Tag: ACXC

5 Common Pitfalls to Avoid When Implementing Customer Journey Mapping

Even though Customer Journey Mapping (CJM) has become a popular tool among customer experience (CX) professionals, many organizations are still not utilizing it to its fullest. Oftentimes, the cause of this is a lack of knowledge about how internal operations and data are related to the customer journey. To gain a better comprehension of the customer experience, CX experts need to comprehend the entire process customers navigate when interacting with an organization. This includes not only their dealings with the organization’s products and services, but also the processes and systems that underpin those connections.

Overview

Earlier this week, I released a short video about Customer Journey Management and its benefits for organizations, with examples from Amazon, Starbucks, Uber, Netflix, Apple, and the Financial Sector. (see the 4 minutes on YT: https://youtu.be/an5tNYXXzHo)

Wow, what a response. I didn’t expect that.
Many folks have tried and failed to deploy Customer Journey Map approaches effectively.

Here’s a summary of some of the five most significant challenges. In another article, we will discuss how to avoid them based on the best practices of those who have delivered success.

Some significant drawbacks can affect a company’s ability to provide a great experience to its customers.

🤝Customer Needs

One of these issues is a need for insight into the customer’s needs and desires. This can create an inconsistency between their services and products and the customer’s expectations, leading to disappointment and exasperation.

💖Personalization

Furthermore, not offering a personalized experience make customers feel disregarded and unappreciated.

🎸Co-ordination

Additionally, a failure to properly coordinate and integrate different channels and touchpoints can lead to an incoherent journey for the customer, making it difficult for them to get the assistance or data they require.

🏢Structural challenges

A hindrance is silo-based thinking; when a business has several separate systems and processes, it can take time to get a comprehensive outlook on the customer’s experience and to determine their path.

This can make it challenging to find and address any issues or areas that need to be improved.

✍️Connecting the dots

Understanding the link between internal operations, data, and customer experience is essential. By being aware of the overall process customers go through when interacting with an organization, and the systems and processes that back them, CX professionals can pinpoint pain points and chances for optimization within the customer journey.

Additionally, it is essential to remember that CJM is not a single-time task but rather an ongoing effort to be evaluated and updated routinely. It calls for the participation and collaboration of all levels of the organization. It serves to align initiatives from various departments to upgrade the customer experience and positively affect the business.


Conclusion:

Several specific actions will reduce the risk of poor CJM implementation. We will discuss those shortly by reviewing the best practices of companies that have delivered success.

If you want the inside track on that, subscribe and share this blog.

RECOMMENDED QUALIFICATION:
The Accredited Customer Experience Professional® (ACXP): https://bit.ly/GCCACXP

If you want to check if your colleagues are already qualified do a search with #ACXP on Linkedin.

Learn more about CJM plus as practiced within the CEMMethod: https://www.cemmethod.com

Connect with the author: https://linktr.ee/SteveTowers

The Shocking Truth about Customer Experience


The single biggest piece of advice I give to senior executives setting out on the Customer Experience journey is to STOP. Yes seriously, the vast majority of CX efforts are completely misaligned.

CX Efforts Misaligned

Don’t get me wrong the intentions are good. Unfortunately, it goes something like this:

  1. Top Team are listening and decide they need to get with this customer centricity/Outside-In/working backwards thinking.
  2. Senior Management makes noises that the customer is THE thing the business must focus on.
  3. The Executive engage the marketing and sales guys to get with it and start pushing the message.
  4. Functional leaders hear the noise and bluster. They start using the language, whilst thinking this is just more fluff and nonsense. They make the right noises for now but keep their heads down, because they know this will go the same way as so many other ‘strategic initiatives’.
  5. Fundamentally functional heads carry on working with the out of date reward system that promotes sub-optimal industrial age thinking and practice.
  6. The Executive see the usual inertia, results not coming through, apathy and indifference and decide their business isn’t really an Amazon.
  7. Top Team then reverts to just getting better at what we are doing, then when someone in ‘our industry’ proves it we will follow.
  8. Functional leaders breathe a sigh of relief and invest even more in industrial age systems and training. The illusion of doing something, in this case, is actually worse than doing nothing.
  9. The businesses failure is noted by customers who move to those who do understand and deliver Customer Experience success.
  10. The company becomes another footnote in the history books. Talked about at business schools and picked apart because of the failure to get the new Outside-In customer-centric mindset.

Making Customer Experience Successful everywhere all the time

This isn’t rocket science (unless you are NASA of course). Understanding that the structures and ways of working from the industrial age were NEVER designed to be customer-centric. They were established to make things faster by optimizing production lines.

And oh, don’t think because you are not in manufacturing you are OK. It is likely your complete ways of working will be making everything look like production management systems, with talk of leaning out, waste reduction, standardization, efficiency, productivity. Sound familiar?

Understanding this Customer Experience misalignment is fundamental.

I encourage doing three things before re-joining the CX road-march:

  1. Understand how big the gap is between what you are doing and what Successful Customer Outcomes you need to be delivering.
  2. Audit the current key performance indicators.
    Are they mostly about outputs?
    Usually, the balance will be 80% output metrics (like calls answered, Average Handle Times, Abandoned Rates, Projects completed on time to budget etc.).
    Meanwhile, the really important measures that tell you a Successful Customer Outcome is being achieved will only be a small proportion.
    What you measure is what you get and no amount of Customer Experience drum banging will work unless those measures of Outcomes become the most important.
  3. Create an awareness of what real CX success is all about.
    This isn’t just the stories. It is about the actual things on the ground that need to change. The WHY and the HOW go hand in hand. Often times upskilling a group of key players at all levels to make them Ambassadors for the Customer achieves way more than massive corporate investment in branding and image.

In conclusion, Customer Experience cannot be treated just like another corporate initiative. To achieve success requires a significant shift in mindsets, and when that is achieved the realignment of the Enterprise to Outside-In can really begin.

Want more guidance and tips like this?


☑ More Articles like this one – visit my CX Obsession resources

 ☑ Upskilling and mentoring – Every level from the boardroom to the lunch room – BP Group

☑ In person and virtual training – The ACXM™ program

 ☑ Executive briefings and keynotes – How to get your hands on me and other CXperts (see what I did there?)