Hearts, then Charts

Hello. My name is Ian

Hello. @ianfitzpatrick

Designer (sorry)

The current rhetoric of organizational focus on customer experience doesn’t align with the structures that power it • There is massive misalignment about who our customers are. • Measures are inconsistent, and frequently transactional in nature • Decisions are made at a functional, rather than operational level • Artefacts are parochial, if they’re used at all

Too often, all customers are equally important — and equally ambiguous.

We are hooked on functional measures of customer success.

Decisions that shape the customer experience are pushed out to functional teams.

The artefacts of our labor are used parochially — if they’re used at all.

Curiosity is our job. (It’s probably yours, too)

What is the nature of the relationship between CX & the modern organization?

Quant!• 543 people at 188 organizations • Agriculture, Arts, Construction, CPG, Corporate, Education, Energy,

Finance, Fitness, Government, High-Tech, Legal, Manufacturing, Media, Medical, Non-Profit, Real Estate, Recreational, Retail, Service, Software, Telecom, Transportation, Travel

Qual!• 30 organizations: 11 public and 19 private, avg. annual revenue of 8.16 billion • 10 B2B / 20 B2C (10 D2C) • Apparel, athletic footwear, beverages, CPG, Education, Educational

services, Electronics, Entertainment, Financial Services, Gyms, Health Care, Health/Wellness, Home Goods, Information Technology, Insurance, Manufacturing, Real Estate, Restaurants, Security, B2B Services

Data about the way(s) we work doesn’t support the current Fast Company narrative.

We’re struggling to glean a shared view of our users & customers.• 12 of 30 organizations use personas in design • 13 of 30 use them in marketing • 15 of 30 use them in sales • 2 organizations have aligned personas across all three groups

We’re designing things for one person, marketing to another, and selling to yet another.

The artefacts we’ve commissioned are languishing in closets and on servers.• 9 of 30 use isolated journeys • 1 of those is actively used • 6 of 30 have end-to-end journeys • 3 of those are actively used

50% of C-Suite respondents said their organization uses no consistent measure of their customers’ experience.

Respondent Measures Cited

Marketing Manager Social Network Data

Marketing Director Internal Measure, Social Network Data, NPS

Director of Operations Social Network Data

Director of Marketing Social Network Data, Customer Satisfaction Surveys

Director, Corporate Comms. NPS

Vice President, IT Social Network Data

Corporate Comms. Manager Internal Measure

Operations Manager Social Network Data, NPS, Customer Advocacy Score

Consultant, training None cited

National health insurance network

No one seems to be certain who it is that is accountable for the customer experiences we deliver.• In 44 of the 188 companies surveyed, three or more respondents identified

someone accountable for the quality of the customer experience. • In only one of those cases did they all name the same individual.

Respondent Someone Owns? If so, who?

Entry-level engineer No

Research manager Yes Chief Operating Officer

Director, Engineering Yes Administrative Director

Entry-level operations Yes Chief Creative Officer

Director, Product Development Yes Senior Designer

VP, design No

Senior Product Developer Yes Senior Director, Marketing

Senior Operations Manager Yes Director of Corporate Communications

Global shipping / logistics co

Respondent Someone Owns? If so, who?

Administrative Manager Yes Administrative Manager

Senior Designer Unsure

Senior Project Manager Yes Design Director

Senior IT Manager Yes Senior Designer

Marketing Manager Unsure

Project Manager No

Operations Trainee Yes Chief Sales Officer

Operations Manager Yes Manager, Corporate Communications

National drugstore chain

We knew this. We just didn’t have the data to give shape to it.

It’s not about innovation. It’s competence. It’s the basics.Russell Davies in ‘Death to Innovation’, 2014

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Hearts, then ChartsA practical framework for building (and leading) a customer-centered organization

Theme 1: We require a shared vocabulary for our customers and users.

Words like ‘personas’, ‘archetypes’, and ‘segmentation’ can get in the way.What should matter most to you is that the idea of your customers, and their real-world behaviors, can permeate the far reaches of your organization. A well-defined segment that can’t has a value that’s rapidly approaching zero.

Theme 2: We need a means of plotting experiences that live, increasingly, outside of our control.

In the delta between the way you outline the purchase process and the way your customers do, lies everything.Hint: the way in which your organization is structured almost never reflects the ways in which the customer experiences your brand.

Theme 3: We need a multi-dimensional view of customer needs.

The cholesterol buildup around brands’ role in meeting customer needs is approaching critical condition.Most people have work to be done more often than they have emotional needs to meet.

Theme 4: We need actionable measures we can use to evaluate our investment in the customer experience.

Align measures with the work to be done, not with transactions.It’s absolutely possible to have business measures that suggest strong satisfaction, yet completely mask emerging issues

Theme 5: We need executive accountability for the quality of the customer experience.

Set clear CX goals that are communicated top-down through the organization.If they’re not measurable, they didn’t happen.

In 2016, we will deliver a Temkin Emotion Rating at or above 70%.

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I suspect that our metrics don’t influence our customer experience nearly as much as they influence how we report success. — Senior executive at a large financial services firm

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Thanks. almty.co/cx