To Drive ROI, CX Leaders Must Move Beyond Vanity Metrics

January 20, 2025

Pedro Catarino, Director of Customer Experience at Banco Santander highlights the importance of linking CX efforts to key value drivers such as revenue growth, cost reduction, retention, and referrals.

To stay ahead, businesses must measure CX impact effectively, focus on actionable insights, and leverage emerging technologies like genAI to enhance customer experiences.

“Measuring the organisation’s CX efforts towards greater ROI is one of the most common challenges CX teams face,” says Pedro Catarino, Director of Customer Experience at Banco Santander.

“Ultimately, every CX leader should be able to provide data-driven evidence of the business value generated by improving customer experience in their organisation. I believe there are four potential value drivers that should be always tested – Revenue, Costs, Returns, and Referrals,”

Pedro is a Director in the Global Customer Experience area at Banco Santander’s global headquarters in Madrid. In this role, he collaborates closely with CX leaders across Banco Santander’s markets to strengthen the CX function and accelerate the bank’s capabilities in managing and continuously improving customer experience.

Talking to CXM Today, Pedro emphasises that businesses must move beyond vanity metrics and focus on measurable CX impact. He highlights the importance of linking customer experience efforts to key value drivers.

How are customer expectations and CX trends changing?

By 2024, it’s no surprise that customer expectations have changed significantly over the last few years, especially after COVID-19, when customers became more demanding. Tons of research illustrates this shift. Regardless of the industry, convenience, speed and personalisation have become core attributes that everyone is striving to deliver.

How can leaders measure their organisation’s CX efforts towards greater ROI?

In my opinion, this is one of the most common challenges CX teams face. Ultimately, every CX leader should be able to provide data-driven evidence of the business value generated by improving customer experience in their organisation. I believe there are 4 potential value drivers that should be always tested:

Revenue: satisfied customers are more likely to purchase more;
Cost – higher customer satisfaction can reduce claims and customer care expenses;

iii. Retention – improved loyalty leads to longer customer lifetimes;

Referrals – enhanced experiences should drive organic growth through positive word of mouth.

Depending on the industry, some factors may have a greater impact than others. Analysing these drivers is a key strategic step to validate this hypothesis within your organisation. If they prove invalid, it is essential to investigate the underlying reasons.

What new and enhanced CX metrics would you recommend to increase customer loyalty today?

Rather than seeking the ultimate CX metric, I recommend focusing on business outcomes. I often see organisations becoming overly fixated on customer perception scores, such as NPS, rather than using customer feedback to drive tangible actions. A strong Voice of Customer (VoC) program should foster a culture of continuous improvement. If you are collecting customer feedback merely to produce attractive dashboards and reports for leadership, you are missing the true potential of customer voice. This is not to say that metrics like NPS are useless; they are valuable when customer feedback is integrated into the design process and continuous improvement cycles. In short, focus on actionable insights and outcomes rather than just the scores.

ALSO READ: Are Your CX Metrics Tied to Business Goals?

What are your thoughts on genAI as a CX tool? What are the top use cases?

Among many other things, genAI has the potential to revolutionise CX management, elevating it to new levels. There are numerous use cases already emerging. One example is enhancing VoC programs. Data is at the core of CX, and genAI’s capabilities in collecting and analysing data are transformative, strengthening our capabilities to expand VoC insights beyond traditional customer surveys, incorporating holistic data sources, such as contact centre interactions, social media, online reviews, claims and customer behaviour.

Another prevalent use case is improving productivity and quality assurance in customer care roles. Additionally, genAI can deliver personalised experiences and contents, tailoring interactions to individual customer needs. While there are many promising use cases and solutions offered by providers, it is vital to focus on solving real customer challenges rather than being driven by technology hype. Start with the problem or opportunity, then evaluate whether and how genAI can be the right solution.