Marketing professionals today are under pressure to improve the customer experience. Marketers and brands alike are realizing that it is not enough to pay attention to the words you use in your marketing materials, social networking campaigns, or ads. You must also deliver experiences people want.
How?
The Design Management Institute found that companies who consider design a strategic core function have a higher value over time. Design-driven firms show a 10-year return of 219% compared to the Standard & Poor 500 index. Despite the fact that strategic design is practiced and done well in some organizations, others struggle with it and are unable to start.
The typical organization is made up of a number of departments. Each department has its initiative. A department may be able to focus on a specific aspect of the business but at the expense of an end-to-end experience.
As an example, a telecom initiative to reduce the volume of calls may end up driving more customers into the store for help. A bank may invest heavily in an online account opening system, only to find that customers prefer to visit the branch due to questions about the setup or security of their data.
My experience has shown that the only way to ensure an organization avoids such problems and is successful is by adopting the mindset of its customers. Or even better, integrate the customer into the design of an optimal customer journey. Co-design is a method.
The Power of Customer-Centric Design
It’s time to make things right once you realize you’ve designed your customer experience wrongly by following traditional business practices, which prioritize efficiency and scale above the satisfaction of end-users.
How? It is difficult to change the way people think and behave.
It is still possible… but the three steps below will get you on your way.
Step 1: Create a framework centered on understanding the experience of the customer from the point-of-view of the customer
Before they can change their behavior, people need to know how their actions affect the rest of the company and, most importantly, the end user. To do this, the best thing to do is create an Experience Map.
An experience map allows your employees to see things from the perspective of the customer and not just their department or function. Only the customer can see the complexity of the entire business.
Each department in most organizations is focused on doing an excellent job. All departments are committed to meeting their KPIs and delivering on plans. Do they know how their role fits in the bigger customer journey? Are the billing people aligned with the service that new customers receive from the customer service department? Marketing communications highlight the most important information for the service. Do all employees truly understand their customers’ highs and lows?
A map of experience can help departments and teams to see beyond their contributions in order to provide even more value. It’s a universal tool that cuts across departmental nuances, acronyms, and terminology. It clarifies where each individual fits into the process and unites all stakeholders around a common customer experience.
Step 2: Create an organizational service blueprint that identifies the future state of your customer-centric organization
The service plan, if the experience map represents the current state of the business, is the future state. It guides how the customer experience should look once all touchpoints have been implemented. The service blueprint acts as a “shared artwork” that brings departments together and ensures everyone is on the same page in creating an optimal end-user experience.
Let’s return to the catering industry: we used a service blueprint in order to demonstrate changes at key touchpoints for customers, such as a better web portal for placing food orders. The service blueprint will also show critical changes in the “back office,” such as how employees view the order management system and what standard operating principles the team uses for delivery and setup. By contextualizing these touchpoints in a service blueprint, teams can better understand how their contributions all contribute to a seamless customer experience.
People should feel like they are a part of the development of the service blueprint. The authorship of the service blueprint creates a feeling of ownership. If people are involved in its creation, they’ll understand why things happen, initiatives will be more realistic, and they’ll feel more committed to keeping it alive. It would be best if you had everyone involved in order to be successful.
Step 3: Create a new set of metrics
You need to create an experience map, a service blueprint, and a new measurement system to keep everyone accountable. It is important to not only look at the outputs of one group but also all relevant customer data collectively. You could, for instance, create a dashboard to pull together metrics from different departments. This will give you a complete view of the performance of your organization. It’s also important to keep measuring as you go. Real-time tools can help you track your progress and make immediate adjustments.
The act of being a customer-centric company is one thing, but the actual actions are another. You can ensure that the change you want to see is actually happening by staying on top of your metrics.
Keep the course
Returning your business takes time. You have to change your mindset about your customers. It is possible to achieve this goal with an experience map and a service blueprint. Co-design and collaborative working methods can also be used. These shared artifacts connect people and help make working in a cohesive, customer-centric organization the norm.
Customers are becoming more demanding and have more options. Your customers will expect you to provide the same or better service than a company that is in a completely different industry.
To win in the long term, you must maintain your focus on the creation of the ultimate customer experience. This requires the collaboration between your frontline employees, your decision makers, and your clients to reimagine your service offerings.