First of all, let me establish that a business cannot build a great reputation for stellar customer experience, by magic. It takes will and skill, applied in a systematic way, over time and not overnight. At this point in 2025, businesses that are serious about anchoring their places in the hearts and minds of their customers, have deployed compelling customer experience management strategies. For those businesses that are stuck at the starting gate however, all is not lost, there’s still time to build a strong way forward, without jeopardizing customer experience excellence.
For those businesses that are endowed with thriving service delivery universes, the starting point of their journeys would have been in the understanding that service excellence is created by the combined efforts of all departments and all employees. If one department drops the ball, or underperforms, the entire value chain is weakened. It’s important to note that the offending department can be any in the constellation, it does not have to be the customer service department, which is typically, the usual suspect. So, having a clear picture of where the weakest points of the delivery ecosystem lie, is critical to creating a strong customer value chain.
A business cannot build a great reputation for stellar customer experience, by magic.
In 2025, the principle of a unified business still stands and the master plan for creating relevant strategies should still be informed by where the weakest points in the ecosystem are located, so that end-to-end delivery is not jeopardized.
The number one contributor to jeopardy, is the lack of a clear definition of what customer experience excellence means to the business. This picture should be so granular, that every employee will have full understanding of the shared vision and the unique contribution that each department will be expected to make, to the overall achievement of the vision.
For those businesses that are endowed with thriving service delivery universes, the starting point of their journeys would have been in the understanding that service excellence is created by the combined efforts of all departments and all employees.
I can’t tell you how many businesses have espoused their commitment to customer experience excellence, but have skipped this vital step of ensuring the presence of an impeccable supporting infrastructure, especially the most important piece of the puzzle, the overarching vision.
Another contributor to customer experience jeopardy, is the generalized unenforced accountability that plagues countless businesses. Accountability has become quite a buzz word in the business universe, but what’s missing is the effort required to distil it into enforceable performance indicators, standards and practices, against which goals, tasks, actions and outcomes, can be measured. Up and down the corridors of business, “accountability speak” has achieved the heights of popularity, without an effective working accountability framework.
The number one contributor to jeopardy, is the lack of a clear definition of what customer experience excellence means to the business.
Far too often, there is a fragmented approach to addressing systemic malfunctions in businesses. The ubiquitous operational audits are conducted, but the commitment to enacting remediation plans through to their conclusion, is missing. So, the result is a mass of businesses with dense fault lines that are so widely dispersed, that they debilitate businesses permanently, through inefficiency and impaired customer success.
Another culprit in the game of jeopardy, shows up when businesses tolerate persistent ineptitude among the rank and file of the employee community. Why some individuals, from the highest to the most junior levels of the internal hierarchy, are allowed to get away with poor performance outcomes, is an ongoing mystery. It goes against prudent practice, to continue a staffing arrangement that is not talent-rich, in a competitive marketplace.
One way of avoiding customer experience jeopardy, is for a business to commit itself to the pursuit of perpetual relevance; the act of taking decisions and producing outcomes that position a business to maintain congruence with the expectations and needs of its customers.
One way of avoiding customer experience jeopardy, is for a business to commit itself to the pursuit of perpetual relevance; the act of taking decisions and producing outcomes that position a business to maintain congruence with the expectations and needs of its customers. By applying this intention to all arms of its operation, a business can now hold itself “accountable” for showing how it is progressing its agenda for growth and development, in measurable ways.
In the domain of service delivery, perpetual relevance offers itself as a compass that primes a business to avoid manoeuvres that jeopardize customer experience excellence. So, for 2025, why not make it a year that jeopardy does not imperil your customer experience?