Continuous Improvement Process for CX in the Modern-Day Enterprise

Organizations that want to get an edge over the competition must embrace a CX continuous improvement process. In the COVID 19 era, markets are uncertain, demand is unstable, and cash is tight. At the same time, there's increased competition, and customers are becoming more and more demanding. Technology has also become more sophisticated, making matters even more challenging and complex for end-users.

It comes as no surprise that frontline employees are feeling the pressure. Organizations require them to meet the increasing customer demands and figure out how to use new technology efficiently. In addition, they also have to operate within the “do more with less” culture. Organizations must focus on managing what they can control in an environment of uncertainty – their processes and execution.

Here's how you can establish a culture of continuous improvement in your CX efforts.

Making CX a Continuous Improvement Process

Business leaders understand that CX is critical to customer loyalty, revenue, and overall success. But they also know that it's a journey, not a destination. Failure to continuously improve CX to meet growing customer demands often leads to customer attrition.

So how can organizations deal with the CX challenge? Organizations need an effective management strategy that deals with all stages of identification, development, implementation, and measurement of CX. This allows teams to meet their goals and deliver real value.

Here's how to go about it:

  1. Gather Insights

    2. Getting information on what the organization can improve across the CX journey is often more straightforward than it seems. Just ask the customers. Essentially, organizations need to set up mechanisms for gathering feedback, which should include focus groups and surveys.

    In addition, customers often give feedback during live interactions with agents. For this reason, you should invest in gathering the valuable information hidden in channels. These channels include web self-service, e-mail, and social media. Identifying subjects that come up frequently and how to address them is important.

    By matching this data with more traditional research, it's possible to see where customers need you to improve.

  2. Identify Opportunities

    3. Other than improving existing processes, organizations must look at areas where they can innovate. Innovation can radically change operations and add value that benefits the customer. In addition, it can help leadership prioritize changes that have the highest impact on customer loyalty.

    For example, if your organization wants to acquire new customers, you must look at new ways of reaching your audience. You can try out new marketing channels or simplify the customer journey. This can go a long way in improving customer conversion rates.

  3. Carry Out Detailed Planning

    4. After identifying CX improvement opportunities, you need to develop a rigorous plan to ensure the project delivers the right results. Usually, the customer journey cuts across multiple departments within the organization. Consequently, you need to involve everyone in the continuous improvement process. Finally, give the project a time frame with customer expectations in mind and set up mechanisms to measure success.

  4. Effective Implementation

    5. Successful implementation requires the involvement of all staff members, from management to frontline agents. This means making them feel like they own the project. It's possible to achieve this in several ways. Have straightforward, measurable deliverables and objectives that help clarify what individuals can expect before you roll out the project. Test the experience of all users -- both customers and internal teams -- extensively.

  5. Monitoring Performance

    6. Organizations rarely ever realize all the benefits of CX projects from the outset. Therefore, leaders must put in place rules to measure and monitor performance on an ongoing basis. This allows organizations to see where they are at any one point and whether they're meeting their targets. By keeping track of key performance metrics set at the beginning of the program, you're able to improve CX gradually.

  6. Continually Improving

    7. Organizations should approach CX as a continuous improvement process. Listening to customers and employees is the first critical step. It allows you to identify customer pain points within the CX journey and determine how best to deal with them. And it doesn't have to be complicated. For example, you could change the text on a website page to make it legible or find quicker ways to answer customer e-mails. These actions may seem small on their own, but they can make a huge difference. After all, small hinges swing big doors in CX.

  7. Focus on Delivery

    8. Sometimes, even the best-designed CX improvements fail. Often, it’s because of poor execution and delivery. Consequently, it’s important to understand whether customers react well to CX changes and whether the changes improve the experience as planned.

    Note that CX changes can have knock-on effects on other parts of the CX journey. For example, a change might increase the workloads of frontline agents and put a strain on their time.

    To deal with this issue, leaders should monitor how the delivery of new projects affects relevant parts of the business. They should be flexible enough to make changes and fix issues as they arise.

    Having ongoing customer experience improvement requires that you manage processes effectively. Otherwise, it becomes hard to deliver what the customer wants. You risk falling behind the competition in an increasingly competitive world.

Conclusion

Talk to Gibson Group to help you start on your CX journey!