This year marked our third Customer Engagement Raveolution, so we decided to look back on the last three years and all the different types of organisations we’ve worked to identify three things that define a successful organisation.
This first is they all have a customer experience vision. This vision is both compelling and easy to understand. It is also fully aligned with the overall business vision and strategy.
The second, and probably the more important of the three factors, is they all work tirelessly to execute on that vision. They collaborate across the business; all with the single goal to achieve what they set out to do in their vision.
It may sound too simple or obvious to say "just set your vision and work towards it". But the truth is that this is much harder to follow through.
After all, how many times have we seen organisations that have amazing visions, but fail to execute against them?
Finally, the mistake that we see, time and time again, are organisations failing to communicate their vision internally, this results in a lack of focus. We’re in a world where plenty of brands are doing stuff, but with no real alignment or central goal.
The ones that really excel are the ones that bring both vision and execution together.
1. It’s a team effort - ensure everyone within the organisation supports the customer experience vision
There is the apocryphal story of a NASA cleaner who, when asked by the President what he did, responded that he was helping to put a man on the moon. Whether true or not, what this shows is the power of uniting everyone behind a single vision. Everyone at NASA, from the very top, right down to the cleaner, knew their end goal was to put a man on the moon. It shows that even if you’re not the astronaut, you have a role to play in the success of the vision.
Explain to employees why you're working towards a specific vision. Share with them how you plan to work towards the vision and the impact that this will have on them. This approach can start to foster ownership of the final goal across the organisation.
Alienating your employees from this process will make executing the vision much harder.
2. Keep the momentum going to maintain the results
We’ve all seen organisations launch customer experience initiatives. They put it in their annual reports and create new strategies, but it never goes anywhere. They fail to execute against this and so it dies a death.
It isn’t revisited or pushed forward, and the results are never showcased. It isn’t celebrated across the organisation the way it should be when successes have been made.
Momentum is key to making a customer experience vision a success in an organisation.
3. It’s united top to bottom and bottom to top
Peter Drucker famously said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”. It's important to make sure that from top-down and bottom-up, that the company vision is reiterated within the organisation and embedded in the company’s culture.
Aligning your customers’ aims with those of your employees will help to put your vision at the centre of how the company operates, as well as motivate your staff to follow their own (and therefore their customers’) goals.
A strong vision statement, which everybody has bought into, from top to bottom and bottom to top, will mean that the company is moving in one direction. It’s not disjointed or fragmented; it’s united.
Do you want to stand out in the customer experience world? Then join us in celebrating Customer Engagement Raveolution by exploring our latest guide: Raveolution Resolutions. The guide pulls together all of the insights captured on the day, helping you to adopt the latest customer engagement tactics to become a true CX rockstar.
