For any organization striving to significantly improve customer experience, they need a plan to do so. That’s because the ability to design and deliver great customer experience doesn’t “just happen.” It’s planned. Which is where a customer experience (CX) strategy comes into play.
Your CX strategy is a framework for bringing your CX vision to life. It’s a way to help your company systematically make decisions that allow you to consistently meet and exceed customer expectations.
The fact is, many customer experience strategies don’t deliver the desired results. That’s because without defined details and clear direction, it’s easy to waste time, resources and effort on the journey to becoming more customer focused. In other words, it’s hard for companies to bring their experience strategy to life. But for those who do, the payoffs are great. Because a well-defined CX strategy is a foundational, best-practice capability of customer experience leaders.
Even if an organization has built a robust strategy designed to accomplish everything it needs to, there are still several challenges to overcome. This isn’t surprising, given that any shift towards greater customer-centricity requires some degree of organizational change. For some, the change is modest. For some, transformational. For others, it’s just really hard.
In our work with organizations of all sizes (from the Fortune 100 to mid-market leaders) and across industries (from insurance and technology to retail and banking)—including culture and change management guidance—we’ve seen a number of common challenges that these companies have had in operationalizing their customer experience strategies.
The biggest “blockers” occur when companies don’t...
CX leaders ensure that their customer experience strategies do four things very well. First, they align to their business and brand strategies. Second, they articulate their strategies, defining the customer experiences they plan to deliver, and to whom. Third, they guide how their people behave, and how their systems, processes and activities enable them to deliver the experiences they wish. Fourth, and critically, their customer experience strategies inform the prioritization and use of resources, guiding the allocation of the resources to design and deliver the intended experience.
These companies recognize that it’s hard to be customer-centric without a plan—a defined strategy—to guide it. To build yours, engage broadly and collaborate with leaders and stakeholders across your organization. Be clear about who you wish to serve and the types of experiences you plan to deliver. And be sure to avoid the common pitfalls other organizations have fallen into.