Steps Toward Securing Customer Experience Research Support

Many companies have some type of customer experience (CX) research program in place.  You may already be conducting an annual survey or collecting comment cards to gather customer feedback. However, in order to make the most of your CX market research program, you may find that additional resources are needed.

In a previous blog, we discussed the importance of identifying key CX opportunities and then sharing that knowledge broadly in order to maximize the value of your CX research program. In this post, we share some ways to secure senior management buy-in, whether you’re starting to formalize a CX market research program, or are looking to gain continued support to maintain and enhance your current one.

Start with a Pilot Program

If you’re at the early stage of instituting a customer experience research plan, consider conducting a pilot study targeting a specific customer segment. This way, you can demonstrate the benefits of a CX market research program, while minimizing the overall cost. Often, pilot programs are used as a case study and help gain senior management support before rolling out a more comprehensive research program encompassing your complete target audience.

Concentrate on High Priority Interactions

The reality is that maintaining a robust CX research program can require a significant investment in both time and money.  To control costs, you may want to focus first on the interactions that are most important to customers. Are there any areas where you are seeing lower satisfaction scores? These may be the areas on which to focus your initial improvement efforts. You’ll also want to consider what barriers, if any, may prevent you and your teams from acting on CX market research findings quickly and effectively. Look for areas with the greatest potential to make an impact on customer satisfaction, loyalty, or likelihood to recommend your brand. Doing so will help you demonstrate the value of your customer experience program and garner continued support.

Focus on ROI

Find a way to demonstrate the link between actionable customer experience insights and your company’s bottom line. How is investing in customer experience research going to result in business growth and improve overall financial performance? Share specific examples that help you show the connection between improvements in customer experience and key metrics like sales growth or increased market share. The best way to secure and maintain support for any CX-related research initiative is to demonstrate how intelligence from your customer experience program leads to improved business performance.  Whenever possible, showcase the connections between improvement opportunities uncovered in your CX program, actions taken by internal stakeholders, and subsequent gains in performance indicators like customer loyalty and employee engagement. You may need to start small.  Then, based on early successes, it should become easier to get approval to expand your customer experience program, as needed. We’d love to hear your feedback on ways your organization maximizes the value of your customer experience program.

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