76 Percent of CMOs Believe Their Jobs Are on the Line if Customer Engagement Doesn’t
Satisfy Digitally Demanding Consumers; Only 10 Percent Can Measure Financial Impact
The imperative to compete on the basis of customer experience is heightening the job security risks of chief marketing officers who are struggling to keep up with new digitally driven ways to engage, satisfy and enrich the experience of more mobile, savvy and fickle consumers.
According to a new study from the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council, in partnership with RedPoint Global, chief marketers acknowledge that their jobs could be on the line should customer experience strategies fail. Moreover, nearly half of marketing respondents believe it is possible that their jobs will be at risk should technology investments fail, even though there are other factors that have a direct impact on the role.
The new CMO Council report, titled “The State of Engagement: Bridging the Customer Journey Across Every Last Mile,” reveals that businesses will measure the success of customer experience initiatives on bottom-line improvements like overall revenue growth and increases in individual sales. However, only 10 percent of marketers are able to tie customer experiences back to these business goals in real time. Most (80 percent) are unable to or can only sometimes connect channels of engagement back to business impact while an additional 10 percent are only able to measure against business goals using time-consuming, manual processes that only involve select channels.
Marketers have a mixed view of the state of customer engagement as 47 percent admit they are failing to deliver on the customer expectation of personalization and contextual engagements across the customer journey. Some 41 percent say that systems that fail to connect or deliver a unified view of the customer experience across all touchpoints have done the most to threaten the execution of the CX strategy. Fueled by the increasing demand for individualized experiences from a connected customer, most have adopted a new outlook of advancing with the tools on hand while taking on the role of “chief silo-buster.”
“CMOs have picked up the mantle of owning the development and execution of the customer experience strategy and are fully aware that their jobs depend on the success of these initiatives,” acknowledged Liz Miller, Senior Vice President of Marketing for the CMO Council. “But many are rightfully questioning the patchwork assembly of point solutions that have been amassed in the marketing technology stack. Marketers want to get going…connecting systems and busting silos to put the customer’s expectations above the drama being caused by fragmented tools that fail to deliver results for the business.”
Other findings include:
· Marketers believe they need systems that leverage real-time data to deliver relevant, contextual experiences, ranking this as the No. 1 requirement for customer experience success.
· The second most critical requirement is an organization-wide single view of the customer to ensure uniform and consistent engagement.
· Fifty-one (51) percent hope that with new technology and/or talent, a single view of the customer could be possible; 26 percent struggle to see a path forward, questioning whether a single view is realistic and attainable for the organization.
“The key to being able to deliver great customer experiences starts with having the Golden Record, which provides brands with a deep understanding of each customer by building a complete, single view of that customer,” said John Nash, Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer at RedPoint Global. “CMOs who prioritize capabilities that provide a single point of control over their data and engagement flows are able to deliver relevant and personalized customer experiences that drive higher revenue, coupled with lower interaction costs. These CMOs will be those who meet and exceed the business goals by which they are measured.”