What it takes for a CEO to master the customer experience

We know customer experience is vital and CMOs are constantly talking about it. CMOs are constantly looking for new ways for their company to engage and be relatable to their consumers. But do their CEOs share the same sentiment?Unfortunately, McKinsey’s latest CEO guide to customer experience report says it’s still an area that many organisations are trying to crack, improve and hopefully excel to maximise business profitability.In fact, how an organisation delivers for its customers is beginning to be as important as what it delivers - and leading companies understand that, especially if they are in the customer-experience business, said the study. There are few points on how CEOs and companies can improve customer experience and be a leader of in this area.But takes patience and guts to train an organisation to see the world through the customer’s eyes and to redesign functions to create value in a customer-centric way. The management task begins with considering the customer—not the organisation—at the center of the exercise, said the study.Observe - Understanding the interaction through customer’s eyesThree-quarters of online buyers expect “now” service within five minutes of making contact online, said the study. As such, increasingly customers expect the same kind of immediacy, personalisation, and convenience that they receive from leading practitioners such as Google and Amazon. They also put a lot of trust in online reviews for personal recommendations. Research shows that 25% of customers will defect after just one bad experience.Therefore, it's essential to quantify what matters to your customers and understand the customer journey depending on what products you are selling. This helps a business to maintain focus, have a positive impact on customer satisfaction, and begin the process of redesigning functions around customer needs.Shape - Redesign businesses on the back of customer's buying journeyCustomer-experience leaders will focus on improving the most important customer journey first - whether it be opening a bank account, returning a pair of shoes, installing cable television, or even updating address and account information. Then, they improve the steps that make up that journey. CEOs should consider digitising the processes behind the most important customer journeys."Agile digital companies significantly outperform their competitors. To achieve those results, established businesses must embrace new ways of working, said McKinsey & Company.Perform - Align the organization to deliver against tangible outcomesAs the customer experience becomes a bigger focus of corporate strategy, more and more executives will face the decision to commit their organisations to a broad customer-experience transformation. The immediate challenge will be how to structure the organisation and rollout, as well as figuring out where and how to get started.Companies could also apply sophisticated measurement to know what your customers are saying."But, the key to satisfying customers is not just to measure what happens but also to use the data to drive action throughout the organisation. The type of metric used is less important than the way it is applied," read the McKinsey’s report. Why companies failed in customer-experience transformationsToo many customer-experience transformations stall because leaders can’t show how these efforts create value, said the study. Executives, citing the benefits of improved customer relations, launch bold initiatives to delight customers that end up having clear costs and unclear near-term results.The better way is to build an explicit link to value creation by defining the outcomes that really matter, analysing historical performance of satisfied and dissatisfied customers, and focusing on customer satisfaction issues with the highest payouts. This requires discipline and patience, but the result will be early wins that will build confidence within the organisation and momentum to innovate further, according to McKinsey’s report.