If you were to ask four people in different departments to define Customer Experience, you’d likely get four definitions. The answers might go something like this:
Marketing Lead: "CX is all about getting the customer outreach right."
Sales Manager: "CX is building a strong, personal relationship with clients."
Customer Service Manager: "Good CX is providing great support to our customers."
UX Design Lead: "CX is about delivering a great user experience."
But what is CX, and how do you define it in your organization?
What Is CX?
Our fictional team leaders were not wrong. As far as their definitions went, they were right. But each definition was limited to one area, that’s the problem. The definitions are narrow because each team sees CX within the confines of their goals and roles.
McKinsey defines Customer Experience this way: “CX refers to everything an organization does to deliver superior experiences, value, and growth for customers.”
You might also say that average CX teams see CX in the siloed way described above, but great CX teams see CX in a more cross-functional way.
Everything the customer touches is involved in CX; it directly includes all customer-facing departments and personnel. And that’s why it’s important to have a unified, company-wide definition of CX. Without it, you’ll have teams working towards different (albeit related) goals.
Defining CX Within an Organization
Great CX requires commitment, coordination, and communication. There has to be a mutual definition of what good, great, and outstanding levels of CX are in your company.
It would be easiest to simply declare, “Our CX goal is this, and our plan is that.” But these one-sided definitions rarely work; they don’t take into account what every team and team leader needs from CX. To build an effective CX strategy, you need buy-in. And buy-in starts with finding out what people want.
In short, CX strategies start with conversations. Only when you’ve discovered what your customers and your team really need can you build a framework to deliver it.
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