Customer Experience continued to be a dominant business issue throughout the world in 2014. We get many inquiries for our services globally. I worked with clients in more countries than ever before last year, including China, India, and Saudi Arabia to name a few. They are all working to improve their Customer Experience. I can say with confidence the Customer Experience concept is now a worldwide phenomenon.
It is great to see but I also see problems, some of which I have written about before. My concern is the focus on improving the Customer Experience is in danger of heading the same way as Customer Relationship Management (CRM), into failure if it’s not careful. I see seven signs of failure for CX that I saw with CRM, represented in common statements I hear, including:
“This IT system, will solve all my problems.”
IT systems are part of the reason many Customer Experiences are poor but only part of the reason. The big IT companies are coercing organizations to believe all they have to do is buy an IT system and their Customer Experience will improve by magic. We all know organizations made huge investments in CRM IT systems and expected the world to change overnight. When the world didn’t change, it sullied the name of CRM.
“Of course I know what the Customer Experience is about!”
An increasing number of people have a superficial understanding of what a Customer Experience is, like CRM. As the saying goes “A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.” Customer Experience is about human behavior and Customer’s emotions. You need to understand experience psychology. As with anything else, you need to understand what you are doing to make a difference.
“What is the one thing I can do that would improve the Customer Experience?”
It is naive to think there is one thing to do that will improve the Customer Experience. People who think this is the case don’t understand the subject. It is human nature to want a quick fix, but there is no “silver bullet” that will solve your Customer Experience problems.
“Everyone else is doing Customer Experience, so we should, too.”
You may feel the need to jump on the bandwagon, but that is not a reason to focus on improving your Customer Experience. Make sure you understand where the bandwagon is going, decide whether you want to go there, and commit to the journey. Improving the Customer Experience is hard work. If you are not prepared to do it, don’t even start. You’ll do more harm than good.
“I work in Customer Experience.”
Are you sure? Or have you just rebadged your job that you’ve been doing for the last ten years? Rebadging jobs, projects, and functions and calling them Customer Experience doesn’t mean you will magically change things. To change things you need to do something different!
“We have mapped our processes to improve the Customer Experience.”
There is a big difference between experience and a process. Organizations obsess themselves with processes and fail to see the difference between the experience and a process. A process is what you want the customer to do. Allow me to let you in on a secret: Customers do not always do what you want them to do, and if you force them to submit to your process, this can cause a poor experience.
“Our Senior Executives rolled out a new slogan about our Customer Experience.”
Too many senior execs decide to improve Customer Experience, without knowing what their organization needs to do to change their current experience. Too many are looking for a quick fix; too many fail to lead. Customer Experience is a way of life, a cultural change, and a commitment needed from the heart as well as the head. It is not a slogan.
I am pleased to have helped, in some way, to shape a new industry with our books, research and client work since 2002. I see dangers on the horizon we should all try to avoid. I don’t want to see Customer Experience go the same way as CRM. Let’s make sure we work together to avoid them for the benefit of the Customer. Customers deserve better.
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Colin Shaw is the founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy, one of the world’s first organizations devoted to customer experience. Colin is an international author of four bestselling books and an engaging keynote speaker.
Follow Colin Shaw on Twitter @ColinShaw_CX