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Insights from the Customer Experience Executive Roundtable Discussions

October 31, 2024

This summer, Level5 Strategy brought together top cross-industry leaders for an exclusive Executive Roundtable, where they shared candid insights, challenges, and opportunities on driving customer-centricity in their organizations. Hosted by Laura Richard and Jordan Shapiro, the conversations were dynamic, sparking invaluable ideas that are more relevant than ever.

If you missed some of the earlier posts sharing these leaders’ perspectives, here is a recap of the most engaging and insightful topics from the roundtable:

Breaking through the limitations of NPS

While Net Promoter Score (NPS) has been a staple metric for gauging customer sentiment, leaders recognized its limitations. Very valuable insights can be found by digging deeper into customer feedback and sentiments, along with analysis of where things are going right and wrong.

Key Takeaways:

NPS is just the beginning: It gives a snapshot but lacks the depth needed to drive actionable insights. Pairing NPS with qualitative feedback reveals the “why” behind customer sentiment. One executive shared how the top three executives in the company review the most frequent complaints on a weekly basis
Connect NPS to the business: Linking NPS to operational metrics pinpoints what’s influencing customer sentiment and helps identify specific areas of the business for improvement.
Turn insights into action: Data is only valuable if it leads to meaningful change.

One executive shared how this comes to life at their organization, where they created a CX index that combines qualitative and quantitative metrics at various moments of the customer journey, helping inform an end-to-end narrative and measure the experience.

Empowering everyone to own customer experience

A striking consensus emerged: customer experience should be a collective responsibility. Every employee plays a role in shaping and enhancing the customer journey. True customer-centricity isn’t just about one team—it requires visibility, involvement, and collaboration across all levels to ensure CX is continuously improved and prioritized.

Key Takeaways:

Visibility is key: Every team, from front-line employees to executives, must have access to the information needed to understand and support the customer journey.
Involvement drives ownership: It’s essential that everyone understands their role in shaping the customer experience. Empowering all employees to contribute creates a shared mission of excellence.
Give permission to act: Leaders must give permission for everyone to do what’s right for the customer, and employees need to feel empowered to make decisions without hesitation.
Collaboration fuels CX success: By working together and leveraging diverse strengths, teams can create a unified customer experience and foster a culture of continuous improvement.

Another leader noted that by moving their customer insights function to a central, but ‘unconventional’ arm of the organization, they were able to drive awareness of customer friction points throughout their organization and make the customer more central to all decision-making.

Understanding the interconnection between customer- and employee-centricity

The roundtable highlighted a crucial relationship: focusing on employee experience directly influences customer experience. Companies prioritizing EX often see substantial gains in CX metrics.

Key Takeaways:

Bridging Internal Disconnects: Alignment between various levels of the organization is vital for customer-centric decision-making.
Empowered Employees Drive Engagement: When employees feel they have the authority to act in customers’ best interests, engagement and satisfaction soar.
The Performance Cycle: Enhanced employee satisfaction leads to better customer experiences, creating a mutually beneficial cycle of loyalty and business success.

A real-life example of this idea was shared by one executive – at their organization, they more tightly connected their employee experience and their customer experience by trusting their employees’ judgment to help solve their customer’s issues (without concern for small one-time costs) and celebrating these moments across teams

Balancing technology opportunities/excitement with practical business needs

As technology continues to evolve, leaders grappled with the challenge of integrating new solutions without compromising customer experience.

Key Takeaways:

Balance speed with customer readiness: Deploying technology too hastily can overwhelm customers. It’s essential to ensure that innovations genuinely enhance their experience
Intentional integration of AI and tech in CX: Technology must align with brand values and support the human element of service, ensuring that any technological advancements genuinely benefit the customer.
Ensure organizational readiness: Understanding how prepared teams are to implement new technologies can prevent misalignment and wasted effort.

There was a lot of nodding and chuckling when one leader shared the common customer frustration of being forced to use a chatbot that can’t answer their question, and having a near impossible time of getting to a human to solve the problem.

The discussions at the L5 Executive Roundtable made it clear: achieving true customer centricity requires a multifaceted approach that includes empowering employees, leveraging comprehensive insights, and thoughtfully integrating technology. As organizations navigate these complexities, the insights shared provide a roadmap for fostering both customer and employee loyalty.

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