Scaling CX: How Leading Brands Scale Great Customer Experiences

“The fastest growing brands are responding to emails in under an hour.” Daniel Rodriguez, CMO of Simplr, started off his session at the 2020 CXLife Virtual Conference with this powerful statement before diving into Simplr® CXLife Research. In a first-of-its-kind study, we set out to determine how companies scaled customer experiences as they grew.  Amazingly, the research revealed that priorities fell around response times the larger they became. 

During his keynote session, How Brands Build Evangelists Through CX, Daniel explained some of the staggering trends the study shed light on and offered hard-won lessons as a tactical guide to facing and overcoming the challenges of scale in CX.

The Evolving Needs of your CX

“Our team spent six months researching CX trends across 1,300 brands and this was our biggest takeaway–speed matters.” As businesses grow, so does the number of their inbound customer tickets. Ideally, the number of customer tickets resolved would scale linearly with the number of tickets received, but that doesn’t always happen. 

As brands grow, their customer experience should evolve with them. If it doesn’t, many companies see a “compounded decrease in productivity” (AKA, the gap where backlogs thrive and where unhappy customers denounce your business).

As customer experience starts to be impacted by this gap, response and resolution time falls on the list of priorities. The research backed this theory, with companies of different sizes across different industries sharing what metrics they felt were most important to track.

First response time on email fell far down on the list of “extremely important” metrics to track for companies with over $100 million in revenue. “As businesses grew, response time grew less important to CX leaders. Metrics that performed well were highlighted. Metrics that suffered suddenly lowered priority,” Daniel explained.

We asked customers how they felt about slower email response times and most said they were pretty happy with a 7-hour response time. “If you answer (an email) in under an hour, however, there’s a 95% chance you’ll get a 5-star rating.”

The fastest-growing brands are responding to emails in under an hour. These are the brands that are creating evangelists. 

It can be expensive or feel nearly impossible to scale 24/7 support and quick response times across all channels as you grow, so how are other businesses doing it? 

Connect CX Metrics Directly to Revenue

“Transform your customer service team from a cost-center that’s solely focused on optimization into a revenue engine.” – Daniel Rodriguez

64% of companies that surpass $250 million in revenue track revenue metrics like customer retention, sales attribution to customer service, and customer lifetime value. By reporting on these metrics, brands start to view customer service as an important investment in growth, not just a cost. 

Leverage Transformational Staffing and Workforce Management Strategies

There’s no denying that mobile devices have changed the way consumers shop and interact with companies on a global scale. The BBC reported that 1 in 15 purchases happen between 12:00am and 6:00am. By leveraging flexible staffing and workforce management strategies, like on-demand staffing, brands are able to be there when their customers are ready to make a purchase. 

This strategy also alleviates the unpredictability staffing can present and is a scalable work-around to scheduling shifts. 

You can watch a full replay of Daniel’s session at the 2020 CXLife Virtual Conference and find even more CX-related tips and advice, by becoming a CXLife member. You can request to join the CXLife community here.