The CX Leader Podcast: "The State of CX Management, 2022": Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

The CX Leader Podcast: "The State of CX Management, 2022": this wav audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Steve:
It's kind of an unofficial tradition that towards the start of the new year, we stop and look at how things are going with customer experience.

Moira:
This is a report that we do on an annual basis to help us understand the state of the state of customer experience and this one in particular, for this year's, we did this study to understand the current state of customer experience management from the perspective of customer experience professionals.

Steve:
Taking a look at the XM Institute's report about the state of CX management on this episode of The CX Leader Podcast.

Announcer:
The CX Leader Podcast with Steve Walker is produced by Walker, an experience management firm that helps our clients accelerate their XM success. You can find out more at walkerinfo.com.

Steve:
Hello, everyone, I'm Steve Walker host of the The CX Leader Podcast and thank you for listening. We like to say that it's never been a better time to be a CX leader, and this podcast explores the topics and themes to help leaders like you leverage all the benefits of your customer experience and help your customers and prospects want to do more business with you. Well, we're fresh into a new year, a time when people make new commitments to better themselves or try to start things off in a more positive attitude. And we here at the CX Leader podcast often like to look at our profession from a more holistic view. More to the point: how our CX leaders doing and what about those that are trailing behind in CX maturity? Well, this week's guest is no stranger to The CX Leader Podcast. It is her fourth appearance on the show. I'm sure that puts her in the top five of all time guests, but Moira Dorsey is a principal XM catalyst with the XM Institute. She's a longtime friend and one of the real thought leaders and genuinely nice people in this business, and I'm just delighted that she's willing to come on and share some of the findings of their most recent report, The State of CX Management in 2021, Maura. Welcome back to the CX Leader podcast.

Moira:
Oh, well, thank you so much for having me. It's such a nice introduction and such a pleasure, as always, to join you on The CX Leader Podcast.

Steve:
Well, you know, we have such respect for the XM Institute, and by the way, we'll promote the website several times. But if any of our listeners are not already accessing the content at the XM Institute, they need to because you guys are just a treasure trove for the profession and you're always a delightful guest. So just in case we have a new listener that doesn't know who you are or the XM Institute, just give us a little bit of your background and and just a quick overview of the XM Institute.

Moira:
Sure. Well, I spent a number of years in the CX space, most of that at Forrester Research. And then a couple of years ago, I was very happy to join the Qualtrics XM Institute. So I was so happy to hear you say that the institute has a treasure trove of materials for XM leaders. We are on a mission to create a thriving global community of experience management professionals who are empowered and inspired to improve human experiences and everything we do, whether it's our thought leadership content or our community or our training or certification. Everything that we do is geared towards helping experience management leaders succeed.

Steve:
Yeah. And we have this saying we we've been kind of using it's just a great time to be in the CX and XM space. And you guys are one of the reasons why it's a great time to be there. Hey, you're your latest report is out The State of CX Management, 2021. And just remind everybody what you know, why you do this, what you're looking for, and how do you go about doing it?

Moira:
Ok, so this is a report that we do on an annual basis. It's one of a few reports that we do based on studies to help us understand the state of the state of customer experience and this one in particular for this year's we did this study to understand the current state of customer experience management from the perspective of customer experience professionals. We surveyed 151 CX practitioners at large companies, so those companies with that had a thousand employees or more about their organization's customer experience efforts. So we asked them about a variety of things which we'll talk about in just a minute. And we also asked our respondents to complete our XM Institute CX competency and maturity assessment so that we could do a little bit of analysis on the data and understand some differences between what customer experience leaders or those organizations that are more mature in customer experience were doing compared with those who are relatively less mature in customer experience. So that's the background on the study, and I'll give you just a couple of key findings before we start digging into some of the details. So 60 percent of our respondents said they had a senior executive in charge of customer experience. Just over half had a centralized customer experience group in place for a year or more. And among, let's say we asked about whether or not customer experience was a top priority. And 60 percent of our respondents overall said that customer experience is either a significant or critical priority at their organization.

Steve:
Yeah, now I'm interested. It's great report, actually I downloaded it earlier. Well, actually a couple of days ago before we were preparing for this and had a chance to study it, and I've studied the ones in the previous years as well. But I'm kind of interested in this difference between leaders and and laggards as we like to call them. You know, those who are pretty advanced in their maturity versus those are that are are behind a little bit. What kind of stood out to you, what differentiates these two groups?

Moira:
So there are a few things, and let's go through some of the the top level categories of things that were different. One, we see some big differences in executive support between leaders and laggards. We also see some big differences in terms of the effectiveness, how they would describe the effectiveness of the channels where they deliver experiences. We also see not a lot of differences, but one important difference in the core metrics how they're whether they have a core metric or not. Some really interesting differences in their their usage of listening posts and also some interesting differences in terms of the challenges or obstacles that these the people in these two groups face.

Steve:
Well, let's let's unpack a couple of those. I think what would be really interesting is what was the finding around the challenges? What were the leaders being challenged with versus the laggards?

Moira:
So, I'll start with what they are where there's not a big difference, but there is a high percentage of challenges. So about half a little over half of the respondents in both groups said that poor integration across systems is a big obstacle to their customer experience management efforts. So that's one place where there's a big challenge, but they both both groups share it. When we look at what the different big differences are between obstacles between CX laggards and leaders, the laggards said that other competing organizational priorities and lack of critical customer experience skills were the two obstacles that they cited the most frequently. And one of the things I would add to that when it comes to the lack of critical customer experience skills that was actually the largest gap between the leaders and the laggards, there was a forty two percentage point gap between laggards and leaders in terms of citing that as a big obstacle, which which of course, makes sense when you think about it from the perspective of comparing them based on these two groups based on their customer experience maturity.

Steve:
Yeah. So really, the laggards are just having kind of trouble with the basics, the foundational elements of even running the program. What are some of the challenges that the leaders are struggling with?

Moira:
So some of the leaders with challenges leaders are are struggling with what we mentioned the poor integration across systems.

Steve:
Right.

Moira:
The next one, pretty much neck and neck with poor integration was other competing organizational priorities, and…

Steve:
Far lower than the the laggards who just couldn't get the traction at all.

Moira:
Exactly, exactly. After that sort of in the for the leaders, the next closest in terms of challenges were things like technology limitations and conflict internal conflict across your organization. But but overall, overall, the leaders are across all of the areas that we asked about, definitely, with the exception of those set top ones struggling less with challenges than the laggards.

Steve:
Yeah. Again, I looked at the report. It just kind of struck me that, you know, that it does build the case for you got to have the basic infrastructure, you know, you've got to have senior management support that, that it is a priority. You have to put some money behind it in terms of staff and resources. So that makes a lot of sense. Let's go to the effectiveness because I think, you know, that's what a lot of our jobs are is as XM pros, we're actually trying to, you know, make improvements in our business. So what are the leaders in the laggards do in terms of effectiveness?

Moira:
Yeah. So looking at effectiveness by channel, this is one of the areas that was, I don't know about you, this is especially interesting to me. So both groups. Another case where they're pretty much the leaders and the laggards pretty much had roughly the same responses were when we asked people, how would they rate the customer experience that the organization delivers through different interaction channels? The the leader said forty eight percent and the laggard said forty six percent for on the phone with an agent. So both groups are pretty much saying we're delivering our best experience on the phone with an agent. And then after that is where it gets interesting. But I want to pause there for a second and see and see what your thoughts were and see if you have any, any follow up questions.

Steve:
No, I get this. I'm a little bit cheating here because I did a podcast with somebody the other day that's really more in the AI space, and they talked about the amount of desire that that we all have now to self-serve and that, you know, really the on the phone with the agent is kind of the the the default if you can't do it yourself today. So I guess you know that and that's a pretty mature channel for customer experience too, right? We're all we're all kind of pretty experienced at doing that. It's these more cutting edge things that I think not to steal your thunder here, but the the leaders sort of seem to stick out on some of these more cutting edge solutions.

Moira:
Yeah, for sure. And it's and I think it's one of those cases where given all the dynamics of the current environment is even more important than it was even 18 months ago. So to your point, looking down the rest of the list of our channels, the CX leaders are saying that they're they're much stronger by let's see across all the channels. On average, they're saying they're 14 percent more… they say 14 percent more frequently that they're strong in these interaction channels than laggards. And this includes channels like on a computer self-service service and on a mobile browser. So those two channels in particular, are ones where the leaders have say they have they're they're very strong and there's a really big gap between them and the laggards. And back to this point, that's larger point than we were making. This strength and capabilities in terms of these digital self-service channels is absolutely more important than ever. Why? Because, you know, we've got pressure on the labor market. We see in our own data among employees that the people who are most likely to be looking for a job are the ones in relatively lower paying jobs like and some often those tend to be customer service jobs and the expectations for customer service are up. So in one of our recent global consumer studies, consumers said that, let's see, forty three percent of consumers said that the the element of customer experience that needed the most improvement was customer service. So high expectations for customer service. Pressure on having great employees to deliver those human experiences. And so there's a risk that what you feel like is so many organizations feel like is their strongest channel is at risk of becoming their weakest because employees are interested in looking for other jobs. And so back full circle to the importance of the strength of these digital channels and putting the leaders at even more of an advantage than the laggards when it comes to the effectiveness of their channels.

Steve:
That's a really great point, and I didn't get that from looking at the the results. But actually having you discuss it, you know, it's it's not just about the fact that the on the call with an agent is mature in the importance of self service. But this, you know, digital gap between the leaders and the laggards with the kind of the. Pressures on the on the labor markets, plus sort of the desire for the consumer to be able to be serviced on, you know, multiple channels and not really just going back to the to the one main one, but I'll never forget the first time I saw a rep in a call center that was sort of monitoring social media, it just blew my mind. And that was that was two or three years ago. And I'm sure that now it's much more integrated.

Steve:
My guest on the podcast this week is our longtime friend Moira Dorsey from the XM Institute, and she's been on the podcast many times. It's that time of the year, first of the year where we're kind of taking a look at things and trying to get things on track. The XM Institute has done this wonderful annual program now for several years and just releasing it The State of CX Management, 2021. And it's fascinating study. We've been talking about the companies that are leaders in terms of their maturity of their CX programs and then also those that are are not doing so well, but more. Maybe we could flip to the to the listening because I imagine that's another finding, right? These leaders are much more robust in their listening, aren't they?

Moira:
Yes. And again, I'll I'll talk about what my key takeaways are here, but I'd love to chat about it with you because I know you've taken a look at the report, so we just to give people a sense. We asked about things like the usage of listening posts and specifically we asked about things like relationship tracking, interaction feedback, journey feedback and also their use of different techniques like passive listening and front line feedback and always on listening. And if you look at the comparison of leaders and laggards, the leaders are using at least one of those listening elements that I just mentioned as part of their customer listening program. That's one thing. Another thing is that the leaders are most frequently using relationship tracking. Laggards are about 20, 20 or so percentage points lower. When it comes to relationship tracking. They're a little bit a little bit more, even when it comes to interaction tracking, interaction feedback. But there's again a big gap between leaders and laggards when we look at their usage of journey feedback. So if we just pause there for a second and look at those three listening techniques, I mean, what pops out to me is that the leaders are in a much better position to be able to track track customer interactions and all three of those levels relationship journey and interaction. And they're putting themselves in a much better position, especially if they're combining X data and oh data to really understand what's going on, what it's most important to fix and what the financial benefit is when they do fix things.

Steve:
This whole report is really, really fascinating the way you guys put it together because. So for example, like the the less mature companies are more likely to be doing the transaction studies. But if they don't have it linked to a relationship study or a journey, then the chances are that they're moments of truth that they're measuring may not be the right ones, or they might not be in context. Therefore, it probably isn't a wonder that they lack top down support or that they get competing priorities because they haven't really integrated the CX with the overall business objectives. So again, I think this is a, you know, it's it's another really key in addition to sort of just resourcing the thing properly, which I think, you know, this study shows you got to do it and then I think you have to do the foundational work and you can't just jump right to the measurement too quickly.

Moira:
Yeah, totally. And then the other thing that that jumps out at me is just one other point is that I think is interesting when you look at it through the lens of maturity. Is this point about front line feedback that the leaders are using front line feedback as a listening post much more frequently than the laggards. And it's indicative of something that I'm sure you see as well, which is that more mature customer experience organizations are starting to work more closely with their EX counterparts. And that's super important for a number of reasons, not the least of which is this last point that you and I were just talking about around engaging employees, especially frontline folks in customer care centers, because when you're actually listening to them and acting on the feedback that they provide, they're more likely to be engaged. Why? Because they're having a positive impact on not only the customer experience, but also on their own experience. And ideally making limiting by eliminating problems for customers or eliminating problems for themselves.

Steve:
Yeah. And I think your earlier point about the tightness in the labor markets just puts even more of a premium on, you know, particularly for the front line employees that that service customers, you know, we really have to make sure that we're making investments there as well. You know, we've been talking about it and again, I'm going to encourage and we're going to talk about how people can get the report and get their hands on it. But just generally, what would you say to the laggards? What should they be doing to try to bridge this gap quickly?

Moira:
So I would I would touch on the two things that you and I have talked about the most. One is to really start building those foundational customer experience skills in your organization and then and specifically focus on building the skills that will enable you to fix problems and make the business case to fix more problems. And so that includes getting the skills in place to have a strong measurement system that helps you measure the improvements, the business impact of the improvements you're making, and to actually have some skills in place to make fixes, to identify opportunities, to make fixes and to work with people across the organization who own all or parts of those experiences. So skills, specifically measurement skills and the ability to find and and fix and manage the projects to find and fix problems.

Steve:
Moira, we've reached that part of the podcast where I always ask our guests what's their key take home value? What's that kind of that best tip you have? And I want to talk specifically about those organizations that are are already advanced in their CX because I don't want them to get cocky. I don't want the hubris to kick in because in my experience, as soon as you think that you're doing everything right, something's going to get you some gremlin is going to jump up and bite you. So let's give a tip to the to the companies that are really out there to to motivate them to keep the hammer down.

Moira:
Ok. So I would just say yes, keep the hammer down, keep the pedal to the metal, because the current environment still has huge potential in terms of accelerating the trajectory of experience management for a number of reasons. But here's what I would do in order to keep your efforts moving forward quickly. One. Keep in mind that it's still a big time of disruption in terms of consumer needs and expectations, and also with all these other things that we have going on around supply chain and employment and the great resignation. So this is an important one of those times and we would say revisit your behavioral segmentations to make sure that they're still accurate, right? And to really better understand your customers needs and your prospects needs because you may have some new people becoming customers. So that's one really important thing. And the second really important thing I would say is to keep pressing on building those capabilities that help, they're helping you shift from a traditional approach to modern to to experience management to a more modern approach to customer experience management. So you're more agile in terms of how you're listening, you're automating getting the processes of getting insights into the hands of the right people, and you're automating action on insights wherever possible.

Steve:
Thank you, Moira, as always, for being a great guest on the podcast. And if people want to get a hold of The State of CX Management report, can they just go to the XM Institute website?

Moira:
They absolutely can. That's xminstitute.com and just searching our XM library or type in "state of CX management 2021" into search and you will find it.

Steve:
Yeah. And again, I just reiterate for our listeners if you don't have the xminstitute.com flagged as one of the favorites on your work computer, you are definitely not taking advantage of one of the great tools for CX pros out there. So and then I think you could tell I was fascinated with the data here, and we just scratched the surface of some of the insights that are in this report. So I, again, this would make great kind of first of the year reading for the CX pros to help you charter your course for successful 2022. And thanks. Thanks again, Moira. Thanks for being a guest on the show.

Moira:
Thank you so much. Always a pleasure.

Steve:
And if you want to talk about anything you heard on this podcast or about how Walker can help your business customer experience, feel free to email me at podcast@walkerinfo.com. Be sure to check out our website cxleaderpodcast.com to subscribe to the show. Find all of our previous episodes, podcast series, contact information. You can drop us a note. Let us know how we're doing or suggest an idea for a future program. The CX Leader Podcast is a production of Walker. We're an experience management firm that helps companies accelerate their XM success. You can read more about us at walkerinfo.com. Thank you for listening, and remember, it's a great time to be a CX leader, so we'll see you again next time.

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