The survey — which covered a variety of departments where CX efforts are run and supported, such as marketing, IT, customer service, operations, sales and stand-alone CX departments — found that responsibility for CX budgets and initiatives has begun to shift into the marketing department.
“As marketing continues to take on a larger role in CX, marketing leadership faces a potential challenge coordinating companywide CX,” said Ray. “CMOs and marketing leaders responsible for aspects of their organization’s CX must ensure that roles are understood, redundancy and conflict are minimized, and collaboration is prioritized.”
To do this, Gartner recommends that CMOs and marketing leaders take the following actions:
- Establish clear lines of responsibility and authority for everyone involved in CX: The presence of many departments and leaders contributing to CX demands strong cross-functional governance. To avoid different leaders managing conflicting CX strategies and programs, ensure all CX leaders meet regularly, share information, discuss common problems, evaluate duplicative vendors and efforts, and avoid confusion over accountability.
- Broaden marketing measures: For marketing to successfully take and sustain a larger role in enterprisewide CX, marketers must consider the comparative weight given to their short- and long-term metrics. Committing time and resources to CX efforts should go beyond short-term goals such as awareness, inbound traffic and conversion, but also long-term outcomes such as improved customer satisfaction, reduced churn, increased lifetime value and great referral volume. Define goals not just by internal expectations, but by how customers define success. Establish metrics and KPIs around efforts that meet customer expectations.
Additional details on the survey findings and further recommendations are available to Gartner for Marketers clients in the report “2019 Customer Experience Management Study: Marketers Take More Control as CX Expectations and Budgets Rise.”
About the Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo
Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo provides marketing leaders actionable advice about the trends, tools and emerging technologies they need to deliver business results. Gartner for Marketers analysts address the biggest opportunities, challenges and priorities marketers face today, including data and analytics, customer experience, content marketing, customer insight, marketing technology (martech) and multichannel marketing. Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo will be held in London, May 18-20, and in San Diego, June 1-3. Follow news and updates for the event on Twitter at #GartnerMKTG.
About Gartner for Marketers
Gartner for Marketers provides the objective, expert advice and proven tools that CMOs and other marketing leaders need to seize the right opportunities with clarity and confidence, and to stay ahead of the trends that matter. With in-depth research and analysis, Gartner for Marketers helps you focus on the opportunities with the greatest potential to deliver results. More information on Gartner for Marketers is available online at www.gartner.com/marketing.
