One thing most retail executives have in common: They’re rarely faulted for being too humble. Words like “deferential,” “shrinking violet” and “aw shucks,” don’t often appear alongside their names in annual reports, bios or news headlines.
In fact, the success of their companies depends on that kind of confidence. In the midst of the toughest situations, strong leaders can get up in front of a group of unhappy shareholders, or skeptical reporters without breaking a sweat. But when you ask them to talk publicly about how their customer experience initiatives are going, that confidence evaporates.
I spend a lot of time in conversations with retail leaders around this topic, constantly challenging them to be bolder in talking about their efforts; to make a public stand and even invite scrutiny. They do this every day with financials and other metrics, so why not customer experience?
The analyst group, Gartner, recently hailed customer experience as the “new competitive battleground.” Brands like Amazon, Apple and JetBlue are already way out in front of the pack, garnering kudos from the critics, gushing online reviews from consumers and astronomical NPS scores.
Another challenge: there’s no single metric that can sum up the total return on investment for your customer experience efforts, making it very difficult to evaluate the success of customer experience the way we’ve looked at other initiatives.
A strong factor contributing to this mum-fest: the very valid fear of global-scale humiliation. We’ve all viewed at least a few very-painful-to-watch online videos documenting epic customer experience fails by more than one big brand. Why would you want to expose yourself and your company to the additional risk of being dubbed a CX hypocrite?
Yes, it’s tricky. But if you want to compete effectively on this new front, stakeholders must be cognizant that you’re not only aware of the landscape, but that you are actively participating. And no one else will do this for you. It’s your job, and you must find ways to simultaneously celebrate your successes and not appear to be too self-congratulatory. Following are a few tips that I’ve seen work well:
- Make a commitment: If you’re going to talk about how committed your company is to your customers – you’d better mean it. Examine what you’ve done as an organization to bring the voice and needs of your customers into the way you run your business, from how you design products and ad campaigns, to who you hire. Pay special attention to how you make the toughest decisions and how you balance the needs of customers with those of the market. I’m not saying you should throw finances to the wind. However the companies that are ahead and will continue to stay there are finding a way to serve both interests well.
- Work from the inside-out: Everyone inside your organization must understand their role– not just those who are customer-facing. Are your legal agreements balanced or adversarial? Do vendor relationships include end-customer metrics? Do marketing messages focus on building and nurturing relationships, not just closing deals? Does your board value CX as a strategic KPI? What you say externally, must match what everyone inside your company is doing internally. When you talk publicly about customer experience, there is absolutely no substitute for authenticity.
- Embrace imperfection: One of the most common push-backs I hear is: “We’re just not quite there yet.” Companies are waiting for a magical moment when they’ve achieved CX nirvana. Customer experience is not a destination. It’s an evolutionary process of attempts, mess-ups, successes and a lot of learning. Sharing stories about your ups and downs with both stakeholders and customers can be a very effective way of endearing them to you, and proving you’re serious.
- Stories: There are a slew of metrics companies use to measure customer experience. And while publicizing scores can excite some audiences, it only gets you so far. Include stories that illustrate how and why you achieved the score. Start with stories about what inspires your company’s CX efforts. Identify “aha” moments and how you got there. Find stories about how you changed your efforts based on what you learned. And don’t forget stories about the results. Employee anecdotes and customer verbatims, on their own or paired with metrics, can be incredibly effective communication vehicles.
- Focus on the customer: The most important rule when talking about your customer experience efforts is to stay focused on your customers. On their stories. On their words. On their experiences with your brand. Because after all, they’re really the whole point.
Your company deserves to get credit for the work you’re doing to build relationships with your customers. Your shareholders deserve to understand how those efforts are affecting business. Your employees deserve to get credit for their part. And most importantly, your customers deserve to know that you’ve made a commitment to them, and that you’re not afraid to shout it from the rooftops.