Improving the customer experience will continue to be a priority for businesses in 2020, meaning driving insights from customer data has never been more important.
Hazel Morton of customer feedback experts Critizr works with some of Europe’s biggest brands and businesses. Here she reveals Critizr’s top five predictions for customer listening in 2020.
1. Building the money story
2020 is the year that everyone with a CX remit will have to build a compelling case for its business value. Senior teams and boards understand there is a link between an improved customer experience and business success, but we are seeing much tougher interrogation of this link and what the actual benefits are for the bottom line. Forrester’s recent report states that 1 in 4 people working in CX are at risk of losing their jobs if the investment in their role can’t be justified with a demonstration of ROI (Predictions 2020: Customer Experience, Forrester, Oct 2019). So the year ahead will see all CX professionals invest much more in measurement, analysis and building the important ‘money stories’ to keep their customer programmes on track.
2. Empowering the whole company
Customer feedback is managed by the customer insights team, right? Not exactly. As CX scales as a business priority, we are seeing a growing recognition that every business team needs to get on board. Think about the status of finance in most companies. A company’s financial performance is critical, so finance is in the scope of almost every business team. Likewise, for companies to be truly customer-centric, customer feedback and insights must be embedded company-wide: from HQ to frontline teams. We’ve seen many businesses realise that, no matter how golden their customer insights are, if they’re stuck in a spreadsheet in the data department, they’re of no business value. In 2020 we’ll see much more focus on using technology to empower staff at every level, with real-time, local and actionable insights.
3. Getting the metrics right
In 2020 there will be increased scrutiny of the indicators used to give companies a complete view of their customers. There’s a growing understanding that to generate any true value from customer listening, a tailored mix of metrics is needed. One size definitely does not fit all. We’ll see companies become more strategic with their measurement, creating a bespoke mix of scores to suit their business needs – whether that’s customer satisfaction, intention to buy again, customer effort or the Net Promoter Score.
4. Building trust
Businesses increasingly want a deep understanding of the voice of the customer, but survey fatigue and low engagement are worrying barriers. Companies will increasingly tackle this by taking greater care in the way they engage with customers. There will be more transparency in the feedback process, and a rise in conversational surveys to engage and personalise the experience, rather than traditional formats. And with greater trust and engagement comes better quality data and customer insights in the long term.
5. Striving for simplicity
All businesses are striving to be more customer-centric, and there’s a multitude of innovative tech solutions to help. But for staff and customer alike, simplicity is appealing. Staff at every business level are busy. The statistics around sophisticated technology that is underused or obsolete after a lengthy and costly integration process tell the story. For time-pressed customers, bombarded by requests to share their views, the faster and simpler the feedback process the better. So alongside 2020’s focus on the bottom line, we’ll see businesses turn their back on wasteful investments in technology that is too complex for staff to integrate into their daily workload, or for customers to engage with.
About the Author
Hazel Morton leads Critizr’s UK marketing team and was named in CX Networks 30 under 30 game changers within Customer Experience in 2018.
Critizr is Europe’s leading Customer Feedback platform. Founded in in 2012, the Critizr platform is used in 25 countries by over 80 of Europe’s biggest companies. It is transforming the way these businesses listen to and understand their customers, empowering their staff to take action and deliver a great customer experience every day.
