Customer Experience (CX) Leaders At Verizon, Autodesk And Prudential Are Going Beyond NPS

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

Is Net Promoter Score (NPS) still relevant? How can you transfer insights and data into meaningful actions? And how do you hire the right people to meet your Keep Performance Indicators (KPIs) and success metrics? Those were the questions I asked a panel of esteemed executives at a LinkedIn Live interview.

The guests were Brian Higgins, chief customer experience officer at Verizon Consumer, Elisabeth Zornes, chief customer officer at Autodesk, and Abhii Parakh, head of customer experience at Prudential. Their answers are important to any leader making decisions that impact the customer experience.

NPS Is A Foundational Metric, But Its Role Is Evolving

NPS is a powerful metric when used properly. It’s a simple question that determines whether a customer likes you enough to recommend you. From that single question, a follow-up question could seek further insight or action can be taken to improve what’s not working and elevate what is working. So, the first question I asked was about using NPS as a primary metric.

• Parakh led off by saying, “No metric is perfect. Whether it’s NPS or something else, it’s always about a combination of tactics and measurements to get the insights on what our customers and advisors want. … We run the numbers on how much more value is being driven by our promoters or passives versus detractors, and we see a very meaningful connection between the two.” He cited three key benefits: effectively tracking long-term relationships, correlation with growth metrics and providing actionable insights.
• Higgins said that Verizon uses NPS to benchmark in two important places. He said, “I want to look at how we are benchmarking against the competition and then against ourselves.” He looks at three areas: one, is Verizon growing or churning? The second is measuring interaction, both digital and with their reps. The third is taking a look at the overall health of the business. And in addition to measuring customer satisfaction, Verizon also uses NPS for employee satisfaction. If employees aren’t happy, the customer is going to feel it.
• Zornes uses the measurement to strike a balance between Autodesk’s long-term relationships and direct engagement. She explained, “NPS is a great, long-lasting customer impression measurement for services, solutions and products, but we are in the age of digital first engagements, so we, of course, also measure specific moments in the digital journey along with customer effort scores.” While NPS is a foundational metric at Autodesk, they also use the Deloitte Trust ID to assess transparency, capability, reliability and care.

Bring Numbers To Life Through Employees

Competition turns companies and their products into commodities. All three companies represented on the panel have competition. Assuming the products and services do what they are supposed to do and meet their customers’ needs, what differentiates them from competitors is experience. Often, that experience is driven by employees. The next question focused on the hiring criteria that align with CX KPIs.

• Zornes said, “The internal team and culture are really what determines the customer experience for our customers. So it’s absolutely critical we bring the right talent on board and foster it accordingly.”
• Higgins focuses on three big areas for hiring. First, Verizon wants a wide range of experience and knowledge. Second, they want employees to act as “CX detectives,” meaning they never let small details get by. Listen and pay attention to the customer feedback and recognize the power of the details. Third, and what Higgins says is most important, is empathy. “A little voice in the back of your head says, ‘I don’t know if the customer is right, but that doesn’t matter. You’ve got to believe in them and make it right for them.’”
• Parakh says, “It’s super important for any customer-facing role. But I would also say that in addition to customer experience roles, I think that a customer-obsessed mindset is important for any business role. It’s not just the CX team. I think customer experience is everybody’s job. So, across the company, we need to be looking for folks who have empathy for the customer, a growth mindset and familiarity with CX, as well as business knowledge.”

Rethinking How Technology And People Support CX

As the CX landscape evolves with new technology, so do the roles of employees. How do these three iconic brands rethink talent development to support the team’s ability to deliver an exceptional experience?

• Higgins kicked off with a call back to Parakh’s comment about CX being everyone’s job. “If everyone owns CX across the company, it also means they have to get comfortable with the new sets of tools we’re putting in place. I think about AI, gen AI and agentic AI. You have to make sure employees are comfortable with these new tools that are engaging directly with customers.”
• Parakh emphasized the importance of keeping up and changing with the times. “You can’t survive for 150 years by doing what you’ve always done. We’ve been through multiple stock market crashes and multiple pandemics, and we’ve done that by constantly reinventing, so when it comes to talent, we have to have the same mindset. Everybody in the company, starting from the top leadership, has to understand where things are going because everything is changing so fast.”
• Zornes believes that the future is now. “AI is not coming. AI is here. And with that, there is a huge opportunity to really convert those transactions that we might have done in the past to a more smooth and self-service experience. … Some of the profiles of what jobs looked like in the past, what they look like now and what they will look like in the future continue to evolve.”

The future of customer experience lies at the intersection of meaningful metrics, empathetic teams and evolving technology. As Higgins, Zornes and Parakh shared in their answers, success comes not from any single measurement tool but from creating integrated systems that consistently detect, analyze and improve the interactions customers have with the brand. And when you add the right people who are able to demonstrate empathy, curiosity and adaptability, you have a winning combination of KPIs, technology and people that gets customers to say, “I’ll be back!”

Image Credit: Pexels

This article was originally published on Forbes.com

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