{"id":600870,"date":"2017-03-28T19:44:04","date_gmt":"2017-03-29T02:44:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.watermarkconsult.net\/blog\/2017\/03\/27\/stop-wasting-your-money-on-customer-experience\/"},"modified":"2017-04-30T04:02:54","modified_gmt":"2017-04-30T11:02:54","slug":"stop-wasting-your-money-on-customer-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/stop-wasting-your-money-on-customer-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop Wasting Your Money On Customer Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

Faced with increasingly commoditized markets, more and more companies are launching customer experience improvement programs to differentiate themselves.\u00a0 However, there\u2019s something many of these companies don\u2019t yet realize:\u00a0 the vast majority of their programs will fail<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In a survey<\/a> of over one thousand companies by communications provider Avaya, an astounding 81% indicated that their customer experience improvement programs had failed to deliver results.<\/p>\n

Those are a lot of companies wasting a lot of time and a lot of money on something that isn\u2019t working.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s worse, given how these failures typically play out, companies end up losing more than just their investment in a better customer experience.\u00a0 They lose credibility \u2013 in the eyes of their employees, and potentially even their customers.<\/p>\n

Launched with great fanfare, most of these programs are left to die a slow death, starved for funding and attention.<\/p>\n

What remains strong, however, is the signal that sends to their workforce \u2013 confirming the staff\u2019s suspicions that customer experience really wasn\u2019t that important to the company.\u00a0 These programs become yet another casualty in the long line of corporate transformational changes that, in reality, just turn out to be the \u201cinitiative du jour.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given how that realization can take the wind out of an organization\u2019s sails, many companies are probably better off never launching a customer experience program in the first place, as opposed to pursuing one halfheartedly and letting it wither over time.<\/p>\n

With so many of these programs cratering, it\u2019s no surprise that one of the most common questions companies ask about these initiatives is \u201cwhat\u2019s the number one driver of success?\u201d\u00a0 I love that question because the answer is so clear and unambiguous:\u00a0 it\u2019s executive commitment<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Having witnessed many organizations tread the customer experience strategic path, there\u2019s no doubt in my mind that the unflinching commitment of a company\u2019s senior leadership is the single greatest<\/em> predictor of success for these programs.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to suggest that a compelling vision, flawless execution and skillful change management aren\u2019t critical to the journey.\u00a0 They absolutely are.\u00a0 But it all has to start with a level of executive commitment that goes beyond<\/em> mere sponsorship for the customer experience cause.<\/p>\n

To be among the 19% of companies that succeed on this journey, what does that required level of commitment involve?\u00a0 Here are three markers to look for:<\/p>\n

#1:\u00a0 Consistency<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you view customer experience improvement as a project like any other, with a defined beginning and end, then you may want to reconsider this path.<\/p>\n

Companies that succeed in this realm recognize the need to embed customer experience in their DNA, to make it an integral and enduring part of how they do business.\u00a0 That work never ends.\u00a0 Customer expectations and preferences will always evolve, as will a firm\u2019s products and services.\u00a0 As a result, fixing, polishing and tuning the customer experience is an ongoing task.<\/p>\n

If yours is an organization that easily gets distracted by the \u201cnext big thing\u201d \u2013 whether it\u2019s Big Data, predictive analytics, AI, or some other shiny object \u2013 then that may foreshadow problems down the road.\u00a0 When it comes to building an effective customer experience improvement program, the importance of consistency \u2013 in organizational focus and executive messaging \u2013 cannot be overstated.<\/p>\n

#2:\u00a0 Appreciation of Scope<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some business leaders think customer experience initiatives are about a good tagline or a clever marketing campaign.\u00a0 Others think it\u2019s about sending satisfaction surveys to customers, or putting staff through soft-skills training.<\/p>\n

These may be components of a customer experience improvement effort, but they alone hardly constitute a robust one.<\/p>\n

Executive support for these programs tends to wane once business leaders realize how comprehensive this work can be.<\/p>\n

Creating an environment that cultivates customer-centricity requires setting a myriad of organizational switches and dials in just the right position:\u00a0 hiring and training practices, performance measurement and recognition programs, compensation and incentive systems, IT infrastructure and business processes, customer research and feedback instruments\u2026 \u00a0just to name a few.<\/p>\n

This is precisely why a superior customer experience accords sustainable competitive advantage \u2013 because it\u2019s not as simple as making an advertising shift, revising a training program or installing a new CRM system.\u00a0 It requires much more holistic change, involving not just customer-facing activities, but employee-facing ones, as well.\u00a0 Do it right and it can be very difficult for competitors to replicate.<\/p>\n

The unfortunate reality, however, is that most organizations don\u2019t have an appetite for such sweeping change.\u00a0 And that ultimately fuels the demise of many customer experience programs.<\/p>\n

#3:\u00a0 Receptiveness to a New Economic Calculus<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not unlike the customer experience itself, the benefits from these improvement programs tend to cut across organizational silos.<\/p>\n

For example, enhancements in the clarity and readability of customer communications (such as contracts, correspondence or bills) may appear, based on traditional business accounting, to drive a net increase in expenses.\u00a0 What traditional accounting doesn\u2019t easily account for, however, are the savings associated with reduced inquiries from less confused customers.<\/p>\n

Effective customer experience design frequently involves upstream improvements that pay dividends downstream, often in a totally different organizational unit, cost center and time period.\u00a0 That economic calculus can be unsettling for some organizations that are more accustomed to the clear-cut ROIs of office consolidations, lease renegotiations and distribution expansions.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean the ROI of customer experience improvements is any less compelling (see this research<\/a> if you need convincing).\u00a0 It does, however, require a more thoughtful, holistic and long-tailed approach to benefit quantification.<\/p>\n

Without executive openness to that kind of economic calculus, it\u2019s likely that an organization\u2019s customer experience projects will be subordinated to other business endeavors, sowing the seeds for the program\u2019s downfall.<\/p>\n

Customer experience differentiation is hardly a waste of money.\u00a0 In a highly competitive marketplace, it is perhaps the best and only way for companies to stand out from the crowd.<\/p>\n

Investments in this area, however, do become wasteful \u2013 and potentially even harmful \u2013 when companies underestimate the commitment and fortitude needed to shape a truly customer-centric organization.<\/p>\n

Before embarking on a customer experience improvement program, executives should engage in some soul-searching, looking for those three markers to gauge their personal commitment to this journey.<\/p>\n

And if those markers aren\u2019t present, then perhaps the best thing those business leaders can do for their organizations\u2026 \u00a0is to focus on something else.<\/p>\n

[Editor\u2019s Note: \u00a0A version<\/a> of this article originally appeared in Carrier Management magazine.]<\/em><\/p>\n

* \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Faced with increasingly commoditized markets, more and more companies are launching customer experience improvement programs to differentiate themselves.\u00a0 However, there\u2019s something many of these companies don\u2019t yet realize:\u00a0 the vast majority of their programs will fail. In a survey of over one thousand companies by communications provider Avaya, an astounding 81% indicated that their customer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6822,"featured_media":92510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[128,84,14,94,332],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600870"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6822"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}