The CX Cast

Partners are essential contributors to business-to-business (B2B) customer experience (CX). Companies leverage partners for everything from developing and delivering marketing campaigns to providing ongoing customer support. That said, many, if not most, B2B CX programs do not manage partners as a component of the end-to-end customer experience. In this episode, we discuss the perils of this approach and the ways in which CX professionals can help their companies enable and manage partners to help deliver their intended experiences. For more guidance on this topic, read the "Integrate Your Business Partners Into Your End-To-End B2B Customer Experience" Forrester report.

Listeners, we'd love to hear from you. Send us a note at [email protected] or tweet at us @CX_Cast.

A handful of famous brands have thrived despite their dreadful customer experience (CX). But now a confluence of digital disruption, consumer hyperadoption, and rising customer expectations threatens to take them down. To acquire and retain customers in this environment, all companies must elevate the role of customer experience in their competitive strategies and commit to playing the long game. Winning the long game won't be easy. In this episode, Forrester VP, Research Director Harley Manning discusses why CX professionals must have a CEO mandate, an outside-in perspective, an innovation mindset, and disciplined execution. For more, read the "The CX Transformation Imperative" Forrester report.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are virtually inevitable in the lives of corporations. Even so, they distract attention from other initiatives — including customer experience (CX). CX pros must maintain momentum during acquisitions and sustain focus on customers after the integration. This episode outlines how CX pros on either side of an acquisition can navigate an M&A event. It tells how they can help the newly merged company deliver a customer experience that's greater than the sum of its parts. To learn more about effectively managing CX through M&A events, read the "Acquisitions Are Not An Excuse For Bad Customer Experience" Forrester report.

For most companies, customer focus is just talk. What separates customer experience (CX) leaders from laggards is not their stated commitment to customers. It's instead their follow-through on that commitment. CX leaders also provide specific guidance that helps all employees act in customer-obsessed ways. In this episode, we discuss how CX leaders bring their cultural values to life and what executives at other companies can learn from them. Want more secrets? Check out the "Five Secrets Of Customer-Obsessed Cultures" Forrester report.

For more on Forrester’s CX forums or to register, visit Forrester’s event site.

Upcoming events:

Washington, D.C. | September 12, 2016

San Francisco | October 20–21, 2016

London | November 15–16, 2016

Customer-obsessed companies need metrics to quantify the business result of customer obsession and to incent customer-focused decisions. But there is no magic metric. Instead, firms must embrace an approach that looks at all financial, customer, operational, and employee metrics from the customer's perspective. In this episode, Forrester Senior Analyst Maxie Schmidt-Subramanian highlights how this perspective changes the way that firms measure, analyze, and optimize interactions across touchpoints. To learn more, read the "How Metrics Drive Your Customer Obsession" Forrester report.

How well do leading brands build loyalty with the quality of their customer experience (CX)? Forrester's US Customer Experience Index, 2016 reveals the top performers in the US as well as the specific brands that you need to beat to take over first place in your own industry. In this episode, Prinicpal Analyst Rick Parrish highlights some of the major changes in the CX Index this year and reveals some of what this data tells us about the role that emotion plays in CX. CX professionals can use this report to inform their ongoing improvement efforts.

Research and blog posts referenced in this episode:

The US Customer Experience Index, 2016 [Report]

The US Customer Experience Index for 2016, Part 1: The Bar for CX Quality Inched Up [Blog Post]

The US Customer Experience Index for 2016, Part 2: CX Plus Digital Equals Disruption [Blog Post]

The US Customer Experience Index For 2016, Part 3: Emotion Holds The Key To CX-Fueled Loyalty [Blog Post]

Companies use journey analytics to improve key customer journeys, evaluate opportunities for journey innovations, and boost retention, enrichment, and advocacy loyalty. In this episode, we talk with senior analyst Joana van den Brink-Quintanilha about how companies are integrating journey analytics into their existing customer journey mapping and CX measurement efforts.

Related research:

Learning From Three Early Adopters Of Customer Journey Analytics

Drive Customer Obsession With Journey Analytics

How Journey Maps Improve CX Measurement Efforts

Forrester has used its CX Index to help consumer brands assess their experiences' business value. Now, we've created a version of the CX Index that addresses the unique needs of customer experience (CX) pros in business-to-business (B2B) technology companies: So we're introducing the B2B Tech CX Index here. This new methodology helps B2B tech firms assess how different stakeholders experience the firms and how these aggregated experiences drive the business' ability to engender loyalty. For more detail and insights, check out the "Introducing The B2B Tech Customer Experience Index" Forrester report by Senior Analyst TJ Keitt.

On average, mobile apps lose three-quarters of their active users within the first three days of installation — and 90% within the first month of use. In response, many brands try to onboard new users with a tutorial that bogs them down and distracts from the main value of the app. In this episode, we discuss best practices for a contextual onboarding experience that will keep customers coming back again and again. To learn more best practices and why they make a difference, see the "Mobile Onboarding Best Practices" Forrester report by Senior Analyst (and co-host) Deanna Laufer.

Customer understanding is the bedrock of great customer experience (CX). However, many firms struggle to build customer research programs that produce the aligned and actionable insights to drive meaningful change. In this episode, Forrester Researcher Kelly Price discusses Etsy's approach to building a cross-functional collaborative research function that keeps the company focused on its customers as it grows. For more, check out the "Case Study: Etsy Invests In Customer Understanding To Steer Growth" Forrester report.