Why ROI Questions Never Stop

Jeannie Walters 0:00

I am so sick of the question of how to defend customer experience through return on investment. We have been defending the ROI of CX for too long. Let's crack the code. I bet you know what I'm talking about. I bet that if you're listening to this podcast, you are a leader in a situation thinking, all right, but how do we really tell our leaders that it's working? Why don't they trust me? What is the ROI? Why can't I prove it? You gather the feedback, you share the insights, you move through actions, you journey map, you service blueprint, you do all the things, and yet they still ask you, what is the ROI? I'm going to name it. I'm going to say that's because CX people show up with scores that aren't part of the overall organizational score card. So, what can we do about this? I'm going to walk through this and help you reverse the script. Because if we keep showing up with the same information, the same scores, the same stories, we are not going to get the funding, the respect, or the promotions that we deserve. Here's the hard truth. Two out of five customer experience leaders cannot demonstrate ROI on their experience investments. They can't do it. So they are showing up without a business case. They are showing up with a hope and a prayer and maybe a decent story. But that's not enough. So as budgets tighten, which they are right now, as we're experiencing some layoffs out there, as things are happening, we need to prove ROI once and for all. If half of us cannot prove the very thing we're being asked to prove that's not really a communication problem, that's a starting problem.

The Real Reason Leaders Doubt

Jeannie Walters 2:16

What if we're just starting in the wrong place? When we talk about ROI, it's so easy to think, well, I'm putting in this investment and I need to map out exactly the return we're going to get on that. But what if we think about the return part first? What if we think about what is it we really want out of this? What would serve our organization? What would our leaders care about? What if we start there? Because often I hear about customer experience leaders getting stuck because they already have projects happening. They already have invested in certain places and they're trying to make a case after the investment is made. We have to think about the goals and the strategy and the outcomes the organization wants and needs first and build from there. The money is there. We know that when customer experience is done well, there is absolutely a return on the investment. That has been proven again and again. But often, when I work with customer experience teams to really help them develop this using our tool, the Customer Experience Success Blueprint, I walk in there and ask questions and they immediately want to go to the tactics. They immediately want to go to, yeah, but we're working on this one thing or this one piece. And then they say, How can we ladder up our goals? How can we make sure our goals are attached to the organizational goals? That is a starting point problem. We have to start with those organizational goals. And I know as I'm talking to you right now, some of you are thinking, well, wouldn't it be nice to know the organizational goals? They haven't told us. You always know some organizational goals. You do. Every leader cares about overall ROI for an organization. So if you can prove that you are driving revenue, if you can prove that you are decreasing expenses, that will help you attach to any goal that they have. Trust me on that one. Laddering up sounds smart. We fix a touch point, we tie it to a metric that we're tracking, we connect the metric to the goal. But if we are not thinking before we fix something, how will this impact that organizational goal? That's where we get stuck. By then, you've already spent the budget, you've already run the project, you've already used resources and people to get something done. And then you're trying to justify it after the fact. In everyday human behavior, we call that rationalization. So instead of fixing a touch point and justifying the investment of it, think about something like well, what is everybody talking about right now?

Quit Justifying After The Fact

Jeannie Walters 5:26

Scale. How do we do things at scale? How do we do, how do we make sure we're being efficient and human and delivering for our customers at scale? What does the phrase at scale actually mean? It means how do we invest less and gain more? So if we're talking about at scale with something around customer experience, we could think about, okay, if we invested in this kind of tool, if we invested in this touch point, that will help us as an organization deliver this at scale. But you can't put a period on that sentence. You have to keep going. Which will do what for the organization? Which will help us keep our expenses down and improve the revenue coming in. By reducing friction in this journey, we expect more conversions to help us with our acquisition goals. We expect how to tie that in. You can do this, but you have to start at the right place. Right now, today, customer experience has a starting point problem. We start at the wrong place. We start in a position of reactivity. We start in a position of asking for investment after the fact. No wonder it's hard to prove ROI. No wonder so many of us are struggling

Start With Organizational Goals

Jeannie Walters 6:58

with that. So here's the formula. I'm going to give you the formula for the CX success blueprint. You start with your organizational goals. And what I mean by that is even if you don't have them super well defined, because spoiler alert, most of them are not. You have to think about what do your shareholders, what do your stakeholders, what do your C-suite, what do they care about? So they all care about more revenue and fewer expenses. A lot of goals that are written around we're going to scale, we're going to gain market share, we're focused on growth. All of those words translate to more revenue, fewer expenses. Now, are there goals that can be around that? Absolutely. Things like, you know, investing in people to be a workplace of choice. Okay, let's say we're going to be a workplace of choice. What does that really mean? It means that we're going to lower the acquisition cost of bringing in a new employee. We have to translate the goals into things that mean dollars and cents. And once you do that, once you've identified your organizational goals, you have to think about which leaders are getting involved. Which ones do we need buy-in from? What do they care about? And then keep translating, keep going. What are the levers we can pull? What are the efforts we need to put in? What do we expect to happen once we make this improvement? If you are justifying ROI after the fact, you are already in the wrong place. I know so many CX leaders who literally white knuckle their way through budget time. They are trying to figure out how do I justify my role, my team, our work. That's a terrible way to live. So let's decide today that we're not going to let that happen. If you're listening to this and you're thinking, well, that's where we are right now. What am I supposed to do? You can still do something. I want you to look at those goals that you have and think about how you can justify it for the future. How can you say to your future self, your future leader, this is why we did that? Because if you can't do that today with your current active goals, then you're already in a position of weakness. Think about where you can actually have an impact in customer experience, where you can measure success, how you measure success. Maybe some of that are feedback indicators like NPS or CSAT. But that can't be the only one. We have to look at behavioral metrics. We have to look at analytics. What is actually happening in our operation? Are we actually getting the growth we're expecting? Are people actually stopping at that point of friction? What are the complaints we're hearing? What are the wins we're getting? All of that has to be part of understanding the investment before we make it.

Metrics Beyond NPS And CSAT

Jeannie Walters 10:19

Now, I want to give a little word of caution here. Sometimes when I talk to CX leaders about goals, they say things like, Well, yeah, but our organizational goals aren't really about customers. Yeah, they are. Because you do not have an organization without customers. They don't necessarily have to say customer. They don't have to talk about we're delivering the most amazing customer experience. Because customer experience is not about just delivering a great customer experience. It's about getting results for your organization. So if you are in a moment right now where you are looking at your goals and struggling with them, I really encourage you to check out the CX Success Blueprint. Walk through that. Think about what are the pieces here that we can actually influence. If it doesn't say the word customer in your organizational goals, do not fret. Look at the goals you have and start identifying what would actually impact that goal. That's where we can make an impact. So if we talk about growth as a goal overall as an organization, and then customer experience comes back and says, we want to improve net promoter score, that's not growth. That's a piece of information. What we want to talk about are actual growth numbers like retention, like reducing churn, like improving customer acquisition through more positive word of mouth. All of those things are actually what translate into revenue. So as you put your story together, think about the future you. Think about the future you walking in to your executive suite and talking about all the great things that not only they invested in and you're showing them the return, but you knew you were going to get that return. You are confident. And they heard you tell that story and they believed in you and they funded you. But we have to start from the beginning and make a plan for the future when we're talking about ROI. We can't get stuck rationalizing and justifying after the fact that money has already been spent. And if we can't justify ROI after the money is already spent, then why would they invest anymore? So as you move through your journey, consider how you can set up not only future you, but the future of your organization for success. If you get that right, you will win and you will prove ROI again and again and again. So if you're listening to this, grab a pen, sit down at your keyboard, and think about what are the top goals for your organization and start there. It's a very different conversation. It's a very different way to write goals, and it's a very different way to quote unquote prove ROI. Go get it.

Build The Future Proof Story

Jeannie Walters 13:39

And if you found this helpful, if you want to share this with somebody, we would really appreciate that. Your ratings, reviews, and shares really help others find this podcast. I know there are a lot of us out there who are struggling as CX leaders. That's what this podcast is about. So please share, please review, please let us know what you want to hear about in the future. You can always reach out to us at experienceinvestigators.com. Thanks everybody. See you next time. If you're ready to turn insights into action, join CXI Membership, our community for customer experience investigators just like you. Get the tools, support, and inspiration to move from ideas to true impact. And don't miss my book, Experience is Everything: Making Every Moment Count in the Age of Customer Expectations. Available wherever you order books. Until next time, keep asking questions, keep improving, and keep leading with experience.