What Are Today's Savviest Executives Asking About Customer Experience?
Vineet P Puri
Board Member | CCO/COO Expertise | Transforming CX for Revenue Growth & Churn Reduction | Building Scalable, Data-Driven Post-Sales Organizations
In today's business landscape, the most pertinent question on every executive's mind is, "what do my customers want?" Leading companies understand that they are in the customer-experience business, and they acknowledge that how an organization delivers for customers is becoming as important as what it delivers. The savviest executives are asking this question more frequently than ever before, and rightly so.
Research has shown that technology has given customers more power than ever before when it comes to purchasing goods and services. Customers expect a seamless, personalized, and convenient experience that is on par with companies like Google and Amazon. To achieve this, organizations must focus on several building blocks of a comprehensive improvement in customer experience.
First and foremost, companies must identify and understand the customer's journey. This means paying attention to the complete, end-to-end experience customers have with a company from their perspective. Quantifying what matters to customers is also crucial. Customers expect high standards for product quality, service performance, and price. Understanding which of these factors is most critical to the customer segments an organization serves is essential.
To deliver a distinctive customer experience, companies must have a collective sense of conviction and purpose to serve the customer's true needs. This purpose must be clear to every employee through a simple, crisp statement of intent. Customer journeys are the framework that allows a company to organize itself and mobilize employees to deliver value to customers consistently, in line with its purpose.
To improve the customer experience, companies must redesign their business from the customer back. Customer-experience leaders start with a differentiating purpose and focus on improving the most important customer journey first. Then, they improve the steps that make up that journey. They design supporting processes with customer psychology in mind, transform their digital profile to remove pain points in interactions, and set in place several building blocks for a comprehensive improvement in customer experience.
Armed with advanced analytics, customer-experience leaders gain rapid insights to build customer loyalty, make employees happier, achieve revenue gains of 5 to 10 percent, and reduce costs by 15 to 25 percent within two or three years. But it takes patience and guts to train an organization to see the world through the customer's eyes and to redesign functions to create value in a customer-centric way.
Implementing customer feedback mechanisms is crucial to understanding customer needs and expectations. This can include surveys, feedback forms, and social media channels. Collecting and analyzing feedback allows businesses to improve their products, services, and customer interactions to meet the needs of their customers.
Recommended by LinkedIn
Leveraging technology is another way to enhance the customer experience. It can make the experience more personalized, convenient, and frictionless. Businesses can use data and analytics to gain insights into customer behavior and preferences, allowing them to optimize the customer experience continually. Collaborating with partners, suppliers, and distributors can also help deliver a consistent, seamless customer experience across all touchpoints.
Continuous measurement and optimization of the customer experience are necessary to track customer satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy metrics. Using this data, businesses can identify areas for improvement, set targets, and continuously optimize the customer journey. This approach ensures that the customer experience is always improving and aligning with their needs and expectations.
Finally, Train your organization to see the world through the customer's eyes. Encourage your employees to empathize with customers, understand their needs and pain points, and focus on creating value in a customer-centric way.
However, it takes patience and guts to train an organization to see the world through the customer's eyes and to redesign functions to create value in a customer-centric way. The management task begins with considering the customer—not the organization—at the center of the exercise.
It's important to recognize that the customer experience is no longer just a buzzword, but a critical component of success in today's business landscape. The journey may not be easy, but it is one that every business must embark on to stay competitive and relevant in the eyes of today's discerning customers.