When I first came up for the idea of a customer experience initiative, it really was about creating a way to operationalize a sustainable transformation in any company to make the customer the center of the focus on the long-term business strategy for the company. Since most businesses are ‘in it for the money” it’s not especially realistic to believe that the leadership of a company would ever be the ONLY (or even primarily) focused on the customer. That said, the point of a customer experience initiative is to put the customer at the same level of focus for the company as revenue, profit and stock price. On some level, the thesis behind creating a customer experience initiative is the belief that a focus on customer experience is the most sustainable way for a company to achieve their revenue, profit and share price goals.

I like to think of a customer experience initiative as a multiyear, company-wide program designed to make sure that the customer is at the center of every decision and strategy. But to be clear, this is not about customer experience for the sake of customer experience. It’s customer experience for the sake of the business!

From an internal perspective, a successful customer experience initiative will lead to lower costs of delivery (because customers require less support and return things less often), higher revenue (because customers repurchase more and recommend products and services to their colleagues and friends) – and oh yeah, customer is also more loyal, mostly because they are happier. The idea to engage leaders who are not motivated by CX to invest in CX.

Externally, the benefits of a customer experience initiative are even more obvious since the investments make it easier and more valuable to invest in your products and services and on some level, your product or service can become a no brainer purchase decision. Great customer experiences form habits, and those habits come from a place that combines pleasure, convenience and value.

The Pillars of a Customer Experience Initiative

There are six major pillars of a Customer Experience Initiative. The order of these pillars is super intentional. Also, while all six are necessary, no five are sufficient. You may also notice that there is quite a bit of interdependence between the pillars that that is also intentional!

1. Trust: Trust is critical to delivering great customer experience. On the most basic level, trust is about setting expectations and then meeting them, if not exceeding them. Trust is important in today’s world as it usually drives security, privacy and quality. Trust also impacts how you communicate with your customers – clarity, simplicity, etc. Trust is also impacted by business practices – are they fair vs. one sided, and are they easy to understand vs. tricky? Trust can take years to establish, while one thoughtless mistake can destroy work in a moment.
2. Portfolio First Strategy: While some companies have only one product, most companies either have more than one product– or maybe they aspire to. This is a huge opportunity to use the good will created with one product line and use it to get customers to engage with the second product line. The problem is that sometimes, companies made decision that prioritize the needs of one product, service or business above the needs of the overall company. This myopic approach misses the opportunity. To overcome this, it critical to understand the root cause and to create incentives to take a portfolio first approach.
3. Quality: There was a car company that used to say that “quality is job 1.” Whether that company did a good job of making that be true, the reality is that vision is spot on. It doesn’t matter if you are delivering a product, a service or some part of the experience the core business customers notice when quality is great and when it’s not so great. One potential pitfall here is to only measure quality in the context of the cost of quality issues – for example the cost of extra support or of having to replace a defective product. While this cost of mitigation is a part of the quality landscape, it’s not the only metric and honestly its usually not even the most important one. The opportunity is to create a true “360 view” of quality from the customers’ point of view and then manage those underlying metrics. This approach not only creates an important early warning system, but it also can create a prescriptive way of addressing quality issues.
4. Digital Connection: While many of us were raised with the notion that it’s the human touch is the key to business, in the world of digital experiences digital connection is critical. If done properly, a great digital connection should create what feels like a customer experience. Further, by the nature of a digital connection you should also have the opportunity to use the information about the customer to deliver an experience that addresses their unique needs. This world of “digital intimacy” is incredibly powerful but also requires a high level of trust between vendor and customer. It done property, it can deliver magic that leads to increased engagement. If implemented improperly, it can also put trust at risk.
5. End-to-End Experiences: End to end experiences are critical because it creates an opportunity to teach customers how to be great customers. By delivering consistent end to end experiences, you also create the opportunity to create smooth transition for customers as they move from one phase to the next. Perhaps most importantly, when you think about customer experiences from end-to-end, you can you one phase of the customer journey to address and mitigate issue that customer may face in another phase.
6. Invest in Culture: This is the new pillar that I realized was missing when I first came up with the idea for a Customer Experience Initiative. Culture is important because it establishes a set of norms and values for the organization that puts the customer at the center of every decision. Great culture is both established and maintained from a combination of a set of rewards that recognize the behavior associated with the organizations values and a set of rituals that together drive engagement around culture.

As you read about these pillars, I hope the interdependencies are clear. For example, if you don’t have trust, it’s unlikely you will be able to get customers to engage in the digital connections that you need to have. At the same time, digital connection is one if the best ways to measure and mobilize initiatives around quality. The list goes on!

One thing that is also clear is that for a Customer Experience Initiative to be successful, it needs to be “tops-down” and leader led. To be clear, the leader doesn’t have to be thought leader of every aspect of their company’s customer experience initiative, but they need to be both the spokes model and the champion for it be effective. While they need to be bought it, they also need to understand it and –as importantly—to make it be a mandate. And if one thing is for sure, unfunded mandates do not work!

Bought in? Does this make sense? I hope so, but whether you are or not, future blogs will help you understand both the goals and the strategy to implement a Customer Experience Initiative that is right for your company.