More On The Positive Ties Between Good CX and Revenue
Guest post by Jeanne Bliss
I wrote a few weeks ago about how good CX is tied to revenue gains. I firmly believe that and preach it to all my clients and anyone I ever work with. If you do customer experience right – think in terms of the five core competencies – then you will (over time) create a customer-driven growth engine and see revenue uptick from your customer experience side. I’ve seen it dozens, potentially even hundreds, of times in companies of all sizes. It works.
But at the same time, last week I found an article/press release on Yahoo! Finance indicating that – perhaps – CX hiring would go down in 2017. The article was anecdotal more than anything else. If you read the comments on my post (linked there), you’ll see I discuss that with a few CX professionals and my overall takeaway is that CX hiring is strong. I firmly believe that.
The one argument the article made that has some relevance, though, is that you (as a CX professional) need to draw a direct line from “your deliverables” to “revenue growth.” This needs to happen fairly quickly, or else other executives/silos/teams may be confused why you have the proverbial “seat at the table.” Most of my podcast guests have referred to “quick wins” or a plan for the initial three months. I fully believe in that.
Here’s some new research on the ties between good CX and revenue growth. This article pulls from a B2B digital trends report via EConsultancy and a Avanade/Sitecore white paper. Pay attention to this:
The most attention-grabbing finding in this study is that respondents said their company realized $3 in benefits for every $1 it spent on improving customer experiences. Four out of ten respondents reported increased revenues, 38% said they achieved better financial performance than their competitors, and 37% said they improved sales cycles. Where these benefits were seen, the improvements were substantial. Respondents reported an average improvement of between 18% and 21% in each of these dimensions.
Those are awesome numbers. Many teams would love to have them. Good customer experience can get you there. And to boot:
Respondents also reported that improving customer experiences produced increased levels of customer satisfaction (58%), increased customer loyalty (45%), and increased levels of customer acquisition and retention (41%). Once again, these benefits were significant where they were seen. Respondents said they saw an average improvement of between 19% and 22% in each of these areas.
Again: awesome numbers. Most fellow executives would adore these stats in a report. And good customer experience can get you there.
If you’d be interested in discussing the tie between “strong customer experience” and “explicit revenue growth” more, reach out. I’d love to help you draw the connection in your own organization and get your own customer-driven growth engine humming.
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As originally published on the Customer Bliss website. To learn more about how to improve the customer experience for your business, visit Five9.
Jeanne Bliss is the Founder and President of CustomerBliss, and the Co-Founder of The Customer Experience Professionals Association. She has guided the leaders of Fortune 500 and Global 1000 companies since 1984 in their customer experience transformations.
