According to Forbes, Customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable than companies that don’t focus on customers. Yet, as COVID moves from a moment in time to the new normal, CEOs must balance delivering differentiated customer experience while maximizing the value of each customer relationship. Customers, Partners, Executives, and Academics are all asking the question: “How can your company recalibrate for a changed world?”
Although COVID has highlighted the need for a differentiated customer experience in recent years, CEOs have long been plagued by these questions. For years, executives have struggled to translate the strategic concepts of both “Customer Success” and “Customer Experience” into tactical execution plans. Not only has execution been a challenge, but quantifying the impact of initiatives, calculating the return on investment, and attributing revenue growth to CS and CX remains difficult across most industries.
Download our Customer Scorecard to determine if you’re measuring what matters to monetize CX and drive value for your customers or purely telling anecdotal customer success stories.
Companies are still plagued by a persistent ‘chicken and egg’ conundrum – which comes first: Customer Success or Customer Experience? Is customer success an outcome of a well-executed customer experience? Or is customer experience an outcome of well-executed customer success?
A straightforward way to delineate customer success and customer experience is to imagine an office building. Customer success sits within the four walls of the organization, whereas customer experience is everywhere. In an earlier blog post, I wrote about Customer Experience Isn't a Straight Line, It's a Complex Ecosystem. That ecosystem is made up of various internal departments, technologies, and data sources – often with many internal “owners” of the experience.
Within SBI’s Revenue Growth Methodology, Customer Experience is a foundational strategy, whereas Customer Success is a functional strategy.
Customer Experience is the culmination of every interaction that customers have with your brand. “While frustrating and friction-filled customer experience still exists, no company sets out to deliver a poor customer experience. Market leaders can directly connect customer experience – and the moments within a customer’s journey –to revenue growth. In short, market leaders have figured out how to monetize CX.”
Whereas Customer Success is a functional department, reporting through sales or support organizations within companies. “Buyers have more power than ever, have lower switching costs, and are under increased pressure to demonstrate value. Most companies have adopted a Customer Success approach in order to proactively demonstrate value, increase renewals, and identify (and in some cases pursue) cross-sell and upsell opportunities.”
According to Gainsight, the CEO should take ownership of Customer Success, specifically “Customer Success starts as a department and function but only thrives as a company-wide transformation. And this transformation requires the CEO personally owning it.”
First and foremost, it’s important to differentiate some foundational definitions and success measures or key performance indicators (KPIs) for each:
According to Forbes, 84% of companies that work to improve their customer experience report an increase in their revenue. Yet, many CEOs find themselves prioritizing the urgent over the important, failing to understand the strategic importance of Customer Experience.
Not sure where to start?
In less than 10 minutes, the SBI Growth Index can help your team identify key risks to their revenue growth across 8 areas, including both Customer Experience and Customer Success.
Download our Customer Scorecard and ask if your team is measuring what matters. Let SBI help you establish the foundation for revenue growth because transformation requires the CEO to own it personally.