CX is at an inflexion point, shifting from managing to leading, from auditing to creating, from stagnation to action. Now is the time for organizations to take the next step in the evolution of the way customers experience products and services. The challenge for companies is to move from product-centricity to customer-centricity, to leadership.
At Platform One, we see the change from managing to leading as comprising six key points:
1. Show loyalty to customers
2. Omnichannel consistency
3. Root cause analysis
4. Empower your employees
5. Become friction-free
6. Expect and lead change
1. Show loyalty to customers
As Steven Van Belleghem (CX global thought leader) says, we need to shift from “How can we make customers more loyal to us?” to “How can we show more loyalty to customers?” Researchers such as Robert Cialdini have shown that reciprocity is a key driver of behavior. If we are loyal to customers, they will be more loyal to us. Retailers who have a ‘no quibble’ replacement process and manufacturers who have lengthy guarantees gain loyalty, by being loyal to their customers. The key to being loyal is to ensure that customers perceive you as being loyal to them, something that your research should measure and reveal.
2. Omnichannel consistency
If we want to lead, then we need to move in a single direction. This means that the experiences we create in person, online, via mobile, or in virtual realties are consistent. As Annette Franz (CEO of CX Journey Inc) says “It (shouldn’t) feel like I’m interacting with three different brands when I interact with (a business) through three different channels.”
Consistency is built by unifying the UX teams, unifying the CX program, and by focusing on customers as a whole person, rather than compartmentalizing them by channel, ie. by shifting to HX, human experience. The details of the experience do not need to be consistent by channel, but the essence should be consistent and appropriate.
3. Root cause analysis
Too many CX approaches focus on fixing problems when they occur, for example via hot alerts. This is a classic ‘end-of-pipe’ approach. Whilst there is merit in fixing problems, and they do need fixing, there are two key problems with focusing on fixing problems as they occur. Firstly, for everybody who reports a problem, there will be many more who experienced the problem and did not report it. When we focus on fixing problems, we only address the people who report problems and ignore the greater number who have not actually reported a problem. The second issue is that fixing the problems experienced does not address the root cause – which means that problems will tend to reoccur.
To move from managing experiences to leading, we need to conduct root cause analysis to find out why problems are happening. Is the problem caused, at its root, by training, the product, the messaging, the sales promise or something else? We need to remember that the open-ended comments from a CX program will tend to discuss the way a problem presented itself to a customer; we usually need to dig deeper than that to find the root cause.
4. Empower your employees
Your employees are your ears, they are the physical representation of your brand’s promise, and the means of you delivering your leadership. We need to empower our employees to allow us to lead the changes that will create better experiences for customers. This means doing things like using automation to make it easier for your team to deliver positive experiences and to use automation to increase employees’ job satisfaction. Similarly, use AI to expand the range of services that your team can deliver.
As well as having a CX program, make sure you have and utilize an EX program – looking at the employee experience. Remember, if your staff have to jump through hoops to deliver an experience, you are not leading the way to great experiences.
5. Become friction-free
The modern world values friction-free experiences as one of the most important aspects of an experience. Customers do not want to backtrack to complete a purchase, they don’t want to re-enter data (ideally they don’t want to enter data at all), and they don't want to wait for delivery, for stock checks, or to speak to a member of staff. Similarly, staff need friction-free processes to allow them to focus on leading the customer experience, rather than focusing on mastering the processes.
Sometimes the sources of friction will be apparent from your CX program, for example, people commenting about delays, waiting, out-of-stocks, slow downloads etc. However, you will often need to use root cause analysis to identify the sources of friction that are creating a sub-optimal experience.
6. Expect and lead change
One reason that so many CX programs stagnate and become less useful after the first year is that they implicitly assume that last year’s great experience is also this year’s great experience, and will be next year’s great experience. If you want to shift from managing experiences to leading experiences, then you need to expect change and you need to lead that change.
In terms of your processes, you need to be reviewing experiences, reviewing customer journeys, and listening to employees to evaluate two key factors: 1) what changes are happening and 2) what changes can we influence/lead? You need to review your programs, are they fit for your purpose? Is your CX program allowing you to change, to move from experience manager to experience leader?
Want to learn more?
Ray Poynter is going to be developing these ideas further in a webinar. If you’d like to pre-register for the webinar or chat to us about the points in this post, please email info@platform1.cx
