Last year Forrester spoke of CX leaders and laggards, and the fact that “Customer experience leaders grow revenue faster than CX laggards, drive higher brand preference, and can charge more for their products.” Now, while being a CX leader is a moving target, as we start 2017 it is certainly becoming even more apparent which brands truly have the customer as their focus, truly have Customer Experience as a strategy, and who is actually moving the needle and transforming how customers and potential customers feel about them.
So, what's the difference? Well, the difference is that their experience feels different. What you see, hear, and feel during interactions and even when not in a direct interaction with a company leading the way in CX just feels right. They make you feel like you want to do business with them. The experience feels cohesive and positive.
In comparison are the laggards, many of whom, sadly, did not see the expected results from their CX activities last year. To the customer, laggards tend to feel “piece meal”, as if they have flung out these tactical efforts in a reactive attempt to fix various points which are not cohesively strung together. Or, they clearly and obviously don’t seem to have really understood you as their customer or what you needed them to do. They kind of leave you thinking, “Aww, bless! They are trying, but so sad to see them go so wrong.”
At EffectUX we work with a variety of clients, some clearly more advanced in CX who want to elevate further and see what’s next, and some laggards looking for something to help them get going in the right direction to achieve their experience vision and raise their customer experience organizational maturity. Here are some of the keys we have seen that have enabled leaders to become leaders in the current landscape, in comparison to the laggards who are still trying, or, who might be earlier in their CX journey.
1. Understand what the experience being delivered is
Leaders tend to understand exactly what experience they are aiming to deliver. They understand what they want it to feel like and why. They are also aligned; their leadership is in-sync, and their employees believe in it too.
Laggards, tend to have leadership or functions that are siloed, or not all aligned with what they are doing or what they are trying to achieve. There is sometimes functional jockeying, or misalignment, which can lead to a disjointed experience being delivered, and therefore a disconnected feel to the customer.
2. Understand the audiences
Leaders, tend to have a very meaningful understanding of their customers, their users and their true needs. They are able to listen to them and use a range of techniques and sources, such as observation, to understand how they can genuinely make their lives better.
Laggards, on the other hand, don’t tend have any mechanism in place to help them understand their audiences. Or, worse still, they might be using mechanisms that they have heard about and, therefore, decided to implement, for example, a Voice of the Customer program, but then don’t know how to utilize the information gained properly to better their customer experience.
3. Understand what to measure
CX leaders tend to better understand what they need to measure – what will really move the needle. They know what is important to their customers, their employees, and their business. They also tend to use different types of metrics for different purposes – be that trending, in design, or proactive.
Laggards tend to use any and all available data or simply measure a trending score, such as NPS, or C-Sat. While a start, they then reactively try and fix things when they see a bad score. While they may spend resources on capturing data and analyzing it, it is hard for them to get in front of the experience proactively due to the amount of noise they have to deal with or the fact that the data they have is not easily actionable.
4. Understand the impactful moments in your journeys
Leaders seem to really understand the various journeys involved and how they fit together. They understand the various touch points and how they impact each other. More importantly, they understand which points are more impactful and which are less so. They understand exactly where to focus, so that the experience will be elevated.
Laggards seem to either not understand the journey or, with the best of intentions, they might make a token effort, such as creating a customer journey map, but then not use it to obtain the maximum value. Things like this can end up being seen as more of a check point that they see as “part of their strategy” without including the integration points to be utilized to enact the strategy.
5. Focus on the employee experience
This one is key. The leaders have a clear focus and understanding of the importance of their employee experience. From the hiring process, to the workplace, to ensuring their employees are engaged and enabled, the leaders understand that the employees make a huge difference and play a huge role in enabling the customer experience to come to fruition.
The laggards tend not to place as much focus on their employees or tend to only pay employee experience lip service. They can be seen limiting investment, if they put any, into their employees.
6. Focus on the support experience
The leaders understand that when there comes a time that a customer really needs support, it is a critical moment. It can make or break the whole experience and will definitely impact their loyalty. Therefore, the leaders have placed focus on ensuring an amazing support experience. From hiring the right people to interacting with the customers, to having the right tools available to enable the experience to be seamless and engaging, the leaders have invested in ensuring this part of the customer’s experience will not be the reason for attrition.
The laggards, on the other hand, tend to be ill-equipped to provide a sufficiently competitive experience. We see several reasons for this, from having an inadequate hiring process, to having the greatest people but not enabling them to deliver the best experience.
7. Get tooling right
Tools are a huge part of enabling the execution of the Experience Agenda. The leaders seem to have the right tools. Not just the latest whim, or tools to provide a dashboard of any and all data, but tools that collect and present the right data in an actionable way to help them make the right decisions at the right time. Their tools tend to enable them to have traceability throughout the lifecycle and journey, so that each function understands its role in the total connected experience.
Laggards tend not to have the capability to see their data in a form that can help them in an optimal way. Or, they tend to have great dashboards and a wealth of data, but no idea how to use it due to a high noise ratio. They also seem to be less than adequately equipped to trace how a requirement came from a need, what metrics will equal success, and are unable to interact efficiently with design through to testing, deployment and support. This can lead to a complex, unproductive environment for the employees working to deliver the necessary elements of the experience.
8. Experience at the table
In organizations that tend to be higher on the leader spectrum, Experience Design tends to have a seat at the table. It is not just used for design, or user research, but as a strategy and as a tool to solve business problems. The functional leaders tend to work together to achieve the goal, understanding that only collectively, and not siloed, will they be able to achieve a customer experience that differentiates. They tend to understand that they need to keep learning, keep listening and understanding, and keep improving their organizational maturity in the space.
The laggards tend to display signs of organizational politics over who owns what, which often works against reaching goals. Sometimes, Experience also tends to be confused with thinking it is all about the way something looks, or just for the design and user research functions, limiting them from achieving the full power and impact that Experience Design might have brought strategically. They also tend to think about improving their customer experience only in the form of the aspects directly correlated to the customer, such as gathering customer insights, conducting a journey map, or improving the design; they can forget the organizational aspect that is needed to support such an agenda.
In summary…
It is great to see companies embracing what Experience can mean as a strategy, making way for an exciting future and a competitive landscape.
The great thing for us in the domain is that Experience Design is a continuous journey, where being a leader is a moving target. Many “leaders” today will still need to get even better in order to stay ahead of the competition in the future. For example, this might involve getting proactive and knowing the experience impact before making a decision. Or, understanding experiences that connect traditional and newer interaction modes, and the emotions they evoke.
For the “laggards” it is not too late. Start by understanding where you and your organization is now and the steps you need to start taking to advance. It can seem overwhelming, but it is achievable when you break it down. First, understand what your experience is and also what a great experience really means when it materializes for your customers: what will really move the needle?
