Are You Aligned on Your Customer Experience?

The next time you are in a meeting with colleagues or heads of the other departments in your company, try this fun exercise!

Have everyone around the table take a minute and jot down the three words that come to their minds that best describe your company’s customer experience. Now share!

The customer experience is built across every touch point that spans the entire customer lifecycle. Yet in most cases, organizations are functionally aligned with each focusing on delivering a great experience from their area. Sounds like a recipe for success, right?

But what if the first two examples from the staff are “ease of onboarding” and “no hassle service”? Are these two definitions in alignment with each other? Certainly they both stand alone as good goals to have for your customer experience.

So then I sign up for your service, put in a user name and password, and immediately begin using the product. How easy was that! But then the first time I have a question and call for support, I spend the first 10 minutes of my call giving my name, where I’m located, what industry I’m in, the size of my company, etc. to the Customer Support rep. In this scenario, the delivery on one definition of the optimal customer experience torpedoed the other.

Innovation of products and services is all well and good, but first be clear on the customer experience you intend to deliver. Alignment across your management team is a critical first step!