What happens when a business has an unwavering intent to be agile in sustaining its relevance with its customer community? Well, that business will find itself in a continual state of change and transformation, without feeling any cultural dissonance with the rhythm of change. This is what happens when there’s a deep understanding that the customer runs the business.
Etching this understanding of customer supremacy into the fabric of a business and its operations is not a walk in the park for its leadership team. It requires leadership courage and composure to pull it off. Courage to ensure that there is a holistic approach to service excellence, when the conventional approach favours reactionary responses to service failures, as well as superficial and sporadic investment in human and non-human resources. Composure to ensure that rationality guides service delivery decision-making, so that whims, moods and ill-conceived ideas, do not.
Etching this understanding of customer supremacy into the fabric of a business and its operations is not a walk in the park for its leadership team.
When the approach to customer experience design is exposed to this calculus of courage and composure at the leadership level, acknowledgement of customer supremacy at the business epicentre level and deftness in remaining top of mind with the customer community, brand differentiation reigns.
The actual outcome of this holistic integration is customer experience agility. I like to think of this agility through the lens of a two-pronged, “hardware” consideration and “software” consideration. The hardware consideration contemplates the strategic use of technology, brand positioning, marketing, sales and operations. The software consideration is preoccupied with the human (employee) experience, the brand visioning, customer experience design and the service management infrastructure.
When the approach to customer experience design is exposed to this calculus of courage and composure at the leadership level, acknowledgement of customer supremacy at the business epicentre level and deftness in remaining top of mind with the customer community, brand differentiation reigns.
I have encountered many businesses that centre their focus on the “hardware” side of the business, neglecting the “software” side, which of course, creates a lopsided perspective. Next, they go on to expect great customer outcomes and are disappointed when their customer ratings are dismal. As an experienced service transformation specialist, I am never confused by this sequence of events. This flow is always predictable.
The businesses that circumvent this lopsided perspective pitfall, are those that invest in service excellence education. They ensure that muscular intelligence and subject matter expertise in the science of customer experience abound at the leadership level of the business. They understand the essential knowledge that has to abide at the top to ensure successful implementation of the necessary infrastructure to create and sustain customer happiness across the business.
The actual outcome of this holistic integration is customer experience agility. I like to think of this agility through the lens of a two-pronged, “hardware” consideration and “software” consideration.
My experience has been that service excellence education has diminutive value as essential knowledge at the leadership level in many businesses. In those businesses where the leaders have formally acknowledged and accepted that service excellence is a deeply scientific process, not simply a cobbled-together service training program for customer-facing staff, the customer experience footprint is remarkably differentiated.
Whenever I facilitate service transformation interventions, the first order of business is to conduct service education for the leadership level. I like to dispel myths about service excellence……and there are many. The intention is to imbed a new reverence for the science associated with the subject matter and therefore, the renewal of respect for the efficacy that must be associated with the many moving parts that must converge perfectly, to attain the coveted world class customer experience rating.
The hardware consideration contemplates the strategic use of technology, brand positioning, marketing, sales and operations.
One of the first concepts to be popularized is that of customer supremacy. Businesses that fail to understand the impact of how customer behaviours impact revenue flows, will never know how much revenue is lost to poor customer experience. Businesses that only look at and measure their current revenue flows are in the “lost opportunity” twilight zone. Calculating revenue loss is just as important as calculating captured revenue.
It is usually a revelatory experience when leaders set aside their biases, pre-conceived notions and disdain regarding service education. The more leaders submit themselves to service excellence education, the more subject matter expertise they develop and the more scientific the business becomes in its approach to service delivery.
The software consideration is preoccupied with the human (employee) experience, the brand visioning, customer experience design and the service management infrastructure.
When leadership respect for customer supremacy spikes, there is renewed interest in reshaping the business around the voice of the customer. This tethering supports early detection of shifts in customer behaviours, needs and preferences, creating the opportunity to be agile in reshaping the customer experience.
When businesses become more experience-agile, the lexicon in the boardroom changes. Leaders begin to speak about voice of the customer, customer effort scores, compliance with customer journey maps, customer churn, the removal of channel silos and customer experience strategy.
The ultimate result?
A reduction in the noise and clamour of hit and miss service delivery and an uplift in the probability of success that comes with intelligent action.