Industry Report Suggests Habits for CX Professionals

There are five key habits that successful customer experience professionals have in common, according to a recently published comprehensive global survey of customer practitioners. The survey was carried out by Confirmit in partnership with Engage Business Media. The resulting study, “The State of Customer Experience Report,” analyzes the factors that define leaders and laggards in customer experience across different industries and across B2B and B2C markets. The results show that leaders share common attributes which are critical in driving success, increased investment, and customer-centricity.
 
Claire Sporton, Senior Vice President of CX Innovation at Confirmit, says, “Unlike other studies, our report defines a CX Leader in terms of specific business outcomes, rather than those organizations that simply achieve the best CX metrics. Our experience shows that the proof of any program is the value it delivers across an organization and as such the most successful programs are seeing significant increase in investment.
 
She continues, “The report makes for fascinating reading, particularly when compared to our findings from last year. We’re seeing a clear maturity curve in terms of the sophistication of responses, which is reflected in the fact that nearly 60 percent of respondents have more than four years’ experience in CX. While this is great, there are also some red flags for us to consider, particularly around how companies are investing in actually driving change based on their CX programs.”
 
The findings of the research identify the five habits of highly effective customer experience professionals:

  • Habit #1 – Define goals and drive the right ownership: Rather than focusing solely on CX metrics, successful practitioners are able to talk in the language of the wider business and define outcomes that make sense to all employees. 57 percent of leaders in the report agree that stakeholders across the business are strongly invested in the goals of their programs, compared to just 25 percent of laggards.
  • Habit #2 – Think innovation and action: The most successful customer experience practitioners understand that programs must drive innovation and real action, both of which must be tangible and communicated across the business. 51 percent of leaders strongly agree that their programs drive measurable innovation or change within their organization, compared to just 16 percent of laggards.
  • Habit #3 – Listening to more voices collectively: While an increasing number of companies surveyed are actively capturing both VoC and VoE data from their programs, questions still linger over whether the feedback gathered is integrated and therefore useful in its combined form. Only 31 percent of organizations strongly agree that their programs combine multiple sources of insight. Leaders are those that work to drive integration between customer and employee voices, as well as those of partners, suppliers and other stakeholders.
  • Habit #4 - A focus on customer-centricity: Respondents to the report stress the importance of driving a customer-centric culture across their organization for customer experience to be successful. This means that employee engagement needs to be high across all levels of the organization, from the front line to board level. Again, this relies on a strong communication strategy, which is something 57 percent of leaders already have in place, while only 35 percent of laggards say the same.
  • Habit #5 - Continuously re-think: The report shows that the most experienced customer experience practitioners aren’t necessarily those who run the most successful programs. It is easy for such programs to go stale and get into bad habits, meaning constant innovation, re-evaluation, and adjustment are critical. 67 percent of leaders in the report agree strongly that their program has driven significant investment in change, compared to 27 percent of laggards, supporting the view that continually asking, “What’s next?” is a key step in delivering long-term success.
 
 

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