While business leaders recognize the importance of the customer experience (CX), the majority face operational challenges to developing best-in-class CX organizations, according to a new report from 451 Research (part of S&P Global Market Intelligence) commissioned by Bloomfire.
The report, Five Best Practices to Future-Proof the Customer Experience, surveyed 300 customer experience leaders in the U.S. and Canada. Four CX maturity cohorts emerged based on the degree to which customer processes are data-driven and the extent to which knowledge is consolidated with access to key information automated into relevant customer processes. Only 12% of CX leaders rank their organizations as best-in-class CX enterprises, with the remaining 88% still face challenges in advancing their CX maturity.
The report outlines five best practices to strengthen CX practices based on the characteristics and behaviors of best-in-class CX enterprises:
- Optimize for the hybrid workplace.
- Establish clear ownership and governance of the CX vision and strategy across the organization.
- Prioritize cross-functional collaboration.
- Centralize CX knowledge and insights and integrate them into workflows.
- Make consumer insights consumable and actionable.
There are opportunities for market research and Insights teams to play a leading role in promoting these best practices and improving their organizations’ overall customer experience.
Optimize for the hybrid workplace
According to the report, 66% of CX leaders believe the increase in remote work has made it more challenging for teams to collaborate across the customer journey.
For many organizations, remote work has shone a light on existing problems around the internal flow of information. When employees are in different locations (and potentially time zones), it’s often more difficult to track down the appropriate information source in a timely manner. It’s no longer an option to simply stop by a coworker’s desk, and it’s not always evident when subject matter experts are available to answer questions.
Rather than eliminating remote work altogether, organizations should optimize for a hybrid work environment, in which employees are empowered to work in and outside of the office. This may require recalibrating operational culture to include, align, and engage all employees in cross-functional scenarios, regardless of where everyone is working. Communication must be intentional, and knowledge and insights must be made accessible to everyone on demand.
Establish clear ownership of the CX strategy
89% of CX leaders in the study reported that one department had a leading role in the planning and delivery of their CX strategy. However, each individual CX-impacting team estimated that they played a bigger role in owning the CX strategy than other groups believed. For example, 62% of marketing department leaders stated that they owned their organization’s CX strategy, while only 30% of other CX teams reported this to be true.
A lack of clear ownership prevents organizations from establishing a holistic and consistent CX vision. This can lead to disjointed and frustrating experiences for customers. Additionally, groups may miss opportunities to collaborate cross-functionally on large-scale CX initiatives because they don’t have visibility into what other groups are working on.
To overcome this challenge, organizations must document their CX vision, strategy, and governance—and make this knowledge easily accessible. Different teams that are involved at different stages of the customer journey can also document and share knowledge about their responsibilities and outcomes to improve visibility. Insights teams can contribute by communicating how their insights can be applied to impact the customer experience, and by making data-backed recommendations to stakeholders across various CX-impacting groups.Prioritize cross-functional collaboration
Prioritize cross-functional collaboration
CX leaders across all departments cited improved cross-functional collaboration as one of their organization’s top three operational priorities. The top ways businesses are planning to improve collaboration are:
- Centralizing their CX strategy to keep teams aligned.
- Leveraging technologies that support knowledge sharing across CX stakeholders.
- Adopting agile practices to be more operationally responsive.
- Improving workflow designs to allow right-time access to key information for CX teams.
Insights teams have an opportunity to contribute here by inviting stakeholders from different teams to get involved earlier in the research process. By communicating openly throughout the life of a research project, insights teams can help educate their audience and increase stakeholder buy in. They can also encourage questions and conversations with stakeholders, allowing for more engagement and collaboration around research projects.
Centralize CX knowledge and insights
The Future-Proofing CX study found that 74% of businesses do not have a single source of truth for their knowledge assets that is available company-wide and across the customer journey. Additionally, 45% of CX leaders said that fewer than half of their decisions are made using data.
Two commonalities across the most mature CX organizations in the study—the top 12%—were that most if not all of their CX decisions are data-driven, and that they centralize knowledge to deliver right-time access into workflows.
To reach this level of CX maturity, organizations need to overcome several common knowledge management challenges:
- Knowledge must be accessible in employees’ daily workflows.
- Information must be kept up to date so employees are confident that what they are accessing is accurate.
- Subject matter expertise and insights must be preserved and made actionable.
- Employees must be encouraged and empowered to share knowledge and feedback.
Make insights consumable and actionable
While many organizations have insights partners or internal teams that are skilled at conducting research, that is no longer enough: they also need team members who are skilled at synthesizing and communicating insights to an audience of business stakeholders. According to 451 Research, part of S&P Global Market Intelligence, “Our custom survey shows that only a third of businesses feel they need more customer data; more of a concern for a bigger proportion of businesses is how to operationalize available data and knowledge assets across the customer journey.”
To truly become a proactive, CX-driven organization, research and insights teams must adopt strategies to proactively distribute their findings to the decision-makers who need them. Insights teams should:
- Make insights accessible on demand.
- Modify the format of their communications to resonate with different audiences.
- Make recommendations and action items clear.
- Provide training and educate stakeholders on how to leverage insights.
- By focusing on these best practices, insights teams can proactively deliver insights that move the customer experience forward and help the business grow.
About the Study:
Five Best Practices to Future-Proof the Customer Experience is an independent study commissioned by Bloomfire. 451 Research (part of S&P Global Market Intelligence) collected the survey data referenced in the report in January and February 2021. They polled 300 customer experience professionals – balanced across Sales (50), Marketing (50), Customer Service (100), and Customer Insights roles (100) – working in North American businesses (83% in the United States and 17% in Canada). In the panel, 60% of respondents have primary responsibility for their CX strategy, while 40% strongly influence decisions about their company’s CX strategic initiatives. Overall, 68% of respondents operate at director level and above at their organizations, and the rest have senior managerial roles.
