Who is in charge of the customer experience?

The customer experience

The customer dictates both the what and the how of their experience. We can make it great but they decide whether is or not. That is one reason, among many, why we need to measure the experience and be relentless in improving it.

It has a huge impact on the top and bottom lines. This is not a fad. This is not going away. The competition, based on the customer experience, will get fiercer. That is a fact not to be ignored.

And, everything needs to be better and faster for the “generation now”. This can’t wait. Consumers won’t wait. If you don’t do it, they will find someone (very easily) that does. A promise of future changes won’t help.

The customer does increasingly dictate what they want. They are spoiled by customer experiences offered by best-performing organizations or across industries that have focused on the customer experience early on.

It is essential to strike a proper balance in delivering upon these customer expectations and heightened levels of customer experience requirements for the business and the customers by:

• Connecting the dots and processes by prioritization, better understanding customer and business value (and how both are truly connected far deeper than we believe),
• Optimization in far more processes in a ubiquitous way,
• Not overemphasizing or undervaluing particular business functions and pieces in the overall customer experience equation.

The customer isn’t king anymore; the customer is dictator.

~Gerry McGovern.