Develop a well-thought-out Governance Model to enhance customer-centricity

– ensure that customer issues are shared and discussed at all levels

Governance is essential for any human institution. It helps to manage the organization’s best interest and is a catalyst for the performance of the business. A well-knit governance system ensures that the business operates in a stable and productive environment with great potential from the unearthing of new opportunities. It guarantees an atmosphere of fairness and helps to reduce risks as well as drives growth faster and safer. A good governance model operating in any business improves its reputation and fosters trust. An effective customer experience regime hinges on several key components.

People constitute the variables needed to drive and sustain the momentum needed to keep the business afloat. People provide leadership and initiate and manage a culture that influences the organization’s character. It is usually birthed by the owners of the business and must be carefully nurtured to influence the drive toward goal attainment. People must be influenced to aim at a common goal and that’s what leadership provides. Amid everything we must have systems with standards and develop capabilities to measure and ensure that we are on course to achieve the goals we have set ourselves collectively.

Also in the mix are frameworks, processes, tools, and technologies to aid us in our quest for success. Crucially, people constitute key elements such as structure and provide oversight as well as act as conduits to the rest of the organization. Therefore, to build a customer-centric culture, we need to identify the individuals and teams within the organization and influence mindsets that are willing to take ownership of the actual improvements and execute the tasks that will enable us to achieve the purpose.  From the perspective of customer experience, the ideal setting is the provisional governance to ensure that we accomplish goals.

My research led me to an interesting definition of governance. It epitomizes the process of governance as dedicating time to work ‘on’ your business, as opposed to working ‘in’ it.  Michael Gerber agrees with this assertion in his book “The E-Myth”.  Governance includes “all the checks and balances you put in place to ensure your business runs smoothly, meets its objectives, and stays out of trouble”. The Institute of Directors has summed it up aptly, “Governance means thinking about strategic issues, rather than the operational day-to-day running of the business”. In other words, governance is a sine qua non for business success.

An effective customer experience campaign will thrive in an environment where cross-functional and cross-hierarchical teams work synergistically to attend to customer needs and concerns assiduously. Driving a CX agenda requires tact and determination. A few nuggets on the influence of good governance are shared in this piece. First, develop and thrive on relationships. Second, develop a learning culture to keep you focused on the customer. Third, be intentional about the strategy. Fourth, plan for failure to help you succeed. Fifth, develop a strong customer intelligence framework to support customer experience governance.

Build relationships

Customers relish personalized experiences. One CX expert puts it bluntly, “Relationships are better than transactions”. I assume that we get drawn in by the business numbers so much so that our focus tends to weigh more on transactions than the relationships we can potentially build when we engage with customers.  Consider this scenario, the Amelia who sells waakye in your local area and is known by all and sundry due to her friendly nature. Not only that she produces great waakye and is very particular about engaging her customers thus functions in a more friendly environment.

Turn this on its head and think of the average waakye seller who thinks hey I have a great product buy it if you will, if you don’t others will anyway. Think of the contrasting impact of the two scenarios. How many times have you entered an eatery and longed for that smart young man or lady who prioritizes your order and ensures that you are served quickly and with some generous additions to your meal? Does it not make you feel special? Naturally speaking from the business end it pays to keep customers happy by ensuring that they get served in a manner that makes them feel valued. If I can get the same waiter to serve me anytime I pop in I will relish it and feel at home going there always.

According to Salesforce research, 89 percent of customers will make another purchase if they have a positive customer service experience the first time around.  By focusing on building relations with customers we are more likely to achieve our sales and marketing targets compared to others.  To exceed customer expectations, we must strive to be very responsive. By offering live chat assistance to them we can deliver solutions in real-time. We must empower our support teams to understand their needs and feedback and respond quickly. We must take the cue from the Ritz Carlton Hotel and go the extra mile to deliver, meet, and exceed their expectations.

Develop a learning mindset

One way to keep aligned with customers is to send thank-you ntes. It has a positive impact on our brand reputation and increases customer loyalty. These out-of-the-ordinary actions have very telling effects on customers. Our teams must be trained to quickly discover customer issues that can potentially snowball and respond very quickly to keep them satisfied. Trained staff will be poised to allow customers to truly express themselves in moments of truth situations. One can even go so far as to ask the customer what s/he feels will rectify the issue and entertain it if reasonable.

To do this effectively we need to set up Action teams. These are cross-functional teams assembled to solve a customer problem or activity. Once they accomplish their goal they are dissolved or moved on to the next issue. Let’s consider this example in a vehicle assembly plant where components are ordered for the next phase in the value chain. If parts-ordering is an issue the company recruits from sales, marketing, operations human resources, and supply chain on the team to address the challenge. They are supported by a coach from a CX governance persuasion who will facilitate the process the outcome of which will provide learning opportunities to share organization-wide.

Ebenezer Banful a customer experience proponent shares the following insights into the role of the Customer Experience Team. According to him, Customer experience teams should predominantly look at their role in the organization as distinct parts encompassing gathering information and knowledge. He dispels the practice of operating purely on opinions which in his opinion often leads to suspicion, distrust, and unwarranted criticism. Appoint brand champions or ambassadors (they go by many names depending on the organization) to gather feedback from frontline employees as well as communicate to the frontline staff strategies being deployed.

Be strategic

Business success is the result of a well-crafted business strategy. One can guarantee business success through a unique strategy that sets you apart. In business terms, we refer to this as differentiation.  A well-crafted customer experience strategy aims to deliver out-of-world experiences. If you have benefited from any such experience dealing with a business, service or brand know that it is the result of intentional actions birthed from an intuitive understanding of the customers they serve. When our customer experience differentiates us, our brand will fly around and so too will our reputation.

To accomplish this, we need a clear vision, one that defines, the end destination, the target group being served, the objectives and success factors, the return on investment, milestones and potential risks, and a communication plan that addresses varying stakeholder needs. We must ensure that we recruit the right fit for the organization, people who are customer-oriented and quickly align with the business vision. When building the strategy, we must give a thought to what success will look like. To do this effectively we need a mechanism for collecting data and stories that depict success. This ensures that we all sing from the same “hymn sheet”.

We can start this by initially developing a Charter and defining goals. Next, we must take steps to work towards the institution of a permanent governance structure where the membership will have oversight of all customer experience activities in the organization. They will normally be long-term members of the company with several years of experience thus fulfilling the role in addition to their normal roles. They are there to create consistency in the customer experience and ensure that when interacting with customers we are delivering the brand promise.

They will serve as role models to deliver customer experience goals to those on the frontlines who serve customers directly, and regularly. They will also ensure that the correct metrics are in place with matching incentives to align typically sliced units into effective cross-functional teams. The organizational culture must support localized ownership of customer experience success, deeply and broadly across employees to make customer experience excellence a way of life in the company by, keeping executives and employees motivated to see their jobs in a customer-centered context.

We can emulate top companies like FedEx who depend on a steering committee that meets regularly to review customer experience improvement projects and make decisions about where to move forward.

Plan for failure

If you have experienced a terrible customer experience and worse yet the offending service provider or organization appears not to care then you will understand the importance of recovering from bad patches when engaging customers. Some few years ago, shortly after my return from the UK, I sent one of my just acquired suits to a laundry in Accra. The pair of trouser matching the jacket got missing. The Laundry owner offered me a compensation of GHS 40! How was that going to replace my loss? He obviously didn’t care. A few harsh words were exchanged which I am not proud of but I was very upset. I had lost a trouser.

I threatened to blow the lid on him but I realized that I was fighting a fruitless battle, the ecosystem I was in would cost me more than I would gain from a legal fight so I “let sleeping dogs lie”. But it did hurt, and still think of the encounter today. I am certain that I will never use his services again and if I have to answer to a colleague about his reputation, please don’t ask me what will come out, I hope you understand that I was very upset. Recovering from bad experiences is a necessary part of our engagement which we must be prepared for. We are human, things can go bad that would be way beyond our control. When it does, we must have a recovery plan.

Our ability to remedy a situation that turns sour is key in ensuring that our edict to keep the customer satisfied does not suffer harm. Our goal is to make sure that the customer quickly moves from feeling dissatisfied to feeling that we have surpassed their expectation. CX expert Katie Stabler recommends three steps in addressing this. First, plan for failure – provide guidance and influence an issue-tolerant culture to keep all aligned. Second, empower employees – provide them with clear guidance on how to act in sticky situations, encourage collaboration. Third, fix the issue – identify the root cause and work with your team to fix the problem.

Customer Intelligence

Customer intelligence is about gathering and analyzing customer feedback in one place and uncovering meaningful insights using all available customer feedback data. it includes using various tools to collect customer data, from customer behaviours, demographics, and feedback through several platforms, our help centre, customer surveys, or social media apps. Once the data is gathered, the customer intelligence platform organizes and analyzes this data. Note that Customer intelligence is not about collecting as much data as possible to find patterns. It involves building a strong customer intelligence strategy and executing it with our team.

According to an Epsilon and GBH Insights survey, 80% of respondents expect personalization from a brand. When we have detailed data points and behavioral data on specific customers, we are empowered to deliver targeted experiences based on what they need or are more likely to respond to. We can offer rewards and incentives based on behaviour. By sending personalized emails like, “We noticed you have used our services regularly this month. Here is a gift”. We can create a different, tailored experience at our touchpoints based on their preferences. An Airport in the US used customer information one Christmas to help them wrap their parcels.

Customers were pleasantly surprised by the gesture and openly expressed their appreciation for the help they got from Airport staff. The process is simple, it starts with collecting data from multiple channels including emails, websites, phone calls, and physical contact just to name a few sources. Next, categorize the data into various classes such as direct feedback, indirect feedback such as customer comments on social networks, and inferred feedback, data collected from customer processes. Finally, insights are shared once the analysis is complete. The insights help improve customer service workflows and guide future campaigns to improve customer journeys, customer satisfaction, and customer experiences.

Customer experience governance is pivotal to setting up an organization where customer experience is one of its disciples of working. First movers in this space are convinced that it is an integral component of Customer experience that requires prudent and creative thinking. If you want to align with the customer experience.