Welcome to CX Success Strategies | June 2023
Have you given your team clear directions for CX?
Establishing clear directions for CX is crucial in any business undertaking. In addition, it is essential to provide employees with a well-defined path, especially regarding customer experience.
“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”
As many of you may recall, this is a portion of the dialog between the Cheshire Cat and Alice in Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. The quote is the Cheshire Cat’s retort to Alice asking, “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
With numerous tasks at hand, it can be tempting for employees to overlook important actions like keeping customers informed about repairs through phone calls or emails. In other words, your team needs your direction for CX. In our latest blog, I outline the powerful role that senior leaders can play in establishing what actually matters to the organization. Governance is typically the word used to define the essential work that senior managers must do to ensure CX success.
Governance provides clear direction for CX by:
- Setting a clear future outcome(s). People must know what the organization is striving to do and achieve. This direction clarity is essential in CX. Why? Often, the short-term results are less tangible than for other business activities. Consider, for example, investing in a new inventory management system. When implemented, managers should see improvement in old and obsolete inventory, better fulfillment, and various other improvements. However, seeing immediate results in CX is more difficult. This difficulty is why senior leaders’ active involvement is so critical. They can continually reinforce the need to focus on the customer even if short-term results are absent.
- Managing the ongoing process. Improving CX is not a few months of effort but is finished. It is an ongoing process that really is more about changing the company culture. Cultural change takes time and effort. It needs to be managed for results.
- Clearing obstacles to success. The barriers to providing great CX are numerous. Things like the customer has a problem that cuts across multiple departments. Who is going to ensure this collaboration?
If you are starting a CX improvement effort, focus first on the ultimate outcomes. In other words, define a great customer experience and spread the word throughout the organization. Next, ask about governance if you are in the middle of a CX improvement program and things are not moving as you might like. Are the outcomes clear from senior leaders? Moreover, are they providing the needed oversight to make the process effective?
Senior leaders play a pivotal role in cultivating a customer-centric culture and driving continuous improvement by establishing clear future outcomes, effectively managing the ongoing process, and addressing obstacles to success. So, whether you are embarking on a CX improvement initiative or looking to enhance an existing program, emphasizing clear outcomes and implementing strong governance provides a clear direction for CX and has the potential to create a substantial impact.
I hope you enjoy the blog, and please share your valuable feedback.
A. Lynn Daniel
Founder & CEO
NEWS
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