After a recent round of events and meetings, one thing that resonated is how many companies are struggling to get their customer experience plans and initiatives under way.
In some cases, newly formed CX teams have been trying to understand the current customer experience as well as the internal processes, technology and possibilities that exist to improve life for the customer, but are overwhelmed with complexity. In other companies, we've seen keen CX advocates trying to make change happen while also trying to manage the intricacies of their day job.
For both, the challenge isn't with ideas in the CX space, but more about how to get these CX plans under way.
Have a process
We've come up with a six-step process to help guide companies through to CX success. With key steps such as identifying your goals, knowing your customers, developing potential use cases and choosing the best ones, through into designing, testing and refining, this process will get you up and running fast. Business-friendly tools such as our CX vision cards help to win buy-in.
Focus on quick wins
As you identify potential CX opportunities it makes sense to focus on those which you can implement quickly, prove value, and gain the support of colleagues around the business. By proving clear benefits from each of these quick wins, we've found it helps to generate enthusiasm and budget for further activity.
Always think multiple channels
While creating these quick wins you might be tempted to invest in software which only benefits one of your channels. However, the reality is that for most businesses the main challenges to customer experience happen when customers fall into the gaps between touchpoints, and this approach would have zero benefit for those situations.
After all, your customers don't worry about your silos or channels—they just think about you as one brand. So having a central brain capable of coordinating activity across all your channels makes more sense, even if you start to use it in just one or two channels to deliver those quick wins.
Consider beyond the next few months
It's also worth thinking from day one about the level of CX sophistication you will need down the line, and pulling your CX plans together accordingly. After all, you don't want to choose a central brain which you find in six months can't keep up with your plans.
Look for solutions which enable you to manage multiple prioritization for each customer, which can perform real-time model scoring, and which utilize machine learning. You will also want a solution capable of understanding each customer, seeing how they behave, and letting you turn this insight into relevant action for each individual. It's still surprising how some solutions can manage processes but struggle to truly personalize for every different customer.
