Your CX ROI metrics roadmap is a cause-and-effect sequence that multiplies growth.

  • All customer experience metrics used today are lagging indicators of growth.
    You’re measuring what already happened with customers. Therefore, it’s lagging.
     
  • Leading indicators are what you are doing that causes the lagging indicator.
    A leading indicator shows what customers will soon experience.

Chief Marketing Officers measure the purple metrics shown below about what happened in the market: customer acquisition cost, margin expansion, sales velocity, customer retention, recurring revenue, expanded purchases, and referral revenue. These are lagging indicators.

CX ROI Metrics Roadmap

Chief Customer Officers measure the gold, blue, and silver metrics shown above.
These metrics are about what customers will soon experience. These are leading indicators.

Gold metrics are the key to multiplying value.

How the CX ROI Metrics Roadmap Works

Gold: First, your CX team facilitates earnest use of customer experience insights for growth efforts:

  • Products and services: new, upgrades, and lite versions.
  • New markets and new customer segments.
  • Business models: pricing, discounts, warranties, etc.
  • Partnerships: mergers, acquisitions, alliances, distributors, etc.

Blue: Second, customer insights use in these growth efforts naturally result in:

  • Right the first time: smoother launches with faster gains.
  • Stopping prevalent issues: rising above chronic stumbling blocks.
  • Support value: data-mining customer comments to discover patterns among customer segments.

CX ROI Metrics Roadmap Sequence

Silver: Third, improvements in blue metrics naturally result in:

  • Freed-up resources: more proactive work, less reactive work.
  • Freed-up customers: more productivity for them allows fruitful engagement with you.
  • Less stress: happier employees increases creativity and productivity.
  • Lower risk: less damage in safety, reputation, etc.
  • More positive word-of-mouth: uninhibited positive storytelling.
  • Less negative word-of-mouth: fewer doubts tainting new or returning customers’ decisions.

Purple: Fourth, improvements in silver metrics significantly boost:

  • Lower customer acquisition costs: fewer proof points needed.
  • Margin expansion: higher price elasticity and lower costs to serve.
  • Sales velocity: faster cycle time for cash arriving in your bank account.
  • Customer retention: longer tenure and lower costs in loyalty programs.
  • Recurring revenue: more retained customers repurchase.
  • Expanded purchases: sole supplier status or product line penetration.
  • Referral revenue: referred buyers make higher margin buys and higher volume buys.

CX ROI Metrics Roadmap Timeline

You’re already measuring the purple metrics. Otherwise, start tracking them now.
Start tracking gold, blue, and silver metrics today, too. This is your baseline.
See the metric definitions at 24 CX ROI Metrics for Your Chief Customer Officer Prosperity Playbook.

CX ROI Metrics Roadmap Timeline

The CX ROI Metrics Roadmap shows what’s possible quarter by quarter:

  1. Gold: Help every growth effort use customer insights.
    Track insights usage rate by organization.
    Fast-track this with CX Leader Masterminds.
  2. Blue: improvements visible within 3-6 months.
  3. Silver: improvements visible within 6-9 months.
  4. Purple: higher trends visible within 9-12 months.

CX ROI Metrics Roadmap Benefits

CX-Inspired Growth BenefitsFirst, follow the green arrow from top to bottom:
CX-inspired growth efforts cause right-the-first-time launches.

Second, follow the green arrow upward:
Right the first time causes positive word-of-mouth, longer tenure, recurring revenue, expanded purchases, and customer referrals, including growth from Promoters.

Third, follow the blue arrow upward:
Freed-up resources reduces customer acquisition costs, which increases margin expansion, and allows more proactive Support, and reduces retention costs.

More about this:
How 4 CX Metrics Drive 20 Growth Metrics

What’s Your Insights Utilization Rate? 24 Ways to Boost 2024 CX ROI

CX ROI Metrics Roadmap Multiplies CX Value

Quadruple gains in your CX ROI Metrics Roadmap by applying this approach to:

  • Strategies: infuse CX insights in every department’s strategy company-wide.
    Align every group to your core-growth customers’ aims and expectations.
     
  • Performance: embed CX insights into every department’s metrics.
    Align every department for minimizing waste and maximizing value.
     
  • Efficiencies: use CX insights to guide all process, policy, and cost decisions.
    Align cost containment to what matters most to customers.
    Avoid shrinkflation, inflation, austerity, layoffs: downward value spiral.

Exponential gains from CX-inspired growth, strategies, performance, and efficiencies are likely.
Alignment cuts waste extensively, improves morale, and frees up creativity and collaboration, in addition to what was described in this article.

Customer-focused business management is the true aim of Chief Customer Officers.
The most-admired brands such as Ritz Carlton, Disney, Virgin, etc., are customer-aligned in all headquarters decisions and actions as well as touchpoint decisions and actions.

Customer-Focused Business