Now that we are back at our desks stuffed full with turkey,
pudding and chocolate, let me start the year with a question…
When did you last try to deal with your business as a
customer might and look at your business through their eyes?
Probably not recently.
It always amazes and astounds me that while sales returns
and financial KPIs get monitored ruthlessly the customer journey is frequently an
overlooked business issue with accountability and responsibility often muddied.
And yet there are businesses which see this as a route to real
competitive advantage.
The key to this is for businesses to learn ‘to walk in the
shoes of their customers’, so they might examine from the outside-in how they
come across. Often customer journey planning is based on inside out thinking and
obsesses about internal details. By
thinking outside-in, one business uncovered that while its procedures were
obediently followed, no one thought to communicate what was happening to the
customer for up to 4 months.
Through speaking with a number of leading edge businesses
from a broad range of sectors across the private and public sectors, I learnt
that the ability to walk in customers shoes is key to what really smart businesses
are doing to turn what is often a
prosaic process driven exercise into a programme that delivers tangible and
lasting benefits.
These businesses align fully the journey and the experience
with the business and brand strategy. The customer journey for a Waitrose
customer will be very different from that experienced by say an Aldi shopper yet
since both are fully aligned strategically, both will be equally effective.
Another insight was the importance those with highly distinctive
customer journeys place on understanding and responding to customer feelings
and emotions at key moments of truth. Most
journeys tend to be built around reliability and speed of response. While
important, these factors will not offer advantage. Interventions that appeal to
the gut will.
I also learnt that, and this will impress Finance Director’s
everywhere, good understanding will also help reduce cost as journey analysis can
help identify bottlenecks, duplication and outcomes of low customer value. One
business promised to delivers its product within 28 days but builds costly processes
to deliver within 7. Except in extreme cases 28 days fully met customer needs,
allowing significant costs to be stripped from the business without adversely
affecting the customer experience.
Lastly the role of the leadership team is critical here. As the saying goes, to improve airline food,
serve it in the board room. To deliver enduring competitive advantage the
C-suite must invest the time to walk in customers’ shoes. A powerful signal to send
to colleagues that this matters.
Of course there is far more to building a great customer
journey than I have been able to describe here but you have been warned to
expect much more on this topic in the weeks ahead. So, as the late great Neil
Armstrong might have said… just think of these insights as the first small steps
on a hugely rewarding journey.
