Business transformation in a digital world is a driving force in how businesses are looking to reshape their organizations. Insights from customers provide critical insights to how companies adjust and drive strategic priorities.

Executives Worry About Risk

Protiviti and North Carolina State University’s Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) Initiative conducted a recent survey* of directors and executives to obtain their views on risks likely to affect their organizations in 2018. Seven of the top 15 risks directly relate to the critical role that CX plays in an organization and the importance of having a robust Voice of the Customer program when enhancing the overall customer experience. Some of the risks identified by executives include:

  • Rapid speed of disruptive innovations and new technologies within the industry may outpace the organization’s ability to compete and manage risk appropriately, without making significant changes to the business model.
  • Impact of social media, mobile applications and other internet-based applications on brand, customer relationships, regulatory compliance processes and how we do business.
  • Sustaining customer loyalty and retention may be increasingly difficult due to evolving customer preferences and demographic shifts in our existing customer base.
  • Shifts in social, environmental, and other customer preferences and expectations may be difficult for us to identify and address on a timely basis.
  • Opportunities for organic growth through customer acquisition and enhancement may be significantly limited for our organization.

The importance of CX is clear, however, many organizations lack the ability to identify trends based on customer feedback.

CX Trends

We know CX is a key component to success, but many organizations are missing a major element in their CX program—a clear process to evaluate the entire ecosystem of people, processes and technology that support the customer experience. This evaluation could be directly through the Voice of the Customer program itself, and all the enabling processes and operations or indirectly through customer touch points throughout the organization. Either way, the ultimate objective is to identify key findings that align with the business’s overall strategic objectives and link to financial outcomes. Protiviti and MaritzCX developed the CX Audit to address this need. Following a six-phase approach and methodology, the CX Audit identifies, assesses and evaluates all aspects of the customer experience within an organization to address risks, identify key findings and prioritize a road map for key initiatives to align with the strategic priorities of the organization.

Six Categories Companies Should Focus Their Audit

There are six key categories of focus identified in the CX Audit in which organizations should look to review and assess in order to understand both direct and indirect correlations of customer experience to the overall business structure. Through these key areas, management will be able to understand and garner customer insights and drive necessary change to keep up with market trends and demand.

CX Audit Categories

A complete CX Audit provides immense value to an organization through an independent view of all the customer touch points. Below are just a few examples of the benefits of performing a CX Audit.

  • Improved business decisions through flexible, timely and relevant information with consistent definitions.
  • Increased operating effectiveness and reduced administrative costs through defining clear roles and responsibilities and increased reliance on distributed reports.
  • Quick and effective root cause analysis by leveraging targeted metrics.
  • Timely correction of errors and removal of downstream impacts by creating efficient and effective data error remediation processes.
  • Enhanced management information reporting through established and embedded data quality processes.
  • Enhanced protection of key data assets through improved data security controls.

Companies today need to be able to not only handle the risk of constantly changing technology, but also how that risk affects their customer experience. Many organizations struggle to identify critical CX trends. Providing an end-to-end view of CX and how the organization can better align to drive success with the VoC program will continue to help position the CX program as a key element of the overall business strategy.

* The Top Global Risks for 2018A Protiviti and North Carolina State University ERM Initiative Survey

**Statistics from American Express, ThinkJar, and Lee Resource Inc. respectively