Measuring Customer Experience ROI

He delivered perfect metrics. She fumbled through a messy slide deck. He got fired. She got promoted. Because she spoke in dollars. Board meeting. Twelve minutes in. Director of Customer Success presents glowing NPS scores. Zero questions from the executives. Next slide: Engineering shows server uptime at 99.97%. Polite nods around the table. Then Marketing presents one number: Customer acquisition cost dropped 23% to just $3,000. Suddenly everyone's awake. Questions for thirty minutes straight. Additional budget approved on the spot. Here's what I learned watching from the back of that room: Numbers without dollar signs are just statistics. Numbers with dollar signs are how businesses make decisions. Last quarter, somewhere out there in the corporate world, a Head of Support rewrote her quarterly review. Version 1 (what she originally wrote): "Response times improved 15% this quarter. Customer satisfaction jumped to 4.8 stars. Team morale is at an all-time high." Version 2 (what got her promoted): "Faster response times retained $890K in at-risk accounts. Higher satisfaction converted $1.1M in expansion opportunities. Improved team retention saved $200K in recruiting, hiring, and training costs." Same achievements. Completely different reception. Her original presentation got polite applause. Her rewrite received accolades. Operational metrics → Financial impact Team performance → Business outcomes Customer feelings → Revenue protection "We reduced bugs by 60%" becomes "Prevented $400K in churn from technical issues." "Users love the new interface" becomes "UI improvements drove $153k in expansion” "Training improved team skills" becomes "Skills development cut support costs $150K annually." Every metric in your company connects to money. Your job is drawing those lines clearly. Because executives don't fund good feelings. They fund good business.

It is so important to understand and utilize the voice of your customer (VOC). The VOC is esentially the feedback, opinions, preferences, and expectations of customers about your product, service, or brand. We are taught very early on in #leanmanagement about the importance of understanding and integrating customer feedback, needs, and preferences into the product or service development process. Why? Because VOC helps ensure that products or services align closely with what customers truly want and value, reducing waste, increasing quality and increasing customer satisfaction. Many companies collect data...lots of it...but leave out the crucial step of analyzing this collected data, identifying patterns, and drawing actionable insights. Also, they collect data far too late, often after the work has been done instead of getting input at the start of the creative process. So, here are a few guidelines to help you make the most of your customer voice: 1️⃣ Gather VOC at every critical stage: pre-development, during development, post launch and at critical touchpoints. 2️⃣ Identify Patterns and Prioritize Issues: Group similar content and determine which issues or suggestions are most frequently mentioned or have the most significant impact on customer satisfaction. 3️⃣ Contextualize Feedback: Consider when, where, and how the feedback was provided to better interpret its significance. 4️⃣ Quantify Feedback: Assign metrics or scores where possible to quantify feedback. This helps prioritize improvements based on the magnitude of impact. 5️⃣ Root Cause Analysis: Dig deeper to understand the root causes of recurring issues. Sometimes, the stated problem might not be the actual underlying issue. 6️⃣ Link Feedback to Action: Connect the feedback directly to actionable steps. Develop strategies or changes that directly address the issues raised by customers. 7️⃣ Continual Improvement: Use feedback not just for immediate fixes but as part of an ongoing process for continuous improvement. Regularly revisit feedback to track progress and make further adjustments. What other tips can you add?? #voiceofthecustomer #lean #qualitymanagement #customerfeedback #customersatisfaction Image Source: Lucidchart

Most customer experience programmes don’t fail because they’re ineffective. They fail because the C-suite never bought in. The majority of CX reports are full of customer satisfaction, effort, NPS scores, and so on… But when leadership asks: → How much churn did we prevent? → How much pipeline did we accelerate? → How much revenue grew from existing accounts? Most CX teams can’t answer these questions. The strongest CX leaders I know don’t stop at “customers are happy.” They connect the dots to money and speak the language their C-suite speaks: ✓ “We prevented €2M in lost revenue by preventing customers from cancelling.” ✓ “We increased repeat purchases worth €700K by making the customer journey frictionless.” ✓ “We generated €1.5M in new revenue through referrals from loyal customers.” The reality is that the C-suite isn’t obsessed with surveys and scores, but they definitely want to know three things: ➤ What grew bigger ➤ What moved faster ➤ What nearly slipped away The metrics themselves aren’t useless (almost). But if you can’t translate them into business impact, your numbers will mean little when budgets tighten. Scores of any kind won’t keep CX programmes alive. Proving financial impact does. #cx #customerexperience

🛑 𝗗𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗙𝗹𝘆 𝗕𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗱: 𝗨𝘀𝗲 𝗔𝗜 𝘁𝗼 𝗞𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗖𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀 Having trouble keeping pace with your customers' desires and needs? If you're not leveraging real-time data on customer behavior and preferences, you're essentially flying blind. 💥 This lack of insight can cripple your marketing and sales efforts, leading to ineffective customer engagements and stunted sales growth. Here’s where Voice AI steps in as a powerful ally: ❇️ Real-Time Data Collection: Implement Voice AI to engage with customers directly. This technology collects essential data on preferences, concerns, and feedback as the conversation happens. ❇️ Instant Feedback Loop: Set up your Voice AI to provide real-time feedback to your marketing and sales teams. This means they can pivot and adjust strategies instantly, enhancing the effectiveness of your campaigns on the fly. ❇️ Real-Time Alert System: Integrate a real-time alert system within your Voice AI setup. This can notify team members immediately when it detects key customer triggers, like expressions of dissatisfaction or excitement, prompting swift and appropriate action. By integrating these strategies, you'll not only meet but exceed customer expectations, enhancing engagement and driving sales. How are you leveraging technology to stay on top of customer preferences? Share your strategies below! #innovation #digitalmarketing #technology #bigdata #entrepreneurship #voiceai

Smart CRM Basics Predictive Customer Behavior Modeling The Advantages of Predictive Behavior Modeling When Marketers can target specific customers with a specific marketing action – you are likely to have the most desirable campaign impact. Every marketing campaign and retention tactic will be more successful. The ROI of upsell, cross-sell, and retention campaigns will be more significant. For example, imagine being able to predict which customers will churn and the particular marketing actions that will cause them to remain long-term customers. Customers will feel the greater relevance of the company’s communications with them – resulting in greater satisfaction, brand loyalty, and word-of-mouth referrals. Enhancing Customer Segmentation for Personalization Predictive analytics refines customer segmentation by identifying patterns within data. By understanding customer segments on a deeper level, businesses can personalize their interactions, marketing messages, and product recommendations. This tailored approach fosters a stronger connection with customers, leading to increased loyalty. Anticipating Customer Needs Through Lead Scoring Lead scoring becomes more accurate with the integration of predictive analytics. By evaluating customer data, such as interactions with emails, website visits, and social media engagement, businesses can prioritize leads based on their likelihood to convert. This ensures that sales teams focus their efforts on leads with the highest potential. Optimizing Sales Forecasting Accurate sales forecasting is crucial for effective resource allocation and business planning. Predictive analytics in CRM analyzes past sales data, market trends, and customer behaviors to generate more accurate sales forecasts. This empowers businesses to make informed decisions, allocate resources efficiently, and capitalize on emerging opportunities. Transforming CRM with Predictive Analytics Predictive analytics is revolutionizing CRM by providing invaluable insights into customer behaviors. From personalized marketing campaigns to proactive churn prevention, businesses can leverage these predictions to enhance customer relationships and drive growth. As technology continues to advance, integrating predictive analytics into CRM systems is not just a strategy for staying competitive; it's a key component in building lasting customer-centric businesses in the digital age. #PredictiveAnalytics #CRMInsights #CustomerBehavior #DataDrivenDecisions #BusinessIntelligence #CustomerRetention #SalesForecasting #MarketingStrategy #EthicalCRM #DynamicPricing

Omnichannel Orchestration Is Quietly Redefining How Payments Work Think about the last time you paid: maybe you tapped your card at a café, bought something online, or checked out through an app. For you, it was simple. But for the merchant, each of those transactions flowed through entirely different systems — card-present vs. card-not-present — with separate devices, gateways, and reconciliation processes. This fragmentation is one of the biggest hidden challenges in payments. And it’s where omnichannel orchestration changes the game. So what exactly is it? 👉 Payment orchestration is the “traffic controller” for transactions. It sits between merchants and providers (acquirers, PSPs, schemes) and intelligently routes, secures, and reconciles payments across all channels. Instead of merchants juggling multiple integrations, settlement reports, and reconciliation headaches, orchestration unifies everything: POS, softPOS, eCommerce, and MOTO all flow through a single layer. ✅ Here’s what that means in practice: 🔹 Smarter routing → Transactions are directed to the best acquirer, cutting failures and boosting approvals. 🔹 Omnichannel tokenization → A card saved online can also be used in-store, enabling loyalty and smoother experiences. 🔹 Unified APIs → One integration for merchants replaces the complexity of managing many. 🔹 Consolidated reporting → Finance teams get one view of payments, no matter the channel. 🔹 Resilience → Failover and retries keep commerce moving, even if one provider is down. And here’s the bigger picture: As mobile tap-to-pay and digitized in-store experiences grow, the wall between online and offline commerce is crumbling. Merchants can’t afford to treat channels separately anymore. Orchestration is what makes this convergence possible. Think of it as the invisible layer of intelligence that powers: 🔹 Better customer journeys 🔹 More resilient operations 🔹 Smarter, data-driven growth Platforms like Akurateco Payment Hub are showing how this isn’t just “nice-to-have infrastructure.” It’s quickly becoming the backbone of modern payments. 👉 Subscribe for more insights https://lnkd.in/d94JgWBU Source Akurateco #fintech #payments #paymentorchestration

Let’s talk about one of the biggest problems in customer experience today: we’re speaking different languages. In theory, the below is going to sound super simple. But in practice? It's still one of the hardest things to deliver on. Executives talk about hard data, operational velocity, and risk reduction. CX leaders talk about delight, empathy, and storytelling. Both matter, of course, but which one do you think actually gets funded? If what’s important to your customers doesn’t show up in the metrics that are important to your business, your CX strategy will always sound like a nice-to-have. In my 20+ years in CX, I have never seen a business fund “delight,” "wow moments," and "moments of truth." But I have seen them fund results. I’ve sat in enough executive meetings to know if you can’t draw a straight line between what customers feel and what the business earns, the conversation ends pretty quickly. Something tells me some of you have as well, but point the finger at your executives and say things like, "They're not customer centric." You want to make CX real for leadership? Translate your work into outcomes they care about. They're looking for statements like the below. “We reduced 90,000 avoidable contacts at $4 each. That’s $360K saved.” “Improving onboarding dropped churn by 2 points. That’s $5M retained.” “Reducing hold times increased customer spend by 12%.” Now you’re not talking about journeys or personas, you’re talking about business impact. That’s the language executives understand. Too many CX teams are stuck in the storytelling loop. They spend all their time describing the journey and none of their time proving the value. Stories inspire; data convinces. It's your job to connect both. Here’s a simple test: Can you show impact (what changed), leverage (how does it scale), and predictability (how is it repeated)? If you can hit all three, you’ll never have to fight for CX investment again. It's the CX Trifecta for my horse betting friends out there. So this month, I have a challenge for you: take a hard look at your metrics. Are they telling the story of how CX drives the business, or are they just describing how customers feel? Only one of those will earn your executives' attention. #customerexperience #leadership #gsd

Your brand is an illusion if it exists only as a feeling. When you celebrate campaigns and "brand health" but track nothing, your "blind faith" costs you loyalty, growth, and profits. The truth: your most valuable asset is invisible. Unless you measure it. Precisely. Stop guessing about your brand's strength. Start measuring: - Audit Deeply: Understand current health and equity sources. - Track Relentlessly: Monitor awareness, image, and loyalty over time. - Systematize Insights: Build dashboards and reports, making brand equity actionable across the business. - Drive Action: Translate data into recommendations that move the needle. Remember: What gets measured gets managed. Your brand is no exception. Art+Science Analytics Institute | University of Notre Dame | University of Notre Dame - Mendoza College of Business | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | University of Chicago | D'Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University | ELVTR | Grow with Google - Data Analytics #Analytics #DataStorytelling

⭐️Revolutionising Fashion Retail with IBM Sterling OMS⭐️ The fashion industry is dynamic, fast-paced, and customer-centric leading brands use IBM Sterling Distributed Order Management (OMS)—a solution designed to streamline omnichannel operations, enhance customer experiences, and optimise supply chains. Trusted by global names like Ralph Lauren, adidas, Marks and Spencer, NET-A-PORTER, Fossil Group, Inc., Pandora and John Lewis & Partners, Sterling is the backbone of modern retail. Here’s how IBM Sterling OMS Transforms Fashion Retail: 🛍️Omnichannel Integration: Synchronise inventory and fulfilment across online, in-store, and mobile platforms. Adidas uses OMS to offer services like buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS) aka Click-and-Collect and ship-from-store. 🛍️Inventory Optimisation: Manage stock in real time to reduce waste and meet demand. Marks & Spencer minimises stockouts with OMS, while Eileen Fisher aligns inventory management with sustainability goals. 🛍️Flexible Fulfilment: Enable split shipments, drop-shipping, and ship-from-store to meet customer needs. Sally Beauty Holdings saw a 540% sales increase by deploying ship-from-store in 2,700+ locations. 🛍️Efficient Returns: Simplify returns to any store, improving customer satisfaction. Pandora doubled its online sales with OMS, handling returns seamlessly during high-demand periods. Pandora leveraged OMS to deliver real-time inventory visibility and optimise global fulfilment operations. 🛍️Fulfillment Speed: John Lewis & Partners migrated 5.7M orders to IBM Sterling OMS, reducing production times and enhancing fulfilment speed. 🛍️Frictionless Customer Experience: Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Limited achieved 99.5% inventory synchronisation, ensuring a seamless customer experience. With IBM Sterling OMS, the world’s most iconic fashion brands are transforming their operations to meet the demands of modern retail while staying true to their values. #FashionRetail #IBMOMS #SupplyChain #Omnichannel #Sustainability #InnovationInRetail #CustomerExperience #RetailTransformation #PassionForFashion #Luxury #Fashion #Retail #RethinkRetailTopExpert #NRFRetailVoice RETHINK Retail #RethinkRetail National Retail Federation #NRF #ItsAGreatTimeToBeAnIBMer #IBMRetail #IBMConsumer More on IBM OMS: https://lnkd.in/eiJ4Rzxc More on our work with Pandora: https://lnkd.in/eQxSGp3Q 💬 Fashion and Lux will be a topic of discussion at the NRF. Speak to our experts like David Hogg or Colm O'Brien. Join us from January 12-14, 2025, in NYC to explore how IBM is transforming retail at Booth #4639. More here: https://lnkd.in/dzY42Bmf. See you there!

Grateful to be featured in the "Shoptalk Hot Takes" interview by Blenheim Chalcot and ClickZ.com alongside George Looker to unpack omnichannel commerce. 5 key takeaways and tactics from my conversation: 1. Design for Customer Continuity, Not Just Channel Expansion 💡 71% of customers expect brands to personalize interactions across every touchpoint. Tactical: Map out customer journey across channels, then design experiences that recognize and reward continuity—cart persistence, loyalty rewards, browsing history sync, etc. 2. Build the Infrastructure: Unify Data Streams Across All Touchpoints 🧠 Data fragmentation = missed opportunity Tactical: Integrate POS, e-commerce, mobile, social, and marketplace data into a centralized data lake or unified commerce platform. 3. Establish a Single Source of Truth for Customer Profiles 🔍 Brands with unified profiles see up to 2x better campaign performance. Tactical: Implement Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) to consolidate behavioral, transactional, and engagement data into unified customer profiles. 4. Partner Strategically for Scale, Not Just Stack ⚙️ A bloated tech stack doesn’t equal agility As I noted, Retailers are getting sharper about which partners can scale with them. Ecosystem efficiency matters more than ever. Tactical Step: Audit your tech stack and partnerships consistently. Prioritize partners that offer extensibility, future-proofing, and proven omnichannel success. 5. Measure What Matters: Unified KPIs Across Commerce 📈 You can’t optimize what you don’t measure holistically Tactical: Align your analytics stack to report holistically across channels—tie marketing to merchandising, CX to LTV, and inventory to revenue. 🧠 Bottom line: think holistically, move strategically, and build ecosystems that scale experience with agility, not just transactions. Complete list in comment 👇 #ecommerce #omnichannel #unifiedcommerce