A new product line from Qualtrics, CrossXM, will allow companies to see the influences that employee, customer, and brand experiences (BX) have on each other. These insights can be leveraged to act on the items that will provide the best business impacts.
According to Qualtrics, employee experience metrics such as manager support, career development, and recognition can have a direct, statistically significant effect on customer experience outcomes. With this solution, companies can focus on how each of those individual metrics affects EX, so that prioritized actions are taken, and appropriate resources are assigned.
Another advantage of this solution is the ability to bring together all the disparate experience data from across EX, CX, and BX and apply analytics so that the key drivers are identified. This process is automated, turning a formerly time consuming and manual process into a standard, repeatable process. Importantly, it allows for immediate action.
“Leaders instinctively know that engaged employees deliver great products and great customer service, positively impacting their brand’s reputation as well as boosting customer engagement and spend,” says Brad Anderson, Qualtrics president of products and engineering. “CrossXM gives organizations the ability to predict how employee experience investments will pay off in brand value and customer outcomes, a powerful innovation that will change the way companies prioritize investments in their most important asset—their employees.”
CrossXM Employee and Customer Analytics is currently available and Qualtrics believes it will bring value to senior leadership, human resources, CX leaders, and marketing professionals. CrossXM Brand and Customer Analytics will be available for select audiences in early 2023.
This is an important announcement as it demonstrates the shift away from siloed EX and CX efforts to a more consolidated experience strategy. Many companies are starting to offer both EX and CX capabilities. Few are able to tie it together in a detailed manner yet.
In Dash Research’s recently published Employee Experience report, the tie between EX and CX was identified as a key market driver in the EX sector. The balance between excellent CX and excellent EX is important because it is difficult for one to be optimal without the other. Seventy percent of company leaders say that improvements in EX can lead to improvements in CX, driving revenue gains.
Good EX supports and enhances CX in a multitude of ways. An example of a factor that ties well to both sides of the equation is employee training and development. One trend right now is in-the-moment coaching, Companies that do this right are supporting employees on their journey for growth, using advice in a constructive way, rather than punitive. Better coaching leads to more confidence. Customers can notice that feeling, hopefully resulting in not just a positively wrapped-up touchpoint with a company, but perhaps walking away with the feeling that the company is a place with happy, knowledgeable workers.
Another example is when companies are investing a lot in the customer experience, but their clients are still providing feedback about negative experiences with employees, because those employees are unhappy. The dynamic is increasingly common within the travel and hospitality sector as companies go tech-heavy to solve operational and CX issues, but sometimes neglect their burnt-out workers.
Solutions such as the one being launched by Qualtrics make these suspected ties concrete and measurable. In the first example of in-the-moment coaching, a company can make an educated decision on if that affects CX more than a wellness program or some other EX solution. The benefit of seeing the effects clearly will result in experience investments being better utilized.
Author Information
As a detail-oriented researcher, Sherril is expert at discovering, gathering and compiling industry and market data to create clear, actionable market and competitive intelligence. With deep experience in market analysis and segmentation she is a consummate collaborator with strong communication skills adept at supporting and forming relationships with cross-functional teams in all levels of organizations.
She brings more than 20 years of experience in technology research and marketing; prior to her current role, she was a Research Analyst at Omdia, authoring market and ecosystem reports on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and User Interface technologies. Sherril was previously Manager of Market Research at Intrado Life and Safety, providing competitive analysis and intelligence, business development support, and analyst relations.
Sherril holds a Master of Business Administration in Marketing from University of Colorado, Boulder and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Rutgers University.
