The 2 Powers of CX
Why is the finance department so powerful, much more powerful than CX? Does it bring in clients? Or does it invent new products? Maybe it does produce revenue? In fact, to every business, the finance team is a cost. Still, it has the CEO’s ear. Why? Because finance leaders create something incredibly powerful: transparency.
Who has this week’s highest sales? Which department overspending the budget? Finance knows. And that’s why, when finance calls, every CEO listens.
The power of finance holds important lessons for change leaders. Making improvements happen can be tough though, whether it’s customer service, IT tools, HR processes. And often you won’t have the power to drive change on your own.
Learn from finance. Use the power of transparency. Imagine you want to improve the customer experience. What if, each month, you could put a simple chart in front of the CEO showing how customers rate every department, every touchpoint, every product of your firm? In the top left corner, those who get the highest ratings. In the middle, those who do ‘okay’. In the bottom right-hand corner, those with the poorest customer ratings. Would your CEO want to see this chart? You bet. Would such a chart give you power? You bet. Why? Because no department leader wants to stay in the bottom right-hand corner. This is one of the twin powers
Still this is not enough
But will the poorly rated departments automatically improve? Think twice.
Of cause not. Those departments do seldom lack motivation or diligence. They lack in knowledge about which core initiatives will truly boost CX performance. Therefore, to make change happen, shed light on the issue. Measure customer feedback. But most importantly, make sure you understand which hidden forces drive success.
The greatest illusion in management is those about the validity of its own judgment and the believe that a simple look at data give clarity about the root causes. I wrote a book about this (amazon). Luckily, our AI age brought up proven tools for managers (such as CX.AI). Like physicians, they now also have X-ray machine enabling evidence-based judgement.
You want C-Suite to listen when the CX leader calls? Use the power of transparency. If you further want to up your CX game? Bring transparency to what drives outcomes.
– Frank
p.s. the whole background is well discussed in this Webinar Recording “How to make change in CX happen why AI plays a crucial role” with worlds #1 Customer Leadership Thinker Thomas Barta and myself.