5 Key Takeaways from the Modern CX Playbook

Ditch the old customer experience playbook, and say hello to winning modern CX strategies that deliver your organization growth, revenue, cost savings, and improved operational efficiency. 

The old customer experience playbook was built on a foundation of customer feedback surveys and NPS® scores. But with surveys capturing only a fraction of customers’ experiences and good survey response rates getting harder to come by, that isn’t working anymore.

Enter the modern CX playbook. This new approach to customer experience is built on a foundation of real-time omnichannel customer experience signals. And it’s what’s driving success for many of today’s leading organizations.

Modern CX is a real-world framework our Medallia Experience Advisory experts are using in practice as they work with the world’s most-loved brands to create top tier omnichannel customer experience programs. It helps teams eliminate guesswork and prove impact fast by tying customer experience to real business outcomes. 

The strategies our CX advisors have developed are working and we want to get them into the hands of as many customer experience professionals as possible. So we’ve brought them together into one actionable playbook: Modern CX, Made Achievable: Your step-by-step guide for moving beyond surveys with confidence and sustainable success.

It’s available to anyone to use, and you can get started with it right away and make an impact ASAP and over time. 

For insights on why it’s time to rewrite the old CX playbook and how an omnichannel customer experience strategy can help teams across industries deliver more value, we connected with the CX advisors behind this playbook: Connie Leary, VP, Experience Advisory; Amy Anders, Principal CX Advisor; and Mary-Catherine Dolan, Senior CX Advisor.

They shared their five takeaways from the modern CX playbook and how using this framework can help advance your organization’s CX maturity.

1. Companies unlock the most value from CX when it’s tied to business outcomes

Insight: “One of the biggest challenges for CX leaders is being able to position CX not as a cost center, but as a profit center, capable of driving key results for the organization,” says Leary. 

How the playbook helps: You’ll get guidance for tying CX to financial outcomes that matter the most to your leadership team, whether that’s boosting cost savings, fueling revenue growth, or minimizing risk, explains Anders. 

2. CX leaders are only as effective as their relationships

Insight: “Organizations that lead the pack when it comes to customer experience are those where CX professionals have really strong relationships across the company,” says Leary.

How the playbook helps: It offers a clear roadmap for navigating your organization, securing sponsorship for your CX initiatives, getting alignment on priorities, and connecting CX improvements back to organizational priorities in ways that set you up for the highest levels of success, she adds. 

3. Impactful, actionable CX signals are hiding within plain sight

Insight: “Now more than ever, budgets are tight and customer experience professionals are being held accountable for achieving financial outcomes. A challenge for CX teams is moving beyond surveys and NPS® scores—CX measures that have been the go-to CX tools for brands for over a decade—and figuring out how to capture the full breadth and depth of the customer experience to show the impact of CX improvements,” says Dolan.

How the playbook helps: You’ll find out how to evolve beyond running customer feedback survey programs and monitoring NPS® scores and use customer journey mapping to uncover other signals that are impactful and will help your organization understand what’s happening for customers wherever they’re interacting, whether that’s in the contact center, digital channels, social channels, and or other touchpoints across the customer journey, adds Leary. 

4. Success in CX isn’t immediate, and it isn’t one and done; the work needs to be continuous

Insight: You may know what you want your customer experience program’s end state to look like, but more likely than not, you’re not going to get there on your first try, says Dolan. You’ll make progress by starting small, testing, racking up quick wins, learning, adapting, pivoting as needed, and building a groundswell. 

How the playbook helps: This guide will help you break down the steps you need to take from A to Z to get to your desired end state, she adds.  

Real-world example: Leary used the framework presented in the modern CX playbook to help one client develop a three-year CX roadmap to move from a surveys-based program to an omnichannel customer experience program. They began integrating data from across the customer journey one step at a time, eventually incorporating digital listening, digital analytics, call transcripts, and customer complaints.

As a result of taking these steps, they’ve grown their customer base, improved their customer experience rankings among their competitor set, and won numerous awards for customer experience.

5. Mature organizations prioritize initiatives based on effort and impact

Insight: Many teams get overwhelmed when they’re at the point of bringing their customer data together, but it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Instead of attempting to boil the ocean by integrating every system that contains customer data (think: web analytics, CRM, social tools, customer service systems, etc.) at once, teams can use quick wins as proof points to gain buy-in for larger efforts.

Real-world example: One organization Anders worked with was struggling to advance their CX maturity. They were letting the loudest part of the organization advance the initiatives they cared about, rather than prioritizing based on effort or impact. Once they secured cross-functional alignment and got everyone on the same page about priorities, they focused on quick wins, requiring minimal effort and delivering high impact.

“That was the biggest leap forward in their maturity, because it was no longer about which part of the organization was loudest in wanting their initiatives accomplished; it was about advancing in a way that really maximized impact based on effort,” she explains. 

How the playbook helps: You’ll get guidance for keeping data integration from getting too messy and unmanageable as well as a prioritization matrix for achieving progress early on and building momentum over time. 

Use the Modern Customer Experience Playbook

If survey-based CX has taken your business as far as it can go, it’s time to see what the omnichannel customer experience framework can do to boost growth, revenue, savings, and operational efficiency for your company.

Get your copy of Modern CX, Made Achievable: Your step-by-step guide for expert guidance on connecting every customer experience signal, aligning teams and leadership around measurable outcomes, and unlocking ROI from customer experience across revenue growth, cost savings, operational efficiency gains, and more.