Where you have a real choice, what makes you stick with one product or another? Would you be surprised to learn that most of the time, we make these choices based on our feelings, rather than cold, rational reasons like price? Sunny Bindra, our doyen of business writing and CEO whisperer, regularly turns real-life encounters into sharp business insights. In his latest book, ‘The X in CX’, he expounded on this and other insights. CX is short for Customer Experience, and this book breaks it down in an easy and gem-packed package that is a must-read for any corporate leader working today.
As an experience design consultant working on customer experience projects for leaders, I found the book to be an exceptionally cogent handbook for leaders to understand the imperative of focusing on the experience we subject our customers to. For CX practitioners and the already converted, you get the language to help you make the case for CX-led change.
He starts by convincingly laying down the case for customers being the most important part of a business. His way is not to offer a self-serving, feel-good, love-thy-customer cliché, but to simply show that no other participant brings in money to your business, every day, every hour, and every single minute in some cases.
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If that doesn’t stop you in your tracks, perhaps the next blow he delivers will. That bad customer experience has been shown to have a ‘lagging’ impact and shows up negatively in your P&L months down the line. Recovering those lost customers then become the stubborn retention issues that we get called in to fix. In our work, a simple heuristic we share is that CX KPIs are predictive or leading indicators, while business KPIs are lagging indicators. A Qualtrics study showed that “50% of consumers decreased or entirely cut spending with a brand after a bad customer experience.” A single bad experience! Think about that.
I found the most impactful section of the book to be where he lays out how success can only be achieved if driven from the top. If the CEO or the board are unable or unwilling to ‘Boss it’, that is, set a clear strategy, align incentives, and clear disincentives, what realistic hope is there that the customers will get the dignified treatment they deserve? The book shares a number of ideas for how boards can engage with customer experience matters strategically. He goes on to say “Every company that excels at CX does so from the top. That’s where standards are set and where going the extra mile for customers is made a priority. Customer issues must be discussed at the board level. Boards must understand customer journeys.”
And finally, my favorite part on feelings. What’s love got to do with it? Like the point in Tina Turner’s hit song, it’s a big mistake to block out the emotions in your relationship with your customers. The book gives examples and researched insights about how to understand your customers feelings. It categorises them into “10 Customer Buttons”, and yes price is one of them, but should be better understood as one dimension among others. Look at it as ‘Value’; as in, is this a good deal?’ Even when shopping for the lowest price, it is seldom the only reason for the decision.
As part of my work, I meet with leaders of companies to discuss how to approach innovation and how to grow their customer base. It is no longer surprising for them to have customer centricity or customer obsession as a pillar of their growth strategy. I’ll gladly hand them a copy of ‘The X in CX’ to get them inspired.
Read it and I hope you are bold enough to apply the lessons it contains, because as someone who is mostly likely a customer of yours, I deserve an exceptional and dignified experience. We all do.
The writer is managing director, MarathonXP
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By Ndonye Njoroge