Editor's Note: Take a look at our featured best practice, Digital Transformation Strategy (145-slide PowerPoint presentation). Digital Transformation is being embraced by organizations across most industries, as the role of technology shifts from being a business enabler to a business driver. This has only been accelerated by the COVID-19 global pandemic. Thus, to remain competitive and outcompete in today's fast paced, [read more]
Also, if you are interested in becoming an expert on Customer-Centric Design (CCD), take a look at Flevy's Customer-Centric Design (CCD) Frameworks offering here. This is a curated collection of best practice frameworks based on the thought leadership of leading consulting firms, academics, and recognized subject matter experts. By learning and applying these concepts, you can you stay ahead of the curve. Full details here.
* * * *
Okay, you started this year with a big resolution, “we’re becoming a customer centric company!” “We’re putting the customer at the centre of everything!”
Great, but where to start?
One of the best ways–and we’re seeing our clients using this over and over again–is by mapping the customer journey. This means the journey your customers go through when they buy (or not) something from you. By doing this exercise, you can really put yourself in your customers shoes and start understanding.
Have seen many of these processes run by our clients, we can summarise the 3 most important best practises for the first timers:
1. Start Small
Definitely don’t try to identify at once all possible customer journeys, for all products, for all customers. Chances are that you will spend lot of time doing this, get bored, and possibly give up (but the fun starts later). We suggest you start maybe with one product or with a particular customer segment, ideally the most valuable ones. Once that’s decided, start brainstorming all the different touchpoints a customer who would buy that particular product has with your company. These are things like store, or website, call centre, fulfillment, etc. Once that’s done for your target segment, move on. You’ll always be able to come back later and iterate.
2. Set Goals
For each touchpoint you identified, try to understand what it would take to make a great experience for that touchpoint. Something you think every customer would expect. For example, on your website touchpoint customers will want to easily find out what they look for, they will want that to be available, and they will want to purchase it seamlessly. Or for your call centre they will want to get hold of an agent quickly and having their problem solved immediately. Having listed these aspects for each touchpoint is helpful because it guides you to what needs to be measured.
3. Use It or Lose It
Up until now, your customer journey is simply a list of touchpoints with some goals, but here’s the key part. Turning that list into metrics that can be measured (using techniques like Net Promoter Score or Customer Effort Score) is what will drive the success of your initiative. By measuring every single transaction between you and your customers you’ll be able to clearly identify the weak points of your customer journey and improve them. This is probably the most important step because it will justify all the effort you spent, show you clear results, and get buy in from your team members. And when this loop is complete, you’ll be able to start again, tackling more customer journeys and transforming your company in a truly customer centric organisation.
35-slide PowerPoint presentation
Digital Transformation touches practically every function in the entire organization. This thus requires an unprecedented amount of coordination among people, process, and technologies throughout the organization, leading to a difficult Transformation program.
The Six Building Blocks of
[read more]
Want to Achieve Excellence in Customer-Centric Design (CCD)?
Gain the knowledge and develop the expertise to become an expert in Customer-Centric Design (CCD). Our frameworks are based on the thought leadership of leading consulting firms, academics, and recognized subject matter experts. Click here for full details.
In the modern Digital Age, advances in technology and communication, combined with the explosive growth in data information, have given rise to a more empowered global customer. Recent economic and political events highlight the need for organizations to understand how consumers view the world and the most important attributes for their purchasing decisions.
Thus, increasingly more organizations are seeking to invest and focus on Customer-centric Design. A clear understanding of customer needs and behaviors across the organization will help drive profitable growth strategies and provide the confidence to invest in opportunities at a time when staying within budget can be extremely difficult.
Learn about our Customer-Centric Design (CCD) Best Practice Frameworks here.
Readers of This Article Are Interested in These Resources
56-slide PowerPoint presentation
Customer Experience is fast becoming the key business battleground in many markets.
In order to be successful it is critical that all business create a Customer Experience Strategy, an all encompassing view of how they will deliver superb experiences to their customers. Having such a strategy
[read more]
225-slide PowerPoint presentation
[NOTE: Our Design Thinking presentation has been trusted by an array of prestigious organizations, including industry leaders such as Apple, MIT, NASA, Ford, Boeing, Fujitsu, Syngenta, Palo Alto Networks, and Mercer, to name just a few.]
Design Thinking is a process for creative problem solving.
[read more]
143-slide PowerPoint presentation
Customer Journey Mapping is the process of creating a graphical representation of the steps and stages a customer goes through to experience a product, service, an online experience, or any combination. It may focus on a particular part of the process or the end-to-end experience.
The journey
[read more]
30-slide PowerPoint presentation
Delivering great customer experiences is one of the true differentiators of many of the great organisations of our time.
However, delivering these great experiences doesnt happen overnight. Organisations need to become mature at all aspects of creating, delivering and improving customer
[read more]