Navigating the “Do More With Less” Imperative for CX

By Nate Celnik, Associate Director, CX Measurement at Material

Companies of all sizes and across all industries are feeling the pressure of economic headwinds and are cutting budgets, balancing headcount with AI and trying to be more resilient to withstand whatever happens in the market.

CX teams are feeling the impact. Typically, CX departments are viewed as cost centers rather than revenue generators, which has historically made them vulnerable to downsizing. The directive for today’s CX leaders is clear — work smarter, demonstrate value and “do more with less.”

As a former “team of one” CX leader at a financial services company, I understand how hard it can be to maximize the value from a small CX program under internal and external constraints.

In a business environment where these constraints put pressure on everyone to “do more with less,” CX teams have to be laser-focused on things that have demonstrable impact: both for the business, and for the customer.

To Build Mutual Value with Customers, Cut the Fluff

Let’s be honest: there’s a lot of fluff in surveys. And when our surveys become overloaded, outdated, or self-serving, the CX program can lose focus, relevance and engagement. Asking too much of your customers — and continuing the status quo of asking the same questions you’ve always asked and analyzing the signals in the same way as before — can be an inefficient use of finite time and financial resources because you miss the opportunities to optimize and streamline your process.

So why are we still talking about surveys when everyone says they’re dying? They provide important context to the data you’re seeing and can give you a balanced perspective rather than just hearing complaints or issues.

Get more CX bang-for-your-buck by asking less and connecting feedback with other meaningful data — focusing on the most important, high-impact business questions. Then enrich those insights with what you already know — how much customers are spending, how often they’re contacting support, how long they’ve been loyal or how their experience differs by channel. By focusing on the questions that you need to ask — and by asking them in ways that are clear and easy for the customer to understand — you can unlock new insights. Cutting out the fluff like this can also avoid survey fatigue among your audience, and they will thank you with their attention and higher-quality answers. Better, more judicious survey design, tied with operational signals, provides a complete view for more valuable and more actionable insights.

To Demonstrate Value to Decision-Makers, Tell a Compelling Story

Effectively communicating the insights gleaned from your CX program is just as important as cutting out the fluff. When teams are pushed to demonstrate value, CX insights cannot just be seen as static numbers. They need to be catalysts.

Framing the insights as a compelling story for business leaders and decisionmakers can ensure they connect and the value resonates with those responsible for supporting the CX program. Bring the voice of the customer to the table, while also making it interesting for executives to engage in the process (Hint: Find out what matters most to them — retention, growth or something else — then translate that back into a CX pain point that links back to some of those things.). Finding the linkage between those two can solve problems for both the customer and the business and add more focus to your strategy.

To Maximize Value for the Business, Cover Your Blind Spots

It can be difficult to question the status quo and take advantage of opportunities for meaningful change and growth when you’re a one-person or a small CX team. Small teams don’t always have the bandwidth to challenge assumptions and embedded ways of working within a CX program. It can be hard to see strategic opportunities when you’re so focused on just executing day-to-day tasks, juggling more balls than there are hands available.

In my experience as a one-person team, I had big objectives but had to stay focused on my limited budget and time. Many CX measurement tools offer DIY and AI functionality, so I wanted to do what I could within those tools on my own. But the decision to partner with a team of platform experts — whose insights included advanced data integrations and strategic guidance — opened up new possibilities and maximized the ROI of my CX program.

Everyone has blind spots, and it is a smart investment of time and financial resources to have those blind spots covered. That’s why it is important to strategically balance DIY and AI solutions with an established partner that can complement your current team capacity and bring dimensions that would be hard to create on your own — ultimately leading to a CX program that drives measurable impact for the business and the customer.

A Trusted Partner to Help You Punch Above Your Weight

An external partner like Material can bring best practices, question assumptions and lead to more strategic and effective CX programs. And working with a trusted partner can help leverage the maximum potential of industry-leading platforms like Medallia, Qualtrics or Alchemer, which can unlock even more demonstrable impact.

In times of “do more with less,” it’s critical to be able to link the impact of your CX initiatives to the bottom-line and prove its dollars-and-cents impact. But that can be a real challenge without a partner who can provide a methodological and strategic lens to help you decide where to invest and how to evolve your program.

Whatever constraints and pressures you’re feeling right now, Material’s team of CX experts can help you execute a CX program that punches above its weight and delivers that real, quantifiable impact both your business and your customers need.

Want to learn more about how Material can help you “do more with less” and maximize your CX’s program’s value? Start the conversation today.