Qualtrics (Nasdaq: XM), the leader and creator of the experience management category, today announced CrossXM, a new product line that gives leaders automated insights into how their employee, customer and brand experiences impact one another, helping them identify the actions they can take to drive the biggest impact across their business. With Qualtrics CrossXM, organizations can understand how key employee experience metrics, such as manager support, career development and recognition, have a direct, statistically significant impact on customer outcomes. With these insights, leaders can focus on initiatives that will drive the most value for employees and customers. 

Organizations today understand that employee and customer experiences have become just as important as the products and services they deliver. In fact, research shows that 80% of customers have switched brands because of poor customer experience. However, with shifting business priorities and decreasing budgets, allocating resources across their employee, customer and brand experiences can become a guessing game of competing priorities.

“Leaders instinctively know that engaged employees deliver great products and great customer service, positively impacting their brand’s reputation as well as boosting customer engagement and spend,” said Brad Anderson, Qualtrics president of products and engineering. “CrossXM gives organizations the ability to predict how employee experience investments will pay off in brand value and customer outcomes, a powerful innovation that will change the way companies prioritize investments in their most important asset—their employees.”

Boosting employee retention, while driving efficiency for customers

Lumen Technologies, a global enterprise technology platform, found that when their frontline service technicians feel recognized for delivering excellent customer service, they are nine times more likely to resolve customer issues in a single visit. When Lumen realized that there was an opportunity to grow their recognition program, the leadership team took deliberate steps to promote and recognize great customer service within their field organization. In turn, these insights and actions have helped Lumen save on operational costs and time, as well as keep their workforce more engaged and motivated to stay with the company longer term.

“Our partnership with Qualtrics is so exciting because the data and insights we’re uncovering are helping us drive the right actions and improvements, and helping us use our resources to serve the highest outcomes,” said Beth Ard, vice president of customer experience at Lumen Technologies. “It’s been a big win for our customer experience team, and really a win for our entire organization.”

Qualtrics has automated the labor-intensive, manual process of connecting organizations’ employee experience (EX) and customer experience (CX) data, making it a standard, repeatable practice. Organizations can connect their CX and EX programs using CrossXM today, enabling them to identify which employee experiences have the most impact on the customer experience. 

In early 2023, organizations will also be able to connect their CX and BX programs, identifying specific customer experiences that will most impact brand equity. For example, a rental car company may find that a manual, outdated rental car pickup process is a leading driver for poor customer satisfaction and negative brand perception. In response, the company can take action to digitize the pickup process and feature the improvement in an upcoming advertising to enhance their brand, thus using their resources on the highest impact initiatives.

Helping business leaders work better together

CrossXM enables leaders from across the organization to collaborate on the initiatives that will most effectively retain and attract new customers. With CrossXM, HR leaders can tie the employee experience directly to business outcomes, proving—with data—the value of their efforts toward the bottom line. Customer experience leaders can better leverage their most critical resource—their employees—to understand how their experiences on the frontline can bring customers’ experiences to the next level. Finally, marketing leaders can identify key customer interactions that can boost brand equity, gain a competitive advantage and drive customer lifetime value.

“As a Seniors Living provider, we’re constantly looking for opportunities to enhance our residents’ experience. Understanding the correlation between our employee and resident experience allowed us to uncover what makes our employees happier and more engaged, therefore having a direct impact on the overall care and well-being of our residents. One certainly affects the other,” said Andrea Carson, director of total rewards and organizational effectiveness at Revera. “In partnership with Qualtrics, we discovered that in our Retirement Residences where our frontline employees felt more strongly that their managers cared about their well-being, our residents also felt more satisfied. With over 85 Retirement Residences, we can identify the best actions to take for each location, ensuring employees have the management support and guidance they need to offer the best customer experience,” said Cathy Fiordalisi Smith, national director of resident experience at Revera.

“Employee experience shifts the organizational focus on business objectives to involve employees in how those objectives take shape and are achieved,” said Zachary Chertok, IDC research manager for employee experience. “By focusing on each employee’s engagement with and contribution to work, EX is behavioral and multivariate in how it impacts the state of the business and by extension customer experience. The EX-CX link will be defined by measurable engagement points that track back through decisions and outcomes centered on the employee-customer relationship. Qualtrics’ CrossXM offers organizations the necessary insights, expertise, and technology to map, understand and value the EX-CX connection. CrossXM provides an intuitive process for business and people leaders to recognize and focus on the actions that will have the greatest impact on the business.”  

Availability

• CrossXM Employee and Customer Analytics is currently available.
• CrossXM Brand and Customer Analytics will be available for select audiences in early 2023.

Learn More

• Learn more about CrossXM, including further insights into the value of interconnected experience programs. Also check out the Qualtrics Blog. 
• Tune in for Qualtrics’ free, one-hour XM Innovation 2022 virtual event on October 26 to hear about how adidas is making every customer interaction more memorable by focusing on empowering their frontline employees.
• Learn more about how Lumen is transforming its culture to deliver more human-centric experiences to their employees and customers. 

About Qualtrics

Qualtrics, the leader and creator of the experience management category, is changing the way organizations manage and improve the four core experiences of business—customer, employee, product and brand. Over 16,750 organizations around the world use Qualtrics to listen, understand and take action on experience data (X-data™)—the beliefs, emotions and intentions that tell you why things are happening, and what to do about it. The Qualtrics XM Platform™ is a system of action that helps businesses attract customers who stay longer and buy more, engage employees who build a positive culture, develop breakthrough products people love and build a brand people are passionate about. To learn more, please visit qualtrics.com.