BOARDPERSPECTIVESISSUE 177

Maximising CX: The Game You Must Win
How a business engages its customers at every point of their buying journey is critical to connecting
the organisation’s brand promise to, and delivering on, an exceptional customer experience. Does theboard understand what the organisation does to differentiate itself with its customers? If not, it should.
Performance management is on the radar of every board. Customer satisfaction and loyalty metrics
are an integral part of the dashboard directors use to discharge their oversight responsibilities withrespect to strategy formulation and execution. But customer satisfaction and loyalty are outcomes.
In contrast,“customer experience” (CX) refers to the totality of all touchpoints through whicha business engages with its customers. These touchpoints are often described as the buyer’s
journey, or the process by which customer satisfaction and loyalty outcomes are achieved.
The CX conversation applies to both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C)
companies. Everything from marketing to sales to customer service, product usage satisfaction, and evenwebsite and digital platforms impacts the customer experience. The CX is reflected through customer
sentiment throughout the buyer’s journey as well as a customer’s decision to return to the brand.

Why Is CX Important?
Most marketing professionals agree that the primary purpose of a CX strategy is to improvecustomer retention and satisfaction. This strategy is fairly intuitive to directors. Of course, thecost to obtain a new customer is higher than the cost to sell to an existing customer. Some assert
it is five to seven times higher.1 This thinking frames why CX is so important.
1“The Cost of Losing a Customer,” by Brent Barclay, Acumen Learning, May 16, 2023: www.acumenlearning.com/post/the-cost-of-losing-a-customer.

How well a business understands changes in customer sentiment throughout the buyer’s journey
can prove to be decisive in determining its success over time relative to its competitors. The
following statistics tell the story:• One in three customers will leave a brand they love after just one bad experience, while 92%
would completely abandon a company after two or three negative interactions.2• Nearly nine in 10 (88%) consumers trust recommendations from friends and family.3• On average, a consumer will tell up to 15 people about a negative customer experience.4• Nearly nine in 10 (88%) companies prioritise customer experience in their contact centers.5
According to Gartner, 89% of companies compete primarily on the basis of customer experience(up from 36% in 2010).6 However, less than half of organisations (44%) plan to invest in thecustomer experience in the next year.7
CX, in essence, is all about a persistent, obsessive focus on the customer, whether the model is
B2C or B2B. CX encompasses everything a business does or should do to put its customers firstand manage the processes that engage them both directly and indirectly, with the intention tomeet or exceed their expectations and sustain their loyalty over the long term.

How well a business understands changes in customer sentiment throughout the buyer’s
journey can prove to be decisive in determining its success over time relative to its competitors.

And why is that important? In driving more than two-thirds of customer loyalty, CX outperforms
brand and price combined. Yet over 70% of CX leaders struggle to design the appropriate projects andinitiatives that would increase customer loyalty and achieve their desired sustainable growth results.8
2“32 Customer Experience Statistics You Need to Know for 2024,” by Niklas Stattin, SuperOffice, May 2, 2024: www.superoffice.com/blog/customerexperience-statistics/.

3“Beyond Martech: Building Trust with Consumers and Engaging where Sentiment Is High,” 2021: www.nielsen.com/insights/2021/beyond-martech-buildingtrust-with-consumers-and-engaging-where-sentiment-is-high/.

4“What’s More Dangerous Than a Dissatisfied Customer? A Silent One,” by Laurie Morrow, Market Connections: www.marketconnectionsinc.com/dangeroussilent-cusomer/.

5“Why Customer Experience Matters and How to Improve It,” by Ruthie Carey, Five9, December 4, 2023: www.five9.com/blog/why-customer-experiencematters-and-how-improve-it#:~:text=Building%20excellent%20CX%20not%20only,experience%20in%20their%20contact%20centers.

6“71 Customer Experience Statistics & Facts for 2024 You Can’t Ignore,” by Esat Artug, Ninetailed, December 31, 2023: https://ninetailed.io/blog/customerexperience-statistics/.

7“32 Customer Experience Statistics You Need to Know for 2024.”

8“It’s the Journey That Matters: Improving Customer Experience and Loyalty,” by Scott Clark, CMSWire, August 31, 2020: www.cmswire.com/customerexperience/its-the-journey-that-matters-improving-customer-experience-and-loyalty.

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Board Perspectives • 2

Building and Maintaining CX
If CX is so important, why is managing it so hard? Dynamic markets ensure that strategy,
technology, execution and the application of the customer experience are constantly evolving.
Customer preferences change. So do communications and customer engagement channels. Privacy
regulations and compliance requirements proliferate. As new strategies and technologies are put inplace, issues arise when they are not integrated into the CX.
Further issues sprout up when the experiences
for both customers and employees are notdesigned to work in harmony, and CX is neither
embedded nor consistently reinforced across allareas of the business. Disparate teams or systems
send disconnected communications or operate
in silos with conflicting goals, creating friction forcustomers. Technology may be viewed as an outof-the-box silver bullet for solving the CX problem.
It is also hard to link data to customer value in asecure, privacy-compliant and reliable manner.

Fragmented systems and ways ofworking undermine the delivery ofa seamless, best-in-class customer
experience. Thus, deciding where to
initiate a focus on CX is challenging.

The bottom line: Fragmented systems and ways of working undermine the delivery of a seamless,best-in-class customer experience. Thus, deciding where to initiate a focus on CX is challenging.
So, where to start? Following are five suggestions:
1. Adopt an “everyone is responsible” mindset. When it comes to activating growth through adifferentiated customer experience, everyone in the organisation (e.g., operations, finance,
human resources, legal and compliance), not just marketing, has a role to play. A clear vision isneeded to align multiple parts of the organisation toward customer-centricity.
Focused data and analytics should facilitate the understanding of customer needs, design ofrelevant products and services, and reimagination of business models. Platforms and technology
should drive change and enable launching at scale through capability building, technology,
operating models, measurement and performance. To make it all work, everyone who mattersshould be on board.
2. Connect and communicate with customers. In a rapidly changing world, customers
have options — and they know it. Companies should cut through the noise and capture
attention throughout the customer journey life cycle with a high-tech, high-touch approach.
Communicating clearly, making it easier to navigate online accounts, sending notifications
proactively, letting customers choose how the company communicates with them, honouring

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Board Perspectives • 3their preferences, and sending personalised communications are ways to deploy bothtechnology and the human element. Improving timing and relevance is the holy grail — forexample, communicate at the point of the life cycle as close as possible to a moment of need.
3. Determine the brand’s “North Star.” Whether the model is B2B or B2C, figure out what end
customers want and let it drive the company’s goals, with an emphasis on the experience momentsthat matter. The two should be compatible and comprise the brand’s North Star. Then, focus on
the most effective way to deliver the customer experience that is consistent with that direction,
considering constraints (e.g., technical debt, data not available timely, disconnected systems andartificial intelligence (AI) automations not fully trained) that cannot be addressed in the near term.
By allocating resources to improve those moments that have an emotional connection withbuyers, the organisation creates the very best experience out of its existing capabilities. As forconstraints, there is a solution for every problem. If bandwidth is limited, automate repetitive
tasks to free up time for employees to become effective brand advocates in solving problems
and better serving customers — a win-win for the company and its customers.
4. Find the right incentives. Based on the company’s goals and known customer preferences,
the appropriate incentives should be implemented to align everyone to the desired outcomes
and drive process or technology improvements. The structure for incentives should support aseamless operating model that is focused on the customer’s perspective.
5. Innovate and improve CX continuously. Managing CX is not a one-and-done exercise. Effective
feedback loops with customers should provide insights about the ways the company could
improve its customer experience. Many brands are experimenting with AI, starting with easieruse cases that are less customer-facing — such as recording notes and checking for compliance.
Customer-facing AI applications must be fully
trained to ensure they are reliable in responding
to the prompts customers are most likely tofeed to them. As brands test generated content
models for customer interfaces, some aremaking public statements that they are not yet
ready to launch AI-generated content. But thedreaded “FOMO” (fear of missing out) is very
real for many companies. That is why centersof excellence are emerging and, in the content
space, AI is being built into major platforms.

Managing CX is not a one-and-done
exercise. Effective feedback loops withcustomers should provide insights about
the ways the company could improve its
customer experience.

The payoff of a successful CX strategy is improved business performance in terms of revenue
growth, lasting customer loyalty, a higher customer lifetime value (the total net profit acompany can expect to generate from a customer throughout their entire relationship),protiviti.com

Board Perspectives • 4and a sustainable competitive advantage. Indeed, in the digital age, CX could prove to become
the ultimate differentiator. That is why CX is “the game you must win.”

Implications for Boards
The dynamic nature of meeting and exceeding customer expectations continuously over timerequires an organisationwide, cross-functional focus for the company to get it right. The board has
a vested interest in ensuring that it does. Directors must first decide how best to organise theirapproach to CX oversight. Should it be a matter for the full board, a board committee, or a board
task force or subcommittee? The technology and privacy underpinnings of CX suggest the needfor a technology focus.
Directors should set the tone for CX, ensure that an effective strategy and appropriate policies arein place, and monitor relevant and reliable CX metrics integrated into the board’s dashboard. They
should engage in strategic resource allocation conversations with management to understandhow CX improvement opportunities are prioritised, appropriate stakeholders are engaged andimprovement initiatives are appropriately led. In a B2C environment, all directors can do their own
research by being a “secret shopper.”Following are some suggested questions that boards of directors should consider, based on therisks inherent in the organisation’s operations:• Are all functions of our organisation customer-centric? In other words, is the customer the
focal point of each function’s decisions related to managing the costs, elapsed time, and quality
associated with products, services and customer interactions with the brand?

• Do we have a comprehensive view of our customers that allows us to unlock data, drive insights
and inform our CX improvement decisions? How do we know?

• Do we have reliable and relevant CX metrics? If so, do they address the distinctive attributesof the value proposition underlying why customers choose our products, services, processes
and interaction points over others? Do our metrics provide insight into which aspects of CX
our organisation needs to improve?

• How is the emergence of generative AI and other technologies affecting CX and the necessity
for us to innovate to keep pace with changing customer preferences and needs? Are weconnecting our technology investments to customer value and optimising them to deliver
exceptional experiences? How do we know?

• How does our customer experience compare to our competition? To best practices?

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Board Perspectives • 5

The authors wish to thank former Protiviti Managing Director Joan Smith for her contributions
to this issue of Board Perspectives.

How Protiviti Can Help
CX has emerged as a pivotal driver of business growth, with each customer interaction shaping brandperception and loyalty. Customer experience leaders must navigate today’s rapidly changing businessdynamics, seamlessly connect experiences, and orchestrate them within their organisations — all while
continuously reimagining external and internal experiences to align with the evolving expectations ofconsumers and employees. To that end, innovating human connections and helping leaders face theworld with more confidence is what inspires us at Protiviti. That’s why we help leaders to create anddeliver exceptional experiences that offer excitement, build trust and drive business growth. We
operate at the intersection of strategy, design, technology enablement and governance to unlock
revenue growth and customer loyalty to bring your brand promise to life.

About the Authors
Bryan Comite, Managing Director
As leader of Protiviti’s Digital Customer Experience practice, Bryan ispassionate about partnering with clients to create exceptional experiencesthat deliver on their brand promise. Bryan has over 25 years of strategy
and execution experience across a wide range of industries.
Contact Bryan at bryan.comite@protiviti.com.
Bryan Throckmorton, Managing Director
As leader of Protiviti’s Digital Strategy & Transformation practice and with
20+ years of experience, Bryan offers leading-edge advice on data-driven
and digital strategy and execution to transform business performance anddecision-making to improve capabilities across multiple industries.
Contact Bryan at bryan.throckmorton@protiviti.com.

Protiviti (www.protiviti.com) is a global consulting firm that delivers deep expertise, objective insights, a tailored approach and unparalleled collaboration to help
leaders confidently face the future. Protiviti and its independent and locally owned member firms provide clients with consulting and managed solutions in finance,technology, operations, data, digital, legal, HR, risk and internal audit through a network of more than 90 offices in over 25 countries.
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