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Experience Management

5 ways to improve your business with XM in 2021

In our rapidly changing world, it’s critical businesses and governments have the ability to take action on what matters to their customers, employees, and the wider market with confidence and precision.

We’ve witnessed this trend through 2020. Businesses that took action during this year’s events have been in a stronger position to respond to the challenges faced. And as we look ahead these same organizations are primed to deliver success in our “new normal”.

This is where experience management (XM) technologies come in. Modern XM tools, like the Qualtrics Experience Management Platform™, give you the insights you need to take action with confidence and precision. For example, the launch of Volkswagen Group Australia’s ecommerce site in response to changing consumer behaviors and preferences delivered $36million of total sales in just a handful of months.

5 ways to improve your business with XM in 2021

To help you move forward, we’ve outlined 5 ways to unlock the value of XM in your business:

1. Take quick and targeted action against high-value, high impact issues

Being able to take personalized action on feedback in the moment is arguably the most important thing your business needs to focus on in 2021. For instance, a consistent finding throughout the pandemic was that demonstrating care for your customers and employees are two of the most important drivers of brand trust at this time.

By identifying the unique drivers of great experiences for your customers and employees allows you to pinpoint high-value, high-impact issues to address. Surfacing and taking action on these opportunities helps you to optimize the value delivered to your customers and employees and optimize your investments - for both the business and customers. Further, being able to tailor experiences for high-value customers or segments allows the business to drive revenue towards the most profitable areas.

As a result, new-found abilities to take action need to be formalized in 2021 with a powerful XM platform. Leveraging the power of XM allows you to quickly and easily identify experience gaps across your business from a single platform, while predictive intelligence and statistical analysis tools like Qualtrics iQ make it effortless to uncover insights hidden deep in open text.

2. Listen from all angles at all times

Such is the rate of change today, pre-set engagements or quarterly pulses - such as employee engagement programs, customer sentiment studies, or brand trackers - do not deliver the insights businesses need to move forward. These are too often outdated by the time they are acted on.

In 2021 the rate of change will not decrease - if anything it will accelerate. As a result, it’s crucial businesses have the ability to identify the moments that matter and capture feedback in them - be it direct or indirect - to fuel continuous improvements.

Importantly, feedback should be captured from every single channel people use to talk about your business - from direct email and website feedback through to online reviews on social media, communication via chat platforms, and in-store - and include qualitative and quantitative responses. Collecting a steady stream of experience data (X data) in these moments helps businesses close experience gaps at scale, and resolve - or optimize - issues before they arise.

See how iconic brands including Mitsubishi Motors, Intuit, Singtel, and ANZ are delivering iconic experiences with XM.

3. Break free from basic data measurement

As a result of transforming the way businesses listen to customers, employees, and the wider market, businesses will gain access to a plethora of valuable insights into the user experience. These insights are critical to the actions businesses need to take in 2021.

To drive optimum results, its key your XM platforms offer intelligent automated actions, which ensures feedback is routed to the people that need to see it in the systems they are used to working in. This ensures feedback seamlessly integrates into the way people are already working. XM platforms should also leverage the power of AI to trigger workflows based on a pre-configured set of parameters, as well as filter out any fraudulent or “spam-like” responses.

4. Get full control of your insights programs for faster, smarter insights

Having full autonomy of your listening programs is paramount to ensure you can operate at the speed customers and employees demand in 2021.

In this new environment, business needs a new approach to conducting research, removing some of the reliance on traditional providers in this space. Qualtrics recommends you have a flexible approach whereby you can quickly and easily scale capabilities in-house to meet business needs. This smarter, more cost-effective approach to listening ensures insights deliver maximum value to the business by bringing you closer to the insights and giving you full control of analysis, what’s being asked, and who’s being asked.

5. Become the purpose-driven organization you strive to be

Brand purpose has been put under the spotlight like never before by 2020’s social justice movements.

Companies now need to demonstrate how they are living the values they preach. And it’s critical they align with issues their customers and employees value. This provides a greater purpose to strengthen ties and relationships for lasting, positive success.

Central to this is understanding what is happening in your organization, and why it is happening. This is where XM technology and practices can help businesses uncover insights and direct leaders toward the high impact actions they can take.

XM is the future of business

As businesses move forward, the impact of 2020 on customer and employee expectations will be long lasting. People will continue to adapt and evolve to the changing world around us, demanding new and better experiences.

This is why it’s critical you have an XM system of action enabling you to quickly and confidently respond to the changing world around you.


See our Experience Management Platform in action