Welcome to the first edition of our HX Roundup where we’ll be delivering you the cream of the past month or so in experience-related articles and reports from across the globe. From big brands to small independents you’ll find a curated list of human experience content right here (or sign up to have it delivered direct to your inbox).
Sources this month include Harvard Business Review, Forrester, Gartner, Forbes, Blake Morgan, Customer Think, Brian Carroll, Joseph Michelli, PWC, CMX, Verizon and Adrian Swinscore.
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ROX: The PWC Global Consumer Insights Survey 2019
PwC’s 10th annual Global Consumer Insights Survey (GCIS) tells us it’s time for a consumer-centred metric: and introduce ROX: Return on Experience.
The survey gathers the sentiments of more than 21,000 online consumers in 27 territories and across multiple verticals concluding that delivering a superior experience will be what makes your business a winner.
Fusing Customer Experience (CX) and Employee Experience (EX), finding and creating ‘magic moments’ in the customer journey and understanding your customers through behavioural segmentation rather than simple demographics are three of the six imperatives to improving ROX according to the report. You can read up on all six here.
SOURCE: PWC, Consumer Insights Survey 2019
Why Every Company Needs a Chief Experience Officer
Denise Lee Yohn, author of the 5-star rated “Fusion: How Integrating Brand and Culture Powers the World’s Greatest Companies”, delivers a great read for the Harvard Business Review on how customer and employee experience (CX and EX) are so connected that companies should consider integrating the two disciplines and installing a Chief Experience Officer.
By integrating and aligning CX and EX, a company centralizes the value in its people-centered functions— people outside the company (customers) and people inside (employees). Denise goes on to make a great case for the role of a CXO – Chief Experience Officer, full of examples including the three elements Adobe focused on that comprised of customer and employee relationships: attraction, engagement/retention, and development (and a summary of how VP, Donna Morris, implemented them. Check out the article here and follow Denise on Twitter for more great reads.
SOURCE: Harvard Business Review, Denise Lee Yohn, 13th June, 2019
The US Customer Experience Index, 2019 (Forrester)
Forrester’s 2019 US Customer Experience Index (CX Index™) revealed that the overall quality of the US customer experience rose by just 0.4 points, to 70.2. The report is based on Forrester’s CX Index methodology, which measures how well a brand’s CX strengthens the loyalty of its customers.
Interestingly, the report went on to say; Emotion Holds The Key To Achieving CX Differentiation. Brands that want to break away from the pack should focus on emotion: How an experience makes customers feel has a bigger influence on their loyalty to a brand than effectiveness or ease of use in every industry. Brand performance in the US CX Index, 2019 reflects this…
SOURCE: Forrester.com, Rick Parrish, Principal Analyst, 11th June 2019
Did you know? Here at Adoreboard we have developed an Emotion AI platform called Emotics and featured in Forrester’s “The Future of CX Measurement” report.
Marketing Week :The CX50 2019 Revealed
Over recent years CX has constantly been gaining traction as a key differentiator for businesses in all sectors. This is the second year Marketing Week have partnered with agencies Zone and Cognizant to collate and announce the new members of the CX50 — 50 individuals they feel are currently doing the most to foreground customer experience and fulfil its potential.
The individuals come from a range of backgrounds, from CMOs, to CEOS, technologists and founders, each of whom were assessed on three key criteria; (1) Innovation; (2) Influence; and (3) Impact.
To name a few; David Young, Director of Customer Experience at Metro Bank; Ben Sutherland, Chief Digital Officer at Diageo; Kerris Bright Chief Customer Officer BBC…want to see who else made the list? Head on over to Marketing Week.
SOURCE: Marketing Week, Marketing Week, Zone and Cognizant, 19th June 2019
Drive EQ to Improve CX & ROE [It’s Alphabet Soup Time]
Following on form ROX it’s ROE time, yep; that’s also Return On Experience. Joseph’s piece looks at how driving EQ – the emotional equivalent of the intelligence quotient (IQ) can be used to drive CX and ROE — or ROX as PWC put it.
Joseph quite rightly believes that great CX is as much about perceived emotional value as it is about the logical assessments of practical value. He thinks that customers determine the quality of an experience based not only on the benefits and attributes of products or services, but also how the overall experience left them feeling.
“Like when Haim canceled their set at Electric Picnic and we got rained out of our tent but the craic was still 90?” (anonymous Adoreboard employee). —Aye, something like that!
The article explores emotional intelligence and includes some interesting excerpts from Harvard Professor Gerald Zaltman’s research whereby Zaltman concludes that 95% of consumerism is happening outside the conscious awareness of the purchaser.
If you’re hungry to learn more about human behavior and Emotional Intelligence (EQ) then alphabet soup is a great place to start. You can also follow Joseph on Twitter.
SOURCE: JosephMichelli.com, Joseph Michelli, 18th June, 2019
100 Of The Most Customer-Centric Companies & Brands
If you’re a CX geek who loves a list then this Forbes piece is most certainly for you. CX futurist, Blake Morgan shares the 100 disruptive brands and companies alongside their habits and best practices who are leading human experience. Here are 11 of the global biggies that made the list…
- Amazon – for their customer-centric innovation and omnichannel experience.
- Capital One – every employee is encouraged to surprise and delight customers.
- Kaiser Permanente – focuses on both CX and EX by improving convenience.
- Slack – has a CX team that helps customers be successful in their own businesses.
- Cisco – created a transformational CX group with 27K of its employees!
- Wells Fargo – offers SMBs support in all areas, not just financial.
- Motorola – their B2B division works hard to build an emotional connection with customers.
- Adobe – encourages employee feedback from employees and puts customer success first.
- LinkedIn – maps its customers’ journeys to find pain points and opportunities.
- Alaska Airlines – has a commitment to listen and respond to every customer.
- Allstate – created an internal bot to help employees better assist customers.
That’s a short summary of just 10% of the list…and probably about 5% of the information, so go read the full post and follow Blake on Twitter.
SOURCE: Forbes, Blake Morgan, 30th June, 2019
Did you know: Adoreboard have worked with some of these leaders in Human Experience? Check out our case study on Slack and keep an eye out for one on Allstate NI (who featured in as an Adoreboard customer in Gartner Cool Vendors report) coming soon!
Emotion, Empathy and Personalisation: How can AI Ever Replace Humans?
Stewart Kitson, Head of Customer Service at SmartDebit questions the world of chatbots and where they fit today in terms of customer service, especially when dealing with highly emotive subjects such as money.
As Maya Angelou famously said: “People don’t always remember what you say or even what you do, but they always remember how you made them feel.” If your chatbot or AI solution leaves the customer feeling frustrated or angry because they have to put in more effort to get the answer to what they perceive is a routine query or task, all that is being achieved is an increased chance that the customer will look for an alternative supplier who can make this task easier. You can follow Stewart on Twitter for more updates on customer service and the financial sector.
SOURCE: CMX.co.uk, 26th June 2019
Verizon : Winning the CX War (2019 Survey)
Mid-June, Verizon released the results of their early 2019 CX survey as a report titled Winning the CX War: The risks and rewards of next-generation CX. This Verizon-sponsored survey of 6,000 consumers across 15 countries was conducted by Longitude – a Financial Times company – and drills down into the fundamentals of a CX relationship and what consumers from various age groups (18-65 years) and regions (Asia Pacific, Europe and Canada/U.S.) view as important when starting and maintaining a relationship with a business brand.
Here are just a few of the stats from Clare Ward’s “What customer experience do consumers REALLY want?” summary story;
- 63% did not care about the communication channel as long as it was quick and easy.
- 47% would go back to a company offering a personalized, intuitive CX, even if a rival was cheaper.
- 60% wished to be able to switch between communication channels easily.
- 34% would switch if they were unable to speak to a real person.
- 69% felt that companies ask for data for the brand’s gain, rather than to improve CX
- 67% cited discounts and promotions as being among the top three pay-backs they would expect in return for their data
- 69% flagged “honesty and transparency” on how personal data would be used as crucial in building trust
You can follow Clare Ward on Twitter.
Meanwhile Don Fluckinger of TechTarget summarises the Verizon report, concluding that whilst bots currently slash costs, it’s the humans that build brand loyalty. We hear ya, Don! You can follow Don on Twitter for more human-centric tech news.
SOURCE 1: Verizon, Clare Ward, 11th June 2019
SOURCE 2: TechTarget, Don Fluckinger, 27th June 2019
We stopped trying to convince people and got triple the results
This is a feel-good piece about human-centric design, why you should implement it and how you should do so. Consumer researcher, CEO and author Brian Carroll of Markempa kicks off by talking about CFS2 – the debt collector that used “kindness” and became 200% more profitable than its competitors a year later.
However, according to Carroll CFS2’s strategy wasn’t kindness, it was customer empathy.
Carroll goes into detail of how emotional resonance is about connecting with emotions and helping negative states move to more positive feelings. He talks about the positive emotional states humans experience that drive buying decisions and how sales opportunities and leads could be gained simply by helping people get what they were looking for rather than focusing on converting them.
But he didn’t just talk the talk…he walked the walk and, although he says it was tough, he also said it was worth it; After six months of focusing on helping people rather than trying to generate leads, Carroll gained 303% percent more sales opportunities.
He goes on to say that sales conversion is the result of building a trusted connection but in order to do that you need to connect with people emotionally first. Follow Brian on Twitter for more great posts on empathy.
SOURCE: CustomerThink, Brian Carroll, 28th June 2019
How Employee Experience Impacts Customer Experience
Whilst it may seem obvious, the link between Employee Experience (EX) and Customer Experience (CX) is something that doesn’t get a lot of airtime – businesses tend to pool all their resources into one or the other. Until recently, many have not considered uniting the two experiences and addressing what they really are: people or Human Experiences.
Adoreboard feel that employees are a key part of creating a seamless end to end Customer Experience and whilst segmenting experiences into CX and EX may seem the most efficient way of doing things, businesses must place Human Experience at the top of their agenda. So next time you’re considering your CX strategy, Lauren suggests popping over to HR for a coffee and brainstorm!
SOURCE: Adoreboard, Lauren Harris, 28th June 2019
Emotional triggers for a more impactful customer experience
If you’re looking for emotional trigger inspiration for your blogging, sales or advertising then look no further than this guest post on Adrian Swinscoe’s blog (author of Punk CX) by Ralph Wunsch of Writebrain.
Complete with recent examples of advertisements and case studies that are relevant to customer experience, it’s a quick bang-bang read that will get your creative juices flowing. Ralph doesn’t tweet but you can always follow Adrian for great CX content.
SOURCE: AdrianSwinscoe.com, Ralph Wunsch, 22nd June 2019
How to Measure Customer Experience (Smarter with Gartner)
This Smarter with Gartner piece talks about presenting a consolidated view of customer experience metrics across the organization to achieve consistency and customer experience improvements and how the CX landscape is growing.
The article discusses how Ed Thompson, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner defines the five main types of CX metrics;
- Customer satisfaction (CSAT)
- Customer loyalty/retention/churn
- Advocacy/reputation/brand
- Quality/operations
- Employee engagement
And goes on to say that CX management should “Avoid focusing only on one top-level CX metric, such as CSAT or Net Promoter Score (NPS),” and “Instead, consolidate all the relevant metrics into a CX dashboard…” Head on over to read the full piece and follow Susan Moore on Twitter for more Gartner goodies.
SOURCE: Smarter with Gartner, Susan Moore, 28th May 2019
Did you know: Adoreboard are a 2019 Gartner Cool Vendor in Artificial Intelligence for Customer Analytics? Probably not as we’re not announcing until July, but you can find the report here 😉
And that’s a wrap. Next edition will be the July roundup, first week in August. If you feel you have a suitable piece and would like to be featured, just let us know.
