Strategy

Best practice tools, techniques and knowledge to achieve a deliberate customer focused experience

Setting a strategy is fundamental to the success of any organization and it is fundamental when trying to improve your Customer Experience.
We believe all organizations should be able to answer the following strategic questions.

What is the Customer Experience you are trying to deliver?

Surprisingly for such a simple question, we find most organizations do not know the answer to this question. Everyone has a view or an opinion but as a whole, the organization has not defined what this is. Try a simple experiment. Go around your organization ask people this question and see the different replies you get. 
This means everyone is trying to do something different and thus the experience is different dependent upon which part of the organization they touch. This causes gaps, overlaps, and adds cost to your organization and moreover a poor Customer Experience. By the very nature of the word ‘improve’ it means you are somewhere and you are heading somewhere else. The strategic question is where? We believe all organizations should have a ‘Customer Experience Statement’ this is an articulation of the experience you are trying to deliver. Read more about this here.

What are the emotions you are trying to evoke?

Research shows over 50% of a Customer Experience is about emotions and yet most organizations do not consider this in their Customer Experience. This means they are neglecting 50% of their experience. Customers are people and people are driven by emotions at their core. Emotions drive our very existence. If you don’t think your Customers have an emotional experience just look at your Customer complaints and see the emotions evoked in these. Therefore, as part of a Customer Experience statement it is important that you define the emotions you are trying to deliver; that will differentiate you in the market and are core to driving value for your organization. This applies equally in the Business-to-Business as well as the Business-to-consumer markets. 
Is your Customer Experience deliberate?
Most organization experiences are not deliberate. Most experiences are accidental. In other words, they just happen. These experiences occur because of the decisions taken by the organization over time without considering the consequence on the Customer Experience. 
How can you have a deliberate Customer Experience if you do not know what experience you are trying to deliver? Once we have created a Customer Experience Statement, which includes the emotions the organization is trying to deliver we create a deliberate, emotionally engaging Customer Experience through the use of Moment

What are the emotions you are trying to evoke?

Research shows over 50% of a Customer Experience is about emotions and yet most organizations do not consider this in their Customer Experience. This means they are neglecting 50% of their experience. Customers are people and people are driven by emotions at their core. Emotions drive our very existence. If you don’t think your Customers have an emotional experience just look at your Customer complaints and see the emotions evoked in these. Therefore, as part of a Customer Experience statement it is important that you define the emotions you are trying to deliver; that will differentiate you in the market and are core to driving value for your organization. This applies equally in the Business-to-Business as well as the Business-to-consumer markets.
Is your Customer Experience deliberate?
Most organization experiences are not deliberate. Most experiences are accidental. In other words, they just happen. These experiences occur because of the decisions taken by the organization over time without considering the consequence on the Customer Experience.
How can you have a deliberate Customer Experience if you do not know what experience you are trying to deliver? Once we have created a Customer Experience Statement, which includes the emotions the organization is trying to deliver we create a deliberate, emotionally engaging Customer Experience through the use of Moment Mapping®

What drives value for your organization?

A Customer Experience is made up of many different touch points and attributes. Which of these drives most value for your organization? Do you know? If you do not know how do you allocate resources? We believe it is essential to focus on what drives value for your organization. 
We hear many people say they wish to exceed Customer expectations at every moment of contact. We disagree. You cannot afford to do this. You need to exceed Customers expectations at the moment of contact that drives most value for your organization. 
The definition of ‘value’ can be an increase in revenue; Customer loyalty; Customer retention; customer acquisition; tenure or whatever you decide is value for your organization. Through our research, vetted by London Business School, and written about in the DNA of Customer Experience: How Emotions drive value we can statistically show you what drives value in your organization using the Emotional Signature®. Once you know this, you will be able to determine where to put your resources.

What do Customers really want?

Customers cannot always articulate what they want, or what they value most of all. As part of our thought leading work we have discovered an aspect of the CE not normally discussed - the subconscious experience. It is critical to understand what Customers really want and what drives value otherwise you will waste money. One client spen millions of dollars on a web based billing system as Customers said this is what they wanted. After implementation, it did not increase Customer satisfaction at all. Many times Customers cannot articulate what they want.

How Customer centric is your organization?

Why is your organization delivering the experience it does today? Quite simply your experience is a manifestation of your organization - if your organization is product centric. You will have designed an experience that is product centric. If your organization is Customer centric you will have designed an experience that is Customer centric. 
In our second book Revolutionize your Customer Experience we discovered all organizations are on a journey from being Naïve to natural® in the way they are focused around Customers. If you are to change your Customer Experience, you need to change your organization. To do this you need to know where you are today, where you want to be and what you need to fix as a consequence.
These are some of the key questions your organization needs to address if you are to improve the Customer Experience and thus Customer loyalty and Customer retention. We hope this helps your thinking.