UX leadership roundtable: September ’11

Tuesday night we ran a round-table session to unpack experience design and how it’s viewed within our client’s organisations.  We had perspectives from diverse sectors like financial services, gaming, and energy.  Despite this sector mix, as well as a B2B and B2C split, a common issue emerged:

How do you convince C-suites (CEO, CTO, CFO etc) that putting customers at the heart of your brand experience will improve shareholder value?

For most organisations, shareholder value is what drives decisions around the boardroom table: what can we do to increase revenue and decrease costs?  Increasing the loyalty (and thereby the lifetime value) of customers is one strategic option. If you talk to anyone from sales, they will tell you that this can kill two birds with one stone;  focus on your relationships with existing customers because repeat business is always less costly.

But the consensus from our group seemed to be that this option often receives the lowest priority in strategic planning. This may be partly because it isn’t shiny or exciting, ‘like breaking into new markets and travelling the world’, as one of our clients commented on what often drives his C-suite’s decisions.  It may also partly be because it requires investment in customer experience and the payback may not always come in the following quarter.

But putting your customers at the heart of your brand experience means that, in the social age, your customers do the hard marketing work for you.  One client summed this up as: “let your customers create the value”.

It strikes me that there are a couple of things the user experience sector could take from this discussion:

• We need to gather and share evidence (data, stories, case studies) that shows the power of great customer experience driving loyalty and revenue at a strategic, not just tactical level
• We should help C-suites understand that the tools and technologies now available to both the company and its customers make building and sharing a great customer experience cheaper and quicker than ever before

To do both we’ll need to be prepared to step up and lead the conversation at the most senior level of the business.

29/09/11 Sheff said:

Great article. I believe that in these days of the social web, customers can readily effect future business so its essential to keep them happy. As you mentioned it would be good to see more evidence on the effect customers experience can have on a business.

17/10/11 Sugel said:

.....In my organization the needs of shareholders are often given priority over the needs of customers. Our products dont pay us money our brands dont pay us money nothing else that we spend time doing inventing creating and working on day in and day out pays us any money except by definition our customers. Once you understand this it is easier to understand why customer value is so closely linked to shareholder value and to accept that it is not only short-sighted but downright nonsensical to think that you can serve your shareholders well if you shortchange your customers..Since that is the case its important to recognize that most companies clearly understand how much value customers are creating right now this quarter.