Navigating the Year Ahead in CX
Who the Heck are Your Customers, Anyway?; DCX Poll; Links to Industry news and the DCX Thought Leader Profile of the Week
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Navigating The Year Ahead in CX
As we turn the page on 2023, a sense of opportunity hangs thick in the air - the chance to evolve perspectives, realign pathways, and transform engagement.
Yes, the months behind us had twists many did not expect. Disruption ignited change at dizzying speeds. But now, a new and unblemished horizon stretches before us.
And so I come to you on this January dawn highlighting four mindsets that can anchor our shared customer experience mission in the year ahead. Let them serve as your organizational compass no matter the unexpected market gusts.
Visionary leadership
As a leader, you must boldly envision the future customer experience journey 2-3 years out. Imagine exponentially more seamless, intuitive interactions across channels driven by AI and expanded data integration. Envision hyper-personalization through predictive analytics and customer dialogue. Dream big on what could be possible beyond today's capabilities to stretch your strategy.
Relentless innovation
To realize your vision, continually pilot emerging technologies across the customer journey - from biometrics and natural language processing at onboarding to machine learning and journey analytics driving hyper-personalized omnichannel engagements. Leverage automation and self-service options while preserving human connection. Experiment, learn, and scale new capabilities at startup speed to fulfill your innovation vision. Foster a test-and-learn culture obsessed with making the complex simple.
Radical empathy:
Immerse yourself in the customer's world - their thinking, emotions, and decision drivers. Obsess over each interaction through their lens, as they experience rising expectations. Listen more to understand unmet needs and desired outcomes. Walk in their shoes as you pilot innovations and envision the future. Anchor on empathy amidst dizzying change to align vision with real customer challenges at each step.
Actionable insights:
Extract key insights from customer feedback and journey analytics to rapidly respond at the frontline with continuous improvements that create value. Let insights shape training, community engagement, personalization, and self-service tools. Close the gap between strategy and on-the-ground execution through actionable intelligence that evolves experience in real-time.
Cling closely to these pillars over the coming 12 months as you evolve your strategy. When uncertain of direction amid dizzying signals, let them ground you in first principles and guide agile responses over reactionary ones.
Our true north star remains putting people first - serving them with renewed humanity, compassion, and hospitality no matter the tumult ahead.
I am energized by the potential sitting here at the beginning of 2024 for us to positively impact lives by elevating our engagement.
So, let's embark on this new year together, rooted in empathy but empowered by piercing vision and insights to drive progress. Wherever the next 365 days steer this journey, we go with customer needs squarely at the helm!
And now a word from our sponsor
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Who the Heck are Your Customers, Anyway?
We all say "customers first,” but are we really getting who they are? I mean, beyond just numbers and sales? To really nail customer-centricity, you've gotta figure out who your customers are – think of their stories, not just their shopping carts.
The Magic of Customer Personas
Customer personas are fictional representations of your customers' thoughts, feelings, needs, and lives. They are not merely a product of imagination but are supported by research. Incorporating these personas into your discussions and decision-making processes allows you to align your company's goals with your customers' needs. This can help create more human experiences that are less transactional in nature.
How to Build These Personas
Alright, let's break it down:
Segment Your Customers
Start by identifying 3-5 key customer groups. Think about common needs, behaviors, and attributes. For instance, a clothing retailer might have segments like trendy college students, busy working parents, or fashion-conscious retirees.
The trick is to keep these segments broad enough to cover your customer base but specific enough to be meaningful. More than five segments can make the process unwieldy, while too few might not capture the diversity of your audience.
Dig Deep for Details
This step is all about gathering rich, qualitative, and quantitative data. Mix traditional surveys with deep dives into market data, customer interviews, online reviews, and social media conversations.
Focus on understanding their deeper motivations and pain points. What keeps them up at night? What are their aspirations? How do they spend their leisure time? This information goes beyond demographics and into the realm of psychographics.
Craft Standout Personas
Now, bring each segment to life by creating detailed persona profiles. Think of it as writing a character for a novel. Give each persona a name and a face (even a stock photo helps), and flesh out their story with details about their background, family, hobbies, and life challenges.
This step is crucial for making personas relatable. When someone in your team reads a persona's profile, they should be able to think, "Ah, I know what Jane needs from our service!"
Get Feedback from Your Team
Before finalizing your personas, loop in your frontline staff—those in sales, marketing, customer service, etc, these people interact with your customers daily and can provide invaluable insights.
Use their feedback to refine your personas. This improves accuracy and ensures buy-in from your team, as they feel part of the process.
Use Them Everywhere
The final step is integrating these personas into your business operations. They should become a reference point in strategy meetings, product development discussions, and marketing campaigns.
Regularly ask questions like, “Would Persona X find this feature useful?” or “How would Persona Y react to this marketing message?”
Keep these personas dynamic. Revisit and update them at least annually to reflect changes in your market and customer behaviors.
Why Bother With Personas
Personas are a powerful tool for teams to understand their customers better and make choices that align with their needs and desires. By creating a fictional profile of a typical customer, teams can develop a deeper understanding of their behavior, preferences, and pain points. This helps to ensure that the team's decisions are customer-centric and not just based on what they think is cool or trendy.
Research has shown that companies that use personas in their decision-making process tend to have happier customers and employees. This is because the team can better empathize with the customer and their needs, leading to better products and services that truly meet their expectations. Happier employees are also a natural byproduct of this process, as they can see the positive impact their work is having on the customer.
Make It a Leadership Thing
Ask yourself, does your team really get your customers? By bringing personas into your big-picture talks, you're putting customer stories right where the big decisions are made. So make it a priority. Put those personas up on your walls, talk about them, live them. Watch how your team focuses more on making customers happy, not just crunching numbers.
Being customer-obsessed is the new cool; the first ones to get it right will win big. So, is your team up for the challenge?
DCX LinkedIn Poll of the Week
This week, I asked our colleagues in the Customer Experience Professionals Group on Linkedin, How much influence does your CX team have over business priorities and decisions?
This poll provides interesting insight into customer experience (CX) teams' current level of influence within their organizations. Most respondents (51%) state that their CX team has some influence over business priorities and decisions. However, a sizeable portion feel their team's sway is either minimal (25%) or nonexistent (5%).
Clearly, there is still progress to be made in ensuring the customer's voice permeates all levels of business strategy. However, according to respondents, the level of influence ultimately comes down to the executive mandate. As Steve Belgraver of NTT pointed out, "The CX team only exists by the grace of a business strategy with a CX component. And their influence is a direct function of the mandate they get from the board & Csuite to execute that strategy.”
CX teams must hone their skills in translating data into compelling, actionable narratives to bring true value. Rather than just sharing metrics, they should spotlight specific conversion, retention, and satisfaction opportunities. CX should position itself as an indispensable partner, not just a scorekeeper.
CX leaders should regularly meet with executives to expand influence to share insights. They should also nurture relationships with CX data users across departments. With consistent, valuable contributions, CX will earn a greater strategic voice. After all, CX offers an unparalleled outside-in perspective on evolving customer needs.
More work is required to ensure the customer lens shapes business priorities. Steps both CX teams and leadership can take include:
Executives mandating CX as a core strategic focus
CX translating data into actionable opportunities
CX leaders meet frequently with executives
CX building bridges across departments
With time and consistently valuable contributions, most organizations will come to see CX as an essential voice in charting future directions. After all, the customer lens provides unrivaled clarity into changing needs, pain points, and motivations. No other function offers that pivotal outside-in perspective.
When powered by the customer’s voice, companies can thrive. But CX teams need an influential seat at the table. Leadership must lead the way.
Industry News, Ideas, and Insights
Designing Your Narrative Mosaic (openai.com)
These images and today’s lead article image were created by an incredible new GPT creation from the visionary mind of master narratologist, my friend and accountability partner, Tobin Trevarthen. This GPT is constructed to help you design your strategic narrative into a new way to express yourself. To begin crafting your narrative, start by saying hi.
After 37 Years, Starbucks Announced a Brilliant New Rule That Customers Will Love | Inc.com
Starbucks now allows customers to bring their own reusable cups for their drinks, supporting their goal to reduce waste by 50% by 2030. While this may affect their iconic branding and add complexity to processes, it earns goodwill from sustainability-focused customers. This decision reflects the tradeoff that comes with living out one's values and ultimately brings long-term benefits.
Spotify Wrapped: 6 psychology principles that make it go viral every year (growth.design)
Learn how Spotify uses psychology to create one of the most anticipated yearly events in the music industry.
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DCX Thought Leader Profile of the Week
Every week, I introduce you to another inspiring professional from LinkedIn who has the potential to make a significant difference in your life and career.
This week, I am pleased to introduce you to Robert Tercek, Founder and CEO of strategic advisory firm General Creativity and the Co-founder of The Futurists Network.
I first crossed paths with Robert Tercek back in his days as an executive at Sony. Even then, he was clearly a pioneer in digital media and technology. He's spent his career launching innovative digital services that transform entire industries.
Robert sees around corners when it comes to spotting the next big consumer shifts. He's always had his pulse on how emerging technologies can create completely new categories and habits. I saw him pull this off repeatedly at Sony, Oprah Winfrey Network, NTT DoCoMo, and more, whether it was interactive TV, streaming video, or mobile entertainment.
Now, with 30+ years of digital innovation experience, Robert shares his wisdom and strategic outlook with companies looking to adapt. He's a sought-after speaker and advisor helping business leaders navigate disruption. His consulting firm works confidentially with big brands on things like digital transformation and unlocking new opportunities.
In addition to his own ventures and advising, Robert is actively involved with The Futurists Network - a collective focused on empowering visionaries to imagine and build the future. It gives leading thinkers across science, technology and culture a platform to create tomorrow's breakthroughs. As part of this global community of inventors, forecasters and change makers, Robert contributes his forward-looking perspectives on society, business, and tech transformation.
Robert wrote a prescient book called "Vaporized" predicting how tech would dematerialize whole sectors of the economy. It won the 2016 International Business Book of the Year.
After all his success, he's still the same approachable, forward-thinking guy I remember from the Sony days. Companies value his insight because he combines an entrepreneur's gut instincts with a marketer's feel for consumers and their habits. After three decades of launching pioneering digital services worldwide, Robert has hard-won lessons for any business facing disruption. Check out more at www.robeerttercek.com
Thank you for reading this week.
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One More Thing
I want to share some of the exciting content and programs that I have created for your personal and professional growth:
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I hope you find these programs useful. Let me know if you have any questions or need any further assistance.
-Mark
I am impressed the by the depth and quality of content you provide here each week Mark