The Science behind the Knowledge

Very often managers ask me if they can simply use data they have already collected in order to move towards becoming a Vanguard or to measure customer experience. While I understand the allure that existing data has in terms of immediate availability and no added costs, the shortcomings of the data outweigh any possible benefits. It’s quite simple: if you don’t ask the right questions in order to develop a Vanguard strategy or measure customer experience, the answers will be a poor fit for the challenges you are trying to address. Retrofitting data and insight is not recommended and can also be counterproductive to the firm’s aim of developing long-term profitability. Don’t get me wrong – the data and resulting insights you already have are valuable. However, the data need to be used at the right time and in the right place. In most cases the firms we encounter are perfectly able to determine what their customers are doing. Moreover, firms gain insight on how and when their customers act, and how these actions can be stimulated. But while what and how are answered perfectly, the missing insight is often why customers act (or do not) act in a particular way. Without the why, the what, how, and when make very little sense. Answering the why questions requires a different set of research skills, patience, and a longitudinal view on how to gain insight. Exploratory, qualitative, longitudinal research using insights from psychology isn’t often used in the fast-paced business environment. In particular, in the holistic CX management domain, the complexity – the nature of the beast – can only be converted into actions and results if the right methods are chosen right from the start. Developing a measurement of CX quality is a prime example. In our 2011 and 2013 International Journal of Marketing Research articles we described the complexity of the issue in detail. In our article asking if market researchers were using the right measures to help their firms improve customer experience, we established that customer experience was conceptually different from service quality and hence requires a new corresponding measurement (Klaus & Maklan 2007). The role of measurement in successfully implementing and executing strategy is long established and well documented (e.g., Martilla & James 1977). This role is particularly crucial for new emerging paradigm shifts (Bowden 2009) such as the most recent one towards CX management (Smith 2002).