It’s an all-too common pitfall: CX leaders fail to connect their metrics and initiatives to business objectives.

A Forrester survey found that 3 in 5 CX leaders struggled to link their benchmarks to business metrics last year. Failure to do so can jeopardize CX efforts. Demonstrating ROI is essential to garnering buy-in from leadership; not doing so can threaten budgets and stifle cross-department collaboration. 

“There’s an organizational risk, and then there’s an existential risk for CX teams,” Colleen Fazio, senior CX analyst at Forrester, told CX Dive earlier this year. “CX teams have to prove their efforts on making money and saving money for organizations to continue to be effective within their organizations.”

Data science fundamentals and learning the language of the C-suite can help CX leaders communicate their findings, experts told CX Dive.

And investments are paying off. CX leaders are seeing ROI in different places, from data analytics and generative AI efforts to shoring up CX basics and growing customer satisfaction. 

Here are 7 stories on identifying and communicating ROI: