Selling CX expansion to your board

your startup. But first, you need buy-in from your board. What selling points will you present? How do you tailor your approach to the value focus of each stakeholder?

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Teddy Albayero, XtendOps VP of Operations and Strategy for Latin America, is experienced in selling decision-makers on the potential return on investment inherent in a robust CX system. In this article, he outlines strategies for presenting a compelling case for CX expansion.

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Your vision, ambition, and power of persuasion have gotten your startup this far. Now, to get your business to the next level, you’re ready to introduce a CX system into the mix. How do you convince your decision makers that now is the time to cultivate a strategy to optimize the customer experience? Selling CX expansion to your board requires a combination of compelling data and highly nuanced persuasion skills.

You could distill the advantages of developing a customer-centric culture into two buckets. The first is your personal core values and the vision that inspired your startup in the first place. Growth without human centricity is a recipe for disaster. If you want to grow a broader base of happy customers, you must be able to keep your employees happy and invested as the business expands.

The second aspect of a customer-centric culture is the potential to increase revenue. Happy customers are less cost sensitive and, therefore, willing to spend more. Additionally, they become loyal ambassadors for your brand, driving growth organically through referrals. Investing your growing profits back into that customer experience will, in turn, grow deeper loyalty in your customers and your employees.

It’s not enough to know how CX works from your own perspective; you must also understand what motivates your board members to invest. Persuasion is more nuanced than simply presenting a well-crafted sales pitch. You must know what hurdles stand between your decision-makers and full buy-in.

Based on my experience, I can identify a few patterns of resistance in decision-makers:

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The money pit

‍Some executives think investing in the customer experience is like throwing money away. They’ll need to be convinced that expanded CX will earn back the money they invest and deliver more growth.

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Silo syndrome

‍When workers at the various touchpoints of the customer journey become too concerned with their own function, the customer experience suffers. Likewise, each decision-maker has a filter through which to view the customer relationship. Achieving agreement from your board members requires you to help them transcend the limitations of their siloed value perspectives.

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Data dilemma

‍Some executives are data-driven to a fault. If you want to convince them of the value of CX expansion, you must be armed with hard evidence to demonstrate these initiatives are worth the time and money. You may need to draw on metrics from other businesses before convincing them to take even a calculated risk within your own business.

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Short-term visionaries

‍Investors who want to see fast dividends will be resistant to the value of CX expansion. Customer experience is a long-term investment. It’s like planting a seed, nurturing the plant, making the orchard grow, and then harvesting the fruit. These individuals will need to see that their return on investment is worth the wait.

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Rather than trying to sell your board on wholesale CX expansion, consider presenting an upgrade on one aspect of the customer journey. Connect with us to discuss your startup’s best next step in CX growth.

To bring your board on-board with investing in a customer experience initiative, you must begin by understanding their pain points and then craft your case to address and eliminate their concerns. In short, you must show them the money.

Your investment story must align with the ways your board members perceive value for the business. Here are a few strategies to help you translate your message to financial impact.

Speak their language

‍Every stakeholder has their own flavor, their own focus. Are they more interested in reducing client churn, for example, or increasing customer lifetime value? Making your case requires an ability to understand their unique preoccupations and speak their business language.

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Get personal

‍Sure, you’re dealing with investors, but you’re also dealing with people. Share customer stories and testimonials they can relate to on a human level. Real stories reveal the human being at the center of the customer experience.

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Exercise persistence

‍You know the old saying: Rome wasn’t built in a day. Customer experience is never a one-size-fits-all solution, and an incremental approach may be your best strategy. Sometimes, selling CX to your board is just a matter of trying one approach, then another, until you achieve buy-in.

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Start small

‍Rather than present a full-scale CX overhaul, propose a small pilot project. Once you can showcase effectiveness, then you can explore possibilities for scaling up. Be sure to keep detailed metrics to demonstrate performance and inform your decisions.

A customer-centric approach builds customer loyalty and increases referrals. Your first step to achieving board buy-in on CX expansion might be a subtle shift in the way your business expresses its priorities. Check out this article for five ways to prioritize CX in your startup.

When you’re ready to grow your digital customer experience, the team at XtendOps has solutions and metrics to craft a solution personalized to your startup’s goals. From strategic AI integrations to global staffing capabilities, we can help you scale up without compromising the human touch—and we have the real-world data to prove our systems really work.

Need help developing a compelling pitch for your investors? Connect with our team to get the conversation started.