The one resolution every CX manager should make (and keep)

It's a New Year, and many people use this time of year to set new goals for themselves. New Year's resolutions have become somewhat of a tradition; however, despite the best intentions, 25% of all goals are abandoned as quickly as the 25th of January.

Research has shown that the most popular resolution to make is to live healthier (72% of people). While this goal may seem more applicable in one's personal life, we think that every CX professional should adopt a similar resolution in 2020.

Create a healthier attitude to Customer Experience

Despite a plethora of research proving that customer experience is a key to competitive advantage, often in practice, it is a tick-box exercise. This outlook is primarily driven by the fact that in an endeavour to entrench customer-centric behaviour, many organisations have adopted CX metrics as key KPI scores. Creating CX KPI's has, in turn, bred a need to chase a score, and not in-fact an inherent need to satisfy customers. 

The metrification of CX is, of course, important, as it is in the numbers that one can identify strengths and weaknesses. Beyond a simple score, is the fact that responding to the insights borne out of the numbers is where the true magic of the CX discipline lies. As this new decade dawns, CX professionals would be well advised to adopt a healthier attitude to CX by looking beyond the percentages and scores and understanding the drivers of such. 

Driving CX

Scores in and of themselves man little, if not interpreted in a way that makes sense of the information gathered. The insights gleaned from unpacking verbatim comments, or digging into driver metrics create the opportunity to both make a meaningful impact on the customer and develop environments that entrench customer-centric behaviour. By showing employees, for example, the direct effect of friendliness on customer satisfaction, one is more likely to make impactful change, than by merely sharing a CSAT or NPS score. Establishing a connection between employee behaviour and customer satisfaction is arguably one of the strongest was to entrench CX within an organisation. Still, there is often a disconnect between the metric and the employee responsible for the moments-of-truth measured. By understanding the information embedded within CX data, one can interpret both the environment and the actions that create delight and then work on improving those, rather than focusing on the score only.

More than the score

A favourite New Year's resolution is weight loss – but what the scale says, often matters far less than fitness, better diet and health time. Now is the time to adopt a healthier approach to CX, one where the drivers of customer satisfaction are understood and managed, one where customer-centric "fitness" becomes the norm, and one where the proverbial "number on the scale" means far less

This year, we challenge all CX professionals to know their metrics, but to also move beyond a mere score. Entrench behaviours that will not only create long-lasting impact and build a healthier culture towards customer experience as a whole by understanding the cause of the score, not only the result