How Customer Experience Impacts Revenue

If your CX program isn’t driving profits, it’s pointless. Many companies start CX programs with the wrong mindset. They jump in because it "feels good," it’s someone’s pet project, or they think it’s just what successful companies do. But here’s the truth: any effort to measure, manage, and improve CX should begin with the end in mind. What business outcome are you trying to achieve? I worked with one company focused on reducing customer churn. We did a Pareto analysis on churn reasons. The data revealed that “dissatisfaction with service and support” was a major driver—and, unlike factors like "M&A" or "losing a key champion," this was 100% within their control. By focusing on understanding and improving the customer journey through service and support, they reduced churn from service issues by 66% in just one year. It was a major win for CX that added percentage points to revenue growth. The key? We tied their CX efforts directly to a strategic objective: reducing churn. Here’s how you can do the same: • Align CX goals with the key objectives of your business. • Listen to your customers’ to understand their goals, needs, and values. • Design experiences that motivate customers to behave in ways that support your business objectives. A CX program without business alignment is just noise. But when you begin with the end in mind, you create value for your customers and your company. What’s one way you’ve aligned CX to your company’s strategic goals?

I used to think I was measuring customer loyalty the right way. Every quarter, I’d report out our NPS score, and every quarter, I’d get the same pushback from leadership: “If our NPS is so high, why are sales down?” “If customers love us, why is churn up?” And honestly? I didn’t have a good answer. I felt dejected as I could feel my credibility and social capital with the execs slip away. I was stuck in the CX trap of measuring advocacy, not behavior. NPS told me customers said they’d recommend us—but it told me nothing about whether they’d actually buy from us again. The lightbulb moment came when I stopped chasing how much customers liked us and started tracking how much they actually spent. That’s when I realized: Loyalty isn’t a feeling. It’s a behavior. So, I pivoted. Instead of leading with NPS, I built our CX strategy around three core metrics that actually predict revenue: 🔺 Likelihood to Purchase Again (Intent) – Are they signaling they’ll come back? 🔺 Repeat Purchase Rate (Behavioral) – Are they actually returning? 🔺 Time to Repeat Purchase (Behavioral) – How long does it take? And guess what happened? 💡 Our CX efforts finally had credibility in the boardroom. When we improved post-purchase experience, I could prove it led to faster repeat purchases. 💡 Marketing and Finance finally saw CX as a growth lever. Instead of reporting on ‘customer happiness,’ I was driving revenue conversations. 💡 We made better investments. Instead of obsessing over ‘improving NPS,’ we focused on shortening the time to second purchase—and sales shot up. The reality is: NPS won’t save you when revenue is down. If you want to be taken seriously as a CX leader, you have to connect the dots between emotion, intent, and action. It’s time to stop measuring how much customers like you and start measuring how much they buy from you. If you’ve had this realization too, let’s talk. Let’s get your CX unf*cked.

More CX programs are being cut, and the reason is painfully clear. Proving the impact of customer experience is easy when you look across industries. Studies from Watermark Consulting, Forrester, the Qualtrics XM Institute, and others consistently show that CX drives business growth. But here’s the catch: Your executives don’t care about cross-industry stats. They care about YOUR company, YOUR customers, and how CX impacts YOUR bottom line. The good news? It’s absolutely possible to connect the dots—and we’ve done it for our clients. The key lies in uncovering how changes in customer behavior—like growing their business with you—tie back to your CX data. Take an insurance company and its agents as an example. There’s always variation: some agents are growing their business with you, while others are shrinking. The question is: why? Here’s where CX data becomes invaluable. Don’t just rely on high-level metrics like NPS or overall satisfaction. Dig deeper into your driver questions and text analytics to uncover what sets the growing customers apart from those who are stagnant or leaving. For instance, we helped one insurance company discover that agents who reported issues with the commission process (not the amount, but the process) were far more likely to shrink their business or leave altogether. In a manufacturing company, we identified that customers with unresolved complaints placed significantly fewer future orders. The truth is that CX is directly linked to business value, but it’s up to us to prove it. This requires more than survey data. You need to integrate financial, behavioral, and operational data to reveal the full picture. Once you do, you can demonstrate the impact of CX and take meaningful action to drive growth. CX isn’t optional. It’s the difference between companies that thrive and those that stagnate. Let’s make sure your organization understands that. #CX #customerexperience #ROI #CXROI