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To understand great CX, you first need to understand the pitfalls that make a successful implementation impossible.
That’s because no initiative – not even one passed directly from the C-suite – can overcome the costly mistakes that create a permanent gap between your company’s brand and your customers’ expectations.
Below is an introduction to the three biggest mistakes to avoid when creating your company’s CX.
CX mistake # 1: Treating customer service and customer focus as the same thing
Talking to sales about customers is not the same as talking to customers.
Talking to customers doesn’t mean just asking questions; that is one-way communication. Talking to customers means listening to them and creating a real organic conversation.
Speaking to a single sales rep can give you a tiny glimpse of your company’s relationship with customers. The aperture increases when you speak to the sales manager, but it is still relatively small. Even VPs and other executives have limited perspectives, mostly characterized by chatter in their own four walls.
The most important part of the equation – the customers – speak through their decisions, meanwhile: Whether they’re filling out a contact form or consuming an e-book, they provide metrics that can influence strategy and tactics.
Corporate organizations view such data as the foundation for actionable insights. They tailor their daily and yearly business based on what the data supposedly tells them, and that supposedly makes them “customer-centric”.
Ultimately, however, they only provide customer service, and that should never be confused with customer focus.
What is the difference? There is a difference between being proactive and reactive.
Regardless of what companies call critical “customer-centric” mechanisms – from a call center that wants quick responses to high NPS scores to a chatbot that follows a scripted cadence – they are still waiting for the customer to do something to create something a unique opportunity to “provide good service”.
This is certainly an important function, just like accounting or human resources. However, it’s not the same as deliberately designing your programs, content, technology, and even your supply chain around customers and what they mean to you.
CX mistake # 2: focus on transactions instead of transformation
Customer service is inherently transactional. While it can save a customer who chooses you a valuable transaction, it does very little to create a lasting relationship that will make your customers your greatest advocates.
After all, what’s stopping your competitors from following the same successful call center playbook as your sales reps or using the latest interactive chatbot tools you’ve acquired?
Remember how you shop for groceries: you likely go to the same supermarket or two every week. They started shopping there for a few reasons. Maybe it was the proximity to your house. It could have been the prices.
What kept you there, however, was likely something that wasn’t that easily measurable. Something more fundamental – the company’s values, the aesthetics of its stores, the pleasant temperament of its employees – has created an association with their brand in your head. When people you know explain why they shop at another supermarket that they like, they counter at length as to why you prefer the supermarket that you shop at. You are investing in his brand!
This series of moments, supported by unique and fundamental aspects, took you from another consumer to a brand ambassador who can target other prospects much more effectively than any outbound campaign or content.
CX mistake # 3: putting tools and processes above surrender
One of the first questions companies ask themselves when deciding to redesign their CX is “What now?” The answers usually come in the form of tools or platforms that promise better and more efficient customer interactions and insights.
However, to really make a difference, you don’t need as much technology as you might think, although it helps, as it provides data to customer-facing staff that can enable smart, productive conversations so customers don’t feel like them have to repeat themselves over and over again. Technology plays multiple roles in making CX more seamless and leaner, but success depends on the right mentality you need to truly serve customers.
CX is no different from any other initiative in that it requires commitment and persistence. Otherwise, employees simply move on to the next point that management wants to move them to.
If you want your CX initiative to be sustainable, all aspects of your organization need to be tied to it. There must be long-term planning involved. And most importantly, you have a stakeholder with sufficient power and authority in your company who can continue to advocate for it even if there are shifts in priorities and budgets.
Once a company chooses to follow the north star of a real customer experience rather than indulging in the whims and paradigm shifts of reactive customer service, this is a whole new game.
More customer experience resources
How to win with CX in the hybrid world
How to Achieve Loyalty and Growth Through Customer Experience Excellence | MarketingProfs webinar
What defines the customer experience: Jeannie Walters on marketing smarts [Podcast]
