If you’re starting out on a programme to improve your customer experience, one of the most difficult things to overcome is departmental silos within your organisation.
In order to break down these silos, we firstly need to understand what it is that makes them exist.
Many companies have different data sets for each and every single department. Marketing has one set of data, customer service is using another and they can’t, or won't, share their information with each other. This creates silos, where different information about customers is being held by different parts of the business.
One of the most common reasons that these silos exist is because of legacy systems. These have all been built separately and it's very hard when you're a big, established business to change those processes. It's much easier for new companies, who are just entering the market, to make sure that they get those processes right from the beginning.
So how can this be overcome if you’re not just starting out?
Well, for an established business, if you can get all of the information held about your customers into one central database, such as a CRM system, you can have somewhere to go and look at each of your customers and understand their journey, what makes them happy about an experience, and what they think you need to be better at.
So that’s what needs to happen, but who owns this? If it’s someone from marketing or customer service, are they really going to be listened to by the other departments? Everyone has their day job to be getting on with, so would this really be the most effective way of collecting the information?
Introducing the CCO (Chief Customer Officer)
In more and more companies, the CCO is coming in and being tasked with putting together teams of people that are really concerned about the customer agenda and to represent the customer in the boardroom. Having someone in this role means that the correct amount of senior support is given to customer experience throughout the organisation.
The CCO can then pull the relevant people together from each department, effectively creating a Customer Experience Board and make sure that all of the information held about customers is inputted into a CRM system, which will then allow him or her to identify the key areas of the customer experience that can be improved and execute the necessary changes.
Sounds simple, but putting together a board of people who truly care about and are willing to improve customer experience, takes time and planning.
Have a look at our eBook which explores why you need a CX board, and how to go about putting one in place:
