Business success is meeting or exceeding expectations — of investors, customers, partners, and employees. Whenever performance is below expectations, it costs you in opportunities or resources. Poor experience robs investors of potential top-line and bottom-line growth.
- Say what they’ll get and deliver what you say. This is brand integrity. A 1-to-1 ratio (or better) between what’s received versus expected minimizes waste and maximizes growth. This is true worldwide for discount brands, luxury brands, government, non-profits, etc. (aka enterprises, “brands”).
- Brand integrity is what matters most to customers and employees. When realities match their expectations across their end-to-end life cycle, there’s no need for remedial costs.
- Issue-free experiences generate uninhibited recommendations, engagement, purchase expansion, retention, productivity, and lifetime value. Mistake-proofed performance has a magnetic attraction to new and existing customers, employees, partners, and investors.
Who is championing brand integrity in your enterprise?
- CX leader focus is outside-in enterprise-wide for issue-free performance, whereas CS leader focus is customer touchpoints, primarily to make up for sloppy management. CSM is a subset of CXM. CXM is customer-centered management, customer-centered business.
- The CX Leader is a brand integrity officer, most often known as Chief Customer Officer. You can call the CCO role brand integrity, risk reduction, value maximization, or any other exciting name.
- Let customer-facing groups report wherever it’s most natural in your company. Dotted-line reporting to the CCO is sufficient. Otherwise, when every customer management function reports to the CCO, customer-centricity tends to be lower. Non-customer-facing work groups tend to think falsely: “That other group covers customer experience. It has nothing to do with me.”
- To mistake-proof performance, collect Expectations VoC and share it in timely, tailored, actionable and compelling ways with everyone.
- Your vision is CX-inspired performance, strategies, efficiencies, and growth enterprise-wide.
How to do this? See 24 CX ROI Metrics for Your Chief Customer Officer Prosperity Playbook. This post is an excerpt from this CCO playbook article.
In 2024, balance all 3 of these CX needs: customer-centered management + customer behavior design + customer request response. Without Experience Leadership (CX-centered business), then CS (Service + Success) is like the tail wagging the dog. It's like walking behind the horse in the parade. It's making up for sloppy management that is not customer-centered. It's what makes CX ROI so elusive. While the rest of the business is not customer-centered, you're on a constant hamster wheel of trying to make up for mis-steps throughout your firm.