Organizations that boast a commendable Net Promoter Score (NPS) yet face challenges in securing budget allocations are not alone. This issue is prevalent among B2B teams. In their recent webinar titled “Beyond the Score: Turning Experience Data Into Revenue Intelligence,” Alchemer’s Chief Revenue Officer, Brandon Hodges, and VistaXM’s Founder and CEO, Erik Vogel, address this challenge head-on.
For those interested, the on-demand recording is available, or you can continue reading for key insights from the session.
The Limitations of Relying Solely on NPS
Erik acknowledges that early in his career, he fell prey to the common pitfall of mistakenly believing that a solid NPS score would automatically translate to actionable insights. Despite being proud of his team’s score, little changed as a result. NPS, he points out, was never intended to drive revenue.
Additionally, the overwhelming volume of feedback tied to NPS can result in numerous issues to address, often leading to unclear accountability. As a result, by the end of the fiscal year, the NPS program may show a score but little else of substance.
Executives are inclined to support initiatives that enhance customer acquisition and retention. A mere score lacks the persuasiveness necessary to secure that investment.
Transforming Feedback Strategy
How can organizations leverage scores to attract funding from leadership? For VistaXM, the answer lies in reshaping their feedback strategy.
VistaXM maps critical journey stages—onboarding, adoption, renewal, and expansion—to the specific personas that engage at each phase. Erik likens this to a matrix, wherein each segment reveals insights that aggregate scores may mask.
This matrix highlights a crucial insight: the disparity between decision-makers and champions’ perceptions. “While decision-makers hold the authority, champions exert influence behind the scenes,” Erik explains.
In a case study, decision-makers rated the vendor at 76, whereas champions rated them at just 56. This 20-point discrepancy remained concealed within an overall NPS of 62 and manifested in business metrics such as lower service attachment rates and stagnant accounts.
Identifying such gaps constitutes only half the solution; the remaining challenge involves determining the appropriate actions to address them amidst continuous feedback.
Prioritizing Actionable Feedback
When inundated with feedback, the instinct often leans towards attempting to resolve every issue raised. Erik observed that leading organizations like Adobe, Apple, and AWS adopt a more strategic approach.
“It’s not about what I could do; it’s about what I should do,” he emphasizes.
VistaXM evaluates each opportunity based on ease and impact, utilizing a one-to-five scale. Here, ‘impact’ refers to metrics like customer volume affected and potential revenue at risk. The aim is to prioritize easy, high-impact fixes before gradually addressing subsequent issues. Best practices suggest concentrating on one or two changes at a time to ensure successful implementation.
The webinar outlines a four-step process to connect customer experience data with revenue generation.
Four Steps to Align CX Data with Revenue
- Correlate experience metrics with revenue outcomes on a per-account basis.
- Rank each driver based on statistical significance rather than merely comment volume or the loudest customer issues.
- Prioritize improvements using an ease versus impact analysis.
- Identify accounts with high-driver, low-performance metrics as a priority for action.
One illustrative case underscored the practicality of this approach. A company observing a four-point drop in its NPS discovered via a revenue intelligence initiative that small to midsize business accounts faced challenges during renewals, with 12% of next year’s renewals at risk. Such insights resonate with sales operations leaders.
Leveraging Customer Insights Through Closed-Loop Feedback
What does the effective application of this strategy look like? Brandon and Erik showcased a practical example that illustrated the benefits.
Erik referred to this phenomenon as “the magic.” While conventional programs often conduct annual surveys followed by reports, successful initiatives integrate feedback into daily operations, enabling immediate insights to inform future decisions.
This process operates through two loops:
- Inner loop (short-term, account-specific): Identifying accounts needing check-ins and determining if they require new customer success representatives.
- Outer loop (long-term, systemic): Evaluating processes that might benefit from modernization, such as online ordering enhancements or increased customer success resources.
Sales and customer success leaders often make these decisions intuitively; however, incorporating experience data provides an objective basis for their strategies. According to Erik, teams that begin to rely on this data seldom revert to old methods, often seeking additional insights and justifying increased funding through the valuable intelligence provided.
One effective tip: conclude every survey with a message from the CEO to all contacts involved, regardless of whether they participated. Highlight the feedback received and outline a few changes customers can expect in the near future. Non-respondents frequently express interest in participating after seeing this engagement.
A Case of Exceptional ROI from a B2B CX Program
The second segment of the webinar focuses on a successful, anonymized VistaXM program that achieved an astonishing 2,000%+ return on investment (ROI). The program centered around three actionable questions for leadership:
- Where should executive sponsors direct their efforts? Target accounts with the most significant disparities between decision-makers and champions. When executive sponsors included champions in quarterly reviews, these gaps were resolved, resulting in increased customer expenditure. This alone justified the program’s cost for a decade.
- Which passive accounts should be prioritized for outreach? Promoters tend to spend considerably more than passive customers, making a ranked list of passive accounts by potential revenue a valuable call list for immediate follow-up.
- Where is additional support required? Detractor feedback indicated that they perceived a lack of vendor communication and assistance with platform functionality. The company responded by allocating its best customer success representatives to these accounts.
B2B contracts can represent millions in annual recurring revenue (ARR), which accelerates the potential returns. As Erik succinctly stated:
“Saving a $6 million ARR account that was poised to churn equates to significant savings against a modest program investment.”
Recovering two or three such accounts transforms a 2,000%+ ROI into a conservative estimate.
Access the Complete Webinar
If your CX program yields scores but struggles to secure funding, this webinar offers a pragmatic guide: refine your listening process based on persona and journey, conduct thorough key driver analysis, and disseminate insights to teams that directly engage with customers.
As Erik eloquently puts it, perhaps your role has evolved—your team may now be better described as the Revenue Intelligence Team.
Watch “Beyond the Score: Turning Experience Data Into Revenue Intelligence” on demand now.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Revenue Intelligence in CX?
Revenue intelligence connects customer experience (CX) data with revenue outcomes, account by account. Rather than presenting a singular NPS score, teams correlate feedback with metrics such as churn, renewals, and expansions, providing sales and customer success teams with prioritized accounts to engage.
How do you connect NPS to revenue?
By correlating experience metrics with revenue outcomes on a per-account basis, ranking drivers by statistical significance, and prioritizing enhancements based on ease and impact, teams can effectively flag high-driver, low-performance accounts for initial focus.
Why measure B2B NPS by persona?
Decision-makers and champions may hold differing opinions about a vendor’s performance. In one case, decision-makers rated the service at 76, while champions rated it at 56. This 20-point gap was obscured within an aggregate NPS of 62 and reflected stagnation in accounts and diminished service attachment rates.
What ROI can a B2B CX program deliver?
The VistaXM program highlighted in the webinar achieved a 2,000%+ ROI. Retaining one $6 million annual recurring revenue (ARR) account against a six-figure program cost justifies the investment many times over.
Chief Editor of Quincy City Beat — Quincy, MA's independent investigative newspaper covering Greater Boston and the entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts with fearless public accountability and free access for all readers.
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