Are you leaving revenue on the table in customer experience?

Episode topics

00:00: Introduction

01:01 What can finance teach us about customer experience?

02:45 How can support teams become revenue generators?

03:59 Why do CX leaders struggle to connect with the C-suite?

06:13 What's the difference between CX and customer support?

07:31 How does reducing customer effort drive ROI?

09:22 How can AI optimize cross-selling opportunities?

10:13 What role does data play in CX decision-making?

11:29 How can CX leaders leverage customer data effectively?

14:07 How do CX leaders build a sales-oriented culture?

15:46 Where should CX leaders begin their revenue journey?

17:19 How can CX teams collaborate across departments?

19:56 Which metrics truly matter for CX success?

23:30: Conclusion

Transcript

[00:00] Robert Zirk: Gartner research finds that showing the relationship between customer satisfaction and business metrics increases your chances of securing more budget by 29%.

[00:10] Yet many customer experience leaders struggle to get members of the C-suite to view it as more than a cost center.

[00:17] Richard Bledsoe: There's an opportunity to turn that cost center into a profit center to really add value.

[00:23] Cami Ferreira: If we shift the mindsets to return on investment, then this game changes.

[00:27] Robert Zirk: Today on Questions for now, I'm joined by Cami Ferreira, global business strategist and CX speaker, and Richard Bledsoe, vice president of customer experience innovation at TELUS Digital, as we ask: Are you leaving revenue on the table in customer experience?

[00:50] Welcome to Questions for now, a podcast from TELUS Digital where we ask today's big questions in digital customer experience. I'm Robert Zirk.

[01:01] Robert Zirk: Meet Cami Ferreira.

[01:03] Cami Ferreira: Such a pleasure to be here and, today, directly from Brazil.

[01:08] Robert Zirk: Brazil, where Cami's visiting for summer break, is also where she started her career — not in customer experience, but in finance. However, after a decade in finance roles, she felt like something was missing. Seeking a change, she transitioned to roles in customer experience and operations, where she's worked with companies across Latin America, Europe and the U.S.

[01:32] Cami Ferreira: CX was a passion that, combined with finance, helped me significantly to understand not only what customers were looking for, but how I could translate this into financial metrics to be more successful.

[01:45] Robert Zirk: She shared an anecdote from her time working at a company in the hospitality industry.

[01:50] Cami Ferreira: When I joined the organization, the COO at the time had a clear goal. Support was not well rated by our clients and he truly believed in the power of support for selling more. My main challenge was to transform support into not a sales machine, but something that wouldn't negatively impact the business, which was the case back then.

[02:10] Our CSAT was 2.9 when I joined and we took this up to 4.7 in eight months. This was my main goal: transform support. But with a good support and with this financial background and connecting and understanding what was the goal of the company that, at the time, was growth: they were looking for more clients. It was a small company in the U.S., growing, with a cloud solution, but still very small compared to competitors. We had a good solution, we had good support, and we just need to use this to make this a sales machine.

[02:45] Marketing launched a referral program assigned to the sales team. I said, "Interesting. If I have a good support, if I have 30,000 contacts on a monthly basis where 95% or 96% of these interactions are positive, I have a great opportunity."

[03:03] So I partner with marketing. I got a unique link for my support team and every time we received a five star for our support, this would automatically trigger a communication to that customer to refer other customers. We became the largest referral channel internally that converted. So this is a great example for CX leaders to go beyond what they do.

[03:29] You need to understand, you need to connect what you do with the main goal of the organization. Otherwise, we will always be seen as a cost center. We became a revenue center by doing what we were doing, but expanding.

[03:43] Robert Zirk: Cami's background in finance gave her a different perspective. When she jumped into the world of customer experience, one of the biggest recurring issues she noticed is a fundamental disconnect in how customer experience initiatives are communicated to the C-suite.

[03:59] Cami Ferreira: Now that I mentor more CX leaders, it's not uncommon to deal with frustrations from CX leaders not being able to make their way to the boardroom. And, once I dig into the main reasons, it's mostly because they keep speaking the CX language, the CSAT, the NPS or the handle time, which is needed among CX people.

[04:19] However, these are not the main metrics tracked by the boardroom. So having a financial background has helped me to translate this into the financial metrics. So whenever I have conversations with the C-level, we are talking about churn. We are talking about customer lifetime value, we are talking about profitability, and this is what matters most to them, and that's the gap that I observe in many CX leaders not being able to translate these initiatives and the voice of the customer into metrics understood by the boardroom.

[04:49] Robert Zirk: Cami advises that the first step in communicating the value of CX is to understand the primary goals of the organization.

[04:57] Cami Ferreira: From there, you work backwards to see how your support team can connect and contribute. Because that's exactly what's gonna help you have the doors open to approve your project.

[05:09] But if you limit yourself to reducing the average handle time, does this drive profitability and efficiency? Yes. But if we analyze the broader picture that one of the main challenges of an organization is getting in contact with this customer, having this customer on the phone and increasing their average handle time where you are converting into more sales has a positive ROI.

[05:33] But if we analyze this in silos, CX will be forever be treated as a cost center. CX has the power of connecting and breaking silos in many organizations. If we shift the mindsets to return on investment, then this game changes. How much revenue can the support team drive with that investment in cost? And let's compare this with other projects across the organization.

[05:58] Robert Zirk: Cami has also noticed that customer experience is often used as a synonym for customer support. She emphasized that CX represents interactions throughout the entire customer journey, not just support interactions.

[06:13] Cami Ferreira: If you limit CX to support, then it's very cost driven, and the reason why people get frustrated is because they are constantly looking for more efficiency, meaning that you have to do more with less.

[06:24] However, if we understand customer experience as the journey of that merchant, of that customer with the organization from the time the sales person pitches the solution up to churn, then you have a wider perspective on how to engage with this customer.

[06:40] Robert Zirk: Cami observed that many brands struggle to get responses from their customers during outreach campaigns or even for support callbacks.

[06:48] Cami Ferreira: However, clients are contacting support on a daily basis. Why not use this as an opportunity to not only serve and solve for the customer, but also to sell more? So that's how we start shifting how we see CXO. When marketing designs their marketing campaigns, their go to market, when sales designs their strategy, we need to go after new clients. But what about the existing ones? What if we use the existing ones as a sales channel where, by serving them well, they become a referral channel for us. So that's why shifting this mindset and not limiting CX to support only is significant.

[07:31] Robert Zirk: Richard Bledsoe is vice president of customer experience innovation at TELUS Digital. He emphasized the importance of reducing customer effort when optimizing CX for ROI.

[07:42] Richard Bledsoe: The best companies, that's where their focus is. They wanna make the seamless experience where ideally someone doesn't need to contact them. Many years ago there might be a reason to contact a bank about what your balance is. Nobody would ever do that today, right? There's a million ways to check your balance and to take care of things like that.

[07:59] So the ideal experience is "I can take care of it myself." Or there's a much easier process rather than contacting in.

[08:07] Robert Zirk: McKinsey's research shows that experience-led strategies that successfully boost customer satisfaction by 20% or more can benefit brands on three levels: cross-selling rates increase by 15 to 25%, share of wallet grows by five to 10% and customer engagement improves by 20 to 30%.

[08:30] Richard notes that when you develop a deep understanding of your customer and earn their trust through an effortless customer experience, you can gain opportunities to cross-sell and upsell.

[08:41] Richard Bledsoe: If you can do a good job solving that problem, one of the investments you can do is have that customer care agent potentially be able to sell at that point. If it makes sense in the right scenario, there might be a natural opportunity to drive revenue and to maybe expand your product line. And some of the best companies have leveraged that to make that the case.

[09:03] And in that case, your customers actually walk away feeling better about the organization. Like, "you've actually improved my experience by recommending the right product that'll make my life easier and my experience better in the long run."

[09:15] Robert Zirk: Cami highlights that AI can assist in optimizing cross-sells and upsells to customer needs and preferences.

[09:22] Cami Ferreira: What if we invest in artificial intelligence to predict what customers would want from that particular organization? If you have an artificial intelligence predicting, on a personalized way, what you can offer once you have that customer on the line, that's the time, that's the momentum to leverage to sell more.

[09:41] Robert Zirk: And your CX department is well positioned to act as the catalyst for gaining these insights.

[09:47] Cami Ferreira: There is no other department that knows more about the customers, especially now with AI. You can track sentiment, keywords. There is so much from one call with a customer that would benefit the entire organization.

[10:02] But the challenge is how do I turn that data into a business decision?

[10:07] Robert Zirk: Richard agrees that it's crucial for brands to leverage data to guide the direction of their business.

[10:13] Richard Bledsoe: Companies that have figured this out and can do this effectively are leaps and bounds ahead of others. Talking to clients about this, the problem with the contact center, and it's been this way for a while, is there's too much data. So the challenge you have is not that you don't have the data, it's how do you focus on the right things and how do you ignore the noise and then how do you get that data back to marketing and back to sales and back to some of these other areas so people can make decisions?

[10:40] The first thing companies are doing is they're trying to drive towards a more omnichannel experience, right? So someone contacts your website, they first try to fix it themselves. They don't get an answer that they want. By the time they get into the contact center, the best companies have an omnichannel experience where I now know you've visited my website. I know you've emailed, I know you've chatted, so by the time you get on the phone, I have a pretty good idea and I can route you to someone who can more quickly solve your problem the first time.

[11:11] That's the primary push, that ability to look from a journey from end to end and leveraging the data that way, and then getting it back to the right people so they can make decisions.

[11:22] Robert Zirk: Cami referenced her experience from working at Uber where she saw more data being leveraged than at any of her previous roles.

[11:29] Cami Ferreira: And not only the amount of data, but what they do with data. How you query those numbers. And now with AI, it potentialized a lot because AI helps us significantly to process different data points and make better decisions.

[11:45] Data does not tell the whole story. Understanding the goal of the company, it's a combination of qualitative and quantitative data for you to make the best decision for the organization.

[11:55] I used to lead the operations for Uber Eats. What our customers were buying, what are the restaurants, the performance of the restaurants, the frequency of the delivery of our courier — so all of the data points of our internal business.

[12:07] However, we were also tracking what was going on with the market, and that's the qualitative. You're not gonna have as good data as in-house for your competitors, but it's important that you track what are the moves that are going on. And also, within Uber, we were also partnering with Uber rides, feeding ourselves with data from Uber rides as well.

[12:27] Because you have to go beyond. Understanding your metrics is important, but you gotta collect data from other departments if you have different business lines, from your competitors, from your market, the qualitative part of the interactions that you have with customers.

[12:43] By digging into the data, we observed that restaurants led by women had higher satisfaction. By looking at the data, we identified this. So we created a specific campaign where we started promoting those restaurants because they were not only driving better experiences, but higher frequency.

[13:01] That's a simple example. Look at your data. What are the potential outliers for the good and for the bad? The bad, you gotta fix and the good, you gotta leverage. But that's exactly what we did. Similarly, we also identified that women, they crave a lot more for dessert. And in a business of delivery, we have peak hours: breakfast, lunch and dinner. In between, there was a valley and we started fulfilling that with dessert campaigns for women, because dessert, you can buy any time of the day.

[13:32] Robert Zirk: Research from Forrester quantifies the ROI of customer experience quality. In their example, for a mass market automotive brand, a single point improvement in Forrester's CX Index can correlate with more than a billion dollars in additional revenue, stemming from increased customer loyalty. Meanwhile, in the insurance sector, a similar CX improvement could yield nearly $370 million.

[13:59] To elevate CX from a cost center to a revenue generator, Richard noted that brands first need to shift the culture of their organization.

[14:07] Richard Bledsoe: Effective organizations have to shift to a mindset where sales becomes part of their culture. And not sales in terms of pushy sales. It's long-term. Building value and building the relationship with the customer requires you to suggest things that will help them.

[14:25] And if you take on that mindset, whether it's technical support, whether it's customer care, even IT — whether it's any part of your organization, right? You turn into a sales organization and that's to help the customer.

[14:38] I heard one CEO say it this way. He goes, "There's two roles in our company. You're either sales or sales support," and he goes, "I'm sales support." That was what the CEO said. And, so, when you think about it from that standpoint, I think that's the first shift that has to happen.

[14:54] Robert Zirk: The next step is to look toward insights from a strategic partnership or examples other companies set.

[15:00] Richard Bledsoe: Companies will often leverage a partner that's done this before and we can help companies with that. They can also look at other examples of companies that have done this successfully, maybe in their own industry.

[15:11] Robert Zirk: Once you've shifted the organizational mindset toward customer value and gained insight into what's working, Richard advises to take action with a pilot program.

[15:20] Richard Bledsoe: Start small, try something, make it in a controlled environment, see what's working. Get a team together and make adjustments and then iterate, right? And so if you can start small on that, there's low risk. See what's working, make adjustments, iterate, and I think that's the best way to tackle any challenge like that.

[15:38] Robert Zirk: Cami emphasizes that to succeed, leaders need to ensure their brand provides an excellent support experience.

[15:46] Cami Ferreira: Start with the basics. If you are leading support, make sure that your support team is delivering a good experience. Because otherwise, you won't be able to translate this or to go deeper and beyond to make your support team a revenue center.

[15:59] Then the second thing is understanding what is the main goal of this organization? Are they shooting for growth, profitability? Is there any particular line of the P&L that they most care about? I don't know. It can be churn, it can be cost, it can be expenses. It depends on the tenure of that organization and the goals of that organization.

[16:19] Then you work backwards. What can your supports team do to improve that particular line? Suppose we are talking about churn. What are the main drivers of churn? You need to better understand what is leading customers to disengage from that particular organization. Is there something that is directly related to support or that support can help prevent?

[16:42] Robert Zirk: For example, Cami notes that support itself isn't always the reason for customer churn.

[16:48] Cami Ferreira: But there are things that support can do that would prevent clients from churning. That's when you go from being a cost center to be a revenue center, because you went beyond your responsibilities but you are using your assets, your engagements, your connections with the clients, your data to actually drive revenue or more efficiency or profitability for that organization.

[17:10] Robert Zirk: To achieve these success goals, Cami advises leaders to ensure CX is cross-functional with other teams and departments.

[17:19] Cami Ferreira: Go with the mindset of serving them because most of the times the mindset is competition. That's not where we win. So if you go to product and say, "Hey, I have many data points and I can have more, depending on what you are looking for, that can make you more successful." It's not about me, it's about you company, you product, you marketing, whatever it is. But let's work together. Let me know what data points that you need.

[17:46] Robert Zirk: This coordinated approach is a win-win for both departments and, by extension, the entire organization. According to Forrester's research, organizations that successfully align their marketing, digital and CX teams outperform their competitors, achieving 60% faster revenue growth and 40% higher customer retention rates.

[18:09] Cami Ferreira: It's about helping marketing to be more successful in a very collaborative way with support. Similarly with product. They have to invest a significant amount of money to understand what customers are looking for. What are our competitors doing? How to get ahead of our competition? We have many customers contacting support daily. What are the data points you need? Let's work on a systematic way of collecting unbiased data that can be filled in on a daily base, on a minute base, of the product team to make better decisions.

[18:40] Robert Zirk: When brands are looking to drive revenue through CX, Richard notes that there's value in leveraging broader industry expertise from a partner like TELUS Digital.

[18:49] Richard Bledsoe: We're a technology company. And so, when people partner with us, we're not just providing outsource services. We wanna holistically look at that customer journey, leverage technology where it makes sense, leverage automation when it makes sense, leverage customer self-help and whatever that looks like to enhance the journey. And we do that for some of the most famous brands in the world today.

[19:11] Robert Zirk: When selecting a CX outsourcing partner, Richard emphasizes that leadership quality should be a top consideration.

[19:18] Richard Bledsoe: Leadership is one of the most important things. Leaders do everything from create their team to resolve problems to drive processes to drive momentum and offer flexibility when things will change on the customer side, 'cause they always will. And then, when there are challenges, the right leadership team can partner with you and come together to make sure things are resolved.

[19:40] Robert Zirk: To gain additional investment, CX leaders need to demonstrate the value of their initiatives. When measuring success, Cami advises that traditional CX metrics like CSAT and NPS may not indicate ROI as tangibly as other metrics.

[19:56] Cami Ferreira: Let's talk about NPS. NPS measures the likelihood of recommending an organization. And I have seen many organizations using NPS for a quarterly bonus or yearly bonus. However, it measures the likelihood, not a real referral, and that's why you need to expand from quantitative to qualitative.

[20:18] One of the things that we did in my past employer was actually transform this into action. "If you would recommend my organization, tell me five names."

[20:28] Or, if you have a CSAT, "Were you satisfied with your last engagement with support?" Yes, but it doesn't mean you're not gonna leave. This is the qualitative partgoing beyond the main metric in your department.

[20:40] Robert Zirk: "If you are satisfied, what drove your satisfaction? What are the things that you believe we can still improve? Why do you like working with us? What can I do to make your life better and easier?" This is the ecosystem: the solution mindset. The three metrics Cami recommends focusing on are customer lifetime value or CLV, churn and loyalty.

[21:04] Cami Ferreira: I like customer lifetime value because it tracks the qualitative and quantitative perspective of your clients, how many clients you are keeping, how long and how much they're spending with your organization.

[21:16] Robert Zirk: But churn is another great metric, which is the reverse of your customer lifetime value, almost the reverse of it. Loyalty: how much loyalty are you driving? Because if your existing customers are staying longer and spending more, it means that you are in the path of creating this ecosystem of solutions that stick. Consequently, it's gonna be easier — not easy — easier to your sales team to sell more, and your existing clients can also become a sales or growth channel for you. At the end of the day, Cami reiterated that everything must go back to ROI. When it comes to tracking early progress toward revenue growth, Cami recommends beginning with small, measurable goals.

[22:04] Cami Ferreira: Are you offering a good experience in your support? CSAT is the best indicator. but you need at least 5% response rate for you to have consistency and statistical significance of your numbers.

[22:16] But once you do the basics right, again: "How can I connect this with the main goal of the organization and which metric I'm gonna use?" One of the mistakes I see CX leaders committing is not having a unique way to track the performance of the initiatives they are driving through support. In the example I gave about my past employer, one of the things that I did was ask for a unique link for the referral program.

[22:41] This allowed me to track what was actually being driven by the support team. Because like me, we had other departments working on a better referral program and if I did not have a unique link, I wouldn't have been able to size the impact of support. So doing this is really important. Sometimes people will start working on initiatives, but they don't have a way to refer back or to reconcile the impact.

[23:08] Those would be my main recommendations. Do the basics and, once done, find a way, work backwards on identifying initiatives where your existing assets, and I'm not just talking about support. It can be product, it can be marketing, it can be finance, but with the assets that you have in your department, how can you leverage them? How can you make them a lever for you to drive business growth? But make sure you have a way to track it.

[23:30] Robert Zirk: To wrap up, Richard offers perspective for CX leaders as they move forward with enabling CX as a revenue driver.

[23:38] Richard Bledsoe: People have been wrapping their heads around it for the past 20, 30 years. It's not just a new trend. It's about starting small and gaining momentum.

[23:55] Robert Zirk: Thank you so much to Cami Ferrera and Richard Bledsoe for joining me and sharing their insights today. And thank you for listening to Questions for now, a TELUS Digital podcast.

[24:07] For more insights on today's big questions in digital customer experience, be sure to follow Questions for now on your podcast player of choice to get the latest episodes as soon as they're released.

[24:18] I'm Robert Zirk, and until next time, that's all... for now.