about the company’s strategy and performance objectives. Don’t make assumptions about what the leaders understand about CX and its value. When you understand where an executive is coming from, you can tailor the approach to meet their needs. Connect CX efforts to help accelerate their business outcomes instead of coming in with something entirely new and overwhelming.

When finding advocates to support and champion your cause, Sanders says customers are powerful fuel and inspiration. Getting close to them and listening to their stories and behaviors with qualitative and quantitative data provides powerful insights to share with leaders. Sanders recommends anyone working in CX, especially in a new role or department, walks in the shoes of the customers and experiences things from their point of view. Seeing things from their perspective gives traction to proving the pain points and value of investing in customer experience.  

It’s natural for people who are immersed in CX to understand the value and benefits. But Sanders says that’s not always the case with leaders. When CX teams come to executives speaking the language of customer experience, it often doesn’t land well because the terms are foreign to leaders. Executives already have a full plate and may feel the CX team wants to add more. Instead, Sanders recommends finding ways to connect customer experience work to existing business goals and plans. It’s not about adding entirely new initiatives to the company but about adding a customer focus to existing strategies.

Top-line growth, margin improvement, and retention are business goals that aren’t often considered CX metrics. But if you can link the value of customer experience to an existing metric that executives understand, Sanders says you’ll have a better chance at getting traction.

That’s because customer experience doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It involves the entire company. By finding that common ground and tying CX efforts to existing strategies, the entire company and C-suite can get involved and see the impact focusing on customers has on long-standing business goals.

Customer experience has an undeniably strong ROI. The challenge is sharing that message with others. By speaking their language and connecting CX results to business outcomes, teams can find champions and transform their companies. 

Listen to the episode on Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsSpotify or your favorite podcast platform.

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Understanding customer demands and the trends coming down the pipeline can help brands prepare to adapt and deliver amazing experiences in 2023 and beyond. 

Click here to read my deep-dive white paper on the top 5 CX trends for 2023. 

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Samantha Middlebrook

Designing strategies, solving complex problems, demystifying AI, creating and marketing products that provide value.

1y
Jon Deaner

Omnichannel Marketing & Digital Experience Leader >> I turn vision into action to elevate brands, revenue, loyalty | GTM, brand, growth, CRM | ecommerce, lifestyle, health, wellness | 30x marathoner 📈🏃♂️

1y

Insightful conversation, Blake and Bryan. Thank you. Totally agree that a critical way to get greater org buy-in for CX is by showing stakeholders how it can accelerate existing company priorities. And who could argue with that?

Hunter Heniser

Business Developer | Client Strategist | Marketing Director | Growth Professional

1y

Great podcast! It's so true that customers expect truly personalized experiences with organizations these days. Those that can deliver on this and take a genuine interest in the challenges their customers face will reap the benefits. Thanks for sharing!

Rick Denton

Amplify your event's impact | Live podcasting for results | CX Passport Live | Excite attendees | Reward high-value customers | Convert potential customers | Your brand deserves more attention | 🎤🎞️CX Passport Host🎧

1y

This reminds me of the phrase, "Physician, heal thyself" Often a physician is often the worst at their own health, taking their own medicine while offering it freely to others. We in CX, who will deliver tangible business results, need to live our own principles... If our customer is an internal one, then we need to know... why a CFO might hesitate to green light an expensive initiative why the COO will have concerns about the practical reality of the solutions being offered. Best way to do that? Exactly what you say in the article Blake...live in their shoes. Understand them...your customer. Appreciate the reminder!

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