Feature
The Gist
- Audit essentials. CX audits are crucial for understanding, enhancing customer experience; identifies gaps, opportunities.
- Business readiness. Key indicators for needing CX audit: declining metrics, inconsistent experiences, customer feedback.
- Strategic impact. CX audits offer invaluable insights, guide strategic decisions, improve customer relations, boost loyalty.
Understanding and enhancing customer experience (CX) is not just an opportunity for today’s customer-centric businesses — it’s a necessity. But how does a business know if it’s actually ready to take on the often nerve-wracking journey of a CX audit? This crucial question lies at the heart of our exploration. From gauging internal processes to understanding customer feedback mechanisms, we will examine the business of CX audits, looking at the signs, preparations, and strategic considerations that determine whether a business is ready to undertake this journey into greater customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Understanding CX Audits
The reason that CX audits exist is due to the difficulty in determining the effectiveness of a customer experience campaign. A brand simply can’t tell if their campaign has been effective by analyzing typical Voice of Customer metrics or viewing customer feedback. A CX audit can provide brands with the details they require in order to know if they are providing their customers with an exceptional customer experience across all of their channels, what they can do to improve it, and how they can eliminate any pain points in the customer journey.
A CX audit is a critical tool for businesses aiming to understand and enhance how customers interact with their brand. At its core, a CX audit involves a comprehensive evaluation of all the touchpoints and channels through which a customer engages with a company, from initial contact to post-purchase interactions. The relevance of such an audit in today’s business environment cannot be overstated. In an era where customer expectations are continually evolving and competition is intensifying, understanding and optimizing every aspect of the customer journey is crucial.
Alex Gill, worldwide head of strategy at Harte Hanks, a global marketing agency, told CMSWire that almost any brand can benefit from a customer experience audit, and brands experiencing rapid growth and/or customer service issues have the most to gain. The purpose of a CX audit is to identify gaps between the desired customer experience and the actual experience being delivered. It helps businesses pinpoint areas of friction, uncover hidden opportunities for enhancement, and gain a deeper insight into customer behavior and preferences. By systematically assessing each element of the CX, including digital platforms, customer service protocols, and in-person interactions, brands can develop a holistic view of their customer experience.
For businesses, the insights gained from a CX audit are invaluable. They provide a factual basis for strategic decisions, guide improvements in service delivery, and ultimately help in building stronger customer relationships. In a marketplace where customer loyalty and satisfaction are key drivers of success, a CX audit is not just a diagnostic tool, but a strategic imperative for growth and sustainability. By prioritizing the customer experience and iteratively refining it, businesses can not only meet but exceed customer expectations, securing a competitive advantage in their respective industries.
Related Article: Getting Started with a Customer Experience Audit
Signs Your Business Might Need a CX Audit
Several indicators suggest a business might be in need of a CX audit. These signs are often reflective of underlying issues in how a business engages with its customers and can have significant implications for both current and future customer satisfaction and loyalty.
- Declining Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty Metrics: If customer satisfaction scores (CSAT), Customer Effort Score (CES), or loyalty metrics such as the Net Promoter Score (NPS) are on the decline, it's a clear sign that the business needs to reassess its CX. These metrics are direct reflections of how customers perceive their interactions with the company.
- Inconsistent Customer Experiences Across Channels: When customers receive varying levels of service or different experiences across a brand’s channels (in-store, online, email, app, customer service, etc.), it indicates a lack of cohesion in the CX strategy. An audit can help identify and rectify these inconsistencies.
- Customer Feedback Indicating Issues: Regular customer complaints, negative reviews, or feedback pointing to specific problems in the customer journey are strong indicators that an audit is necessary. This feedback can highlight areas where the customer experience is falling short of expectations.
- Low Employee Engagement or High Turnover in Customer-Facing Roles: Employee dissatisfaction, especially within customer-facing teams, can adversely affect the quality of service they provide, leading to inconsistent customer experiences.
- Stagnant or Declining Sales: If sales are plateauing or declining without a clear external cause, it could be due to customers not having a satisfactory experience. An audit can reveal pain points in the customer journey that might be impacting sales.
- Challenges in Retaining Customers: Difficulty in retaining customers or a high churn rate can be symptomatic of a poor customer experience. A CX audit can uncover the reasons customers are leaving and what can be done to retain them.
- Outdated Customer Service Practices: If customer service practices haven’t evolved with changing customer expectations, preferences and technological advancements, it’s likely time for a CX audit to modernize these interactions.
- Market Share Loss to Competitors: Losing customers to competitors can often be attributed to a superior customer experience offered by a brand’s competitors. A CX audit can help brands understand what competitors are doing better and how to improve.
James Taylor, SEO strategist at Embryo, a full-service digital marketing agency, told CMSWire that it's a fairly straightforward process to determine if a business should consider a CX audit — metrics and demographics tell a strong tale. "If a business is finding that its website bounce rate isn’t decreasing, if visitors aren’t staying on-site and especially if the conversion rate is low, then investigations should take place."
These signs are valuable indicators that enable businesses to recognize the need for a CX audit. Addressing these issues proactively through a comprehensive audit can help businesses realign their strategies with customer expectations and market demands, ensuring long-term success and enhancing customer loyalty.
Related Article: Conquering the Customer Feedback
Preparing for a CX Audit
To prepare for a CX audit with an internal team, businesses should start with an initial review of their existing customer experience strategy and performance metrics. This often involves direct customer interviews and surveys for firsthand insights. It's also essential at this point for brands to define customer personas and map the customer journey across all interaction stages, ensuring a seamless omnichannel experience.
Taylor suggested that before doing a CX audit, every department should be analyzed to ensure the proposition is competitive against other retailers, that delivery of product or speed of service rivals that of competitors and that the overall product offering is positioned correctly. “If all this is in order then the business knows that in theory, they should be completing sales and that the customer journey needs addressing,” explained Taylor.
This is the point where businesses take a close look at competitor benchmarking and performance analysis in order to gauge industry standards and customer satisfaction levels across the industry. Evaluating the effectiveness of the current technology and tools that are being used for delivering CX, as well as ensuring regulatory compliance and assessing the maturity of CX practices, are key steps in the CX audit. Finally, compiling findings to provide actionable recommendations and post-audit support for implementing changes are vital for the audit's success and ongoing improvement.
Key Areas to Evaluate Before a CX Audit
Before a CX audit, other key areas to evaluate include the current state of the customer journey and how well it aligns with customer expectations. It's also important to assess the effectiveness of customer communication channels and feedback mechanisms.
Gill said that his company recently completed a CX audit for a global pharmaceutical manufacturer that is experiencing rapid growth due to the approval of a new prescription weight loss medication. "They weren’t set up to support a massively expanding customer base and needed immediate help. We looked at the full span of customer experience; starting with the sales process, the buying experience, issues related to receiving and using products, and even potential service issues and recalls."
Aside from preparation involving infrastructure and technical issues, businesses must be prepared to show leaders why the audit is necessary, and how it is going to impact the business’ bottom line. “Research and benchmarking were critical to set the stage,” said Gill. “You must show leadership how the company’s customer service compares against its peers, competitors, and best practices. Where is the company now, where does it need to go, and how big is the gap between the two?”
Additionally, businesses should evaluate whether their CX strategies are in harmony with their brand culture, values and promises. Understanding these areas helps in identifying gaps in service and inconsistencies in the customer experience, laying a solid foundation for a comprehensive CX audit.
“Businesses should use their customers as a gauge — if they are receiving bad feedback, or don’t have a good level of repeat customers then something isn’t working well and those customers aren’t enjoying their experience,” said Taylor. “Your customers are your biggest advocates, and so listen to them and see where changes can be made.” Taylor explained that the issue may not be with the product, but rather, it may be due to the ease of shopping with your business versus another. “At a time when convenience is expected, then customers may shop elsewhere if they can purchase a similar product in a matter of seconds vs a long drawn-out process.”
What Is Involved in a CX Audit?
A CX audit begins with an initial assessment to understand a business’s goals, expectations and objectives. This step involves reviewing the existing customer experience strategy and synthesizing all relevant documentation, along with analyzing current performance metrics. Stakeholder engagement is key to gain a comprehensive understanding of all relevant parties. This phase also includes conducting direct customer interviews and surveys to gather firsthand insights, followed by getting together with all internal teams to ensure that everyone is on the same page.
The audit process then focuses on defining key customer personas and mapping all stages of the customer journey, from initial awareness through to post-purchase support. This mapping includes various elements such as website usability, customer service responsiveness, product or service quality, and marketing communications efficacy, aiming to identify customer pain points and opportunities for improvement.
Another important aspect of the CX audit is the omnichannel analysis, ensuring consistency of the customer experience across all brand channels, including mobile apps, websites, and physical stores. This analysis checks if the customer experience is seamless and uniform across different platforms and touchpoints.
Performance analysis is another crucial element of the audit, and takes on many aspects of a Voice of Customer initiative. This includes analyzing customer feedback, surveys, interviews, reviews, social media interactions, website analytics and demographic data. This analysis assesses whether the business aligns with its values and mission and evaluates the effectiveness of its products or services.
Upon completion of the CX audit, findings and insights are compiled, and actionable recommendations are provided. This helps businesses understand necessary improvements to enhance the customer journey and overall experience. Post-audit support, including assistance with implementing recommended changes and ongoing monitoring, is often required in order to effectively evaluate the impact and ROI of the implemented strategies. This comprehensive approach ensures that the CX audit is not just an evaluative process but a catalyst for strategic development and long-term success in customer-centric businesses.
Overcoming Potential Challenges
Conducting a CX audit presents several challenges. Initially, overcoming organizational silos is often the biggest hurdle for cohesive CX strategies. Ensuring data privacy and compliance during the audit is also vital. Brands should manage expectations and prepare for potential resistance within the business. "When doing a CX audit, it’s important to recognize that companies vary widely on their willingness to make rapid changes," said Gill. "Therefore, we often provide dual approaches: a ‘must do’ that focuses on fixing foundational issues and ensuring compliance and a ‘should do’ that is more aspirational and competitive."
To overcome these challenges, brands should encourage collaboration across departments, adhere strictly to data protection regulations, and engage with all levels of the business in the audit process, ensuring buy-in and a unified approach toward enhancing customer experience.
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Some may prefer A & B style testing to gauge the effectiveness of new proposals that have been suggested, before committing to changes. “With any change on a website, we always recommend doing split tests, to assess results before committing to changing a website to all visitors. By splitting what the visitors see, you will be able to assess if the changes will improve performance, and even get feedback from those customers on their experience,” said Taylor. “If results improve and customers are happy, then it will be time to roll it out site-wide and to all visitors. As part of a CX audit, this will also involve an assessment of the level of SEO applied.” Taylor explained that if, for example, a site is slow loading, it could be the image file size which will need reducing. Slow sites can be very frustrating to visitors and can result in them abandoning their journey if they are bored.
Final Thoughts
As customer experience becomes even more vital to business success, a comprehensive CX audit is a strategic tool to evaluate all customer touchpoints, uncover areas of friction, and identify opportunities for improvement and growth. By assessing metrics, journey maps, feedback channels, omnichannel consistency and more, brands can gain actionable insights they can use to refine experiences, boost loyalty and gain a competitive edge.
