If you’ve decided the time is ripe for transforming your customers’ experience, congratulations! You’re about to embark on journey that, if successful, will forever change the way everyone in your company thinks about not only their customers, but their approach to their job and everything they do. Given the potential impact and benefits of this new CX initiative, to succeed you will need to understand—and not misunderstand—the true nature of the journey you’re about to embark on.
Building on the conversation started in our previous post (Transforming the Customer Experience: A Thanksgiving Story, http://bit.ly/1xbnoYI), here then we present a more complete summary of what anyone about to build a new CX program needs to keep in mind.
Transforming the customer experience…
…is a never-ending JOURNEY, one without a fixed destination.
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While frustrating and counter-intuitive, you will never arrive ‘there’.
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The ultimate destination remains aspirational, a place you strive to reach and whose location is constantly shifting. You may get ‘there’ today, only to find tomorrow that yesterday’s milestone achievements have become table stakes, that the market has moved the bar defining a truly differentiated customer experience yet again.
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The journey is neither short nor easy, and requires a lot of hard work and dedication by many people throughout your organization.
…is a LOT more involved than merely surveying customers.
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The survey process is a necessary stepping stone along the way, but does not signify the completion of your CX journey. Nor does producing great reports and presentations.
…requires a culture shift away from a pure cost-focused mentality towards one that’s mostly (if not entirely) customer-focused.
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The shift must be visibly supported by and communicated in partnership with top corporate leadership.
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The shift must not only empower all employees to take appropriate, reasonable corrective action to redress customer-impacting issues, but integrate these expectations into individual performance objectives.
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The shift must democratize access to CX/VOC data and insights. Action can’t happen if VOC insights are held close to the vest, distributed to a privileged few locked away in an ‘ivory tower’.
…requires business owners who can act on key insights.
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Action can’t happen if you forget to involve operations and other key groups, whose perspective and leadership are required to develop meaningful action plans.
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Identify them at the outset, manage their involvement, and keep them involved moving forward.
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Insights minus empowered business owners equals inaction.
…requires more than a single metric (whatever it may be).
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You need both structured AND unstructured data, culled from every means available (survey, social, data warehouse, etc).
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You also need quantitative AND qualitative data (open-ended verbatims).
…requires engaging customers in a two-way dialogue.
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Feedback (both formal surveys and informal social media) must be tracked, unhappy customer experiences identified and timely appropriate responses undertaken.
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Leverage software to create a two-way dialogue, empowering internal process owners to engage with customers to address service slip ups, wherever they are communicated.
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Remember, feedback minus closed loop response systems invokes the same emotional response as talking to a wall…CUSTOMERS DO NOT LIKE TALKING TO WALLS.
There’s more to this, certainly, but these are key among the table stakes you’ll need to be prepared for as you embark on your journey. For more in-depth support for your new initiative, duSentio would be happy to help. Contact us any time at [email protected].
