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4 Fatal CX Measurement Mistakes Every Enterprise Should Avoid

By Special Guest
Steve Offsey, VP Marketing, Pointillist
March 30, 2020

Customer-centric organizations are on track to invest more than $10 billion this year to measure customer experience.  So, why have 86% of companies failed to improve customer experience, according to Forrester’s 2019 Customer Experience Index Report?

An individual customer’s experience isn’t defined by a single interaction.  It develops over the course of multiple episodes, or journeys, which comprise a sequence of interactions over time.  A single journey can span days, weeks, or months, and multiple channels or touchpoints.  Moreover, customers typically participate in more than one journey at a time, like a customer that needs to resolve a billing issue in the midst of an onboarding journey.

Today, CX leaders are elevating their measurement programs by measuring customer experience within the context of customer journeys.  CX teams can maximize the success of their measurement programs by avoiding these four fatal mistakes:

Mistake #1: Failing to connect journeys to business outcomes

Your customers interact with your brand in order to meet specific goals, needs, or expectations.  A customer journey is the series of steps they take to achieve that goal, such as opening an account, upgrading a service, resolving a problem, or paying a bill.

The goal at the end of each customer journey should also map to a specific business outcome, such as an initial purchase, a payment, or a closed support ticket.  This way, you will be able to more easily prioritize those journeys that are worth investing time and resources to measure.

By connecting customer journeys to desired business outcomes, you will better connect your business goals with those of your customers.  In this way, you can improve customer experience and achieve key business objectives, such as revenue growth, cost savings, or customer retention.

Mistake #2: Measuring CX at a single touchpoint at the expense of the overall experience

Many enterprise teams manage and measure customer experience in silos consisting of one or two touchpoints.  The contact center operations team analyzes call data, the marketing team evaluates email and web data, the CX team focuses on voice of the customer feedback, and so on.

But, measuring interactions in silos doesn’t benefit your customer or your business.  While one channel may perform well, your business teams are unable to see how interactions in other touchpoints affect customers and, ultimately, KPIs.

For example, companies are often mystified when a customer, who reported a high customer satisfaction (CSAT) score, churns.  In reality, the CSAT survey only captured the customer’s satisfaction with a single interaction – and not the entire experience.

CX teams that measure customer experience at isolated touchpoints fail to quantify the impact customer journeys have on overall CX and business goals.  For instance, a customer may have to resolve a series of billing issues over a period of time.  When a particular issue is resolved quickly, the customer may rate that particular call center experience highly.  However, the continual recurrence of billing issues will likely frustrate the same customer, eventually resulting in more drastic action, such as downgrading service, decreasing credit card usage, or even canceling service or closing the account.

Assuming a customer is happy because of a high CSAT score after a single interaction neglects the rest of that customer’s experiences with your business.  By measuring CX within the context of all the journeys customers have participated in, you will get a clearer picture of their overall experiences and be better equipped to determine how to improve them.

Mistake #3: Focusing on the wrong CX improvements

You’re short on time and resources are limited.  Before you allocate either to optimizing CX, you need to know which improvements will result in the greatest impact for both your customers and your business.

If you measure specific interactions within a single touchpoint, you may find areas that are ripe for improvement.  However, quick wins or minor enhancements won’t produce the results your business needs for future success.

By measuring journeys and end-to-end experiences, you can identify opportunities to optimize CX in the long-term, quantify their potential impact, and prioritize the actions that will yield the best results.

Mistake #4: Failing to make CX measurement data available to all employees

Traditionally, functional teams are left to measure their own performance.  To fully realize the value of measuring CX using customer journeys, CX measurement insights must be shared across your organization.

For example, providing call center agents with a single view of the customer allows agents to have the most information possible to resolve problems on the first contact.  It empowers them to provide consistency and continuity in every interaction.

Integrating performance data is a critical step in your journey toward effective customer experience management and measurement.  When every customer interaction with a company is contextual and shows the company knows who the customers are and what they need, customers are far less frustrated by the time they reach a human.  In this way, you empower your employees to improve both customer satisfaction and business results.

Now, it’s your turn

Ultimately, effective CX measurement requires connecting customer journeys to business outcomes and prioritizing improvement opportunities based on them.  By analyzing end-to-end experiences rather than interactions within siloed touchpoints and sharing these insights across your organization, you will be able to positively impact CX, drive business success, and take your CX measurement program to the next level.

About the author:  Steve Offsey heads up marketing at Pointillist, a leading customer journey analytics platform that enables CX, marketing and analytics teams to manage, measure, and improve customer journeys.  Pointillist makes it easy to enhance CX and achieve desired business outcomes.



Customer experience technologies and strategies are evolving along with other communications and engagement tools, and are changing the way businesses interact with customers and with internal teams.  These evolving technologies and trends, including how AI and machine learning are impacting customer service, are the crux of Future of Work Expo 2021.  Taking place at the brand new Miami Beach Convention Center, June 22-25, 2021 as part of the #TechSuperShow. Future of Work will again sit beside its collocated events – ITEXPO, SD-WAN Expo, MSP Expo, IoT Evolution, The Blockchain Event, and more – to deliver a compete learning and networking opportunity for business leaders who need to know what new technologies will drive their companies into the future.




Edited by Erik Linask
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