3 steps to gaining stakeholder support for your CX data initiative

Many CX professionals will have difficulty gaining stakeholder support for an initiative during their careers. This difficulty was a key talking points at CX Network’s All Access: Customer Insights and Data Analytics.

For this latest edition in our All Access series, we invited cross-industry, global experts to join our event and discuss how data and analytics can be leveraged to gain internal support for CX initiatives. Read on to learn what our speakers from Lowe’s, PetCo, Cox Automotive and NPSx by Bain & Company had to say.

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Step 1: Gather your data

Our speakers agreed that the first step to gaining support is to understand your data. “It is important to know why you are measuring certain metrics”, Lydia Clayton, AVP contact center operations and center of excellence at Cox Automotive, advised during our third session, How Cox Automotive is leveraging centralized interactions data to identify pain points and work towards predictive CX.

During their session, Elevating customer insights to drive CX alignment, Adam Elliott, independent advisor currently leading Aviva’s insights team, and Holly Felicetta, director of Kinetics AI at NPSx by Bain & Company, referenced the need to understand “loyalty economics”, that is how CX and customer loyalty affects company finances. “Understanding loyalty […] is essential but insufficient”, Elliott warned, before advising the audience that it is equally critical to understand individuals’ emotional motivations as well.

Felicetta built on this and suggested leading with customer insights, using voice of the customer data to familiarize leaders with customers and build the emotional case for centering CX. To take this one step further, she said, CX professionals should try to put senior executives themselves in front of customers to further build emotional awareness of customer needs.

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Step 2: Know your audience

Once data has been gathered and emotional motivations have been gaged, it is important to understand what the wider business priorities are and how they are set, said Travis Gelbrich, VP customer care and contact center at PetCo, during his session How to leverage data to foster a culture of customer advocacy and prioritize CX initiatives. Gelbrich cautioned that failing to understand this will make CX transformation an “uphill battle”.

This was echoed by Elliott and Mary Beth Findlay Sisti, director of product management at Lowe’s. In her session, The power of storytelling: how to secure stakeholder support for your CX initiatives, Findlay Sisti noted that “sometimes you are so passionate about what you are working on that it seems obvious how important it is”. She pointed out however, that it is important to remember that business leaders are always dealing with a multitude of problems and projects and, therefore, have many different focuses.

To get the attention of busy executives, Findlay Sisti and Elliott advised considering how a new CX initiative fits into the existing problems or focuses within the business. Practitioners can then frame the CX problem the initiative addresses in the context of the problems senior leadership is facing and addressing, Elliott said. Findlay Sisti explained that her method is to think of three things the wider business is focused on (such as improving conversion rates or average order value) before mapping out how her initiative or project fits into this.

Gelbrich and Findlay Sisti both noted the importance of staying curious when trying to get internal support and keeping an open mind. Findlay Sisti advised being dedicated to building a network across teams. This, she said, will improve your knowledge of other teams’ roles and processes and illuminates areas where your initiative can be implemented. Internal networking encourages collaboration, opening the floor for more diverse suggestions on how CX processes can be improved across the customer journey. Gelbrich advised considering how you can help other teams and leaders achieve their own goals. By offering to remove an obstacle for them, he said, they will be more likely to help you in return.

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Step 3: Present your case

Once the correct data has been gathered and internal motivations are understood, it is time to present the case for CX. Our speakers also offered practical advice on how best to do this. Gelbrich suggested finding a similar meeting or process and adding your initiative into that, rather than creating an entirely new meeting or process, adding that “it is much easier to leverage a muscle that the organization already has”.

Equally important is to figure out how your audience digests information, Findlay Sisti said, suggesting that CXers ask themselves the question “are [my audience] numbers people or are they more creative?”. Elliott said that ideally, you should ask senior leaders who already support your case to help present it to the other leaders. He referenced his time working at E.ON, when he asked the company’s finance leader to present the cost benefits of high NPS scores to the CEO.

Finally, Findlay Sisti said, do not underestimate the power of good, visually appealing presentations!

To access the sessions referenced (and more!) please register for an on-demand viewing link here.