Uncovering Four ROI Levers Driven by CX Programs

Customer-centric organizations strive to stay focused on understanding customer needs by setting up processes to identify improvement opportunities and address points of friction along the customer journey. By addressing points of friction you will not only delight customers but will, without a doubt, have substantial return on investment (ROI). Customers will be happier, more loyal, share their positive experiences with others, and continue to spend with your business.

A study by PwC finds that a great customer experience means a customer will pay “up to a 16% price premium on products and services…What’s more, customers say they are more likely to try additional services or products from brands that provide superior customer experience.”

Customer Experience “CX” programs can drive four main ROI levers through experience improvements which include increased revenue, reduced churn, reduced cost, and optimized productivity.

A tale of a first-hand experience

To exemplify these levers, I will walk you through a personal experience I recently had interacting with a business and breakdown how my experience and feedback can be turned into ROI opportunities through a CX program.

Earlier this year I had purchased tickets from a third-party ticketing site to a concert which was inevitably cancelled due to the pandemic. I never received an email about a refund and their website lacked information on when one would be issued. After unsuccessful attempts to search, chat, and email for an answer, I was resentfully driven to call the company. Over the span of months I made multiple calls and was finally given an answer to my question on the third call. The experience was frustrating, drawn out, and could have been easily avoided. Through that experience I decided I would not purchase from that third-party site in the future and I would be sure to share my unpleasant experience with my friends and family.

Drive increased revenue

CX programs provide key information about what loyal customers love as well as experiences that cause customers to detract from doing business with you. Analyzing customer feedback can uncover opportunities you can leverage to increase customer loyalty and in turn have your customers promote your business to others. Additionally, by focusing on customer suggestions, you can uncover potential new offerings and opportunities to up-sell. In my experience highlighted above, I found it particularly difficult to get an answer to my question and felt the path to receive an answer was more effort than I experienced with other companies even in the midst of a pandemic. If the ticketing company had provided better service I might be less of a detractor today and willing to purchase from them again.

Focus on reduced churn

Through CX analytics customer feedback can uncover indicators of churn in conversations and help your business understand who might be at risk or the reasons why customers end up separating from you. Additionally, analyzing calls or chats in your support center can bring to light tactical conversations by employees that help to mitigate churn and save the customer. In my last call with the third-party ticketing company the representative on the phone provided an answer and resolved my issue. However, on that call and the calls prior no one expressed empathy for the multiple calls or confusion I had experienced. The conversation was simply transactional and there was no attempt to save me as a customer. The experience did not make me feel like a valued customer and ultimately led me to churn.

Improvements for reduced cost

A common CX use case that helps reduce cost is the focus on digital experiences and self-service. Driving digital adoption can help to reduce costs by providing an avenue for customers to resolve their own issue and mitigates more costly forms of contact like calls and chats. Like many customers today, I tried to answer my own question by first going to the ticketing company’s website. The lack of information drove me to chat, email, and eventually call the support center multiple times. Focusing on improving small digital experiences, in this case improving FAQs, can in turn reduce contacts and therefore reduce costs in the support center.

Opportunities for optimized productivity

CX programs can provide support centers more insight into the conversations happening everyday and how those conversations are changing. What’s more, with the right technology, your business can look at feedback in an omni-channel view (across all customer touch-points) to understand the full breadth of customer feedback. Utilizing omni-channel analytics can help support centers staff in the right areas and try to resolve easier customer questions in lower cost channels like website, chat, or email. My experience with the third-party ticketing site was not unique especially during the pandemic. Like me, thousands of customers had to cancel hotel reservations, flights, and other events. Being able to analyze the conversations more real-time would have allowed the ticketing company to provide solutions through email communication, on their website, or in the IVR to allow the support center staff to focus on more difficult to resolve issues.

Turn customer feedback into ROI-driven insights

At Farlinium, we have used our combined decades of experience in rolling out successful CX programs for world class organizations to develop eleven use cases that map to these four areas of ROI and we are happy to activate for our customers. If interested, please reach out and we’ll be happy to assess your program and let you know how we can help.