Lights, camera, action! Just like the movie director uses the three-act structure to captivate audiences and create an unforgettable experience, business can use this same approach to deliver powerful presentations that will engage their audience. It's like watching a great screenplay unfold before your eyes: you'll be taken on a journey of discovery as you explore each act in turn. In movies, the three acts represent the setup, rising action, and resolution. In a business presentation, it’s the beginning, evidence, and takeaway. By using this formula for business presentations, you can create meaningful connections with audience through storytelling and bring data to life in exciting ways.
Whether it's market research or sales pitches—no matter what type of insights you’re sharing—this formula will help you craft compelling stories that leave an impact on your listeners.
After experience working with brands in different categories, watching lots of movies, and ending up working on my world’s 1st marketing cartoon series called Kamil'sKartoons, I've come up with a quick formula for how to tell a story with data that anyone can use with a simple three-act structure.
By the time of this writing, there isn't much published material that specifically deals with CX insights data storytelling and there is not enough guidance available on this topic. To address this, this article will present examples of the commonly used CX metrics, particularly the Net Promoter Score (NPS), to provide tailored insights data storytelling.
What is the three-act structure?
CX insights presentations can be like movies, with a captivating storyline that captures the audience's attention and drives the message home. With the three-act structure, you can create a presentation that is both engaging and memorable
Act 1 - The Beginning: just like the start of a movie, introduces the characters and the setting of the story. It's where you present your topic and set up the context of your presentation.
Act 2 - The Evidence: is where the plot thickens, and tension builds up just like in a movie. This is where you present your argument or point of view on the subject, building up the story, and keeping the audience hooked.
Act 3 - The Action: just as the climax and resolution in a movie, is where all conflicts are resolved, transformed and moral is conveyed. The presentation ends with a conclusion that ties everything together. This is where you summarize your main points and provide solutions to any issues discussed in Act 2, leaving your audience with a message that resonates with them. It is most important to show how your customer's life will be better after experiencing or buying your product.
The following is one way to present CX Insights using the three-act structure. This can be applied to any CX metrics, such as Customer Satisfaction, Customer Effort Score, and Wallet Allocation Rule, etc. In this example, we will use NPS for simplicity.
Act 1: The Beginning
In the first act, we set the stage and establish the conflict. As the opening scene of a movie introduces the setting, characters, and the stakes of the story, the CX insights presentation starts by introducing the topic and hooking the audience with a statement. For example, start with a statement that showcases the current NPS and how the brand rose to the challenge of satisfying their customers, even in the face of a major challenge... But that’s not all, folks!
For example, “We’re impressed by Food App Brand's ability to provide a good customer experience despite significant obstacles that the customer mentioned in the last wave. Our current NPS has increased by prioritizing excellent customer service and personalization. Food App Brand has exceeded customer expectations and reached to a high NPS. The dashboard illustrates the NPS for our Food App Brand before and after the obstacle, showcasing how we successfully navigated this challenge.”
Act 2: The Evidence
In this act, we show evidence that supports the ‘good news’, ‘bad news’ or both presented in Act 1. This is where data visualization and analysis become more critical! Showcasing key findings with graphs, charts, tables, and other visuals helps to explain the story in a memorable format for your audience. Connect the dots between the statement, data collected, and resulting insights.
“The NPS analysis of Food App Brand showcases a striking finding that needs immediate attention. Although the overall NPS has increased (the good news!), it has come at the expense of our “profitable” customers (with CLV > $100) who have shown a significant drop in their rating (the bad news!). While the experience has primarily improved for less profitable customers (with CLV <$100), we cannot afford to lose the trust of our profitable customers”.
[Keep going over the next paragraphs, with the good and bad news in mind].
“Further analysis of the CX personas reveals we were able to improve Persona B's experience, but at the expense of Persona A. This creates a tension for us in balancing between different customer personas and catering to the needs of each one”.
“In demographics, the data highlights that males, customers living in Region A, and middle-aged group (age 40 or more) are mainly pulling down the overall NPS. This finding needs to be addressed as these groups also represent a significant portion of our customer base, and they are not meeting their expectations. In contrast, we could improve the experience of females, the younger age group (18-19), and customers in Region B, which leads to a conflicting opinion, and creates tension between different demographic groups”.
“It is important to recognize these areas for improvement and strive to balance the needs of different customer groups while keeping an eye on the overall NPS. We need to identify the root causes and devise actionable insights to reduce it for an improved customer experience”.
[Let’s stop and think. Did you notice any tension in the paragraph above? Were there both good and bad news mentioned? Did the paragraph seem to build up to a story that kept you interested? This is precisely what you (your audience, and others) want from a message].
[Let’s look deeper and find out more about the story. Keep reading…]
“In this stacked bar chart, we’ve identified 3 reasons mentioned by each one of Promotors, Passives, and Detractors.”
“The analysis we’ve done here is full of fascinating yet alarming findings that shed light on what matters most to our customers. The bar graph reveals that Discount Offers, Personalized Recommendations, and Live Chat Support features play a crucial role in our overall NPS. However, there are significant differences in how Promoters, Passives, and Detractors perceive these features.”
[Audience at stage are like: “Oh my God. What is it?”]
[Take a pause. Then re-start]
“Promoters value Personalized Recommendations and are less interested in our Discount offerings. The personalized content and tailored recommendations are the keys to securing their loyalty. They love our live support staff, who consistently show excellent service attitudes and knowledgeability. They expect our brand to tailor content to their preferences and to maintain our high level of personalized service.”
“The opposite is true for Detractors. They’re not happy with our current Discount Offerings and Personalized Recommendations, leading to a decline in their experience. Passives, along with Detractors, have similar feedback on our features. One alarming finding is that Detractors are our ‘profitable’ customers! While most of them are falling under Persona A, which covers mainly our ‘affluent’ segment.”
Kamil’s BONUS: We can do further analysis, such as, impacts of CLVs of Promoters, Passives, and Detractors on revenue; what’s driving lower or higher NPS; how high or low effort experience is affecting NPS; cross-tabulate with profitable customers vs less profitable and a few more analysis. But let's save that for another time so you don't get too bored reading this article 😉.
Act 3: The Takeaways
The final act of the story is about turning insights into action by providing actionable takeaways for your audience. This should be grounded in data and evidence that you have presented earlier, with clear connections between the Beginning, Evidence, and suggested actions.
Remember: show how your customer's life will be better after experiencing or buying your product.
“Based on our analysis, we can derive the following actionable insights and recommendations to improve the customer experience of Food App Brand.”
| Key Findings |
Actionable Recommendations |
1. CLV > $100 customers reported a significant drop in their rating, resulting in a trade-off between different customer personas.
2. Demographics-wise, males, middle-aged group (age 40 or more) living in Region A had the most negative feedback, whereas younger females living in Region B had the most positive feedback.
3. Discount Offers, Personalized Recommendations, and Live Chat Support features play a crucial role in our overall NPS.
4. Promoters value Personalized Recommendations and are less interested in our Discount offerings.
5. Detractors are dissatisfied with our current Discount offerings and Personalized Recommendations, leading to a decline in their experience. They belong to our affluent segment (Persona A).
|
1. Establish a specialist team focusing on improving the experience for higher CLV customers by providing exclusive services and personalized benefits.
2. Devise a comprehensive strategy to balance the needs of different customer personas and ensure that the trade-off does not affect NPS negatively.
3. To address the negative feedback from male, middle-aged customers living in Region A, we should analyze the data further to identify the root cause of the dissatisfaction. Then implement priority improvements to those areas to mitigate the tension.
4. We should focus our personalized recommendation and discount offers on the customers of Region B and the younger generation.
5. Regular analysis and monitoring of customer feedback could help us continue fine-tuning our strategies to meet the varying needs of different customer groups and to improve overall NPS.
6. Focus on profitable customers. Most of our Detractors are profitable customers and falling under Persona A (Affluent segment). It is important that we focus more attention on this group by providing them with better discounts and personalized recommendations in order to stop churn and attract new customers from this segment.
7. Test offering lesser number of personalized discounts or lesser discount value to Promoters as they are less profitable customers and give less importance to our Discount offerings. It is a win-win situation!
8. Improve Personalized Recommendations for Promoters. They value Personalized Recommendations, so it is important to focus on maintaining the quality of personalized recommendations in order to secure their loyalty.
|
[Then summarize your key message in a clear and easy-to-understand manner, and then conclude the presentation].
Summary
“To summarize, it is clear that profitable customers have different opinions about Food App Brand. The group that spends the most, and is also the least happy (Detractors), are males over 40 and those who are living in Region A. Discounts, Personalized Recommendations, and Live Chat Support: all help with NPS. Focus on such profitable customers by giving them better discounts and better personalized recommendations. Give Promoters fewer discounts but better quality personalized recommendations to keep them happy too. Doing these things will help us make customer experience management successful for our business. Thank you!”
Kamil’s BONUS: I gave you a few ideas so that it would not take too long. You can always find more recommendations if you need them. Before telling others about the ideas, talk to people inside the company who will be affected by them—the stakeholders. Make sure you have someone in charge of each idea who can decide about it. Such person or people should be in the same room when you discuss the ideas.
The End! Congratulations - You have now successfully told the story of how your audience can use your insights to improve the customer experience. Remember, effective storytelling requires combining a gripping narrative with clear visuals that bring your audience along the journey. Data can be an incredibly powerful asset in telling stories about the successes of your business, so get creative and use it to your advantage!
Happy storytelling!
Kamil
Kamil’s Blog at CXPA
What is CX Persona? - By @Lynn Hunsaker, CCXP
What is CLV and How it Prioritizes Customer Experience Management? @Lynn Hunsaker, CCXP
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