"What gets measured gets managed," management theorist Peter Drucker famously said. And that is the basic principle behind traditional experience management programs, which focus on measuring customer experiences with metrics such as Net Promoter Score (NPS).

However, as many frustrated marketers have discovered, measuring experiences—or even managing them—is very different from improving them.

Measurement isn't enough to move the needle on business goals such as boosting customer retention and increasing share of wallet. Measuring is like looking in a rearview mirror: It tells you where you have been, but not where you should be going.

To drive real experience improvement (XI), companies must transcend measurement and begin translating experience data into action.

An XI approach focuses the entire organization—from frontline employees to the C-suite—on eliminating the root causes of experience issues rather than just treating their symptoms. That improvement focus drives real business outcomes and leads to transformational success.

Three Steps to Customer Experience Improvement

The transition from customer experience management to experience improvement requires a shift in how you think about your experience program. With experience improvement, feedback is not an end, but a means to reach a particular business outcome. That desired outcome should focus your listening efforts and enable intelligent action based on the assembled data.

1. Determine your business objectives

The best experience data comes directly from your customers and employees. Building your program around them is the key to improving experiences and driving business success.

However, you should not jump straight into listening without first developing a plan. If you collect too much data before you know what you're looking for, you'll struggle to zero in on the moments that matter—the valuable points where customer, employee, and business needs intersect.

Achieving transformational change requires a targeted approach. Before you start listening, ask yourself what business problem you're trying to solve: It could be improving customer retention, increasing share of wallet, boosting customer acquisition, or any other business objective.

Then, build your program with that goal in mind, carefully choosing whom to listen to, where and when. A more considered approach to listening will help you home in on the right signal amid all the noise and lay the groundwork for meaningful change.

2. Democratize your data

Data is at the core of the XI approach, but it won't drive business results if it remains siloed in different departments. Data fragmentation makes it impossible to gain a holistic view of how each department contributes to experience, which in turn makes it difficult to gather and apply data-driven insights. Only about 5% of companies take experience data into account when making business decisions, and siloed data is a major reason for that.

To get the most out of your customer experience data, de-silo it so datasets are accessible across departments—that is, democratize it—but don't leave teams to sort out their next steps on their own with zero guidance or focus. To inspire the kind of action that drives organizational change, you need to get the right de-siloed data in front of the right internal audiences.

For example, salespeople need access to information that helps them improve win rates, and account managers should look at customer and account data that allows them to predict churn or growth.

Democratizing data in a thoughtful way drives decision-making and action, improves functional performance, and ultimately drives transformation across an organization.