Making Business More Human: Best Practices from X4

X4, The Experience Management Summit by Qualtrics, took place in early March at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, UT. 

The 3-day event saw ten thousand people and star-studded main stage keynotes including Malala Yousafzai, Martha Stewart, Derek Hough, Chip and Joanna Gaines, and Shaun White. The event concluded with an unforgettable private concert by The Killers.

The 100 breakout sessions were led by industry speakers who shared insight on how their organization is using data to fuel business decisions, delight customers, and build engaged and high-performing teams.

X4 focused on 4 themes: AI, Cross XM, XM for Frontline, and Customer Journeys. However, one major theme tied it all together – making business more human. 

To become a successful business, it is imperative to understand customer behavior and build an emotional, human connection with your customers. Why? Because customer relationships are the backbone of a successful business. 

The Global Consumer Trends 2023 report by Qualtrics consulted thousands of people and, “6.2% said helpful agents made them happy in their contact center experience, and 5.2% said agent empathy made a difference. In comparison, only 2.7% valued low wait times.” It’s simple, customers value personal interactions.

Customer focus and customer centricity are not new or groundbreaking concepts. However, Ranjay Gulati and James B. Oldroyd of Harvard Business Review state that it does require businesses to “learn everything there is to learn about their customers at the most granular level, creating a comprehensive picture of each customer’s needs—past, present, and future.” To learn everything there is to learn about your customers is not a linear path.

As we head into the rest of the year, here are recommendations and best practices from industry experts who have mastered the art of making business more human. 

Learn, Adapt, Innovate
Martha Stewart, Entrepreneur, Founder & Owner, Author, and Television Personality

Martha Stewart is a household name. She is recognized by customers and fans of all ages because of her successful TV shows, magazines, home product lines, and her latest venture– The Martha Stewart Podcast.

Martha is a firm believer in innovation.

"If you don’t innovate and evolve,” she said during her X4 session, “you are not going to make it.” 

But innovation isn’t enough when you are the founder of a million-dollar multi-channel lifestyle company. In addition to innovation, Martha is wildly successful because she prioritizes trying new things, learns something new every day, and continually adapts to current trends. She works diligently to understand what her customers are interested in. She asks questions so that she can continue to build her knowledge and remain a good teacher. Her priorities and best practices have helped her remain and sustain relevance to a broad range of customers.

“You have to really think about what is relevant to your audience today and tomorrow, and can you think of what might be relevant next week, or next month or next year?” Stewart asked on stage. 

“This is the age where you have to reach the broadest possible audience with authentic ideas, with creative ideas, with ideas that catch the eye and catch the spirit.”

A great example of sustaining relevance is McDonald’s. Tariq Hassan is the U.S. Chief Marketing Officer at McDonald’s. When he joined the multi-national fast-food chain in 2021, he was trying to figure out how to expand culturally and bolster brand relevance. 

His solution? To open-source the menu to customers and let outside artists redesign the Happy Meal. 

“The biggest unlock we had was moving from talking brand to fan to truly talking fan to fan,” said Tariq. He realized that “to really connect [with fans], we’ve learned that we have to share the pen."

Listed as number 2 on the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2023 by Fast Company McDonald’s grew more than 10% for all of 2022, led to a weekly record for the chain’s U.S. digital transactions, and elevated McDonald’s top trending hashtag on Tiktok because Tariq listened to his customers and created products to sustain relevance.

Consider how your business can better connect with your customers today, tomorrow, and in the future to make your business more human and more relevant to your customers. Whether it’s tirelessly learning about your customers or innovating and evolving to build a strong, long-lasting relationship, we can all learn a few insider tips from Martha and Tariq to make your business more human in 2023.

Building a Customer-Centric Culture
Aarthi Murali, Chief Customer Experience Offer, M&T Bank

At M&T Bank, the core of their mission and purpose is to serve the communities where they are.

At X4, Aarthi stated that “when we [M&T Bank] think about delivering experiences, we are thinking about our customers, our employees, our markets, and our communities.” 

And at M&T Bank, they have to create a very interconnected set of experiences. They use technology, AI, and data while building a culture that's deeply customer-centric in order to deliver experiences to every single person they touch.

One way to create interconnected experiences for your customers is to build a successful customer-centric culture using customer data. At M&T Bank, customer data is accessible to every single employee for unrestricted insight into how the business can focus and align with its customers’ needs. With the enablement of data and democratization of all the feedback, every employee knows exactly what to do with the data they receive. Moreover, employees can use the data to adopt a customer-centric mindset and be responsible for creating an interconnected experience for their customers because customer experience is everyone’s responsibility.

Having a customer-centric mindset is incredibly important when practicing human-centered design. 

Aarthi emphasizes that every single touch point is seen and felt by each employee to feel like they are also part of the interconnected experience that they design for their customers.

And even though employees might not see their customers every day, every single employee has a touch point with that customer. To go even further, every single employee has a touch point with another employee, because they are living in the communities where they serve. Every single person at M&T Bank is responsible for the markets where they operate and where they’re looking to grow.

As Aarthi leverages data at M&T to connect with her employees, customers, and her community, you too should assess if your business prioritizes a customer-centric culture and investigate how data is being used, shared, and addressed. A quick assessment can identify and address any gaps in the system and make your business human for your employees and customers. 

Serve Memories 
Mark Rober, Former Engineer at NASA, American YouTuber, Engineer, Inventor, and Educator

Mark is a master storyteller. As a master storyteller, his educational Youtube videos garner an average of 27 million views per video and he has the perfect formula to trick people into learning about science with his click-bait title and thumbnail. 

His formula? Making his viewers feel something with his stories. 

“If something is remarkable, it needs to be able to be remarked about. But if you don’t feel anything, you don’t share the video,” Mark stated. 

Just as his viewers have visceral responses to his videos, Mark said, “your customers need to laugh, feel curious, feel angry, feel amazed, feel shocked, feel inspired, feel vindicated. They need to feel something.” 

It’s a given that as a business phenomenal customer experience is essential for building loyalty and standing out from your competitors. However, imagine if your business served memories. What would happen to your business if each and every customer received a viral experience and had a visceral response? And as a result, each and every person who felt something shared their experience with family, friends, and their social media network.

A survey by Motista revealed that customers have three times higher lifetime value when there is an emotional relationship with a brand. These customers also recommend that brand at a rate of 71% instead of the average of 45%. It’s clear that emotions play a big role in how people make their decisions.

Coca-Cola’s “Choose Happiness” campaign is a prime example of how a business successfully connects emotionally with consumers. The campaign encouraged consumers to share happy memories and experiences that made them feel happy. The results? The index rating for Coca-Cola’s brand rose 8.2% to 26.7% post-launch.

Another brand that consumers emotionally connect to is Nike. Nike’s “Just Do It” slogan launched in 1988. The slogan resonated with athletes and people who had no connection to sports. This simple slogan applies to everyone, and allows the average person to feel they can achieve greatness. From the launch of the slogan in 1988, Nike saw an increase in sales from 800 million to 9.2 billion dollars over the course of ten years.

Stories matter. Especially stories that create a human connection and serve memories because people remember stories, and not statistics. 

If your business is not serving memories, perhaps it’s time to start connecting with your customers on an emotional level. Creating human connection through emotions is one way to make your business more human in 2023.

Join us at CCW Las Vegas to hear from experts in the industry! Want to hear from some women thought leaders, executives, and experts? Join us at the CCWomen Summit in June. We can’t wait to see you there.