Maxie Schmidt

Most companies devote so much time and attention to surveying employees that they overlook other sources of insights. What’s more, they fail to use the insights they do collect to make employee experience (EX) improvements. That’s why Sam Stern and I published a new report called “EX Measurement Best Practices: New Data Sources, New Insights, […]

Executives in nearly one out of two organizations use Net Promoter Score (NPS)* to gauge CX success. This is what CX professionals told us in our recent survey. Are you wondering if NPS is right for you? Are you trying to find the right top-level CX metric for your organization? Then check out my new […]

You know customer journeys matter. But unless your company is the exception, you probably don’t know how well each journey performs. Does it . . . deliver value to customers? . . . meet short-term and long-term organizational goals? . . . help improve employee experience? . . . shine in make-or-break moments? . . […]

How do you measure customer effort? Most customer experience (CX) pros use surveys. While the question text and scale they use can differ, the resulting score measures the level of effort. But we need to move beyond only measuring the level of effort. My new report explains why and gives suggestions for improving customer effort […]

Most firms love to talk about the value of customers but don’t get value for customers right. That’s ironic because customers that get value create business value in return by increasing profitability and market share. Academia has written about value for customers for decades. But businesses have been sluggish and incomplete in applying it. We […]

If you tell employees to apologize when a customer shares feedback about a bad experience, think again! Customers give you feedback because they want you to hear them and because they want you to improve the experience for next time. And most customers like it if somebody relates to the pain they might’ve experienced. A […]

This is part 3 of my blog series on the future of CX measurement (read part 1, part 2, and part 4). I recently shared my research on the future of CX measurement in Professor Kay Lemon’s applied marketing management class at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management. (Thank you for the invite!) The students were wonderful […]

This is part 1 of my blog series on the future of CX measurement (read part 2, part 3, and part 4). CX pros can learn a lot from the inverted U theory. It describes that more is better . . . until it isn’t. This theory is also called the Yerkes-Dodson law, and Malcolm Gladwell […]

This is part 2 of my blog series on the future of CX measurement (read part 1, part 3, and part 4). If you think of the app of ride-sharing giant Uber as an example for how to collect customer feedback, think again. (For those who haven’t used it recently, here is how it works: After a […]

“Trending” reminds me of the fairy tale The Magic Porridge Pot, in which the pot wouldn’t stop cooking porridge and flooded the entire village. Just like that, CX professionals drown in an ever-increasing flood of metrics that they need to measure and report over time. This leaves CX professionals: Handcuffed. CX pros spend time that […]

Many companies ask their customers “How likely are you to recommend us to a friend?” However, for most brands, advocacy — positive word of mouth — isn’t the key to revenue growth. Retention and enrichment matter much more. Retention is when current customers continue to buy your products and services. Enrichment is when current customers […]

Eighty-six percent of CX professionals we recently surveyed say that the ROI of CX isn’t well established in their firm. Yikes! To be fair, building a CX business case can be hard. And even when you’ve built one, you may discover that it’s not compelling enough and therefore you miss out on the funding you […]

CX surveys are the butt of jokes in dinner party conversations and comedy sketches. On social media, people gleefully tweet examples of surveys gone wrong. Just type the three words “CX,” “survey,” and “fail” into a Twitter search . . . But this is no laughing matter if you are in a CX role. Bad […]

This is part 4 of my blog series on the future of CX measurement (read part 1, part 2, and part 3). Let’s face it, most CX measurement programs could use a revolution — AI or otherwise. Because CX measurement programs are: Crumbling. CX measurement relies too much on surveys. But transactional surveys capture only between 2% and 7.5% […]

Of course you should use journey maps to define CX metrics — it’s the only way to define outside-in CX metrics that: Capture important pain or peak points. Measure the right CX drivers. Align operational metrics with customers’ expectations (e.g., how you measure delivery times). But why are only 39% of CX pros using journey maps […]

Tying CX performance to monetary incentives backfires. Every time. Often in spectacular, unforeseen ways. And while we have seen some firms take the leap into a world without monetary CX incentives, tying accountability for CX to money is still a common shortcut in CX transformations. Unfortunately, that weakens employee morale and creates bad CX. In […]

What is the right top-line CX metric? I lead the CX measurement research at Forrester and get this question a lot. Usually clients ask whether Net Promoter Score (NPS)* is best, or whether customer satisfaction or effort make more sense, or whether there is something new and exciting coming up. So I thought I’d share […]

Many clients have asked me about my thoughts on the recent blog post by Jared Spool who says Net Promoter Score (NPS*) is a harmful metric. I then usually mention that he is making good points but that there is another post by Aga Szóstek who says the believe in a silver bullet is the truly […]

If you want to make the case for CX, check out the new data we just published in the report “Drive Business Growth With Great Customer Experience, 2017” (paywall). In our analysis, we modeled the effect of changes in CX on loyalty and business growth for 17 industries. We included four new industries per popular demand: Health […]