Last month, we peered back into the last 5 years of CX issues and uncovered some interesting trends. (If you missed the newsletter, you can view it here. And don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter if you want to get our latest CX news and views.) This month, we’re going to focus on two common reasons why CX teams are still facing the evergreen challenges of buy-in, prioritization, ROI, and omnichannel management (among others).

Organizational structures resist change

If you’ve ever started your own business, you know that customer experience – even customer service – is rarely what the company organizes itself around; that’s usually a product or service. CS is part of what businesses offer, but it’s not the main offering. And CX? Well, that’s not on the radar for most early-stage companies.

This is why most organizational structures are designed without CX in mind. As bits of the organization are adjusted and added, data silos and complex processes are formed. These become codified into “how we do things”. And while that might work over the short term, in the long term it results in inefficiencies, bottlenecks, gaps, and blind spots.

On a side point, when’s the last time you organized your closet? If you’re like most of us, the answer is “I don't even want to think about it! It’s too much work”. We know our system could be better, but we put up with digging through our closets because it’s too hard to reorganize. That’s the situation many CX-resistant businesses find themselves in; it’s easier to patch and make do than to transform. Unlike our closets, though, businesses that don’t eventually transform will find themselves struggling to stay competitive.

People fear change

The second reason for ongoing CX challenges is that people naturally fear change and uncertainty – and CX entails both, at least from a leadership perspective. Business leaders tasked with balancing needs, goals, budgets, and constraints are often doubly nervous about investing in slow-growth CX endeavors when quicker fixes seem to be available.

We’ll talk more about recognizing and dealing with this fear in our Bite Size CX section and our featured article. For now, let’s summarize it this way: Leaders understand that CX can be complicated and time-consuming. What they may not understand are the benefits that the entire organization can get from adopting a CX mindset. As we’ve written before, leading with the why can reconcile business leaders to the what and how of CX growth.

Of course, there are several other reasons why CX advocates keep fighting the same battles. But in our experience, they often relate to organizational structure/culture/mindset and/or a reluctance to change.

In our next few newsletters, we’re going to address the most pressing issues that keep popping up in CX surveys. Join us next month, when we’ll share a special resource detailing how to encourage CX growth throughout your organization.