Welcome to Spark, a newsletter from Vivace. We curate and publish the most interesting thinking and ideas from our community on themes ranging from business and finance to culture and creativity. Send pitches and feedback to [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you.

Hello {{ First Name | Spark reader }},

We’re surrounded by more customer data than ever before. Yet turning that information into better decisions remains one of the biggest challenges organizations face.

This week’s conversation explores the difference between collecting feedback and truly listening. In conversation with Mimi Hayton, CX Catalyst founder Blake James shares practical lessons on building trust in customer insights, influencing executive decision-making, and why metrics alone rarely tell the full story.

I hope you enjoy the conversation.

All the best,

—Joel

Blake James: One of the biggest realities is that most stakeholders don’t fully trust customer insights until they have had the opportunity to explore the data themselves. For some, that means manually scanning spreadsheets. For others, it means running their own analysis in the organization’s standard analytics tool, such as Tableau.

That’s why it is so important to give stakeholders a way to self-serve customer feedback while ensuring the data is interpreted accurately and customer privacy is protected. This is table stakes. It frees the Insights team to focus on more strategic work and eliminates a lot of analysis-paralysis noise once the business is “free to explore.”

Ironically, once stakeholders have more open access to the data, they often come back to the Insights team for help bringing the story together. They may not have the broader context, understand the impact sizing, or know the nuances of how to interpret customer feedback and statistics. But it often seems necessary for stakeholders to go through that exploration process first.

A second common challenge is stakeholders asking for the data to be cut in several different ways according to what they believe is most important. Of course, this is real-time hypothesis testing, but it should happen at the beginning of an insights project, not when the insights are being presented as a finished product.

It is critical to engage the right stakeholders upfront, test the key hypotheses they may have, and ensure that when the final results are presented, you are painting the holistic story. Statistics should be used to demonstrate the net impact of the topic being presented so the business has real context. Time and again, business leaders make decisions, often involving significant investments, according to their view of the world, which may not reflect the true cost-benefit of the investment. Impact sizing products, issues, levers, and opportunities at the enterprise level is critical.

Blake James: Many organizations mistake the metric for the objective.

There are countless articles online and in credible news sources debating the pitfalls of one metric and praising another. The allure of a metric is that it feels comfortable and familiar. An executive can look at a scorecard and see whether performance is red, amber, or green according to the targets that have been set.

While the metric is an important indicator, far more weight should be given to what is driving the business outcome the organization is trying to achieve. And the answer does not always lie in numbers.

Some of the most powerful insights I have developed came from qualitative research, such as interviewing customers in the field to understand the situational context and behavioral science behind their words and actions. Those insights can then be validated with metrics at scale, but starting with metrics alone can create a false sense of security.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Each research program needs to be designed according to the specific business problem or situation, and every business and problem is different.

Blake James: Strategic listening means having an ear everywhere your customers are. The trick is knowing how to harness those sources into a single, seamless internal view.

Most organizations’ central listening functions focus on customer surveys, contact center complaints, and operational data. But customer feedback exists far beyond surveys and contact centers. In some cases, survey response rates also mean surveys are not fully representative. Capturing the full 360-degree view provides a much more comprehensive, strategic picture.

This is something I specialize in: helping organizations build a view of their customers that accurately reflects both their existing customer base and the market of buyers who are not yet customers.

Without that broader view, it is very difficult to forecast and track the progress of customer experience and product initiatives against commercial outcomes or customer metrics. As a bonus, strategic listening makes your insights inescapable. When multiple customers are saying the same thing across multiple sources, it becomes very difficult to dismiss.

Blake James: It is possible, but not long term.

A committed leader can create momentum within their own sphere of influence and build a coalition that takes genuine steps to improve the customer experience. But there are downsides. It creates significant single-person risk if that leader leaves the organization, and it is often one of the first things to be cut when budgets become constrained.

My advice to that leader would be: prove the benefits at a small, doable scale; demonstrate the process and value of the outcome; and build executive networks across the organization to create momentum and support.

However, without a senior executive sponsor from the top, ideally the CEO, becoming truly customer-centric is extremely difficult.

If you want results that sustain over multiple years, there has to be top-down support. You need buy-in from the C-suite, and ideally the board, on an operating model that embeds customer-centric behaviors and accountability enterprise-wide. This can be implemented with no additional resources or major changes to the core organizational structure, but it does require commitment.

With the right experience through a consultancy like CX Catalyst and the right internal sponsorship, a transformation can be completed in as little as 12 months.

Blake James: Many executives will decide whether to trust the insights based on how you deliver them. Here is how to set yourself up for success.

First, build the story before you build the slides. Clearly map the story end to end so there is coherent logic to what is being presented. A framework like “What, So What, Now What” can give your message a natural structure that is easy to follow and action-oriented. Rehearse your content beforehand and memorize your opening line, especially if presenting makes you nervous.

Second, tailor the level of detail to your audience. Some executives want a high-level summary. Some want detail. Some want both. The best default is usually to summarize eloquently and keep the details in the appendix. Over the years, I have learned how to be both clear and detailed on a single slide.

Third, know the “why” behind the numbers. You need to be able to answer confidently when more detailed questions come up. And if you don’t know the answer, simply say, “I’ll take that on notice and follow up. Great question.”

Fourth, always tie insights back to the consequences, both positive and negative. For example:

“If we act on this insight or address this opportunity, we predict an X% uplift to NPS, CSAT, or revenue.”

Or:

“If we don’t act on this opportunity, we predict an X% decrease to NPS, CSAT, or revenue.”

The cost of doing nothing can be especially powerful in a competitive context.

A key tactic is to model the value of, for example, an NPS Promoter versus a Passive versus a Detractor. Once you have done that, you can put a dollar or pound value against every insight presented, which is a powerful way to get an executive’s attention.

Finally, reinforce insights with multiple sources. This comes back to the importance of strategic listening. If multiple customers are saying the same thing across multiple channels, the insight becomes much harder to ignore or play down.

Ultimately, though, it comes back to the operating model. Implementing a customer experience strategy that is endorsed from the top down is the easiest way to create a common CX and insight language that everyone understands, along with a cadence that everyone trusts.

From there, you have to maintain that discipline over the long term. As they say, the devil really is in the details.

With more than 20 years of hands-on leadership in Customer Experience & Research, including Apple, Samsung, and TSB, Blake James has designed and delivered large-scale CX transformations at some of the world’s most respected organizations. He specializes in turning customer insight into measurable commercial performance - repeatedly delivering significant improvements in NPS, CSAT, retention, and revenue while building operating models, governance structures, and metrics frameworks that scale and stick long after the engagement ends. Now operating independently through CX Catalyst, Blake brings the same proven blueprint to mid-to-large organizations - without the overhead or junior teams of larger firms.

Thanks for joining us this week. Anything we missed? Something we should include next week? Send us your shout-outs and strong opinions to include in next week’s edition at [email protected]. 

Spark is a production of Vivace, a global B2B creative studio and consultancy that helps businesses drive meaningful brand and commercial impact. Get in touch if you’d like to chat with any of the team. Have a great week ahead.