Engage Leaders and Inspire Teams with B2B Customer Experience Metrics

Introduction

Welcome back to the fourth installment in our ten-part series covering The Complete Guide to Customer Service Transformation. We’ve established the financial implications of Service Optimization, and now we’ll explore how to engage your organization’s leadership and inspire your teams to share in this vision.

Regardless of your position within an enterprise, securing the support of your team, colleagues, and leadership is crucial to the success of your initiative. Let’s dive into the strategies that can help you win that backing.

Engaging Leadership

Whether you’re a senior executive trying to secure the support of your peers and stakeholders or an advocate from inside the Customer Service organization, data-backed evidence and bottom-line implications of your initiatives are your best tools.

Specifically, highlight how improvements in customer experience (CX) can positively affect the cost of acquiring customers, brand loyalty, and revenue. These financial implications are typically compelling arguments for both senior leaders and financial stakeholders.

Leveraging Case Studies

Case studies from comparable organizations can offer valuable insights and reinforce your initiative’s value. Additionally, numerous studies illustrate the strong correlation between customer service interactions and business outcomes. The differences in performance between leaders and laggards in this area can be considerable.

A leading business consulting firm found that improving CX led to significant results, including:

• Lowered customer churn by 10% to 15%
• Increased win rate of offers by 20% to 40%
• Lowered “cost to serve” by up to 50%

The firm reported that CX leaders achieved revenue gains of 5 to 10 percent and reduced costs by 15 to 25 percent within two to three years. These figures underscore the business value of optimizing customer service.

Making Progress Without Full Leadership Buy-in

What if leadership buy-in is slow to come or not immediate? Do not despair! Take inspiration from those who have made progress within their realm of influence.

For example, Jamie Caldwell, a Customer Experience Supervisor for a division of Greenbrier, Inc., received permission to enhance customer service within her division. The success of her initiative led to other divisions looking to replicate her approach, demonstrating that progress is possible even without full company-wide buy-in at the outset.

“Things change slowly in the rail industry, but it’s been a comparatively fast process to get other people excited about using [our tools and approach] and seeing the potential. Now, people are asking me to tell them more about [the platform] because they think it will work for their areas. It’s exciting to see it, and I think it says a lot about the product that we’re getting the traction we are using an organic adoption approach.”

— Jamie Caldwell, CX Supervisor, Greenbrier, Inc.

Considerations for Choosing Technology Partners

While we’ll delve deeper into technology in our review of Chapter 6, it’s worth noting that your choice of technology partners can significantly influence your initiative’s success. When building your customer service tech infrastructure, consider partnering with organizations that can:

• Easily integrate with other enterprise systems.
• Allow flexible management of internal and external customers.
• Handle multiple departments, teams, brands, and products within your organization.

In Summary

In closing out the fourth chapter of our series on Customer Service Transformation, we can reflect on the essential roles both leadership and team engagement play in driving meaningful and sustainable change. Whether it’s persuading leadership through compelling data-backed arguments or rallying your teams with a shared vision, it’s clear that the path to excellent customer service is a collective journey. With valuable insights gleaned from case studies and the ability to make strides even without full leadership buy-in initially, we are equipped with the tools and strategies needed to create impactful changes. And, as we navigate this journey, let’s not forget the pivotal role of technology partners in augmenting our efforts.

Keep these considerations in mind as you work to engage your organization’s leaders and inspire your teams towards customer service transformation. Our next installment will shift back to our focus on the customer, discussing customer expectations and the customer journey.

Additional Resources:

Vivantio: Flexible Zendesk Alternative Sets Off Company-Wide Adoption Trend

Harvard Business Review: Getting Employee Buy-In for Organizational Change

Forbes: Leadership Is A Customer Service Job — For Your Team And Beyond