Professionals who are highly satisfied with their organizations’ overall customer experience (CX) performance are more than twice as likely than those who are not at all satisfied with their CX performance to say that their CX and marketing teams are aligned on a customer-centric approach. This is per a report [download page] from Pointillist, which looks at what top CX performers are doing differently than the laggards.
The report surveyed 1,150 CX, marketing, analytics and customer care professionals, categorizing some 36% of respondents as high performers — defined as “very or extremely satisfied with their organization’s overall CX performance and the outcomes of their CX investments.” On the other end of the spectrum, 18% were labeled as underperformers as they expressed low satisfaction in these areas. Here are some of the key findings from the research.
Alignment a Key Differentiator
Although lack of alignment among teams on core KPIs has long been an issue for organizations, there appear to be rewards when CX and marketing teams are able to align on approaches and initiatives. Per the report, three-quarters (74.6%) of high performers say their CX and marketing teams are tightly aligned on a customer-centric approach to goals, while only a little more than one-third (35.8%) of underperformers say the same. Similarly, 76.1% of high performers say their CX and marketing teams regularly collaborate on initiatives to improve customer experience, compared to 36.7% of underperformers.
High performers are also nearly 3 times more likely (69.7%) than underperformers (25.7%) to say their marketing teams prioritize CX metrics and initiatives, in addition to acquisition and campaign performance.
All that said, when segmenting respondents, there does appear to be some discrepancy between marketers and CX professionals in their view of their capabilities in these areas. Marketers are more likely to report that the CX and marketing teams are tightly aligned (66.2% of marketers vs. 48% of CX professionals), collaborate on initiatives to improve CX (69% vs. 47.5%) and that marketing prioritizes CX metrics and initiatives (66.2% vs. 40%).
Focus on the Customer Journey
Prior research has shown the importance of emphasizing the customer journey. MarketingProfs found that B2B CX leaders were more likely than laggards to be strong at mapping the customer journey to identify critical touchpoints, while Forrester Consulting revealed that a majority of top-level enterprise respondents had increased their focus on creating a cohesive customer journey.
This more recent report shows that 9 in 10 (93% of) high performers say a journey-based strategy is very or extremely important to their organization’s success, compared to 63% of underperformers. Additionally, 68% of high performers report having a dedicated role or team for the customer journey management, while only 31% of underperformers say the same.
High performers are much more likely than underperformers to say they are able to track customer behaviors across channels such as Voice of the Customer, mobile app activity, point-of-sale and web activity or clickstream and connect it to customer behavior from other channels. They are also more likely to define journey-based metrics, KPIs or milestones, analyze connected customer interactions across three or more channels and over time, and use customer journey analytics.
Furthermore, the majority of high performers say their organization is very or extremely effective at integrating data across tools and sources into a single, unified view of customers’ journey (70.2%) and engaging customers with the right experiences at the right times through their preferred channels (63.1%).
The full report can be found here.
About the Data: Findings are based on a global survey of more than 1,150 CX, marketing, analytics and customer care professionals.
