We often see how companies that have achieved customer experience success seem to have an overall underlying customer experience (CX) focus that infiltrates every department of the company? Their secret is found in their corporate culture. This implies transforming your corporate culture to lead your employee experience and in turn drive your customer experience.
Corporate culture
Corporate culture embodies your key company values that contributes to the unique social and psychological environment of your company. It impacts on the experience your employees have in your organization. It guides behaviors and communication with customers. Without it, experiences tend to lack emotion and a sense of connection.
Positive customer experience means better business. It leads to customer retention, loyalty and brand advocacy. Great CX must be rooted in every area of your company and not just to client-facing departments. Becoming a customer-first company is a long-term strategy.
Success requires: A leadership-driven approach; and employees that are empowered and enabled to deliver for customers.
6 Tips to cultural transformation
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Collective consciousness
This is the set of shared values and beliefs of members of your organization. It defines your company purpose, the promises you make to your customers and how you deliver on these promises. Without a collective consciousness, you inevitably promise one thing but deliver something else. This results in disappointed customers and decreased trust in your brand. In order to develop a collective consciousness, ensure that you have the following in place:
- A CX-specific mission statement
- A well designed customer journey and supplier journey to ensure that all stakeholders are part of the desired outcome.
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Communication
Company leaders need to communicate effectively and routinely about your company values, CX mission statement and customer journeys. These need to be active and integrated throughout the organization. At the same time, employees should be empowered and enabled to communicate about customer experience elements that are or are not effective in achieving the goal of CX success.
This means that open two-way communication is essential. Only through such channels can your collective consciousness and corporate culture truly develop, grow strong and remain current.
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As on the inside, so will the outside be
The inner environment of your organization will set the tone for what is portrayed on the outside. This means that if your corporate culture upholds positive values such as authenticity, care, empowerment, integrity and respect (to name a few), these values will be projected by your employees when engaging with customers.
Therefore, the positive experience your employees have, will mean a positive experience for your customers. A customer experience culture is characterised by an environment that is genuine and reliable, and a workforce that is enabled, engaged, flexible, and focused on solving for the customer.
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Actions speak louder than words or thoughts
Thinking and speaking about CX elements doesn’t make them real or sustainable. This is just conceptualizing. Once you have identified your key values, defined your CX mission statement and designed your Customer journey, make sure to action them!
Include CX into your regular internal meetings to discuss customer successes and challenges; Encourage everyone in your organization to be responsible for customer success measures; Give recognition to those who have achieved customer success. This will build morale and encourage others to set these goals.
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CX Continuum
Customer experience culture lies on a continuum. It is important to understand where your organization lies on this progression by considering your strengths and challenges regarding CX success. Defining your corporate culture is not a once off exercise.
Your company culture is a dynamic force that will change as your organization grows. It is influenced by current trends and changing needs of customers and employees. Therefore, for your company culture to remain relevant and active, you will need to dedicate continuous time and input. Moreover, you need to be future-focused yet present.
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Digital
We live in an ever-increasing digital world. Today’s customers and employees are very much digitally serviced. We progressively shop online, read online, watch online, work online, connect, socialize and engage online. A lot of customer experience happens online.
Digital also means that customer expectations change more frequently. This puts added pressure on employees and companies to continuously deliver on these changing needs. It is therefore imperative that you strengthen your digital presence and ensure that your customers have a positive digital experience. Similarly, you need to ensure that you have the right technology and tools to enable your employees to deliver for the customer.
Author: Yael Benjamin from InteractRDT
