This month, experience5 is turning ten years old. As the birthday cake just came out of the oven and is cooling down waiting for the frosting to be added I thought about what made the past ten years so special.
It was working with great people, sure! Also, being able to improve the experiences of millions of customers and thousands of employees was amazing! But most of all, I enjoyed honing in and perfecting the role of a sherpa for my clients – guiding them on the path they chose, helping them to avoid the pitfalls en-route, and allowing them to reach their goal on the most efficient path. In short, I love being Google Maps for those who are traveling to destination CX!
Good Consultants don‘t Carry You – they Guide You!
As a Customer Experience (CX) consultant, I help my clients navigate their journey to customer centricity, just like how Google Maps helps people navigate their journey to a desirable destination. I work with my clients to understand their customers’ needs, pain points, and preferences, and then create a roadmap for improving the overall experience.
And it is the best job in the world!
Just like using google maps, your journey involves locating your current position, deciding on the destination, mapping the most efficient route from here to there, and then – as you go – warning you of pitfalls on your route. They key is that you chose your destination, you are neither forced nor whipped to go there. Hence, all you need is guidance on the how to get there.
Here are some of the things you can expect when working with experience5.
Understanding Your Current Location: The Assessment Approach
Getting from today to tomorrow’s ideal state in customer centricity needs proper analysis of where you are now. We use the Customer Institute Assessments for Customer Centricity, Employee Centricity, and Customer Support maturity – depending on where you are headed.
Using a tried and tested methodology, we help you assess your organization’s performance and identify areas for improvement. Here’s how we do it:
First, the On-Site Assessment:
I personally lead a team that conducts comprehensive interviews with employees at each site, spanning a duration of 1-2 weeks. We assess organizational performance across 10 categories, each with 10 sub-dimensions, that employees rate from 0 to 10 totaling a maximum score of 1,000 points. You can see: no surveys, no questionnaires – just proper and straightforward conversations in group and individual interviews that participants typically love being included in.
Secondly, a Thorough Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis:
Once the results are in, my team and I work together to analyze the data and identify areas that require improvement. We develop customized action plans based on best practices and prioritize issues that need immediate attention. The vast employee verbatim collected during the on-site assessment allows us to understand the story of “what’s really happening” and make sure all recommendations are relevant, pragmatic, and actionable.
Finally, Sharing the Results with Your Management and the Teams:
My favorite part: meeting in person with your leadership and sharing what we discovered, quoting what we heard from the team, putting it all into the context of the scores, and suggesting a prioritized action plan.
So, here we are – a perfect situation analysis that positions us at the start of our journey. And year or two from now we can repeat the assessment and measure the progress we have made so far.
But first, what do you have to expect on your journey to customer centricity now that you know where you are starting from?
Mapping your Path Forward – With MapCX, a 100-step guide to customer centricity.
As you drive out of your garage, you want to anticipate what to expect on the route ahead – toll roads, construction sites, road closures, icy roads, floodings? Your path to customer centricity is just like that. Which resources are needed, which roles to be created? Are there IT implications? How much budget do we need? What can go wrong, and what are the typical pitfalls?
What you need now is a best-practice roadmap, based on the learnings of previous travelers! Our MapCX workshops will answer all of these questions for you! In a one-day briefing workshop with your key decision makers we share a carefully crafted guide that covers all aspects of a CX initiative, spanning across three years and over 100 steps. At the end of the day you can all look each other in the eyes and decide if you are really committed to departing on that journey – a great and inclusive way of rallying the leadership team behind your vision of becoming (more) customer centric.
Is it Worth Traveling to Customer Centricity? The ROI of CX
As a CX expert, I am often asked about the return on investment (ROI) of customer centricity. Investing in a favorable experience for customers can yield significant financial gains for businesses in terms of improved customer satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy, ultimately leading to increased profits and revenue. But that’s easy to say and might not convince the cynics and sceptics in your organization.
This is why – from executive briefings on ROI, all the way to training the team on how to track ROI – we look at this topic from beginning to end. We help our clients by creating a baseline and identifying KPIs for customer touchpoints. We then jointly define specific, measurable goals and objectives for improving the customer experience that are tied to financial outcomes.
And we teach your teams how to implement customer experience initiatives, track their cost, and regularly analyze KPIs to determine their impact on financial performance.
Because in a CX initiative, you should be able to always calculate the ROI and justify the financial benefit of customer centricity.
Need a Drivers License for the Trip? We Cover the Training … and the Certification!
Being new to any topic can be quite intimidating – remember your first swimming lesson, the first time on a bike or horse, the first long trip all by yourself. Experience management is no different: intimidating at first – fun at last!
What I enjoy doing better than Google Maps is that we also train you how to drive! With more than 10 years of training experience and Customer Institute certification for our training programs you can enjoy the efficiency of getting best practice guidance and training from one single source. Here are some examples:
Learning the Ropes: The Customer Experience Masterclass
This Customer Institute certified masterclass lets the team learn the essentials of Customer Experience management and implement them efficiently. This program is designed for individuals seeking to expand their knowledge in best practices, tools, techniques, and methods of customer experience used by leading customer centric organizations. Our graduates from around the world walk away with a personal action plan and apply the knowledge to their organization right away. We run masterclasses publicly as well as in-house – and we do so on all continents.
Aligning the Stars in the Leadership Team: The Executive Briefing on Customer Centricity
The Executive Briefing on Customer Centricity is a one-day, high-level strategy workshop for executives, functional and regional leaders, and board members to gain insight into customer centricity options and execution models. What I love about these sessions is that they cover all main aspects of determining the customer centricity strategy for a medium to large organization or government entity.
What I discuss with C-level executives includes the reasons why top global brands have made customers their focus, different customer centricity strategy options and their impact on business, return-on-investment from customer centricity initiatives, organizational maturity levels in customer centricity, and more.
Also the Executive Briefing is available as a public event open to individual registrations or as an in-house event exclusive to a specific organization or government entity.
Specialty Training When the Team Needs it!
Then, as we progress in the maturity of experience management in my clients’ organizations, we focus on specialty topics and train in those areas, e.g., customer journey mapping, voice-of-the-customer program management, employee experience, and much more.
Are Your Ready for the Journey to Customer Centricity – I am Happy to be Your Sherpa!
So, that’s my life as the Google Maps and as a sherpa for our clients. I hope you agree that it is one of the best jobs on the planet. Where else do you get a chance to help leaders around the world impacting the life and the experiences millions of customers and employees have?
Here is to the next ten years … in all gratefulness for the support, encouragement, and wonderful testimonials of the past decade!