Q&A: How Marketing Leaders Can Obtain a 20/20 Customer Vision

DemandLab’s CEO, Rhoan Morgan, recently appeared on CMSWire’s CX Decoded podcast to discuss the marketing-led customer experience. What it is, why it’s essential, and why now is the time for marketers to lead the charge. She covers all of this and more in the interview.

Marketing-led customer experience (MLCX) is a newer, more robust approach to CX, but it isn’t always straight forward for marketers to translate it into reality.

DemandLab has long been championing the cause of MLCX, and Rhoan has become a leading authority on the topic. In her CX Decoded interview, she sat down with Dom Nicastro, Rich Hein, and Michelle Hawley of CMSWire to further explore who can, and should, truly own customer experience. Here are some highlights.

Why is CX ownership so ambiguous?

Rhoan Morgan: When we think about customer experience today, it’s essential to realize that every business unit, every person, and every team within an organization touches and impacts the customer. However, the ambiguity around CX ownership happens when business functions stay siloed, or processes remain fragmented.

Marketing controls the website and each engagement channel and is ultimately responsible for revenue growth. This makes marketing best positioned to own CX and take the lead in bringing all business units together for the benefit of the customer experience. It’s marketing closest to the customer. Therefore marketing should support all business efforts to keep customers satisfied.

Aligning all areas of a company on behalf of CX starts with recognizing that everyone shares the same goal–growing company revenue. From there, marketing can map a plan for working more closely with other departments or teams to explore touchpoints for a unified customer experience. It’s worth reiterating, however, that there must be one area of CX ownership, and that area should be marketing.

How are organizations handling this ambiguity over CX ownership? Are there any big mistakes you see companies making?

Rhoan Morgan: One of the biggest mistakes companies make that results in CX ambiguity is being slow to address it; these companies will ultimately remain stagnant and won’t progress. Conversely, companies that see the most CX success find strategic ways to collaborate across their organization. For example, these marketing departments might leverage IT resources for CX support and bring IT talent into the fold. At one of our client’s organizations, select IT leaders would transition over to marketing and, in doing so, help with translation between the two teams to build harmony. Team integration is key to CX’s progress

Where Does CX go bad?

Rhoan Morgan: As siloed departments can be problematic, so can siloed data. The tech and data are still very siloed for a company that utilizes multiple tech platforms and runs numerous websites or domains but employs different marketing automation platforms behind their domains. Consequently, gaps can occur that weaken the customer experience.

The best way to avoid these gaps and strengthen CX is to invest in a good customer data platform and work to repair areas of data or departmental politics that may cause fragmentation.

Human beings have to change before CX can change. It’s crucial to unify around a single customer data platform that serves as the golden record and offers a 360-degree view into the customer journey.

Businesses can be structured in complex ways, but the right technology can help you communicate, collaborate, ideate, market, sell, onboard and support customers seamlessly to bolster the bottom line.

What’s one big takeaway from the concept of marketing-led CX? And how can marketers lead digital transformation?

Rhoan Morgan: Aside from cross-departmental goal agreement, it’s vital to ensure that content teams have a seat at the CX table. As much as we talk about data and technology being integral parts of the customer journey, it’s crucial to remember content’s role in accelerating people through decision-making. Enriching every necessary touch point is impossible without compelling, exciting content. Content prompts action, and if your message isn’t authentic or worthy of your customers’ attention, data and technology will invariably fall flat or reap much less in return.

The triad of technology, data, and content are three powerful marketing elements that keep customers connected and drive conversions.

What next?

MLCX has never been more critical to the success of marketing and the entire enterprise, and we are continuing to put MLCX in the spotlight. Listen to the full CX Decoded podcast interview to continue learning why we’ve been championing this cause for years. You can also explore all MLCX-related content in our Resource Center.