The three phases of ‘Customer Experience’
Image: Contributed
In our experience in working on “Customer Experience” strategy with organizations in a variety of industries, one common theme emerges that separates the successful ones from the rest: having a deliberate approach.
Successful organizations do this because they think about the people at the end of their decisions. The intent of their work is to improve the lives of the people providing and receiving their services, and they do so consistently and purposefully.
We often encounter clients that are trying to “boil the ocean,” a term used to describe organizations that go overboard by unnecessarily undertaking an impossible task or making projects difficult.
As a result, we have developed a simple three-phase “Customer Experience” framework.
Phase 1: Understanding
The objective of this phase is to help organizations develop the right strategy to serve their customers effectively and consistently. This is where we learn about our client’s organization, it’s people, suppliers, distributors, operations, organizational structure, processes, strategy, and
customers.
From listening to key stakeholders from inside and outside of the organization we learn what they do, how they work and why they do what they do.
Phase 2: Exploring
The objective of this phase is to develop best practices and products that will improve the overall “Customer Experience.” Armed with an understanding of our client’s capabilities, capacities, competencies, and their customers’ expectations, we test innovative and sustainable ways to make them stand out from the competition.
Constantly testing assumptions and iterating new ways of doing things with the customer in mind reveals new business opportunities and guides decision making.
Phase 3: Materializing
The objective of this phase is to help our clients execute successfully, every time. Unlike other tactical approaches that improve departmental silos of functional areas of business like marketing, operations, or customer service, “Customer Experience” takes a holistic view of the operation and executes strategy based on the findings of the “Understanding” and “Exploring” stages.
Applying a well-researched, thoroughly tested strategy and complementing it with a disciplined emphasis on execution saves clients valuable time and money, and most importantly, consistently delights their customers.
Following this three-phase approach enables organizations to design and deliver “Customer Experiences” from their customers’ perspective. The benefits are vast because it consistently guides the direction for organizations’ “Customer Experience” efforts, improves decision making,
and drives accountability.
In our next article, we will explore each of the phases in detail and will share methods that help organizations transform their approach to serving their customers.
Sean Shepherd is a certified usability expert, award-winning designer, and partner in Nucleus Strategies, a Kelowna-based experience design firm that specializes in designing memorable customer experiences that attract and retain customers for businesses in a variety of industries. He can be reached at [email protected].
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