The modern customer experience (CX) discipline is being redefined not just by shiny new strategies, but by the gritty, practical work of listening to customers.
This is according to Clint Payne, CX culture transformation expert and architect at Upside Down CX, who spoke at the ITWeb CX Summit in Modderfontein last week.
Payne emphasised the voice of the customer (VOC) as a foundational pillar for transforming both employee and customer experiences, adding that the best experiences exist at the intersection of VOC, voice of the process (VOP) and voice of the employee (VOE).
“VOC reflects the customer's perspective on their experience, while VOP is the insight gained from internal processes. In a call centre environment, it would include metrics like answer rates, abandon rates and first-call resolution rates, providing valuable information about the customer experience. VOE looks at your employee’s perspective on training, system, support and communication.”
He argued that meaningful customer experience initiatives require structure, measurement and, above all, data. But not just any data, he said. It should be actionable, contextual and traceable data that speaks to both relational and transactional experiences.
“Our objective in customer experience is to measure and scale. Simple,” said Payne. “If you only had five customers, you could phone all five, deliver incredibly personalised experiences. But we’re often not in that situation.”
Payne added that most CEOs and CFOs are concerned about a company’s financial health and have numerous financial metrics to gauge business health. However, when it comes to a company's most valuable asset, which is the customer, they settle for a single metric, like the net promoter score (NPS), to measure customer health.
“We cannot just rely on NPS. It’s a relationship measure, not a transactional one. You cannot reduce the state of your customer experience to a single number.”
He highlighted a scenario to illustrate the flaw in relying solely on NPS: “You stop at a grocery store and have a terrible experience. You get an NPS survey straight after that. What do you say? Because the truth is, you love this particular grocery store, so you will just go to another branch on the way and never go back to that one.
“So when they ask if you would recommend the brand, and you say no, you will be lying because you just went to another store. Saying yes would also be misleading, as it wouldn't reflect the poor service you have just experienced. The issue with transactional NPS is that the question doesn't always make sense in context.”
Payne laid out a six-question framework for building CX strategies, rooted in measurement, research, design, governance, culture and technology. But the core of that framework, he noted, begins with understanding what the customer actually experiences, and that means leveraging both VOC and VOP data.
According to Payne, good VOC measurement includes both long-tail relational metrics and real-time, on-channel transactional data. A good, tactical VOC programme “matches the cadence of your business, your customer and spans the journey”. He underscored the importance of integrating these measures across five foundational blocks: multi-channel triggers, sample management, survey execution, closed-loop feedback and reporting.
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