The Five Foundational Concepts of a Successful Customer Experience Program

By: Jim Tierney
culled from:http://loyalty360.org
During Tuesday’s Loyalty360 webinar titled, “PART 1 | The Insider’s Guide to Customer Experience Success - Customer Experience 101 ” which was hosted by Verint, attendees learned about the five foundational concepts for a successful customer experience program.

Brian Koma, VP & Customer Experience Practice Leader, Verint; and Sean Mahoney, CCXP, Strategic Solutions Consultant, Customer Analytics, Verint discussed these concepts and other key aspects necessary in an effective customer experience program.

Here are the Five Foundational Concepts of CXP Programs:

Vision

Define the strategy and vision for engaging with customers

Align with the corporate strategy and overarching customer experience goals

Governance

Establish a cross-functional Center of Excellence or Governance model

Provide strategic guidance and help manage priorities, communication and funding

Culture

Build the case for a customer-centric culture

Capture feedback from employees and engage them in designing solutions

“Culture is king,” Mahoney said.

Processes

Evaluate customer-facing processes

Identify closed-loop processes with customers and employees

Technology

Identify the right technology solutions for customer feedback and engagement.

After a company sets these five foundational concepts for a successful customer experience program, it needs to start building off that with the Four Pillars.

Four Pillars of Successful CX Programs

First Pillar:
Listen & Capture Feedback

Capture the Voice of the Customer at Key Interaction Points

Multichannel Feedback: People will give you this information in various ways. Be able to capture feedback in multiple ways

Structured Data

Unstructured Data: “Putting the data in perspective of the customer journey will be essential,” Mahoney said.

Second Pillar:
Analyze & Measure Trends:

Analyze structured data

Analyze unstructured data using Text & Speech Analytics

Integrate CRM data, customer segmentation and personas into the process

Measure Customer Experience against key metrics

Insights for Customer Journeys

Third Pillar:

Distribute Insight

“This needs to be distributed and made available with the most salient points,” Koma explained. “And you need to tell people what this means and help them understand. Sit down with stakeholders and review the information. Help them interpret the information, share best practices, and document the financial impact,” Koma said.

Executive Reports & Readouts

Develop Dashboards & Scorecards

Conduct Stakeholder Reviews of Data

Share Best Practices

Document Financial Impact

Fourth Pillar:

Act on Results

Use Case Management & Closed Loop Processes to follow-up on deficiencies

Identify and Implement Detailed Process, System and Organization Improvements

Develop Targeted Action Plans and Governance

Optimize Your Enterprise Using Customer Input & Communicate to Customers

Here are some key points Koma and Mahoney referred to as “The Customer Experience Challenge”:

Consumers channel hop. Organizations must connect the dots from web to contact center to social media

Organizations want to identify and understand the root causes of customer issues.

Organizations use differing and conflicting definitions for key terms used to describe Customer Experience metrics and objectives

Organizations lack knowledge and resources to aggregate & analyze large amounts of structured and unstructured data

Organizations want to predict customer actions, deliver personalized service, and reduce churn.

What’s more, here are some definitions of some key operating words:

Governance: Rules an organization places around who, where, what and how they can gather customer feedback

Metrics: How an organization measures loyalty and satisfaction & churn. Common metrics = NPS, Customer Effort, Churn rates, etc…

Loyalty: Customers who maintain & expand purchases & who recommend you to others

Churn: the percentage of customers who leave for a competitor

Channels: The different means customers use to interact with an organization: Telephone, Chat, SMS, E-mail, Web, Mobile (online & offline)

Journey Mapping: Visual representation of the different phases of your customers’ experience based on a variety of dimensions such as sentiment, goals, touch points – all from their perspective

Moments of Truth: Key customer interactions that make or break a customer relationship and result in either loyalty or churn

Actionable Data: Customer input that can be used to identify problems, broken processes and follow-up activities with customers

Customer Panels: Customers who opt-in to providing you with feedback on a regular basis

Mahoney and Koma shared the following Practical, Tactical Steps:

Assess and inventory existing programs

Establish metrics and governance (explore which metrics will be most helpful)

Pick a starting point (begin with transactional surveys; use it as a means of starting the ball rolling, ID stakeholders already in place)

Find stakeholders willing to take the first step

Create quick wins and showcase successes

Create stakeholder champions who can influence peers (gain momentum and help create customer-centric culture)

Cultivate internal experts and expand training in key concepts

Assign dollar value to all projects to justify investment over time (CRUCIAL) for senior officials

Use internal champions and wins to achieve critical mass

Create a Center of Excellence

Optimize the program

During Tuesday’s Loyalty360 webinar titled, “PART 1 | The Insider’s Guide to Customer Experience Success - Customer Experience 101 ” which was hosted by Verint, attendees learned about the five foundational concepts for a successful customer experience program.
Brian Koma, VP & Customer Experience Practice Leader, Verint; and Sean Mahoney, CCXP, Strategic Solutions Consultant, Customer Analytics, Verint discussed these concepts and other key aspects necessary in an effective customer experience program.
Here are the Five Foundational Concepts of CXP Programs:
Vision
Define the strategy and vision for engaging with customers
Align with the corporate strategy and overarching customer experience goals
Governance
Establish a cross-functional Center of Excellence or Governance model
Provide strategic guidance and help manage priorities, communication and funding
Culture
Build the case for a customer-centric culture
Capture feedback from employees and engage them in designing solutions
“Culture is king,” Mahoney said.
Processes
Evaluate customer-facing processes
Identify closed-loop processes with customers and employees
Technology
Identify the right technology solutions for customer feedback and engagement.
After a company sets these five foundational concepts for a successful customer experience program, it needs to start building off that with the Four Pillars.
Four Pillars of Successful CX Programs
First Pillar:
Listen & Capture Feedback
Capture the Voice of the Customer at Key Interaction Points
Multichannel Feedback: People will give you this information in various ways. Be able to capture feedback in multiple ways
Structured Data
Unstructured Data: “Putting the data in perspective of the customer journey will be essential,” Mahoney said.
Second Pillar:
Analyze & Measure Trends:
Analyze structured data
Analyze unstructured data using Text & Speech Analytics
Integrate CRM data, customer segmentation and personas into the process
Measure Customer Experience against key metrics
Insights for Customer Journeys
Third Pillar:
Distribute Insight
“This needs to be distributed and made available with the most salient points,” Koma explained. “And you need to tell people what this means and help them understand. Sit down with stakeholders and review the information. Help them interpret the information, share best practices, and document the financial impact,” Koma said.
Executive Reports & Readouts
Develop Dashboards & Scorecards
Conduct Stakeholder Reviews of Data
Share Best Practices
Document Financial Impact
Fourth Pillar:
Act on Results
Use Case Management & Closed Loop Processes to follow-up on deficiencies
Identify and Implement Detailed Process, System and Organization Improvements
Develop Targeted Action Plans and Governance
Optimize Your Enterprise Using Customer Input & Communicate to Customers
Here are some key points Koma and Mahoney referred to as “The Customer Experience Challenge”:
Consumers channel hop. Organizations must connect the dots from web to contact center to social media
Organizations want to identify and understand the root causes of customer issues.
Organizations use differing and conflicting definitions for key terms used to describe Customer Experience metrics and objectives
Organizations lack knowledge and resources to aggregate & analyze large amounts of structured and unstructured data
Organizations want to predict customer actions, deliver personalized service, and reduce churn.
What’s more, here are some definitions of some key operating words:
Governance: Rules an organization places around who, where, what and how they can gather customer feedback
Metrics: How an organization measures loyalty and satisfaction & churn. Common metrics = NPS, Customer Effort, Churn rates, etc…
Loyalty: Customers who maintain & expand purchases & who recommend you to others
Churn: the percentage of customers who leave for a competitor
Channels: The different means customers use to interact with an organization: Telephone, Chat, SMS, E-mail, Web, Mobile (online & offline)
Journey Mapping: Visual representation of the different phases of your customers’ experience based on a variety of dimensions such as sentiment, goals, touch points – all from their perspective
Moments of Truth: Key customer interactions that make or break a customer relationship and result in either loyalty or churn
Actionable Data: Customer input that can be used to identify problems, broken processes and follow-up activities with customers
Customer Panels: Customers who opt-in to providing you with feedback on a regular basis
Mahoney and Koma shared the following Practical, Tactical Steps:
Assess and inventory existing programs
Establish metrics and governance (explore which metrics will be most helpful)
Pick a starting point (begin with transactional surveys; use it as a means of starting the ball rolling, ID stakeholders already in place)
Find stakeholders willing to take the first step
Create quick wins and showcase successes
Create stakeholder champions who can influence peers (gain momentum and help create customer-centric culture)
Cultivate internal experts and expand training in key concepts
Assign dollar value to all projects to justify investment over time (CRUCIAL) for senior officials
Use internal champions and wins to achieve critical mass
Create a Center of Excellence
Optimize the program
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