Learn from Qualtrics professionals how to build and execute a customer experience program. The final part of a four-part series, this session illustrates tracking customer outcomes, demonstrating ROI, driving executive and business communication, and defining a path forward.
story about my degree, the field of IO psychology, the navy and my wife’s advice
difference between RESULTS and IMPACT
ROI is equal parts RESULT and IMPACT; combined, you can generate your ROI
so now, let’s explore the difference between IMPACT and REVENUE
this is a GREAT result; at least until this non-essential manager was let go because they are a cost center and not a revenue generator
wow, CSAT is doing well; that sounds like a great result
how about this?
Industry CX leader stock prices outperformed industry laggards by 77% over a 5 year stretch (2007-2012)
this is Impact; its a bit vague (what is a CX leader?), but it is impact
or this? this is impact
on average, promoters have around a 30% lower cost of service than detractors
what if I was to tell you that THIS is ROI; equal parts RESULT and IMPACT leading to REVENUE
even in this form, the relationship is still a bit hazy
to really understand how we can show ROI through our results we all need to understand a key concept
At this point, it is pretty common to say “YOU”RE DOING IT WRONG” or “LOYALTY METRICS ARE BROKEN”
The truth is that there isn’t any singular metric that will simply, yet holistically, quantify your customer experience; it just doesn’t exist
Anyone telling you otherwise is likely trying to sell you something; most likely themselves
Instead, let’s use metrics that already exist and change our focus to actual customer behavior; in this case, a concept that comes from Psychology (myself being a Psychologist)
the concept that we will call Behavioral Likelihood simply means that certain types of customers are more or less likely to exhibit certain behaviors
these behaviors can be good or bad, but generally speaking, as we will show, happy customers are more likely to exhibit good behavior than are unhappy customers
NOTE- this is when controlling for other antecedents of consumer behavior such as consumer tenure
it is really as simple as this; we want our customers to engage in behaviors that are beneficial to our business
our goal is not to achieve a higher CSAT or NPS or WAR number...it is to encourage better behavior
now, these common metrics are a means of gauging our progress, but they are not the end goal
for the purpose of this presentation we will use a very common customer segmentation, that found in the Net Promoter System (Promoters are happy; Detractors are unhappy)
so how does this concept of behavioral likelihood play out in practice
on this chart we have Customer Sat on the X-axis and Behavioral Likelihood on the Y-axis
let’s see how these two relate to a one another
in a perfect world we would automatically have 100% of our customers engage in this behavior, regardless of how their experience was
instead, what we typically find is that customers have a differential likelihood to exhibit certain behaviors based on their level of specific attributes
we find is that our Promoters (our happy customers) are also the most likely to engage in this behavior
and note, this same concept applies all walks of business, and generally, life
more engaged employees are less likely to quit, show higher levels of job performance, etc.
spouses that are happier in their relationship are more likely to exhibit extra-role behaviors such as buying roses on Valentine’s Day
first up we have our unhappy customers, our detractors; these poor souls hardly ever engage in this behavior; this is not a good thing
as we move up our happy customer index, we find that our neutral customers have a 40% likelihood of engaging in this behavior
finally we have our happiest customers; on average, we find that our Promoters engage in this behavior 90% of the time
the goal that we are aiming for is to make our unhappy customers happy; not for the result by itself but because it increases the likelihood of positive behaviors which increases our impact
lets show how this works in terms of real, important customer behaviors
this essentially means that a customer has been retained and as a result will continue to do business with a specific brand/company; this is a good thing
the opposite of this is typically called churn
to show how important this:
financial services (specifically credit cards) have ~25% churn
subscription media (e.g., news sites) have ~60% churn
industries like telecomm and SaaS have comparable numbers
this is obviously an important metric as we discussed earlier; retaining a current customer is 7x cheaper than attracting a new one
as we go through this discussion today, I want you to think of Repurchase/Renewal in terms of a behavior
our goal is going to be to show how an improved customer experience will increase the behavioral likelihood that customers will engage in this positive behavior and how this behavior leads to greater impact
if we examine industry-agnostic studies on consumer behavior, these are the general behavioral likelihoods associated with promoters, neutrals and detractors
as you can see, it is advantageous to have more promoters than detractors
however, as we touched on during the intro to this presentation, these percentages by themselves aren’t super helpful aside from showing that Promoters are more likely to engage in positive behavior
note- these are simply general benchmarks; to make this useful for your specific situation it is advisable to conduct some research on your customers’ behavior
this may require some customer segmentation as, for example, it is typical to find that loyalty members (or those with many interactions with your company) score lower on CX metrics, yet exhibit more positive behavior
this doesn’t mean that CX metrics are broken, it simply means that your research needs to be more sophisticated
to translate these behavioral likelihoods into hard outcomes, we need to introduce a company profile
customer profile has how many of our customers are promoters vs. passives vs. detractors
financial profile has the current revenue of this company
their current annual revenue is $100 million and their customer profile is something that many companies would be happy with
50% of their customers are promoters; 34% are neutrals; 16% are detractors
but, the leaders at ACME have been up at night lately pondering a burning question: “how can we drive more revenue”
one answer to this question is simple: improve the customer experience
we’ve just shown that happy customers are more likely to engage in positive behaviors; so lets start there
what would happen to that revenue figure if we increased the percentage of promoters in our customer profile? well, lets see
in order to calculate the potential impact of an improved customer experience, lets take two pieces of information we have covered and see how they interact
the first piece is our customer profile which looks like this
the second piece is information is the behavioral likelihood associated with Repurchase for each of these customer segments
as we look at these two metrics in unison we can start to see the bigger picture; keep in mind that this customer profile is responsible for our current $100 million revenue figure
almost half of our customers are pretty likely to repurchase with us thereby shielding our current revenue
remember early we discussed how expensive it can be to acquire new customers
in order to take this to the next level, lets see just how much of our current revenue is protected in the future
to do this we need only multiply our customer profile by their corresponding likelihoods
finally, we sum these outcomes to arrive at what I call a Retained Revenue Index
this number represents the percent of current income that will be guaranteed going forward via retained customers
our current state retained revenue index
now, lets see what happens if we drive a result through our customer experience program
this should seem familiar...it is our current customer profile for ACME Co.
in order to examine the impact of the CX on our bottom line, lets change something...
lets imagine we have invested in a closed-loop program focused on our detractors
lets see what happens if we take just 1% of our detractors and move them into the promoter segment
now, lets insert the behavioral likelihood for these groups
now, lets insert the behavioral likelihood for these groups
and multiply as we did before
Now, sum
and we arrive at our new Retained Revenue Index number
our future retained revenue index
some might say that this increase in RRI is IMPACT
now lets compare this with our current RRI to see what kind of improvement we have made
we use this formal to calculate the percentage increase in revenue that is attributed to an improved customer experience
plugging in our numbers and doing the math (remember your order of operations!) results in this...
VoC programs have a difficult task. Quantifying the customer experience, driving action across an organization and, in the end, driving more revenue.
one of the biggest and most prevalent questions is how much should be invested in improving the customer experience; here is your answer
put aside research by companies that clearly show customer experience has become the largest driver of consumer purchase behavior and is only becoming more important
we are talking real money here
we have walked through a very conservative estimate of what an action-driven VoC program can accomplish
a single customer metric, a small improvement; yet, we are talking a sum of money that offsets even the most robust program investment
imagine what could be done with the right tools, partners, team and culture
Having a solid communication strategy will enable a more effect CX program
today we will introduce the typical pieces of a Communication Strategy
we will end with a hands-on group activity aimed at applying what we learn
this quote sums up what typically happens with most organizational initiatives
those in the weeds assume that others understand their point of view and the potential benefits generated from an initiative
in fact, the opposite it what often happens
others in your organization don’t understand or, in some cases, haven’t the time to care
it is your job to insure that your story is told
it is not enough to simply launch a VoC program and expect that results will be instantly absorbed by the organization
additionally, expected your internal audience to buy-in into your program on their own volition is not a great way to navigate towards success
the fact of the matter is that every successful VoC program is backed by a well-articulated Communication Plan
to develop an effective Communication Plan, there are 3 primary factors that need to be considered:
the first, and likely the most obvious, is what we will call Content; this refers to WHAT will be communicated
the second factor is Media; this refers to HOW communication will happen
and finally we have Audience; this is WHO we are communicating with
lets examine each of these factors in more detail
when designing the content that will be shared internally via your communication plan, sticking to a proven method will be vital
this method can be best depicted by the following graphic:
the first thing that you should notice about this graphic is that it is aiming to tell a story
General Value- we start with exploring the general value of CX; establishing, in the minds of your internal audience, that CX is a vital mechanism to establishing long-term success
Quick Wins- with an established focus on CX, it is now time to transition to creating some quick wins
these wins can come in two primary forms (micro & macro)
Micro- 1:1; fixing an issue for a specific customer; lends itself well to creating customer stories or vignettes
e.g., “look at what we did for Susie”
Macro- 1:Many; finding a wide-spread or deep seeded issue that, when addressed, will have a large impact on the CX
aim to turn these quick wins into compelling stories
what was the issue?
how was the issue identified?
what was done to correct the issue?
what impact was felt by the customer?
CX Metrics- while quick wins focus on action and outcomes, Metrics aim to standardize measurement; this enables comparisons with industry leaders and tracking of progress
Biz Impact- CX metrics are a great way to track progress on your journey towards customer centricity; however, over the long-haul it will be necessary to establish business impact
establishing link between CX wins and KPIs
leveraging customer feedback to influence cross-departmental teams or programs
having a content plan is vital, but without a means for distributing all that great content, it is essentially useless
care should be taken to leverage all media resources at your disposal; never underestimate the impact of a great propaganda campaign
what are some common sources? (see slide)
each of these have obvious strengths, weaknesses and applications
the goal is to align these (as an example) with the specific content you are looking to push
alignment with the right audience will allow the right content framed in the right media to have maximum impact
lets think about this using the Content and Media factors we just discussed
creating a quick win at the micro level and turning that into a single slide (or one-pager) could prove to be a very effective way of gaining momentum
however, would that same one-pager be interesting across all departments and all levels of the hierarchy?
likely not; and this same truth holds across all content and media types
as such, care should be taken to understand what resonates with each department and each job level
in this example, perhaps this one-pager is exactly what the VP of Operations would find useful to share in a leadership meeting; giving your team instant credibility
conversely, a micro win may not be enough to convince your Executive level of the importance of CX
might need to aim for a macro win or long-term trend to prove value