Prioritize the Right CX Improvements: An Expert-Backed Action Plan

Discover three challenges that get in the way of improving the customer experience in meaningful ways, and how to overcome them to implement CX improvements that make a difference. 

For customer experience (CX) professionals across industries, a few key challenges are universal. In our latest guide, Mastering CX Prioritization: Expert Strategies for Smarter, Faster Decisions, our industry experts weigh in on the top issues that prevent brands from improving the customer experience and how to solve them. 

Here we present the highlights of the action plan included in the guide to get you started.

The Challenges That Prevent CX Improvements — and How to Solve Them

Challenge #1: Focusing on the Right Data

The squeaky wheel gets the grease, so the saying goes. But the loudest voice or most frequently mentioned issue, isn’t necessarily what brands need to pay the greatest or most immediate attention to, says Geoffrey Ryskamp, Vice President and Executive Advisor for Hospitality at Medallia, who has held leadership roles with Hilton Worldwide, Marriott International, and more. Instead, organizations would be best served to spend their time and energy in areas in which they can have the highest impact. 

Solution #1: Prioritizing high-impact issues

Savvy brands are using AI-powered Speech Analytics and Text Analytics to analyze unstructured data from customer interactions across social media, customer support channels, online reviews, open-ended survey questions, and more to uncover issues that might otherwise be overlooked using traditional surveys and customer feedback methods but have the potential to have a greater influence on the overall customer experience and business outcomes. Medallia’s CX platform helps conduct this analysis automatically and assigns impact scores to the findings.

“Our impact score blends Text Analytics with a quantitative score, pinpointing top CX drivers and often linking directly to financial outcomes,” explains Mike Debnar, Vice President and Executive Advisor for Retail at Medallia, who previously led customer experience and digital innovation at 7-Eleven.

For instance, when a bank turned to analyzing employee feedback in addition to customer feedback, they learned about a high-impact issue that had previously slipped through the cracks. When the bank had stopped playing music at their in-person locations to save money, customers felt their conversations were no longer private because the branches were silent. This was something they were able to quickly course correct by focusing on the right data, explains Judy Bloch, Vice President and Executive Advisor for Financial Services at Medallia, who has held customer experience leadership roles at Sprint, Citi, and UMB.

In the travel and hospitality industry, a hotel brand first thought that addressing long check-in lines was the most important issue to solve, but a less frequently occurring problem — related to bathtub drainage — turned out to be the high-impact issue that had a bigger influence on real business outcomes, says Ryskamp. 

Challenge #2: Moving Beyond Data Paralysis and Dated Insights

On either end of the spectrum, having too little or too much data can hinder decision-making. This kind of thinking can lead to inaction as teams wait for more data to be available or become overwhelmed by being faced with too much information to sift through and analyze. Another issue that can prevent brands from moving in lockstep with shifting customer preferences, behaviors, and sentiment, is a reliance on rear-view looking data, that is customer feedback that’s captured and acted upon after the fact, rather than in real time. 

Solution #2: Capturing real-time customer signals

Brands have the ability to listen to what’s happening to customers across their customer journeys in the moment — by gathering customer signals from customer support interactions, social media conversations, and app and website interactions — to understand what’s shaping experiences and what CX improvements can be made. 

“Capturing experience data as it happens helps businesses spot friction points and resolve issues before they escalate — or before customers disappear for good, taking their loyalty with them,” says Ryskamp.

Challenge #3: Taking Action When It’s Needed Most

Too often, brands stall at the insights gathering and analysis stages. They don’t have a defined roadmap to guide their next move. 

As Debnar asks: “What happens after you discover a game-changing insight? Is there a clear path to turn it into action?” 

Solution #3: Going from insights to action

To avoid this common pitfall, organizations need to develop a governance structure that holds teams accountable. Doing so will ensure meaningful insights don’t slip through the cracks, avoiding missed opportunities and wasted efforts.

In addition to establishing a process for action, advanced brands are evolving their CX tech stacks for faster, more strategic moves. Some of the key features they’re investing in are behavioral intelligence tools, conversational intelligence solutions, predictive analytics, and generative AI. 

These capabilities help companies understand what’s happening behind every customer interaction and enable high-impact CX improvements that boost engagement, revenue, and loyalty at scale.

“With the right strategy and technology, you can proactively resolve issues through automated case management, trigger workflows that drive seamless resolutions, and fuel action plans that lead to lasting customer loyalty,” explains Michael Mallett, Vice President of Product of CX Solutions at Medallia, who has spent over 15 years in CX and founded Medallia’s digital practice and solutions. 

The Cost of Not Making the Right CX Improvements

Ultimately, customer loyalty is what is at stake when brands fail to implement changes that customers want and expect. And, unfortunately, it doesn’t take much to turn customers away. Medallia customer loyalty research reveals 1 in 8 customers will abandon a brand forever after one poor experience. Another customer loyalty study conducted by Medallia and Ipsos underscores the positive impact of customer loyalty: 97% of CX professionals say that customer loyalty plays a major role in driving key business outcomes and 92% of high-growth companies plan to increase their investment in loyalty initiatives this year. 

Is your brand getting stuck when it comes to determining the CX improvements to focus on that your customers will really care about and that will make a difference when it comes to your bottom line? Our complete guide, Mastering CX Prioritization: Expert Strategies for Smarter, Faster Decisions, presents an action plan to help you eliminate these roadblocks and drive customer loyalty with smarter CX decisions.