Iconic brands finding their competitive advantage with XM

Over the last decade businesses and governments have introduced tools and initiatives that have established customer experience (CX) capabilities within their organization, such as voice of the customer programs and journey mapping.

As we look ahead, to remain competitive over the next decade businesses will realign their operations around XM by embedding these same CX capabilities across every core business pillar - customer, employee, product, and brand.

This statement was made by Bruce Temkin, Head of the Qualtrics XM Institute at XM Live, where he outlined the three features of a modern XM program:

• From static listening to dynamic instrumentation - Organizations will shift from an ad hoc approach to listening to “always on” programs enabling them to continuously learn what customers, employees, and the market are thinking and feeling in real time.
• From repetitive reporting to actionable intelligence - Traditional measurement will be replaced by systems of action, where insights feed directly into decision making processes and operational workflows.
• From periodic improvements to adaptive processes - Rather than big scale changes, actionable customer and employee insights will drive iterative improvements overtime - which will be focused on high value and high impact issues.

“Modern XM is about moving from measurement to action. It creates ways for businesses to accelerate and take action. Businesses and governments that embed XM within their operations will drive significant value, and outpace their competitors in every part of business,” said Bruce Temkin.

Iconic brands finding a competitive advantage with XM

To demonstrate the power of XM, at XM Live we heard from leading brands in Asia Pacific about how they are using the technology to find their competitive advantage today.

ANZ: The design & delivery of XM

To stay ahead in the competitive financial services landscape, ANZ - one the region’s leading banking and financial services providers - scaled its customer and employee listening programs with Qualtrics to develop a more holistic understanding of each group’s needs.

Armed with more than 500,000 annual customer responses, 40,000 pieces of employee feedback, and data collected from other research activities, ANZ is able to feed intelligent insights directly into the design and delivery of new products, services, and experiences. By moving beyond measurement and acting on feedback, ANZ is bringing to market new offerings tailored to the specific needs of different customer segments.

To highlight the value of experience to the banking and financial services provider, Simon Edwards, Research & Insights Lead at ANZ, outlined how the drivers of customer value have evolved over time.

“In the old world, the value for the customer came from the product. Now, because experience is so important, value comes from the product and the experience. You therefore need to be able to quantify and measure that value.”

Intuit QuickBooks: Moving from measurement to action

Customer obsession is in the DNA of Intuit QuickBooks - the leading financial software company, which has 50 million customers worldwide. The company is able to take this obsession to new heights with XM by capturing and integrating more insights to redesign its products and enhance business outcomes - such as customer retention, NPS, and growth.

Rather than focus on what customers are saying, Intuit QuickBooks uses XM to understand how they are behaving. This is because what people say and what they do are often two different things. Insights are applied to the company’s design thinking frameworks used to develop new products and services. Alongside this, artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities within modern XM platforms, such as sentiment analysis, enable Intuit QuickBooks to identify and resolve less than perfect experiences in real time.

Intuit QuickBooks’ drive to take action on feedback is evident in how the company defines success.

“Customer obsession begins with listening and measuring success. The metric we hold true is how much have we improved the lives of our customers. Our CEO will often use this metric as a way to validate what we’re doing,” said Scott Downing, Director, International CX Management.

Singtel: Making the new normal the new better in employee experience

Like many companies, Asia’s leading telco Singtel measured employee experience (EX) through its annual employee engagement survey. However, this approach was proving insufficient to drive meaningful change for the company’s 23,000 employees.

“The annual employee engagement survey isn’t efficient in the current climate. Speed and responsiveness is key, and you need more insights to do more meaningful analysis,” explained Lee Choo Tan, VP, People Operations & EX, Singtel

In response, the company shifted from its static approach to instead roll out dynamic listening programs at key moments of the employee lifecycle, such as workplace anniversaries, onboarding, and exit. Feedback from third-party sites like GlassDoor is integrated in the platform also, while pulse surveys - of no more than 5 questions - help Singtel to quickly and easily understand its employee experience in the moment. Between April and November, Singtel launched 12 different pulses and collected 10,000 employee responses.

The range of employee insights being collected by Singtel is made available for managers to view in real time, while results are shared with employees to demonstrate their voices are being heard. Most importantly, Singtel is using the insights to guide how it brings employees back to the office after the pandemic along with new working policies and initiatives aligned with changing expectations.

Modernizing XM

As these brands have demonstrated, XM is about actioning and embedding the three core shifts outlined above: from static listening to dynamic tools and feedback; from repetitive reporting to actionable intelligence.; and from periodic improvements to adaptive processes.

Just as those companies that thrived in 2020 put XM at the center of their business, those that make XM a priority in the next decade can expect to make smarter, faster decisions and outpace competitors at every step.