What's in Your Customer Experience Strategy Budget?

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Traditionally, customer experience professionals have no budget.


By that I mean that they have no allocated financial resources for improvements to be made as a result of the learnings from surveys and other listening posts, journey mapping, and other customer experience strategy exercises that become the catalyst for onstage customer experience or behind-the-scenes process improvements. Those financial resources fall into the budgets of the departments where changes are to be made.

Despite that, customer experience professionals still need to develop a budget for the work that they do and for the resources they need for that work. After all, none of that work or technology is free!

I thought I'd capture some of the items that you should be sure to include in your CX budget. Here's what I've come up with, so far.

1. Personnel

Obviously, this important work cannot all be done by one person. So you'll want to ensure that your team's fully-loaded salaries are included in your budget.

2. Technology

There are various CX technologies that you'll want to include in the budget, including but not limited to:

  • VoC platform
  • VoE platform (if different)
  • Text analytics solution
  • Predictive/prescriptive analytics solution
  • Journey mapping/management platform
  • Project management software

    • In addition to these external solutions, your budget might also get hit by fees from your IT department for work they perform to trigger surveys, store data, develop an intranet for you to share ongoing progress, and any other tools or data needs they must provide for.

    Related: Why Customer Experience Improvement Efforts Are Failing

    3. Consultants

    Yes, you may need to engage with consultants to assist you along the way - whether they are there to coach and advise or to actually conduct a chunk of the work. Be sure to factor in their time, materials, resource, and travel needs and expenses.

    4. CX Initiatives

    There are various initiatives along your journey that you'll want to be sure to factor into your budget, including:

  • Survey design and associated costs (not technology): these might be allocated under 3. Consultants, but just keep associated costs in mind under this header.
  • Customer journey mapping workshops: even if you don't hire a consultant to conduct the mapping sessions with/for you, you'll still need to factor in location costs, materials, food and beverages, etc.
  • Design thinking workshops: again, even if you don't hire a consultant, you'll probably want to factor in some location, materials, and food and beverage costs for this.
  • CAB meetings: be sure to factor in moderator fees, graphic recorder fees (if any), location fees, materials, food and beverages, any travel expenses you might incur yourself or reimburse for attendees, etc.

    • 5. EX Initiatives

    This list for employee experience initiative expenses will look similar to #4. You'll notice that there are no pizza parties or pool tables included in this budget! Be sure to factor the following into your budget:

  • Survey design and associated costs (not technology): these might be allocated under 3. Consultants, but just keep associated costs in mind under this header.
  • Customer journey mapping workshops: even if you don't hire a consultant to conduct the mapping sessions with/for you, you'll still need to factor in location costs, materials, food and beverages, etc.
  • Design thinking workshops: again, even if you don't hire a consultant, you'll probably want to factor in some location, materials, and food and beverage costs for this.
  • EAB meetings: be sure to factor in moderator fees, graphic recorder fees (if any), location fees, materials, food and beverages, any travel expenses you might incur yourself or reimburse for attendees, etc.
  • Culture Ambassador meetings: again, factor in location, materials, food, and beverages for these meetings.

    • Related: Enhance Your Customer Service with Storytelling

    6. Training and Education

    This is an important part of your career development . Make sure to include in your budget a line item each for CXPA membership and events , as well as for attending other CX conferences.

    7. Miscellaneous

    Nobody likes to see a "miscellaneous" line item without good reason, but this is where some things like marketing swag and other branding for this journey will fall. Unless, of course, your marketing team wants to eat that in their budget! I'm sure there are other items that will land in this bucket, as well.

    I know I haven't captured everything. What am I missing?