Dive Brief:
- Activating field support, securing budget and integrating generative AI across customer experience capabilities were CX leaders top challenges in 2024, according to a Deloitte Digital report released last week and shared with CX Dive. Deloitte Digital conducted in-depth interviews with 250 U.S.-based CX leaders, defined as the most senior person in charge of CX.
- The survey found that CX leaders spend 40% of their time making the case for experience. CX leaders who were earlier on in their position tended to dedicate more time to demonstrating value, according to Amelia Dunlop, CXO of Deloitte Digital.
- The survey results “shined a spotlight on the fact that so much of the job right now for the chief experience officer is demonstrating the value and then going and getting the budget to say, ‘Now we understand the value, let's go put more of our firm's resources towards realizing that value,’” Dunlop said.
Dive Insight:
Securing enough budget to implement strategy is becoming more of a challenge as inflation persists and the C-suite continues to demand ROI.
Deloitte Digital found that securing enough budget moved from the ninth-most challenging in 2023 to the second-most challenging in 2024.
Other research highlights the challenge, too. Only 2 in 5 CX leaders expect their budgets to outpace inflation, according to a 2024 Forrester report.
Proving the value of CX initiatives is key to securing a budget.
“There’s so much pressure to prove some kind of value,” Maxie Schmidt, VP and principal analyst at Forrester, told CX Dive last month. “Every team has that same pressure because there’s only so much budget and then companies want to have very good stock prices.”
More tenured CX leaders spend less time proving ROI and more time collaborating with leaders of other departments, Deloitte Digital found.
CX leaders who put in the time early in their careers to demonstrate value build trust with the rest of the company, in turn allowing for more collaboration, Dunlop said.
“You've been able to speak the language of value,” Dunlop said. “We all agree that this is valuable. Now, what are we going to do to scale it?”
