Forum

We recently described a cause of a weak customer experience; poorly integrated functional excellence. But that’s not the only cause. Sometimes, people simply don’t realize the impact of their work on the customer.

To facilitate this realization, and guide them down the road to self-discovery, we bring a cross-section of senior leaders together and divide them into groups.  We charge the groups with the creation of an end product.

Inevitably, the groups toward the “front of the chain” focus on fulfilling their esoteric goals.  They take their time.  They (unintentionally) ignore the customer and their role in helping the other team provide value to the customer.  In the end, neither team meets its ultimate objectives because they’ve focused on their process far more than the customer’s needs.

To participate in such an exercise is to participate in the breakdown of a value chain.  It’s like a bucket of cold water in the face.  The debrief, often in combination with customer data, “kick-starts” leaders on their road to self-discovery and the creation of their own line-of-sight to their role in the value chain. 

In the real world, organizations that provide an outstanding customer experience have people who see the ‘line of sight’ to the customer from wherever they are in the organization. Everyone understands their role in the value chain, how it links to the next step in the chain, and how their actions ultimately impact the customer.

To learn more about Forum’s work in the area of Customer Experience, click here.

“What were they thinking?!”

Mark Hurst used these four words to capture his “love-to-hate” feelings for poorly designed web site experiences.  Although Mr. Hurst focused on web experiences, poor customer experiences happen everywhere.

Why is it so hard to create a great customer experience?

Part of it has to do with the end-to-end nature of the experience, which requires not just one department in a company, but the coordinated actions of many.  Even in a simple trip to the grocery store, customers touch multiple functional areas—all organized around  a variety of policies, procedures, and systems.  Done well, the customer never realizes just how many groups create their experience; great experiences are seamless to the customer.  But creating and delivering that seamless experience consistently requires the alignment and orchestration of the organization around it.  And this is where it can get difficult.

It’s kind of like the parable of the blind men and an elephant.  In this case, the elephant is the customer experience and the blind men represent the major functional areas—Marketing, HR, Operations, etc.  Each man thinks he is describing what an elephant is, but in reality he has described just one aspect of it—it is a rope (the tail), it is a tree branch (the trunk), etc.  Similarly, functional leaders working in silos believe the customer interactions they have primary responsibility for deliver the full force of the experience, when in fact they have delivered only a fraction of it.  In the place of a seamless delivery—the “elephant”—the experience becomes inconsistent.  Sure the customer gets all the elephant parts—the trunk, the tail, the leg, and so forth—but too frequently the parts are not connected in a way to make a complete, attractive elephant.  The various company departments, wearing the blinders of their functional silos, have stitched together something that the customer experiences as disconnected and unappealing.

Companies wondering why they have not realized the full benefit of their investment in the customer experience may want to consider how they are—or are not—organized around the customer experience.  Do their customers experience an appealing elephant or something else?  Are their employees able to see through the eyes of their customers, or is their sight impaired by their functional silo?

I recently had an experience with a small-chain retailer.  I’d been referred to the chain by more than one fan.  My shopping experience was great, and when I was handed a $40 voucher after I’d made a $400+ purchase (way more than the amount of a typical purchase of mine), I felt like I’d found the next case-study in great customer experiences.  I was looking forward to spending that $40 incrementally over the 8 weeks I had to spend it.  I returned to the store soon after with my eye on a $6 item; at the time I needed nothing else.  And that was the problem.  I had one $40 voucher:  If was going to use the voucher on my $6 item, I’d lose $34 in value, since the voucher was good for one-time use only.

Okay, not great, but, from what I’d seen, it seemed like this chain did value its customers.  So I wrote the store and asked for four $10 vouchers.  Common sense, right?  If I had originally spent just $100, the store would have given me a convenient $10 voucher, so I assumed that I should be eligible for the same convenience—times four.  I sent my e-mail, confident I would be accommodated.

Unfortunately, my expectations were not met.

In the return email, I learned that the policy was the policy and there would be no change. I was advised to manage my needs and combine my smaller purchases to meet the value of the voucher.  Huh?  Why couldn’t my simple request be accommodated?  How simple and grief-saving it would have been.  Did anyone who worked for the chain ever try to use one of these vouchers?  My guess is no.

Ultimately, I was able to get the change made, but the good feeling I had at the time I made my original purchase had evaporated.  While I’ll still occasionally shop at the store, I am unlikely to become an advocate for it.  The irony?  If I had never been “rewarded” with the voucher in the first place, I would still be a fan.

This was yet another reminder of the importance of all aspects of the customer experience.  This store had great products and great people, but its policy was not customer-centric.  Leaders who are profoundly customer-focused understand that all aspects of the experience must be considered from the perspective of the customer.  It is not sufficient for a policy only to appear to be a reward for customers, it must actually be one.