The Biggest, Baddest Misconceptions In All Of CX
People make mistakes in life, in love, and especially in CX.
But small mistakes can be corrected and– when part of an iterative strategy– can pave the way to even better customer experiences.
Compared to small mistakes, misconceptions are the real CX-killer. A misconceived strategy can set a company down a long and winding path towards CX peril. And, since strategies are often the foundation of many initiatives, CX misconceptions are much harder to correct.
Create a Free Account for Unlimited Access
Sign up for free to access all CX Lead articles, exclusive events, premium resources, our expert newsletter, and more!
Or sign up with Login with GoogleLogin with LinkedIn
Have an account? Login
To help you avoid this perilous fate, I sat down with a baker’s dozen of the world’s most foremost CX experts. We set out to learn:
- What are the most common misconceptions in CX?
- What are the most costly misconceptions in CX?
- How can CX misconceptions be identified and avoided?
What Are The Most Common Misconceptions in CX?
We created a list of the twelve most common misconceptions. We asked our panel to vote on which they encounter most often in their CX careers and consulting businesses. Here are the top five:
#1: Investments in Customer Experience Don’t Provide Measurable ROI
64% of our panel chose this; maybe unsurprisingly, as it’s a misconception we’ve all heard before.
It was and still is one of the primary forms of pushback CX leaders encounter, especially when pitching ideas to company leadership. It wasn’t true ten years ago and–now with a multitude of software tools to help track experiences and connect them to other metrics– it’s less true now than ever before.
CX and marketing transformation consultant Greg Kihlström explains the danger of believing this,
“The misconception that CX doesn't drive measurable ROI can cause an organization to think of good CX as a "nice to have" as opposed to the table stakes that keep an organization competitive.”
This warning is especially true in the highly competitive SaaS industry. Kihlström, author of House of the Customer, explained how this misconception leads an organization to fall behind,
“If an organization is still mired in this misconception, there is no way they will be driven to innovate their CX and pull ahead, or to fend off disruptive challengers.”
#2: CX Management Is Solely the Responsibility of a Single Department
58% of our panel included this as one of the most common CX misconceptions. This particular misconception is rooted in organizational management and corporate structure, and can require some internal soul-searching (and sometimes restructuring) to address.
Yanique Grant works with the biggest brands in the Caribbean, and has run into this misconception more than once,
“I have worked with a few organizations across various sectors/industries - banking and finance, retail and even telecommunications where this misconceptions has compounded their customer experience issue. It causes extreme frustrations for their customers resulting in a loss of revenue and loss of repeat business. CX management really needs to involve multiple stakeholders across the company.”
Mary Poppen, author of Goodbye, Churn. Hello, Growth!, explains the negative cycle that occurs when a new CXO doesn’t have cross-departmental support,
“To truly impact CX, it must be cross-functional with shared goals and priorities. Believing that one team or person or new CXO will drive improvements in something that requires everyone's involvement is unfortunately all too common. And, what happens? That new leader fails and a new leader is named and so on until the company either realizes it's a cross-functional effort or they abandon the idea of CX all together.”
Jim Iyoob, a founding father of call-center and CX analytics, explains why CX needs to be a group project,
“While there might be a dedicated CX team, excellent customer experience requires collaboration across all departments. From marketing setting the right expectations to operations delivering timely service, every touchpoint impacts customer perception. Siloed ownership can create disconnects and inconsistencies, hindering a seamless journey.”
“Think of a product team developing a fantastic solution, but the customer service team lacks proper training to explain it. Or VICE VERSA a great customer service team but the product team has a perception of what people want and feedback is never implemented.”
#3: Customer Experience is Just Customer Service
Too many companies conflate these terms, and then suffer the consequences of high churn and shrinking LTV.
CX keynote speaker and founder of Red Slacks consulting, Aaron Thompson is famous for helping customers differentiate between related concepts like customer experience, customer success and customer service. He explained,
“When companies misconstrue CX and CS, they then view both as the same point on the customer journey. This approach overlooks the very important fact that CX is part of EVERY interaction we have with customers, including support issues. But it’s of course not limited to support issues.
Seeing these as one in the same, rather than interweaving similar (yet different) approaches, sets up the business for complete failure during support/service/escalated moments with customers. It also misses out on other non-support touchpoints where CX could be improved.”
#4: Exceeding Customer Expectations at Every Touchpoint Is Required
Chosen by 50% of our panelists, this misconception underscores the importance of a CX strategy. Trying to improve every touchpoint, at every journey stage, for every customer… well that already sounds like a wild goose chase.
The focus of our conversation here was that not all touchpoints are created equally, and not all are equally weighed by customers. We agreed unanimously that good customer journey mapping is the first step and best cure for this disease.
Remember, after you’ve mapped out your customer journeys and identified the key touchpoints, your CX strategy should guide you towards a prioritization of those touchpoints.
#5: CX Improvement Relies Mainly on New Technology Implementations
Modern tech like call center software and service chatbots play a critical role in CX, but they’re far from the only or most important factor. Think of tech like the frame of a tall building: it supports the CX, but it’s the walls and wires and floors and everything else that make up the actual CX.
Dennis Wakabayashi is one of the biggest names in CX consulting and has made a name for himself highlighting the human element that underpins all CXs. He gives an example from recent history of how an overreliance on tech can backfire,
"Imagine a prominent airline that decided to lean heavily on automated solutions for its customer service operations, incorporating advanced automated phone systems and chatbots to handle flight inquiries and changes. During a period filled with extensive flight disruptions, including numerous cancellations and delays, passengers were in urgent need of speaking with human representatives to resolve their complex travel issues.
However, these passengers repeatedly encountered automated systems, which lacked the capability to grasp or resolve the complexities and urgency of their situations. This situation led to widespread passenger frustration, underscoring the critical importance of human elements in customer service, particularly for addressing sensitive, urgent, or complex issues.
It highlights the need for a balanced approach that marries technological efficiency with the irreplaceable value of human interaction, especially in industries where customer satisfaction is closely tied to personalized and immediate support."
Michael Barnes, Director and Principal Analyst of CxO Advisory Services, gives another example, one in which this misconception leads to a single, costly strategic mistake,
“A utility operating in a highly regulated market believes they're a technology laggard, especially relative to financial services or retail brands in the same market with massive digital investments targeting improved customer engagement. Thinking it needs to catch up, the firm acts on the misconception that 'Better or Different Software is the Best Way to Improve CXs' and pursues a technology-led approach.
This fails as the approach doesn't link to the firms' strategic vision, business priorities or most importantly, customer needs and expectations. The lack of clear links extends from planning through to deployment, hindering any attempt to identify, measure and communicate clear business-relevant, quantifiable success metrics. The end result is a technology project viewed as a failure by all key business stakeholders.”
What Are The Most Costly Misconceptions In CX?
Some misconceptions are riskier to profitability than others, especially if allowed to persist. While the group agreed that context is always important, we also concluded that some misconceptions should always set off the CX alarm bells. Here are two we singled out:
Siloed CX Management is a Recipe for CX Disaster
As we said in the introduction, the danger of a CX misconception is that it can lead to a whole rainbow of CX problems. The notion that “CX is the responsibility of one department/person” best illustrates this downstream effect.
For example, a siloed CX department will often invest in its own CX improvement software. What happens then? The software itself becomes siloed, and as Jim Iyoob explains,
“Siloed software creates more issues and data disparity than it solves. You can have the greatest CRM in the world but using a siloed CRM without integration with data tools can lead to data inconsistencies and hinder data-driven decision making, ultimately frustrating customers and impacting CX negatively.
However, when implemented with clear goals and the right use cases, integrating software can streamline operations, personalize experiences, and empower data-driven decisions, significantly improving CX. For that to work though CX must be de-siloed and involve stakeholders from across the company.”
NPS is the Only CX Metric that Really Matters
Net Promoter Score or NPS has earned itself a position of honor among all the known CX metrics. It is, as Tolkein might say, The One Metric to Rule them All!
But just like Tolkein’s ring, this metric has a very dark side. B2B SaaS CX pioneer Melissa Henley explains,
“NPS can be a dangerous metric to focus on, as it represents a specific audience at a specific point in time.
Imagine your company has changed its pricing and packaging strategy to appeal more to an enterprise audience to help your product move up market. That's great, but if you're sending NPS surveys to your large audience of existing single-user customers, you're likely to get negative feedback on the changes you've made.
If you are blindly following the results and comments on your NPS survey, you're likely to assume your pricing strategy is a failure. It's not a failure - it's just not a fit for this audience. And it shouldn't be, because it wasn't designed for them!
NPS is one barometer to look at in your overall customer health metrics. If you look at your NPS scores along with CSAT, churn, and NRR, you're likely to get a much more realistic picture of customer happiness.”
Which CX Misconceptions Have Some Truth Behind Them?
One fact we kept returning to in our discussion is that CX strategy is rarely black and white. Some of the misconceptions we identified can sometimes be true, depending on the very specific circumstance.
20+ year CX veteran Prasana Kumar Parthasarathy explains how this is the case with the notion that CX is Primarily About Reducing Effort:
“Imagine a company that operates in a highly competitive industry where customers expect quick and effortless transactions. However, due to complex internal processes and outdated systems, customers often face lengthy wait times and multiple steps to complete their transactions. The company's leadership believes that the primary focus of improving CX should be on reducing customer effort.
In this scenario, if the company's research and data analysis reveal that customer effort is indeed a significant pain point impacting satisfaction and loyalty, then prioritizing efforts to streamline processes and reduce friction in customer interactions would be a valid CX strategy.
Additionally, if customer feedback consistently highlights issues related to effort and efficiency, then addressing these concerns can lead to tangible improvements in CX metrics such as customer satisfaction scores and retention rates. Thus, in this scenario, the misconception that ""CX is Primarily About Reducing Effort"" would align with the company's specific CX challenges and provide a focused strategy for enhancing the overall customer experience."
Katie Stabler, “CX is primarily about reducing effort - this makes sense even today. I don't agree with it as CX's primary focus but all too often a customer journey is full of effort and the basics simply haven't been achieved, so for those companies in this situation, at least initially, reducing effort may be the priority."
Conclusion
So now you know! Hopefully, this guide has inspired you, and you’re ready to make CX work for your business! Need more tips and tricks? Subscribe to the CX Lead newsletter for our best tips on customer journey analytics, CX strategy and reviews of the latest CX tools.
