Customer Experience (CX) Strategy: 5 Hurdles You May Face

Developing an effective customer experience (CX) strategy is a key step to creating an exciting and engaging customer pool. However, customer experience leaders still face challenges in turning that strategy into a reality.

SmartCX recently surveyed more than 350 CX leaders regarding how prepared they felt to meet — and exceed — present and future customer experience needs. Here’s what the data suggests are the top issues that CX leaders are facing:

Poor Customer Information

For a customer experience strategy to be successful, it must be grounded in data. However, top CX leaders still feel as if they’re missing key information about their customer base. 41% of survey respondents don’t feel confident they have access to all of the information necessary to truly comprehend their consumers and in turn deliver better experiences.

No Omnichannel Experience

Modern consumers want to shop in a manner that is most convenient to them, which means they may check the availability of items in store while at home before leaving to make their purchase in-store. Similarly, shoppers may want to try out items in a store, but buy them online at a later time. Managing the accessibility and overall ease of this experience is something that top CX leaders aren’t quite sure they’re prepared for. In fact, 41% of respondents felt unable to design multiple channel experiences across both traditional and digital channels.

Unadaptable CX

Personalized experiences not only make sales, but they encourage customers to develop trust with brands and in turn grow a sense of loyalty. However, 42% of respondents report being unable to adapt experiences specific to each customer, with only 29% of respondents feeling confident that they can.

No CX Improvement Measuring

It’s one thing to commit to making strides in improving how your company handles CX, but there’s no way to know if any changes are effective when you’re unable to measure those improvements. 57% of respondents report being unsure or not having enough knowledge of what to measure in order to indicate their customer experience strategy is getting better.

Slow CX Investment

Though leaders may understand the importance of developing customer experience strategies, they still have to convince the decision makers of their companies to invest fast enough to stay current with technological advancements. The majority of respondents thought their companies were lagging, and only 13% of those surveyed believed their companies are keeping pace with emerging and changing technologies.