Last updated: Level up: 5 practical resolutions to improve your CX game

Level up: 5 practical resolutions to improve your CX game

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Ready to ramp up and improve your CX? The best company leaders, customer experience officers, and program management professionals all want to be stronger, more knowledgeable, and more valuable company assets.

Some of the biggest opportunities to do just that lie at the confluence of customer experience, data security, customer feedback, and governance.

Five ways to improve your CX

  1. Understand and address customer data silos.

Almost every organization wants better data quality. Because if 10 different departments are using 10 different survey platforms to collect customer input and feedback, then you have 10 silos. Silos kill data quality. They impair your ability to get a holistic view of customers’ experiences with your company.

Resolve to start understanding on the most basic level who from inside your organization is collecting what data, when, and where. At a minimum, you can resolve to understand the landscape of silos in your company.

  1. Build structure around your customer feedback practices.

No matter what size business you run, collecting customer feedback should be part of your business model. It doesn’t have to be expensive, flashy, or hard. And many organizations do this well. But others keep making a big mistake: different departments that collect customer feedback don’t compare notes with each other on who is surveying which customers, when, where, and how.

Governance can help you level-up. Create a collaborative administrative policy that structures for your entire company how, when, and where customer feedback will be collected across the enterprise. Here is an example policy. Note: Creating the policy will probably be the easy part of this resolution. Socializing it is a longer, more challenging resolution.

  1. Consolidate customer survey accounts and platforms.

We already mentioned how multiple survey tools and platforms kill data quality and inevitably limit your view of customers’ experiences with your company. But that’s not the only problem. Multiple tools and platforms can be risky and expensive to maintain. Take “freemium” or low-cost survey software licenses, for example. Sure, the price is nice. A well-intentioned employee could open an account and use it to start collecting customer feedback.

But how secure is the data collected via the freemium account? Who owns the data that goes into the freemium account? What happens to the data when the employee leaves the company? Once you collect customer data, you’re responsible for protecting it. Resolve to explore platform consolidation to improve your CX. Leveling up here can make you a hero for cost savings, customer data security, and data quality.

  1. Challenge how you use customer feedback.

Even if you think you already do a good job of collecting and acting on customer feedback, it’s quite likely you’re not getting everything possible out of your customer feedback data. According to an XM Institute study, 63 percent of companies that collect feedback don’t do a good job of using it holistically in their business. So, challenge whether you’re acting on feedback everywhere possible in your business. Then, resolve to use feedback in your policy and rulemaking work, risk management activities, marketing, and public relations work.

  1. Ramp up your knowledge of shadow IT.

Shadow IT is barreling toward the customer experience profession as one of the biggest business issues of 2020 because of its connection to customer data and information security. Customer experience professionals need to be ready for the conversation at the senior-most levels of their organization.

Shadow IT is when you use or buy IT-related hardware or software (like those “freemium” and low-cost customer survey tools) without vetting it through your IT department. That creates silos and risks. So, resolve to read up on and understand shadow IT. Then, resolve to collaborate with your CIO on customer feedback collection mechanisms, accounts, and platforms.

Meanwhile, here are four quick resources for initiating an understanding shadow IT, how the business issue crosses into the realms of experience management, and how you need to collaborate internally to play a role in reducing risks and protecting customer data.

The needs of your company and the expectations of your customers will undoubtedly continue to evolve. Doing what you did last year with the same mindset and tools as last year means you will likely struggle to keep up with both or fall behind. It’s always a great time to reflect, recharge, adjust, and make decisions about how you’re going to level-up your game plan for better CX.

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