When a Customer Experience Manager seeks approval for a project, their journey to implementation typically begins with an internal business case. The traditional business case outlines expected outcomes, costs, risks, necessary resources, and a timeline to support the project. The return on investment of a project should be included to highlight the value the company can expect from implementation.
It can be a challenge to quantify the impact to the customer based solely on lift in sales. In customer-facing divisions it is perfectly acceptable and even necessary to include an estimate of the impact to retention, customer referrals, cross-sales, bundling, and even improvement to bad debt. Senior management or decision makers will presumably take all factors into consideration when reviewing business cases, but ROI can be the sole litmus test to determine the ideal projects to undertake - and their respective priority.
With good ROI support, a project can gain:
- Executive Champions. Perhaps the single most important outcome of a business case review is a senior-level person attaching themselves to the project. Association with an Executive Champion makes success a self-fulfilling prophecy.
- High prioritization. The better the expected return, the more likely a project will gain prioritization over lesser ROI projects. This is especially important when dealing with an already overburdened IT organization.
- Buzz. Have you heard employees mention a key project, usually with a great internal name, which is going to take the company to the next level?
A high ROI, including the estimated impact to the customer and their experience, can ensure a project starts with the proper support and funding and more likely leads to a successful implementation. Ensure ROI support includes more than just the traditional expected lift in sales, including all aspects of the customer experience and quantify the impact to show a more accurate – and likely higher - ROI.
Brian Powers