Operational Excellence

Strategy only functions with proper execution. Successful execution requires setting up a customer experience system that brings customer feedback into the decision-making process. 

Here are the six main pillars of CX operations:

Collect: A collection system gathers all types of feedback from your customers, from any channel through which they interact with your business or brand. 

Surveys are becoming a thing of the past, as now there are many other ways to collect customer sentiment and feedback. These other avenues include conducting interviews, observing how customers interact with your products and services, reading social media and site reviews, and capturing customer engagement and communications with your organization. You don't need to ask your customer how they feel. You want to ask them what relationship they want with your brand, and how their values align with your brand value. 

Analyze: Customer data and feedback lets you systematically discover what is working and what is not, and to highlight problem areas in which to do a deeper root cause analysis. Ensure that your data is reliable. Avoid analysis paralysis by checking periodically that what you are collecting is substantive and aligns with your business strategies too. 

Close the Loop: A critical action of every successful system is closing the loop with your customers. This occurs when your employees who are responsible with interfacing with the customer communicate the process, setting the right expectations around bringing an issue or potential issue to conclusion.   

Act on the Feedback: Ensure through the analysis of customer feedback that It's actionable for teams across the organization to make meaningful change. During the analysis, it's common to find areas of immediate or tactical change as well as areas that require more strategy and long-term commitments. 

Communicate: Be transparent so all employees are well-informed of the CX operations and the customer feedback. Clear and honest communication is also key for your customers and partners, ensuring that they are aware of the investment your business is making in this relationship. 

Create a Governance Structure: You want to have teeth in your execution, and each department must know they have skin in the game. This ensures there is no deflection of responsibility to another department or the VoC team. Membership should consist of people in each department who have the authority to make decisions, are accountable to enacting the change, and can address the roadblocks that inhibit the organization from moving forward. 

The best practice that I have seen so far is demonstrated by Bain & Co.’s NPS System, which lays out the fundamentals and is rooted in both adaptability and accountability.

https://www.bain.com/insights/from-feedback-to-action/

Successful systems must be updated every 18 to 24 months as changes continually occur in the customer base, market, employees, management and processes. Updates will ensure system robustness, put your customer at the center of everything you do, and continuously drive improvements and actions on their behalf.