Customer Experience, a cross-cutting issue
The Customer Experience is the trace left in the customer's mind, and is the result of the various responses, interactions and experiences with the company throughout the customer journey: before, during and after the transactional phase itself. (To learn more about the concept of Customer Experience and how it differs from customer satisfaction or CRM, read our article "Are you sure you have mastered the 3 key approaches to building customer loyalty? “)
It is therefore necessary to set the same level of requirements for all possible points of interaction: the information distributed on the website, the content of an email from a marketing campaign, the use of the product, the exchange with the customer service person by telephone, the passage through the checkout of a shop, etc., must generate a coherent and qualitative experience.
The experience (rational and emotional), as well as the attachment to the brand, are therefore not the prerogative of "Customer Service" but of all the services concerned (whether or not directly linked to the customer).
This is a cross-cutting issue that can be complex to address
...Which the CODIR must take up!
Customer Experience improvement projects can only be successfully implemented if they are driven by the Management Committee itself.
This is for three reasons:
1. They require real decision-making power
Unlike the management of a project limited to a single business line within the company, led by a project director, all the operational departments must take ownership of the subject in order to size the investments at their right level and take the appropriate decisions.
Projects to improve the quality of the Customer Experience are at a strategic level (direct impact on commercial performance, close link with the company's overall strategy). Entrusting them to project leaders who are far from the decision-making level, however brilliant they may be, means taking the risk of not succeeding because they will have neither the status, nor the decision-making power, nor the strategic vision that will enable them to carry out such a transformation
2. Their operational deployment involves profound changes
We realise that these projects, in addition to being cross-cutting, most of the time generate the need for changes in the organisation, processes, tools and/or skills. Their operational follow-up is therefore complex and concerns a large number of people and parameters. Ensuring their coherence and dynamism therefore implies both having a global vision and being able to drive such sometimes profound changes.
3. The monitoring and steering of these projects is at a strategic level
The very definition of the indicators for monitoring the quality of the customer experience is a strategic subject, as they must reflect the vision and ambition that the company has set itself. Depending on the company's objectives and maturity on this subject, we will opt for the Net Promoter Score, or we will work to define the Customer Effort Score, for example (see our forthcoming article on the indicators for measuring and steering the Customer Experience). You can also monitor the loyalty rate, the average basket or the speed of recruitment of new customers.
In all cases, it is the company's revenue and margin that is at stake, but these more precise intermediate indicators can be very useful.
The Management Committee will then have to adjust its steering mode to the available data and tools.
This is why, in this type of project, KESTIO consultants involve the Management Committee from the very beginning of the process definition and ambition sizing phase.
We have also noticed (with pleasure!) that, although some managers are sometimes unconvinced of their usefulness at the beginning of the process, they become more and more involved during the course of the project and sometimes even enthusiastic... they see in a pragmatic way how much sense their team makes in improving the customer experience, thus "humanising" the company's performance objective!
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