Editorial
The Gist
- CX drives quantifiable business value: CX leaders increase the importance and value of their CX investments by aligning their journey mapping to a financial approach focused on revenue generation, cost reduction and time to value.
- Optimizing the holistic journey: Enterprise performance demands continual focus and adaptation beyond isolated journey touchpoints. CX leaders deliver continuous enterprise performance and customer-centric value when they break down organizational silos and embrace Value Stream Management.
- AI brings predictive CX: Use AI to scenario plan and predict customer behavior while aligning to enterprise forecasting approaches.
Organizations rightly invest significant time and resources in identifying, mapping and measuring the customer journey. We utilize these insights to develop sophisticated personalization and loyalty strategies, aiming to enhance brand awareness and increase customer lifetime value.
Moving From Satisfaction to Shareholder Value
However, a critical question remains: How do these vital CX programs accurately measure the enterprise performance objectives to which our executive teams are held accountable and which our shareholders value? How do you move beyond mere satisfaction to demonstrate real impact on the balance sheet?
There is a framework for CX leaders and CMOs that you can use right now to do just that.
The Value Equation directly links customer journey insights to core enterprise performance. It satisfies the requirement to identify performance in the customer journey and deliver impactful results that drive your organization’s top line and profitability.
Let's further explore why traditional customer performance metrics fall short of driving enterprise performance and how you can implement the Value Equation to unlock new levels of enterprise performance that align with your executive team and shareholders.
Table of Contents
- Why Customer Journey Insights Fail to Maximize Enterprise Performance
- The Blurred Lens - An Unfocused Customer Journey
- 3 Value Equation Benefits That Give CX Leaders a Competitive Edge
- How the Value Equation Turns Customer Journey Insights Into Enterprise Gains
- Beyond the Features: Integration Defined; The Value Equation
- Applying the Value Equation to Drive Sustainable CX Performance
Why Customer Journey Insights Fail to Maximize Enterprise Performance
There exists quite a difference between value delivered and value perceived. From an internal perspective, many organizations believe that robust measurement systems directly align with their capability to truly know and serve their customers well.
However, the disconnected and siloed manner in which we often operate internally presents significant gaps and missed opportunities to drive enterprise value along the entire customer journey.
Let’s delve deeper into these market dynamics to understand why these issues profoundly impact CX leaders today.
The Blurred Lens - An Unfocused Customer Journey
Breaking the Siloed View of the Customer
We’ve often taken quite a siloed perspective of the customer, based on which functional group you ask. It is common for sales, product and operations to have a distinct but separate view of the customer.
Conversely, the customer has a very thorough perspective of who we are as a company and how we operate, at times, far broader and in-depth than what we possess. It’s this blurred lens that prohibits us from transcending across functional lines and silos to compare, contrast and consolidate that critical one-view of our customer that brings journey insight.
Data is Not Insight: The Gap Between Metrics and Enterprise Action
We often find ourselves either starved for relevant data or, more commonly, drowning in an undifferentiated ocean of it. Worse, we're largely guilty of not transforming this raw data into truly actionable insight.
The result? We are data-rich but critically insight-poor. Customer journey insights are not defined by a metric or a KPI because they measure a single customer touchpoint. The customer journey demands an enterprise-wide approach, requiring integration of disparate data sets into a consolidated, dynamic customer view.
Value Redefined: Advocacy, Not Satisfaction
Traditional CX centers on satisfaction scores, which fall short of enterprise performance. The Value Equation, redefined for modern business, has a far more intense enterprise focus. This purposeful focus on driving customer value looks at the enterprise view of the entire customer journey, measuring CX touchpoints rather than focusing on metrics analysis for individual customer interactions or singular events. Optimizing singular events is noble, but when advocacy is considered superior to satisfaction, the focus shifts to optimizing the holistic journey.
Related Article: Value Stream Management in Customer Experience
3 Value Equation Benefits That Give CX Leaders a Competitive Edge
Enterprise performance isn't achieved through a "one metric away" strategy. Instead, it demands a transformational focus on outcome-based activity, fueled directly by your customer journey insights. This approach not only brings your organization much closer to your customers, but it strategically positions you ahead of your competition.
Let's explore the three key, leading-edge benefits that CX leaders gain when they truly master this Value Equation.
Customer Elevation: From Single Sales to Enterprise Partnerships
For CX leaders, enterprise performance is about strategic growth (think revenue generation and market share increase). Full knowledge of the customer journey lifecycle not only allows increased market segmentation; it is foundational to your strategy to advance customers across segments (from small business to mid-market and from mid-market to enterprise). Insights extend well beyond retention strategies, resulting in proactive, increased tailored go-to-market plays, cross-sell/upsell, and lifetime value.
Turning Insights Into Operational Gains
It's short-sighted to believe customer journey insights pertain solely to the customer experience itself. These critical touchpoints with your company illuminate not only where things go wrong but also precisely where your organization excels. By understanding the holistic customer journey, CX leaders gain invaluable operational intelligence.
They can strategically capitalize on this by further strengthening internal processes that lead to positive customer experiences, while simultaneously shoring up weaknesses or alleviating pain points that drain resources. The enterprise-wide result is a powerful dual effect: directly increasing revenue generation through optimized processes and significantly reducing operating expenses by eliminating inefficiencies.
Market Advantage: Journey Insights Fuel Differentiation
The holistic customer journey brings insight to the enterprise that is foundational to competitive advantage and market positioning. This deep knowledge is more forward looking, offering unparalleled benchmarking opportunities. By understanding precisely where your organization excels or falters within the customer's end-to-end experience compared to competitors, CX leaders can identify optimal areas to invest resources. You’re then able to tailor the ROI and further create customer intimacy and brand loyalty.
Related Article: How to Connect CX Metrics to Business Outcomes
How the Value Equation Turns Customer Journey Insights Into Enterprise Gains
Understanding the value-driven approach to customer journeys is foundational, but a significant gap often remains: effectively executing the strategies necessary to bring true meaning to The Value Equation. The good news is that closing the divide between customer insights and tangible enterprise performance is well within your reach.
Let's explore three key strategies you can implement right now to unlock robust enterprise performance through powerful customer journey insights:
The C-Suite Viewpoint: Aligning Touchpoints to Revenue, Cost, and Time
Traditional journey mapping exercises focus on experiences and customer friction. Drive enterprise performance and elevate your mapping strategy by incorporating measures that directly matter to the C-suite, such as revenue generation, operational cost and time to value or efficiency. Overlay these measures across your journey mapping, and you can directly identify new correlations and relationships between customer behavior, internal processes and intended outcomes (quantified and meaningful).
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Value Streams: The Customer-Centric Transformation
The shift to an enterprise-wide Value Equation demands a fundamentally new approach to how improvements are identified, funded and executed. Instead of reactive problem-solving or relying on large, slow-moving projects with uncertain outcomes, CX leaders should champion Value Stream Management (VSM). This agile framework, using lean funding, will enable you to continuously optimize your customer journey and measure changes within each specific customer segment. The result is a continuous cycle of customer-centric value delivery and incremental C-suite metrics mentioned above.
Forecasting the Future of CX
Just as organizations forecast sales, budgets and operating timelines, there's no reason not to model and predict customer behavior. AI is the critical enabler. CX leaders can deploy AI to not only forecast future customer actions and needs but also to perform sophisticated scenario planning and simulation.
This capability enables quicker, more informed decisions and adaptations. You're now empowered to design highly tailored customer journeys, ensuring every interaction is designed for maximum value and directly aligns with your intended outcomes and enterprise goals.
Beyond the Features: Integration Defined; The Value Equation
This table distills the article’s core concepts on elevating the importance of customer journey insights through the Value Equation, enabling CX leaders to drive enterprise performance that enables better business outcomes.
| Strategy Element | Insight | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| The Disjointed Perspective of Traditional CX | Journey mapping and measurement tend to focus on individual touchpoints as measures of success. | Individuality does not align with enterprise performance measurement, creating a gap that traditional CX cannot meet. |
| Data Points vs Business Outcomes | Traditional CX measures single events through CSAT and other measures, which do not directly align with C-Suite performance measures and shareholder value. | A pivot to align CX insights with business outcomes, using the Value Equation, increases CX credibility and importance in contributing to important enterprise performance goals. |
| Revenue, Cost and Time | Typical journey insights do not capture important C-Suite metrics related to enterprise performance (revenue, cost, and time). | CX metrics aligned with revenue, cost and time can directly identify new correlations and relationships between customer behavior, internal processes, and intended outcomes (quantified and meaningful). |
| Value Stream is Key | Typical correction of errors and process improvement can be slow to identify opportunities for change. | Value stream and agile delivery will expedite delivery to improvement, realization of intended outcomes and continually deliver value in your customer journey program. |
| AI is the Enabler | Enterprise performance is continually forecasted to take advantage of opportunities and minimize risk. | AI-enabled CX delivers tailored experiences with alignment to enterprise performance measures. |
Applying the Value Equation to Drive Sustainable CX Performance
With increasing market constraints and volatility, there's no better time for the CX leader to elevate the value and sophistication of their organization's customer journey program. With a premium now firmly placed on enterprise performance, The Value Equation increases the importance of any customer journey initiative, placing it center stage as a direct contributor to driving the business forward.
Commit to The Value Equation and consistently apply the key strategies outlined here. You'll uncover new, impactful benefits from your customer journey insights that will play a pivotal role in driving your enterprise's sustained performance.
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