📊 One big question—data of the week

Please take 5 seconds to answer next week's question. Multiple choice: Do you reach out to Promoters and ask for referrals?

Here's last week's question:

🧠 How to Get Buy-In in Customer Experience

Getting buy-in is fundamental across the Net Promoter lifecycle, from getting started to turning insight into action.

You’re not alone in finding it a tricky part of corporate life.

“A middle manager’s initial reaction to organizational change is often to suspend judgment. Then, when there’s so much as a hint of any trouble, they’ll gladly jump in to attack your effort and devastate it.”—CEO of Standard Chartered Consumer Banking

Every new initiative faces resistance, even those of the CEO.

In this excellent article, the writer offers three successful approaches to bringing about change:

1. Tell it like it is

Tip: Infuse your decision-making process with the brutal facts of reality. Be open and offer complete disclosure about the change you’re trying to make.

Key quote: “What makes these efforts work is much more a matter of an appeal to feelings than to thinking. It’s showing, more so than telling, using vivid, compelling examples—in a way that delivers a smack in the gut.”

Breaking it down for CX: Savvy CXers will aim to identify why people are slow to adopt or feel motivated by an NPS program.

Try to address inertia by showing your employees real customer feedback, not your opinions or numbers.

And, when managing up, use examples of the financial impact of a Promoter vs. Detractors—talk about what's in it for them.

For example, this chart in our article on Earned Growth clearly shows the potential for building an NPS program:

2. Break the initiative down into manageable chunks

Tip: Break down huge projects into smaller ones to show momentum and progress. Let your teams feel the impact of winning continuously.

Key quote: “A multiyear change project across the organization can seem overwhelming to any one person or workgroup. To mitigate those effects, break the project down into discrete phases or steps, complete with interim goals.”

Breaking it down for CX: This concept of “chunking” lowers the threat level of major change. Our framework, Measure-Act-Grow, is a perfect example of this. We don't encourage you to jump too far ahead. Instead, focus on actually running your first survey, then optimize response rates and close the loop with Detractors. When the time comes, so will the focus on growth tactics. The trick is to keep your team moving forward and keep showing off your results.

3. Hear employees out

Tip: Your relationships might be the issue, not resistance to change.

Key quote: “He classifies resistance to change in three broad categories: “I don’t get it,” “I don’t like it,” and “I don’t like you.” The latter two are emotional reactions to the change or the change messenger. Overcoming such resistance requires probing and good listening.”

Breaking it down for CX: Often managers in other departments just don’t feel heard, so they choose to not trust it and don’t like it. There’s often no better remedy than getting key people (1) on the phone to chat regularly and (2) getting them onboard early in the decision-making process so they feel part of it.

📚 Top tip from us on buy-in

One way to get buy-in is to use benchmarking. 

We see this work all the time to stoke the competitive fires across a company.

Here are three examples:

1. Show that your competitors have higher Net Promoter scores. Point to that as a reason for their success and a reason to invest more in your program.
2. Benchmark internally, one department or country versus another. Compare NPS scores publicly to encourage positive change.
3. Benchmark more than just the score. Are some countries not implementing a VOC program? Show them others who are and ask why they’re the odd one out.

👥 Q&A with an Experience Leader (with tips on buy-in)

Here's a quick Q&A with Noriko Zingariello, Director of Customer Experience at Axway. 

She built their VOC program from the ground up with a newly formed CX team and increased NPS by 37 points over 4 years.

Question: How do you measure the success of your VOC program?

Answer: We track NPS, CSAT, response rate, and internal consumption of VoC data.

Question: Is that the same way you report the success of your program to C-Suite leadership?

Answer: Yes, but we also correlate these VOC metrics with financial outcomes like revenue growth and retention.

Question: What's your #1 tip for someone looking to improve the impact of their VOC program?

Answer: Share the results broadly and often within the organization. Employee engagement is key. You also need to build executive sponsorship and leadership buy-in.

💡 Key takeaway: Want your program to be a success? Shout about results widely and often to get engagement.

💡 Key takeaway: Talking to the executive board? Speak in terms of financial outcomes to make them care and buy into your work.

Want to do a mini Q&A? Fill out this form here.

🎧 What we’re listening to in the office this week

Villainy, Local Natives: "Local Natives is an American indie rock band based in Silver Lake, Los Angeles. Their debut album, Gorilla Manor, was first released in the UK in November 2009, and later released in the US on February 16, 2010."

CustomerGauge provides B2B experience management software to companies in complex industries like CPG, Manufacturing, Logistics, and Technology. Interested in working with us? Just reply to this email.