Johannesburg, 29 Sep 2023
Customer experience (CX) programmes are taking far too long to materialise – so much so that those responsible for setup, coordination and budget management become overwhelmed and lose focus. who adds that excos are also frustrated with having to invest in CX initiatives and resources with little to no sign of return.
This is according to Yugeshree Frylinck, founder and chief experience officer at The CX Group, who joins the expert speaker line-up at the 2023 ITWeb CX Summit on 5 October at the Maslow Hotel, Sandton.
excos are frustrated with having to invest in CX initiatives and resources with little to no sign of return.
ROI in this context is solid, useful data to provide valuable insights.
"What business needs to start doing is to align CX with short wins and long-term goals that are aligned to the business strategy. What happens is that they focus on change management and the culture, and the education around CX, but nobody goes in and fixes what needs to happen on the ground with the customer.”
Analysis paralysis
Frylinck notes a growing internal struggle in organisations due to overly ambitious data insight teams deviating from their mandate. Their primary goal should be efficiently providing meaningful dashboards for diverse audiences. As customer behaviour is dynamic, data sets should be flexible, offering quick insights to answer departmental "why" questions. Waiting six months for a report is too late, she notes.
The ability for the business to react and plan for what’s around the corner relies on the insights team being highly adaptable and efficient.
“The data needs to tell a story across the customer life cycle and must be able to drill down into specific journeys on-demand. Sometimes the high availability of data doesn’t mean that you have access to the full picture. Long data projects often result with the inability to show the end-to-end picture, resulting in lost opportunities for the business to recover with their customers.”
Most often its only after these failed attempts, loosing valuable time and resources the business then decides to look for an industry expert to outsource to.
Culture shift
Frylinck stresses the importance of change management in CX development and shifting corporate culture to embrace customer-centric values.
Traditional training and skills development cannot be applied with a blanket approach, she adds. “It’s not only classroom or online self-learning. You’ve got to have an integrated approach that is inclusive in its design and allows the learner to drive his or her learning towards the needs of the business.”
In her presentation, Show me the money: a cost-effective, intentional CX strategy, Frylinck will address these issues and emphasise the need for cross-departmental collaboration to achieve holistic customer experiences.
While AI and emerging tech can enhance these strategies, Frylinck cautions against distraction from CX's core objective – to maximise resources and deliver a meaningful and sustainable customer experience.
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