NPS scores. CSAT ratings. Customer effort scores. These traditional CX metrics are valuable indicators, but they represent “light green money” – important but indirect measures that don’t immediately resonate with CFOs and financial decision-makers.
Before we get into things though, I want to point out that whilst it was Paul Long (former VP & CXO at BCBS and UnitedHealth Group) who first brought these terms to my attention, he credits light green money and dark green money to Joe White, from the University of St. Thomas.
Anyway, as you’ll hear in my upcoming discussion with Chief Customer Officer extraordinaire Paul N. Long, MBA; “NPS is important, but it’s not going to cut it with the CFO.”
Paul provides an elegant but impactful analogy:
Light green money metrics are necessary but insufficient. They indicate potential future financial benefits without directly connecting to today’s balance sheet.
This disconnect often leaves CX leaders struggling to secure the investment needed for meaningful transformation.
The shift to showing the “Dark Green Money” means calculating and communicating “Revenue at Risk” (RaR).
So where to start?
1. Customer churn costs: What revenue do we lose when poor experiences drive customers away?
2. Acquisition inefficiency: How much more do we spend acquiring new customers when we can’t retain existing ones?
3. Lifetime value reduction: What happens to customer lifetime value when experiences deteriorate?
4. Cost-to-serve escalation: How much more does it cost to serve frustrated customers?
And how to bring it together:
- Measure NPS as your light green indicator
- Correlate NPS with customer retention / churn data
- Use advanced analytics to map revenue impact based on emotional drivers of experience from NPS comments
- Present the dark green dollars aka Revenue at Risk based on experience performance as the business case for change
If you’d like to see our Revenue at Risk (RaR) metric in action, book in for a quick demo.
