CX and EX an “infinite loop” for driving value as uncertainty looms

In a time characterized by economic instability, CX has emerged as the key differentiator to enable enterprises to succeed in the context of disrupted supply chains, inflationary pressures, and political conflict. EX is the key driver of CX, with empowered employees creating meaningful experiences for customers, and providing an opportunity for growth even as economic headwinds mount. What we need now is an understanding of the nuts and bolts of how to make the EX-CX equation work in practice in our hybrid workplaces.

Though the Great Resignation is now a piece of history, getting the right talent in place and giving that talent the tools, recognition, and support it needs to succeed remains vital to driving good customer experiences. In November HFS, supported by Uniphore, convened a roundtable of CX leaders from 18 enterprises to discuss how to reimagine CX. Leaders discussed talent attraction and retention, the possibilities of automation and conversational AI to drive improved CX at scale, ways to build customer trust, and the significance of personalized experiences to brand loyalty.

Leaders from 18 major organizations were represented at the roundtable

CX as a growth anchor in a time of change

Opening the roundtable, Uniphore Chief Revenue Officer Ritesh Idnani offered his vision of the landscape enterprises now occupy: a hybrid reality, with workplaces where it’s “always 2020” and disruption and change are now a given. Idnani remarked that this is an environment which benefits platforms such as Uniphore which are “must have” as opposed to “nice to have” since they directly impact operational efficiencies and help accelerate stalled revenue growth resulting in a superior customer experience.  HFS Research CEO and Chief Analyst Phil Fersht contextualized the discussion by framing the challenge of reimagining CX while cybersecurity, inflation, and supply chain challenges that beleaguer enterprise leaders in Exhibit 1 as the economic headwinds mount. Despite multiple sources of instability, enterprise leaders are challenged to prioritize CX to differentiate and drive growth amid these uncertainties.

A clear majority of participants have implemented a hybrid workplace and see no reason to go back, but some leaders still emphasized culture, collaboration, and coaching as drivers for on-site working. They noted that often, employees are happier when enjoying the office camaraderie. Figuring out the right balance between remote and office work seems to be the greatest conundrum of a hybrid approach, including the issues of employee preference and office capacity. Maintaining flexibility toward employees and leveraging technology effectively to empower customer-facing staff are of critical significance to attracting and retaining talent. As Fersht put it, “Employees are your biggest customer.” The client-zero approach to EX that HFS advocates found echoes in the lived experience of CX leaders present. Empowering employees by giving them the tools they require to be engaged and make informed decisions is paramount.

Exhibit 1: Enterprises face multiple strong-blowing macro-economic headwinds, challenging their strategic goals

Sample: 602 executives across Global 2000 enterprises
Source: HFS Research, 2023

The EX-CX infinite loop in action at Vodafone

In his cameo keynote, Vodafone’s Head of Customer Care Jonathan Blake outlined the Vodafone story of developing resilience through a distributed global workforce and developing a strong culture within that hybrid reality. Critically, Blake emphasized the need to empower employees and offer career pathways through the organization to contact center employees in order to attract talent, drive productivity and encourage great CX. The overarching strategy behind Vodafone’s CX design is to eradicate customer touchpoints that are rife with friction through obsessive failure reduction/prevention and by solving 85% of customers’ issues digitally. The 15% remaining volumes are then managed by well-informed and highly trained specialists that can assist Vodafone customers in a personalized way and ensure full ownership until resolution. The result is Customer Care teams of highly trained agents that are experts across multiple topics, empowered to solve problems and where appropriate, upsell or cross-sell, compensated accordingly via incentives and a reward structure. To accomplish this, Vodafone emphasizes a minimum level of multiskilling capabilities, structured training according to individual performance and shadowing and coaching sessions to encourage agents’ empowerment and ownership, enabling the freedom to manage customer queries end to end.

Still talking about change? Or do you need to talk about evolution?

Removing apprehension and insecurity as far as possible was also flagged; we need to move forward from the language of “change” and “structural transformation,” which can sound good to the brief-holder in the C-suite but may strike terror into the organization as a whole and lead to demotivation at a critical juncture for the business. Instead, one executive design leader argued that we should think about evolution as our organizing mindset, adapting to a world of continuous change but from a perspective of a shared vision and trust. To encourage the adoption of new tools and technologies, use a “show, don’t tell” approach, allowing people to see the benefits first-hand and get excited about its potential.

The Bottom Line: Embracing change as “business as usual” and designing nimble, aligned CX-EX strategies is the only way to prepare for an uncertain future.

Uniphore’s Ritesh Idnani summed up the EX/CX dynamic succinctly: “an infinite loop” driving growth and value in difficult times. With so much instability in the macro-economic and geopolitical environments and an inability to see even twelve months ahead, driving value and growth rests largely on controlling the controllables and investing in genuine difference makers that will yield benefits in the near and medium terms. The adage “without the customers, there’s no company” resonated with this CX roundtable; as leaders are becoming all too aware, without the employees, there’s no company—or customers, either.