MASTERING ADAPTIVE CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENTS - A Look Into How Today's Marketing Leaders Are Driving Business Performance Across the Customer-Centric ...
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MASTERING
ADAPTIVE
CUSTOMER
ENGAGEMENTS
A Look Into How Today’s Marketing Leaders
Are Driving Business Performance Across the
Customer-Centric Enterprise
Full Report | September 2014
© Copyright CMO Council. All Rights Reserved. 2014
MASTERING ADAPTIVE CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENTS | REPORT
CONTENTS
3 Introduction
5 Key Findings
11 SAP Contribution
15 Detailed Findings
40 Executive Perspectives
71 About SAP
71 About the CMO Council
72 Affiliate Partners
© Copyright CMO Council. All Rights Reserved. 2014 2MASTERING ADAPTIVE CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENTS | REPORT
INTRODUCTION
Call it the “age of the customer” or the era of the “Internet of me”…just don’t call it an
engagement landscape that brands control. Customers are absolutely in the driver’s seat,
defining which channels they want to use and what experiences are most valued as part of
their own self-discovered customer journeys. In a landscape where no single customer’s
journey is identical, the new mandate for marketers is to develop, orchestrate and optimize
an ever-agile, flexible and nimble customer engagement strategy.
These adaptive customer engagements must be fluid in the eyes of the customer yet
structured, architected, intentional and measurable in the eyes of the business. Simply put:
Marketers need to be ready to engage with customers like never before.
Customers are already making their intentions known, connecting with brands when they
choose and in the channel that is the most relevant and convenient at the moment of
engagement. McKinsey released data indicating that as much as 70 percent of a customer’s
buying experience is based on how the customer feels he or she is being treated. Gone are
the days of lengthy cycles of building loyalty. Advocacy is being built and traded in a matter
of seconds.
In a recent Forbes article, it was revealed that some 86 percent of customers said they were
willing to pay more for a better experience, but only 1 percent felt that vendors consistently
met their expectations. What customers want most is for brands to understand that the
customer’s time is the most valuable commodity being traded in any transaction. In fact,
a Forrester study showed that 74 percent of consumers said the most important thing a
brand can do to provide great service is to demonstrate it values the customer’s time.
That is not to say that customers don’t also expect highly relevant experiences. In fact,
according to Gartner, 46 percent of consumers consider personalized, tailored offers as
extremely significant to maintaining or growing their relationship with a brand. And a
recent Janrain study indicated that 74 percent of online users get frustrated when websites
deliver content that has nothing to do with their interests.
This trend of the “Internet of me” is not going to slow and will likely extend to the “omni-
channel experience of me” as customers will expect highly relevant, highly personalized and
highly interactive engagements when and where they want them. According to Forrester,
by 2020, customers will expect companies to know their individual needs and proactively
personalize experiences to address both current and future needs.
For some, this calls for a mystical crystal ball or a magic wand, at minimum, as the
aspirational goal of always-on, omni-channel personalization seems as far away as a
© Copyright CMO Council. All Rights Reserved. 2014 3MASTERING ADAPTIVE CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENTS | REPORT
unicorn. Yet we can all see the writing on the wall: The age of the customer is here,
and marketers must respond with highly adaptive customer engagements.
The CMO Council, in partnership with SAP, set out to gauge how close organizations
were to achieving these adaptive customer engagements. Are we ready to
proactively engage both online and offline? Are our organizations set up for success,
with the people, the processes and the technology platforms required to meet
the needs of today’s customer and the scale to meet the needs of tomorrow’s
advocates?
What follows is a summary of the findings of an online survey fielded by the CMO
Council during the second quarter of 2014. The findings include insights from
319 senior marketing executives. Some 39 percent of respondents represent
organizations with more than $1 billion USD in revenue, with 52 percent
representing B2B brands, 19 percent from B2C brands and 30 percent whose
companies are a hybrid of B2B and B2C. Also included are quotes and insights
from marketers who agreed to be interviewed and profiled as part of this research.
Brands participating in the qualitative interviews include Cardinal Health, h.h.gregg,
MasterCard, Nine West, Prime Therapeutics, Quicksilver, Sears Holdings, Sony
Electronics, Western Union and more.
© Copyright CMO Council. All Rights Reserved. 2014 4MASTERING ADAPTIVE CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENTS | REPORT
KEY FINDINGS
Customer Centricity Confidence is on Solid Ground…or Is It?
Marketers define customer centricity as having a senior management team that
is committed to understanding the needs of the customer, with teams that are
functionally aligned and synced to a unified, holistic customer experience strategy.
Other key hallmarks of customer centricity include a corporate culture that puts the
customer first (and not stock price, for example) and uses customer data in a highly
responsible manner for the purpose of advancing the customer experience.
For the most part, marketers feel they are doing a pretty good (if not great) job of
engaging with their customers in a manner that is customer-centric. In fact, when
asked to think about the key attributes of customer centricity, some 45 percent
of respondents feel their levels of customer centricity are good, if not high. And
marketers have a high degree of confidence that their customers would agree with
this assessment as 45 percent believe their customers would say that customer
centricity levels are good to high.
From one marketer’s perspective, the customer experience is really more of
an ongoing journey to perfect rather than a one-time point of measurement.
“Customer centricity is an ever-moving target based on customer expectations, so
it’s always a journey,” says Ingrid Lindberg, Chief Customer Experience Officer with
Prime Therapeutics. “Although we are exceptionally responsive, we are still forced
to evolve as the definition changes. Luckily, we are agile and able to adapt to those
changes quickly.”
These high marks are good when you consider that marketers believe that customer
centricity—and the customer’s belief that they are engaged with a customer-
centric organization—is critical not just to the business, but also to the individual
marketer’s success. Only 7 percent felt that customer centricity, while it would
make their lives easier, was simply not the only factor needed for success. Even
fewer, 2 percent, felt customer centricity was nice to have, but certainly not critical
to success.
There are also those who not only view customer centricity as critical, but as a
valuable part of the team. “We designed our customer experience strategy to be
a decision maker, a tie breaker to guide for us,” Lindberg explains. “It is a constant
topic at our weekly executive leadership meetings and in our employee meetings.
We know that it is how we differentiate ourselves in the market.”
Yet despite this positive outlook, there is a looming sense that there is a greater
need for improvement if organizations are truly going to capitalize on customer
experience as a real revenue driver and not just a cultural mantra. Upon closer
inspection, the cracks that lie below the surface may have more impact as the
customer’s expectations for service, engagement and experience grow.
© Copyright CMO Council. All Rights Reserved. 2014 5MASTERING ADAPTIVE CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENTS | REPORT
Marketing’s Engagement Foundation Is Showing Some Cracks
The delivery of customer experience is not a marketing-only endeavor. Marketing
clearly identifies core business functions, including customer service, sales and
IT, as being the stewards of those attributes that sit at the core of an optimized
customer experience. For example:
• Some 66 percent say quick response times to customer requests or complaints
are core to demonstrating customer centricity. This function is often owned by
customer service.
• Nearly half (47 percent) say products that reflect a customer’s own needs and
wants are central to demonstrating an organization’s customer focus. Product
development, R&D teams and operations most often own this process.
• Always-on access to products, account details, profile information and customer
support is seen as another key component by 36 percent of respondents. This
requires partnership across IT, customer service and marketing to execute properly.
But when asked how well aligned functional heads of business were around a
customer experience strategy, 17 percent said they were only moderately aligned,
with another 26 percent saying that the groups needed to be much better aligned.
In fact, only 12 percent said that functional teams were strongly aligned around a
holistic customer experience strategy.
“Although our customer experience strategy flows down from the C-suite, all
functions are involved in delivering on our brand promise,” says Jennifer Dominiquini,
CMO of BuySeasons and EVITE. “We cannot have a good e-commerce or digital
experience with our users if we don’t have product, IT, creative, merchandising and
inventory all working together.”
The lack of a clear strategy could be to blame for this lack of total alignment. Only
25 percent of companies have a formal customer experience strategy. While 35
percent say that the strategy is in development, some 34 percent admit to simply
not having this formalized and centralized view.
But even for those few who do operate with a formalized strategy, there is little
alignment across the entire organization, with only 14 percent expressing that each
employee understands their own role in delivering on the customer experience
strategy. The majority (24 percent) actually feel that department heads on the
senior level are well aligned around an overall customer experience strategy but
that the execution and management of the processes are left to be handled by the
silos of individual teams or departments.
This fragmented view has the potential to further challenge the mastery of a
customer engagement that depends on cross-functional collaboration, cooperation
and execution.
© Copyright CMO Council. All Rights Reserved. 2014 6MASTERING ADAPTIVE CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENTS | REPORT
The Disconnected Customer Experience
The true state of customer experience management can be seen more clearly in the
areas where marketers are failing to engage and optimize rather than the points of
service that customers may be tapping for service needs. Take, for example, these
key gaps in strategy and engagement:
• Fifty-six (56) percent of marketers are only moderately satisfied with their
company’s ability to listen and respond to the needs of the customer.
• Only 20 percent of companies have a comprehensive view of engagements and
touchpoints across the stages of the customer lifecycle.
• Forty-five (45) percent of respondents do not have a unified view of the customer
or a single version of customer truth.
• Only 10 percent of marketers are highly confident in their organization’s ability to
leverage data and turn it into actionable intelligence.
What is most evident is that despite marketing’s desire to deliver an exciting, omni-
channel and ever-available customer experience, there are key gaps in strategy and
ability holding back the best of intentions.
Take, for example, the ability to deliver a personalized experience to engage with
customers on a more one-to-one basis. According to 63 percent of marketers, their
customers’ expectations for personalization are higher than ever, while 30 percent
say that their customers do not expect a one-to-one experience all of the time. But
only 5 percent feel they are excelling in the delivery of a data-driven, personalized
experience. Furthermore, while customers may be expecting that personalized
touch both online and offline, only 28 percent of marketers are able to deliver a
personalized experience, regardless of channel.
But in the end, marketers understand that personalization leads to a bigger
imperative for the customer: the transition from a “one-to-many” approach to
a true one-to-one dynamic between brand and customer. “Engaging customers
through a personalized, highly targeted approach is key,” shares Erika Szychowski,
Senior Vice President of Marketing for Nine West, part of the Jones Group. “Tailored
content development and execution are incredibly critical to reaching customers
today.”
Blame It on the…Well, Everything
It would be easy to say that the shortcomings in mastering more adaptive customer
engagements are directly linked to a lack of budget to bring on technology platforms
to enable these experiences. But in reality, technology is not necessarily the root
of our turmoil. In fact, when asked to identify the greatest area of challenge when
executing on an organization’s customer experience strategy, the answer points to a
far more extensive and complex breakdown.
© Copyright CMO Council. All Rights Reserved. 2014 7MASTERING ADAPTIVE CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENTS | REPORT
• Twenty-two (22) percent of marketers point to challenges with people: having the
right talent and the right culture to reach success.
• Twenty-two (22) percent indicate challenges with processes: developing the right
processes and operations to ensure that people are directed and that systems are
being properly used across the organization.
• Five (5) percent blame technology for their customer experience challenges,
specifically that they need to have the right technology platforms in place to deliver
and measure.
• The majority (52 percent) say that it is a combination of all three: The people, the
processes and the platforms needed to properly develop, manage, measure and
continue delivery of the customer experience.
Most interesting is that among those who say that all three factors are challenges,
the most pressing among all factors is having a culture that is focused on the
customer and values a customer experience strategy. Other key challenges to
customer centricity and the delivery of a customer experience strategy are the
alignment of teams to work synergistically, establishment of processes to track
customer experience and business goals, prioritization of customer experience
strategy and processes over others implemented by the company, and hiring the
right talent needed to execute on these programs.
Those who are leading the customer experience charge believe that investment
and strategy around all three key areas are necessary as no single aspect will
solve the engagement dilemma. “As we invest more in platforms that shape our
customer experience strategy, we must also invest in the people that know how
to leverage the data from these platforms in order to optimize the experience for
our customers,” says Don Fotsch, Vice President of Customer Experience with
Sears Holdings. “While technology plays a role in shaping the customer experience,
it’s important that the good digital experience complements the experiences
in our physical stores. A customer’s experience should be consistent across all
touchpoints.”
Moving Forward to Capture Opportunity
What comes across most clearly from the research is that marketing not only
understands where the challenges exist, but they also understand that finding
quick paths to optimization will be key to success. Consider Forrester’s “Customer
Experience Index” study, which shows that a 10-percent improvement in a
company’s customer experience score can translate into more than $1 billion in
revenue.
But where can marketing really shift and move to empower the whole organization
to center around a customer experience strategy that looks to deliver adaptive
customer engagements?
© Copyright CMO Council. All Rights Reserved. 2014 8MASTERING ADAPTIVE CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENTS | REPORT
1. Spearhead the Development of a Single View of Customer Truth.
As only 7 percent of marketers feel they have achieved this single view of customer
truth, marketers understand that the customer is actually driving the need for
companies to fall in line. More than half (54 percent) agree that the customer is
demanding more digital experiences, especially via social and mobile channels. And
28 percent agree that by delivering on these personalized, data-driven experiences,
customers have repaid companies not just in revenue, but also in advocacy.
2. Understand the Customer Journey…and Know That It Is Channel-Less.
The customer doesn’t start separate relationships with a brand’s email, a brand’s
social media and a brand’s in-store presence. In fact, in this era of the “Internet of
me,” the only boundaries and limitations are those that the customer is defining
and establishing. The customer is defining when, where and how to start and
stop engagements. Marketing’s role must be to make sure that the preferred
channels of engagement are present and functional, filled with relevant content and
experiences. But without a map that clearly defines and understands the myriad
directions that a customer journey can take, there is no way to achieve relationships
with the customer; you can only manage touchpoints with a user.
3. Personalization Is the Expectation, Not a Perk.
Some 32 percent of marketers agreed that their companies failed to develop a
culture that places the customer’s voice at the center of every business decision.
Part of this failure is manifesting in a lack of personalization and intimacy with
the customer. Basic human nature leads customers to want to be known and
acknowledged for continued loyalty and ongoing relationships. As one marketer
expressed in a written response to the survey, “Customers don’t want to explain
themselves every time we decide to introduce ourselves.” Personalizing experiences
and empowering teams with the right data, intelligence and tools to deliver on
those person-to-person exchanges will soon be the basic cost of business—not the
extreme example of outliers who are viewed as leaders.
4. Align Around the Customer’s Vision.
In order to align around the customer’s vision of need and expectation, you need
to be able to listen to the customer’s voice, yet few marketers are using the very
channels to listen that their customers value most. While 62 percent of marketers
use their website to engage with customers, only 37 percent see it as a listening
channel. Events raise the most surprising gap in engagement versus listening,
with 60 percent saying that events are a prime way to engage with customers,
but only 40 percent use these events as a listening post for customer needs and
expectations. The largest gap appears in a technology that customers themselves
are saying is one of the most important to power their experiences: mobile. While
some 71 percent are using mobile (either mobile app, mobile web or SMS/MMS
messaging), only 29 percent are leveraging those channels to listen to customers. In
order to rally around the customer’s voice, that voice must be properly aggregated
and shared across the company.
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CONCLUSION
While marketing has a great deal of room to grow specific to developing and
advancing the customer experience, what is most evident from this research is the
incredible opportunity marketing has to become the orchestrator of real change in
advancing the adaptive customer engagement. While 39 percent of respondents
agree that the very definition of customer centricity is being established at the very
top of the organization with the president/CEO, it is the CMO who is at the helm of
translating that definition into a holistic strategy that the entire organization can
then rally around.
This is not a call for the CMO to “own” the customer experience. Rather, it is an
opportunity for the CMO and marketing as a whole to help amplify a strategy
that can then be executed by every person in the organization. What will be
required is a single source of truth—a unified view of the customer that the entire
organization can access and enhance. Agility will also be a requirement, with
marketing being able to empower teams to quickly act and react to the shifting
needs of the customer. Most importantly, strong leadership will need to be present,
and the resolve to remain a customer-centric organization will be tested. But
by paying attention to the core foundational principles of customer experience
success—namely the people, processes and platforms that power engagements—
organizations can more rapidly advance strategies to stay ahead of customer needs
and keep pace with growing expectations.
Melanie Shook, Vice President of Client Support at NeuStar, said it best: “We’re very
aware that the ways of the past—where you had months to define and develop
requirements—no longer exist. In today’s age, by the time you take a strategy to
market, the market has already changed. Therefore, we recognize that being agile is
critical to our success. We will continue to adjust in order to make the shifts of the
market space and our customers.”
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EXPERT PERSPECTIVE:
BUILDING A SOLID FOUNDATION FOR SEAMLESS CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT
BERNARD CHUNG
Senior Director
Solution Marketing, SAP
Winning in today’s competitive business environment requires successful customer
engagements throughout the customer journey. Customers want a consistent,
seamless experience across every channel, and marketers are responding to
this challenge. However, as this study reveals, many organizations struggle with
developing and executing a strategy to systematically deliver engaging customer
experiences across all channels.
Obviously, there is a greater need for improvement if organizations want to
capitalize on the customer experience as a revenue driver and not just a cultural
mantra. When embarking on a customer engagement transformation, there are
three areas that marketing organizations should consider: people, processes and
technology.
People: A Call for New Skill Sets
As organizations increasingly turn to technology and analytics to help drive
customer engagement strategies, the need for new skill sets emerges.
Organizations are looking for people who are open to technology and have analytical
minds. According to Gartner’s “U.S. Digital Marketing Spend Report 2013,” 81
percent of marketing organizations have a chief marketing technology officer on
staff. As marketing becomes more of a science than an art, the need for marketers
with an analytical bent becomes greater. Marketers don’t need a PhD in statistics,
but understanding the basic principles of analytics can help predict customer
behavior and enable intelligent decisions.
Equally important is your employees’ passion. Among the job candidates who have
the right skills, hire the ones who love your brand and believe in your strategy and
vision. Take into account Apple, Inc. Many people think that the company employs
only the best designers and engineers. However, according to a Fast Company
article titled “4 Myths About Apple Design, From an Ex-Apple Designer,” this isn’t
necessarily true—Apple hires people who love Apple.
Processes: Mapping the Customer Journey
Most modern business processes have been adopted by re-engineering efforts from
the ’80s and ’90s. The primary focus of these efforts was to increase organizational
efficiency and cut costs, with less regard for the customer experience. I am sure we
have all experienced this with call centers. Until recently, the success of many call
centers was measured by how many calls each agent handled. This metric required
agents to get customers off the phone quickly, with little concern for the experience
provided.
Organizations need to reverse-engineer current customer processes by looking at
everything from the customer’s point of view. By identifying and mapping out the
key steps of the customer journey, you can pinpoint bottlenecks, issues and barriers
that prevent the delivery of great customer experiences.
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Technology: A Foundation for Customer Engagement
Customer engagement efforts should span all customer interaction points and
processes. Therefore, marketers need a platform designed to consolidate data,
facilitate processes and support integration with other systems. In addition, the
platform must be able to support three capabilities: insight-driven marketing,
delivery of engaging experiences, and quick and agile marketing efforts.
• Insight-Driven Marketing: Marketers must gain detailed insights
about their customers and markets to better engage with them. Most
marketing organizations have several silos of customer interaction,
technology and data. To get started on a consolidated view of their
customers, marketers must identify relevant customer data across
multiple sources—internal and external—and build a unified view
of the customer. Once the data is in one place, you can leverage
advanced analytics to convert data into insights.
However, do not pursue data just for the sake of having data. Obtain
only the information that can help identify unprecedented insights,
discover hidden trends and uncover granular customer segments.
• Delivery of Engaging Experiences: Marketers need to think beyond
single transactions and engage customers with experiences that are
contextual and personalized. In addition, these experiences should
be orchestrated across all channels throughout the buying process.
These two objectives require everyone who interacts with a customer
to take into account and share past interactions, social data, analytics
and session information. Having real-time access to the complete
customer view empowers the organization to deliver engaging
customer experiences.
• Marketing With Speed and Agility: Today’s business environment is
accelerating, and marketers need to be able to react quickly to market
opportunities before they disappear. They need tools to monitor
opportunities; better collaborate with key stakeholders; and increase
transparency over marketing processes, plans and outcomes. Having
the ability to react faster than your competitor to market opportunities
can be a huge advantage.
A Mobile Carrier Case Study in Next-Generation Customer Engagement
A leading provider of wireless voice, messaging and data services is disrupting the
mobile carrier industry through an “uncarrier” strategy that is centered around
a customer engagement program, which aspires to make everything easier for
customers. However, the company knew it needed a foundation for customer
data and analytics to be a truly customer-centric company. The sheer volume and
variety of data—from more than 44 million customers using multiple interaction
channels—were staggering. This situation presented the company with a complex
customer data management challenge.
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Customer Intelligence Platform
By partnering with SAP, the carrier consolidated its customer data into one source.
Through the use of analytics capabilities (such as social media listening, customer
segmentation and targeting) and visualization tools, its marketers now have
unprecedented insight into their customers and a deeper understanding of their
needs and preferences.
Customer Engagement Platform
The company retired its use of multiple systems and created a single, centralized
customer engagement platform to serve the entire customer base. By using
customer data to build precise segments and run analytics, it now offers customers
the best promotions at the right time and in the right channel.
Each time a customer interacts with the carrier, the company records a “touch” that
can be visualized, helping employees understand a customer’s history and behavior.
Whenever a customer interacts with the company, the conversation starts where it
left off, and the collection of touches is analyzed in real time to drive a personalized
experience.
Accelerated Marketing
The mobile carrier has shortened its go-to-market campaign cycles from months
to a few days. The increase in marketing speed is facilitated by campaign workflow
improvements, the reuse of campaign components and more efficient marketing
processes. In addition, less time is needed to onboard and train employees.
A Successful Transformation
Overall, the customer engagement program has transformed the company by
reducing churn rates and enabling it to acquire a record 2.4 million new customers in
just one quarter. And more importantly, its employees understand their customers
intimately—empowering them to engage with customers in the right way at the
right time and develop lasting relationships that drive bottom-line results.
Conclusion
The holy grail of marketing is seamless customer engagement throughout
the buying journey. When you look at the people, processes and technology
involved, this is not an easy task. It requires executive support, alignment across
organizations, and a clear and comprehensive strategy. However, the competitive
advantages can be game-changing when your marketers can take decisive action
with improved insight, deliver engaging customer experiences, and react to market
opportunities with greater speed and agility.
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Start your journey to building an adaptive customer engagement organization. Evaluate
your existing systems with the marketing foundation gap analysis tool to determine the
key areas your business should review closely.
Feel free to engage with me on Twitter @marketingissues.
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DETAILED FINDINGS
Q1. What are the most important attributes that define customer centricity?
Marketers are keenly aware that customer centricity must be an organization-wide commitment,
starting with a senior management team that is committed to understanding the needs of the
customer, followed closely by the functional alignment of teams around a holistic customer expe-
rience strategy and a corporate culture centered around the needs of the customer. Interestingly,
while it is understood that knowing the expectations and meeting the needs of the customer are
paramount, the idea of doing everything—and anything—for the customer is, thankfully, not part
of customer centricity.
Marketers rank attributes like being an organization that meets every need of the customer (an
unrealistic goal, at best) low on the list of critical attribute. And despite recent successes of crowd-
sourced product development schemes, marketers also do not believe that products that reflect
customer co-innovation help define a customer-centric organization.
ANSWER RANKED SELECTIONS
A senior management team committed to understanding the needs and behaviors of the
1
customer and market
Functional alignment and support of a holistic customer experience strategy 2
A corporate culture that places customer satisfaction above all else 3
Responsible use of customer data and insight to advance the customer experience 4
Talent to execute today’s omni-channel customer experiences (including resources across IT,
5
finance, service, support and sales)
Technology platforms that aggregate the voice and views of the customer from channels
6
internal and external to the company
Superior customer service and after-market support 7
Infrastructure to deliver cross-channel, on-demand customer interaction 8
Products that reflect ongoing customer co-innovation 9
An organization centered on meeting every need and desire of the customer 10
Compensation plans tied to customer experience optimization 11
Other 12
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Q2. With these attributes in mind, how do you rate the customer centricity of
your organization?
While few marketers gave their organizations rave reviews, most feel they are holding their own
specific to being a customer-centric organization. Some 45 percent give themselves good to high
marks, with only 4 percent admitting they are doing a poor job. Interestingly, nearly a quarter of
marketers say there is room for improvement.
14% High
31% Good
28% Moderate
23% Needs improvement
4% Poor
0% Not sure
Q3. How do you believe your customers would rate the customer centricity of your
organization?
While marketers were hard on themselves with respect to how their organizations fare in achieving
customer centricity, they actually believe their customers would have a more favorable view. Some 34
percent feel their customers would say they are doing a good job compared to 31 percent of marketers
who feel they actually are doing a good job.
11% High
34% Good
26% Moderate
23% Needs improvement
5% Poor
0% Not sure
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Q4. How important is customer centricity to the success of your role/position with
the organization?
The customer—and being an organization that is customer-centric—are critically important for
today’s marketer. The overwhelming majority indicated that customer centricity is not just important
to the company, but it is also critical to the success of their individual roles. Only 17 percent felt that
while customer centricity was important to the company, it had little bearing on their personal success.
73% Critical to the success of my role and the success of the company
17% Critical to the success of the company, but not necessarily my role
Customer centricity will make life easier, but isn’t the only factor
7% necessary for success
2% It would be nice to have, but not critical to success
1% Not a requirement for success at all
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Q5. What are the most important attributes that demonstrate customer centricity
through the eyes of your customer?
It is here that the first signs of customer centricity disconnection appear. Marketers believe that the key
attributes to demonstrating customer centricity revolve around service or support-level issues: quick
response times to requests or complaints, speed of resolution of complaints, and always-on access
to information and support. But among the top five ranked attributes sits the second most important
attribute: products that reflect a customer’s own needs and wants. This is especially interesting
considering that marketers rated products that reflected customer co-innovation so low on their own
selected list of customer-centric attributes. While marketers believe that the responsible use of customer
data is important (ranking fourth on their list), only 14 percent believe that having strong data practices
for use, protection and privacy is important to the customer. Relevant communications, often touted as
core to a strong customer engagement, also fall outside of the top five attributes that a customer would
highlight as important. But the attributes ranked lowest on this list of what we believe our customers
value are customer communities and social experiences and engagements (8 percent).
66% Quick response times to customer requests or complaints
49% Fast response to issues and challenges
47% Products that reflect their own needs and wants
45% Consistency of the experience across all touchpoints
36% Always-on access to product/account/profile information and
customer support
33% Communication through the channels most important to them
32% Relevance of communications across all offers, messages,
recommendations and promotions
30% Quality content and information on products and solutions
29% Engagement at point of sale
(knowledgeable agents, friendly staff, etc.)
23% Choice—in product, in service and in communication
19% Clear definition of value and brand
15% Reliable and accurate billing
15% Multiple options for online and offline engagement and purchase
14% Strong data protection practices, privacy policies and
permission-based communication
10% Availability of self-service options
9% Strong corporate social responsibility and ethics
8% Social experiences and engagements
8% Customer communities and access to peers
2% Other
© Copyright CMO Council. All Rights Reserved. 2014 18MASTERING ADAPTIVE CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENTS | REPORT
Q6. Who defines what customer centricity means for your organization?
The responsibility for defining exactly what customer centricity means for an organization rests
squarely with the CEO or president, according to marketers. While 16 percent say that no single person
sets this definition, the majority (39 percent) say that this clarity and direction must be set from the
very top of the organization.
39% President/CEO
17% Chief marketing officer
16% No single person or team sets definition
13% Cross-functional team sets definition
4% Marketing team or group
3% Chief experience officer
2% Chief service officer
1% Chief sales officer
1% Chief digital officer
1% Outside agency or consultants
2% Other
Q7. Who owns the development of the customer experience strategy based on this
definition of customer centricity?
While the CEO establishes the definition, it is actually the CMO who holds responsibility for
developing a holistic strategy that brings the customer experience strategy to life. A little more than
one in four marketers say that the CMO owns the development of the customer experience strategy
while 17 percent say that the strategy development is actually the work of a cross-functional team.
28% Chief marketing officer
17% Cross-functional team sets strategy
16% No single person or team sets strategy
9% Marketing team/group
9% Chief operating officer
6% Chief experience officer
5% Individual department/division/region heads
2% Chief sales officer
2% Chief service officer
1% Chief digital officer
6% Other
© Copyright CMO Council. All Rights Reserved. 2014 19MASTERING ADAPTIVE CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENTS | REPORT
Q8. How well aligned are your heads of operations, line-of-business leaders, finance,
marketing, sales, point of sale/service and customer service around this customer
experience strategy?
Only 12 percent of marketers believe the core teams most often at the vanguard of a customer’s
actual experience are strongly aligned around the organization’s customer experience strategy. This
is especially disconcerting when you consider how heavily these front-line service, support and
engagement resources weigh in the customer’s definition of customer centricity. The majority of
marketers feel that these teams are moderately aligned while 26 percent admit that the alignment
needs to be better.
12% Strongly aligned
25% Pretty well aligned
17% Moderately aligned
26% Need to be better aligned
6% Poorly aligned
3% Not aligned
1% Don’t know
Q9. Does your organization have a formal customer experience management strategy?
Some 25 percent of respondents have a formal customer experience strategy in place, 3 percent are in
the process of fully deploying their strategy, and another 35 percent have a strategy in development.
While this is an incredibly positive shift, the fact that some 34 percent of brands simply do not have a
strategy either in place or in development is a concern.
25% Yes
34% No
35% Strategy in development
3% Strategy in place, deploying technology soon
3% Not sure
© Copyright CMO Council. All Rights Reserved. 2014 20MASTERING ADAPTIVE CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENTS | REPORT
Q10. How is this strategy embraced and executed across the organization?
According to 24 percent of marketers, department heads are aware of the company’s customer
experience strategy, but requirements for execution, measurement and success rates are all tracked
and valued differently in each department. Only 14 percent say that each employee understands his/
her individual role in delivering on the customer experience strategy, and they are compensated based
on individual performance. Given the importance marketers place on delivering a unified, connected
and holistic customer experience across all customer touchpoints, it is concerning that 22 percent of
companies have individual teams embracing portions of the customer experience strategy or “translating”
their own version of the strategy.
24% Department heads are aware of strategy but manage requirements,
execution and measurements within each department or group.
21% We do not have a formal strategy.
15% Select teams embrace strategy and execute; others are not involved.
Each employee understands his/her role in delivering the customer experience
14% strategy and is compensated based on individual performance.
Strategy is managed centrally, with employees compensated based on overall
9% customer experience management outcomes.
8% Execution of strategy is highly fragmented and siloed across the organization.
Each team translates their own version of the strategy, with little connection to
7% other teams, groups or departments.
1% Other
Q11. Please identify which of the following represents the greatest area of challenge
when executing on your organization’s customer experience strategy.
While 22 percent of marketers feel most challenged by having the right talent and teams to reach
customer experience success and another 22 percent feel most challenged to have the right processes
in place, it is actually a combination of challenges with people, processes and platforms to deliver and
measure engagements that is holding marketers back. In fact, more than half (52 percent) say that
closing gaps across all three key pillars to customer experience success is their biggest challenge.
52% All of the above: Gaps in all three make success hard to reach.
22% The processes: Having the right processes and operations in place to ensure
people are properly directed and technology is properly used
22% The people: Having the right talent and the right culture to reach success
5% The platforms: Having the right technology in place to deliver and measure
© Copyright CMO Council. All Rights Reserved. 2014 21MASTERING ADAPTIVE CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENTS | REPORT
Q12. Thinking of the area of greatest challenge (the people), what are the top gaps that
your organization must fill in order to achieve success?
For those marketers whose greatest gap exists within talent and culture, more than half (53 percent)
say their greatest challenge is developing a culture that focuses on the customer. Other key challenges
include aligning teams to work synergistically (48 percent) and hiring the right talent to execute (49
percent).
53% Culture that focuses on customer and values customer experience strategy
49% Hiring the right talent needed to execute
48% Aligning teams to work together synergistically
39% Training and up-skilling work force
16% Keeping the talent we have
15% Compensation structure to track to strategy
Q13. Thinking of the area of greatest challenge (the processes), what are the top gaps
that your organization must fill in order to achieve success?
Of the marketers most challenged by establishing processes to achieve success in customer experience,
59 percent say that establishing the actual processes that track to customer experience strategy and
business goals is the top challenge. Alignment is also a core challenge as 40 percent indicate that clearly
defining roles and responsibilities is a challenge, and 33 percent say that aligning all systems and talent
around a uniform process is a key gap.
59% Establishing processes that track to customer experience strategy and business goals
40% Clearly defining roles and responsibilities for each step of the process
37% Measures to track process effectiveness and impact not defined
36% Prioritization of customer experience strategy and process
33% Aligning all systems and talent around uniform processes
24% Continuous improvement of processes to ensure they are in line with current strategy
14% Lack mandate for uniform and absolute process adoption
© Copyright CMO Council. All Rights Reserved. 2014 22MASTERING ADAPTIVE CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENTS | REPORT
Q14. Thinking of the area of greatest challenge (the platforms), what are the top gaps
that your organization must fill in order to achieve success?
Nearly half of the respondents most challenged by technology feel that the lack of a central customer
database is their biggest gap to fill. Lack of insight and analytics tools (39 percent) and budget to fund
new technologies (42 percent) are also key issues, according to 42 percent of marketers.
44% Lacking an organization-wide central customer database
39% Insight and analytics tools that can be leveraged by all stakeholders
33% Budget to fund new technology implementation
33% Not sure if we have the right platforms to meet customer expectations
22% Identifying best-in-class solutions to power customer experience strategy platform for all stakeholders
17% Technology stack fragmentation with no central customer experience
11% Confusion over which platform is the right platform
6% Technology is hard to use and understand.
© Copyright CMO Council. All Rights Reserved. 2014 23MASTERING ADAPTIVE CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENTS | REPORT
Q15. Thinking of the area of greatest challenge (all areas: people, processes and
platforms), what are the top gaps your organization must fill in order to achieve success?
Culture tops the list of all issues that represent the greatest roadblocks to customer experience success.
Process issues are also key gaps as 38 percent point to aligning teams to work together, 34 percent point to
establishing the processes to track customer experience strategy and business goals, and 31 percent point
to prioritization of customer experience strategy and process.
51% Culture that focuses on customer and values customer experience strategy
38% Aligning teams to work together synergistically
34% Establishing processes that track to customer experience strategy and business goals
31% Prioritization of customer experience strategy and process
25% Hiring the right talent needed to execute
18% Aligning all systems and talent around uniform processes
15% Training and up-skilling work force
11% Insight and analytics tools that can be leveraged by all stakeholders
11% Compensation structure to track to strategy
9% Continuous improvement of processes to ensure they are in line with current strategy
9% Technology stack fragmentation with no central customer experience platform for all stakeholders
9% Clearly defining roles and responsibilities for each step of the process
8% Measures to track process effectiveness and impact not defined
7% Lack mandate for uniform and absolute process adoption
5% Identifying best-in-class solutions to power customer experience strategy
4% Budget to fund new technology implementation
4% Lacking an organization-wide central customer database
3% Keeping the talent we have
3% Not sure if we have the right platforms to meet customer expectations
1% Confusion over which platform is the right platform
© Copyright CMO Council. All Rights Reserved. 2014 24MASTERING ADAPTIVE CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENTS | REPORT
Q16. What forces and factors are most influencing and shaping customer experience
investments and strategies?
All of these gaps with processes, people and platforms are being even further tested thanks to rapidly
changing customer expectations, according to 22 percent of respondents. Digital channel growth and
the expansion of the business into new markets that require new strategies to meet new customer
demands are also high on the list of factors most influencing and shaping investments. When you
consider earlier responses that point to challenges being exacerbated by budgets that are already
being stretched, having systems and processes in place that enable prioritization of investments and
engagements is of paramount importance.
22% Rapidly changing customer behaviors and expectations
19% Digital channel growth is changing how customers connect
16% Expansion of business into new markets with new customer demands
10% Market pressures from competition
7% Revenue decline has forced the shift
6% New CEO or management team with new commitment to the customer
5% Shift in customer base, requiring new segmentation and messaging
5% Availability of new technologies to enable more robust engagements
5% Revenue growth has affirmed commitment to the customer experience strategy
1% New internal teams with new expertise in digital engagement and data
3% Other
Q17. How satisfied are you with your company's ability to listen and respond to the
needs of the customer?
In keeping with the positive outlook that marketers have—and the high marks respondents have given
when asked to rate themselves—the majority are fairly satisfied with their company’s ability to listen
and respond to the needs of the customer. This is good news in light of the importance that marketers
feel their customers place on issue response and speed of communication. However, it is notable that
18 percent remain not at all satisfied with their customer listening abilities.
10% Highly satisfied
56% Moderately satisfied
18% Implementing systems to do this
18% Not at all satisfied
1% Not sure
© Copyright CMO Council. All Rights Reserved. 2014 25MASTERING ADAPTIVE CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENTS | REPORT
Q18. Which of the following channels do you use to engage with your customers, and
which do you use to listen to your customers?
Listening might not be marketing’s strongest quality. According to this comparison of where marketers are
engaging and where they are listening, the obvious channels for aggregating customer feedback are being
deployed (i.e., customer service call centers, online forms and online self-service engagements) as customer
listening outposts as well as opportunities to engage with the customer. Social media has emerged as
another area in which marketers are equally as interested in engagement as they are in listening, with 50
percent of marketers leveraging social as an engagement channel and 50 percent leveraging social as a
listening channel.
Unfortunately, that is where the engagement and listening party ends. Mobile is the most underutilized
listening channel as 71 percent of marketers have deployed some form of mobile experience as an
engagement channel, including mobile app deployment, mobile web content, and SMS, MMS or mobile
messaging. However, only 29 percent are using these mobile deployments as opportunities to listen to their
customers. Digging deeper into mobile, 74 percent have deployed some form of mobile app, yet only 26
percent see this as an opportunity to listen. Mobile communication via SMS or MMS fares similarly, with 66
percent deploying these engagement campaigns while 34 percent say they are using these campaigns as
listening tools.
The commonality across the majority of the listening channels that marketing is actively leveraging is the
intentional communication initiated by the customer back to the organization (e.g., web forms, online chat,
customer service calls and even SMS replies), indicating that marketing is relying on actively contributed
customer feedback as a means to listen to their customers. The emergence of social listening is a step in the
right direction, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg when looking at the multitude of ways that customers are
displaying more subtle indicators of their reaction to and expectations of their engagements with brands.
CHANNELS USED ENGAGE LISTEN
Corporate website (managed by global corporate HQ) 62% 37%
Microsites (e.g., product-specific, solution-specific, market-specific, localized, etc.) 66% 34%
Email 62% 38%
Print media television 80% 20%
Events (including customer events, sponsorships and trade events) 60% 40%
Social media networks 50% 50%
Blogs 59% 41%
Mobile application (corporate or regional app) 74% 26%
SMS, MMS mobile messaging 66% 34%
Mobile websites or content 73% 27%
In-store experiences 63% 37%
Customer service call center 47% 53%
Online customer service/self-service 50% 50%
Web forms for customer service 42% 58%
Online chat 47% 53%
Click to chat connecting web to customer service 46% 53%
Agents, channel or resellers 55% 45%
Sales teams 56% 44%
Finance (billing, financing, etc.) 64% 36%
Other 35% 65%
© Copyright CMO Council. All Rights Reserved. 2014 26MASTERING ADAPTIVE CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENTS | REPORT
Q19. Do you have a comprehensive view of engagements and touchpoints across all of
the stages of the customer lifecycle?
Not only are marketers struggling to hear across the spectrum of touchpoints, but they are also
having trouble gaining a complete view across all of the customer touchpoints that actually make up a
customer’s experience. Some 42 percent of respondents admit that they just do not have this view across
customer engagements and the lifecycle. And while 20 percent feel they have already done the work and
aggregated this view, 37 percent have really only started to create this experience map.
20% Yes
42% No
37% We have started aggregating this view.
2% Don’t know
© Copyright CMO Council. All Rights Reserved. 2014 27MASTERING ADAPTIVE CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENTS | REPORT
Q20. What measures, metrics or insights does your company use to assess customer
experience impact and performance?
Customer satisfaction is the most common metric being used by marketers to gauge the success of
customer experience impact and performance. While 63 percent of respondents are capturing measures
via satisfaction surveys—a loose measure if ever there was one—only 26 percent are looking to define
success by customer profitability. This is not to say that revenue and sales measures are not being
considered. In fact, repeat sales (40 percent), revenue per customer (38 percent), churn rates (35 percent),
and overall revenue gains (31 percent) are all factors, albeit to a lesser degree.
Some business driver metrics that marketers are less likely to leverage as measures of success
include customer lifetime value (27 percent) and average deal size (16 percent). Interestingly, advocacy
and customer loyalty also rated quite low as measures of success, which may have more to do with
challenges to customer listening and a desire to directly attribute success to a specific campaign.
However, measuring the levels of advocacy and loyalty becomes critical when looking to create longer-
lasting customer engagements.
63% Satisfaction studies
40% Repeat sales
39% Web metrics and online engagement measures
38% Net Promoter Score
38% Revenue per customer
37% Social media analytics
36% Contact center interactions
35% Real-time feedback
35% Churn or attrition rates
31% Overall revenue gains
30% Market share gains
29% Renewal rates
29% Audits and assessments
27% Lifetime value
26% Customer profitability
20% Call processing or issue resolution times
18% Incidence of referral or advocacy
16% Average selling price and deal size
16% Operational excellence audit
13% Product returns
13% Mystery shopper interventions
2% Other
© Copyright CMO Council. All Rights Reserved. 2014 28MASTERING ADAPTIVE CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENTS | REPORT
Q21. Rank the value and importance of the following touchpoints based on their ability
to deliver on your organization’s customer experience strategy.
The company website, which previously was earmarked by 62 percent of marketers as a key engagement
channel (although only 37 percent use it as a listening opportunity), is also the most important
touchpoint to deliver on the customer experience strategy. Live events rank as the second-most valued
touchpoint, followed by customer service call centers and social media engagements. Interestingly,
content—tied for the number-four position—is also seen as a critical vehicle.
RANKED
TOUCHPOINT RESPONSES
SELECTIONS
Website 1
Live events (including customer events, sponsorships and trade events) 2
Customer service call center 3
Social media engagements (i.e., Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn postings) 4
Content (e.g., white papers, thought leadership content, etc.) 4
Sales teams 6
Email 7
Microsites (e.g., product-specific, solution-specific, market-specific, localized, etc.) 8
In-store experiences 9
Agents, channel or resellers 10
Blogs 11
Online customer service/self-service 12
Virtual events (including webcasts, online seminars and trade shows) 13
Mobile app (corporate or regional app) 14
Television advertising 15
Message boards, peer reviews and online communities 16
Online video 16
Print advertising 18
SMS, MMS mobile messaging 19
Mobile websites or content 20
Social media advertising 21
Online chat 22
Web forms for customer service 23
Click-to-chat connecting web to customer service 23
Other 25
© Copyright CMO Council. All Rights Reserved. 2014 29You can also read
