DIY vs. partnering with a CX strategy provider: Which is better for improving customer experience?

Wouldn’t it be incredible if every customer visiting your business was delighted with the experience you provide and showered you with glowing praise online? Customer loyalty might no longer be the hot topic it is today.

But let’s be real—today’s customers aren’t easy to please.

They want and expect more from businesses in return for their loyalty. They also know they have several options if companies don’t deliver a phenomenal experience. 

The statistics point to customer satisfaction being at an all-time low.

With customer dissatisfaction growing fast, businesses must focus on improving their customer experience (CX) strategy to retain customers and boost revenue​​—or their competition will. 

Businesses should realize they need a CX strategy, but that’s easier said than done. The customer journey has many different touchpoints and is filled with a trove of information from businesses and customers alike.

For most businesses, there is often too much data with too little meaning.

The question you need to answer: What’s the best approach for your business?

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to a customer experience strategy, so we’ve laid out the options to ensure your customers are not a part of the angry, dissatisfied mob.

Option 1: Build a large in-house CX team

When you invest in building your own in-house team, you gain complete control over every CX program and strategy element. Your team can reap in-depth knowledge about your business and customers. But will they know what to do with the data they collect?

Sure, your team can probably run some standardized reports with the help of a software-as-a-service (SaaS) data analysis tool. But you’ll likely end up with an overabundance of data without real meaning. Translating customer feedback and data into frontline action requires solid, proven expertise that in-house CX teams don’t typically have.

A DIY approach is also costly, requiring vetting, hiring, training, and maintaining a large team of experts across various disciplines, such as data analysis, insight strategy, frontline planning and training, and impact analysis.

Additionally, a large in-house CX team won’t have the competitive benchmarks a third-party partner would have from working with other companies in your industry.

Option 2: Build a small in-house CX team

Forming a small in-house CX team is more cost-effective than devoting the time and capital to developing a full-scale department, giving you flexibility in customizing tools to fit your needs. For emerging brands, this might be an excellent place to begin a CX strategy.

However, a small team may have limited resources and expertise, making it difficult to derive meaning from multiple data points or scale up frontline action across different locations.

Option 3: Partner with a third-party CX consultancy

Hiring a third-party CX consultancy gives you access to a wide variety of expertise and best practices. This provider will also have the advantage of an objective perspective on your business and CX strategy.

However, retrieving competitive benchmark data may be challenging, depending on the consultancy’s experience in your domain. Furthermore, third-party consultants tend to be generalists across several business categories. This isn’t necessarily a problem, but it may take them longer (and require more patience on your part) to gather industry-specific insights and convert them into measurable action.

Option 4: Hire insights/data science professionals to run analyses

Hiring insights/data science professionals can give you access to specialized analytical expertise at a cost-effective price. But this option has limited scope and impact on the overall CX strategy because these professionals might not be equipped to run an entire program.

Option 5: Run no program (would not advise!)

If you opt out of running a CX program altogether, your business and customers will suffer. While this approach requires no upfront cost or effort, you’ll receive no insights, and your customers won’t receive the attention they deserve. Ultimately, this short-term cost-cutting strategy leads to losing customers and costing more in the long run.

Option SMG: Where do we fit into this mix?

We’ve intentionally shaped our software-with-a-service (SwaS) solution to deliver everything your CX strategy needs, complete with impact reports to demonstrate your ROI.

SMG brings data with direction:

          → Complete program strategy: Our comprehensive program derives meaning from data throughout the entire customer experience.

          → Data with meaning to drive action: We guide location-specific frontline action that drives more impact faster for your business.  

          → Expertise in multiple industries: Domain expertise and competitive benchmarking enable you to make strategic moves to gain a competitive advantage. 

          → Impact for leadership’s full support: Measurable impact drives new and existing revenue growth while gaining leadership’s full support of your CX strategy investment.

While no two CX strategies are alike, all CX strategies must prove their impact with a measurable lift in the customer experience. If you want to make faster changes to your front line, you need data with direction. Schedule your demo here.