Bain. & Co., Kantar and Qualtrics want to establish new global standards for businesses that will help companies link CX efforts to brand growth.
Released last week, the proposed standards consolidate assessment tools from all three companies, including Bain & Co.'s NPS, to create a framework that moves beyond a simple metric for measuring customer satisfaction.
The goal is to create a definitive foundation for benchmarking CX.
“CX is the single most important driver of business growth,” Rob Huijboom, global head of customer experience at Kantar, told CX Dive. “If that's the case, then where the heck are the standards? How can it be possible to do this in a professional way without having those standards?”
Bain, Kantar and Qualtrics are soliciting feedback on the standards through Aug. 31. They expect to finalize and launch the standards on Oct. 1. The framework is divided into three areas:
- Culture, which measures how brands align with their company purpose and values across the enterprise. This includes employee experience, which has a direct impact on the customer experience.
- Capability, which examines how businesses process different sources of information, from customer feedback to transaction data, and use these insights throughout the organization.
- Execution, which looks at how CX investments have an impact on business values like growth. This includes whether customers are understood in terms of their value to the brand, and how well CX is understood throughout the organization.
The root of the problem
Businesses only began to view customer experience as a differentiator in the early 2000s, and leaders still lack a comprehensive framework to guide related investments.
Misconceptions about what CX is and what it can offer are common across multiple industries, according to Stan Swinton, EVP at Bain and Company and and the principal author of the standards. Customer experience is more than metrics — it’s a foundational element of a successful business.
“I think most CX programs are being relegated in the executive suite and the boardroom to the arbiters of an NPS or CSAT score, when really what they need to be are the arbiters of customer value creation, acquisition and retention, and growth,” Swinton told CX Dive.
CX culture holds a prominent place in the new standards, which could help CX gain a foothold across the entire business. The framework prioritizes connecting mission statements like customer obsession with behavior across the organization, from the highest executive to the people working with customers on the front line.
This includes making sure leaders are trained on the company’s purpose and regularly spend time working with customers and employees.
“We couldn't imagine a set of standards without culture at the heart of it, but culture isn't just communications or the CEO’s office,” Swinton said. “It is everybody in the organization with a clear mission translated into clear values and behaviors and the decisions that follow off the back of that.”
The capability standards aim to guide CX leaders who want to connect disparate data points with relevant investments. Companies have plenty of information, but using that data to pinpoint investments that will generate a return on investment is easier said than done.
Execution is the most important part of the framework, according to Swinton. The connection between CX and business execution is often ignored, but it’s the place where customer sentiment translates into value creation — and proper execution is how CX leaders get a seat at the executive table.
“Without [execution], none of your insights have any impact whatsoever,” Swinton said. “It's like an X-ray that you never even bothered to look at.”
