You Hired a Chief Experience Officer. NOW, WHAT? (Part 2)

a group of hot air balloons

07 Nov You Hired a Chief Experience Officer. NOW, WHAT? (Part 2)

Posted at 06:30h in Insights by

Our previous post on hiring a new CXO sparked some good comments and I decided to write a sequel. Where were we? We recommended three things for a new CXO to start with: identify the kind of experience you want to deliver, hire the right people and create a team charter. 

Done. Now what? You still got a lot of work to do. 

Here are your next steps to utilize a new CXO:

  1. Infuse the customer experience with deep customer understanding.

    There is a good chance that much of the customer data/research at your company has been done from a product perspective. There is an opportunity to create a holistic, “outside-in” view of the customer and socialize this view across the enterprise to spur innovation and new ways of thinking. Try this:

  • Use in-depth qualitative research to segment customers not just by the product affiliation, but also by attitudinal and emotional attributes.
  • Synthesize existing data (surveys, etc.) to determine what your organization already knows and collects about its customers. 
  • identify knowledge gaps, customer pain points, implicit needs, attitudes, and behaviors.
  • Develop a cohesive customer perspective that will serve as the starting point for building customer experience strategy.

  1. Have a Plan and Set an Agenda.

    Don’t forget the basics: create a vision, mission, and articulate clearly what your team does and what value it brings to the organization. I often tell clients that they could benefit from doing a Lean Canvas exercise for their new CX team: what products and services are you offering, why would your customers come to you, what is your unique value proposition, what problems are you helping to solve, what are your success measures,  etc.? If you don’t have crips answers, you need to figure them out fast. 

Also, It is important to position the team internally and set an agenda based on your stated goals and objectives. @RedSquared Consulting we recommend positioning the CX team as a:

  • Thought leader for CX practice
  • Driver and owner of the business strategy components
  • Owner of the “holistic view of the customer” for the company.

  1. Identify Quick Wins and Start Delivering.

    As a new CXO, you have about 3-6 months to pull the “new” card. After that, the words (and PowerPoint slides) lose its magic and people will need to see concrete results.  This is what you can do:

  • Evaluate existing projects and determine the engagement model for the CX strategy team.
  • Establish a roadmap for the short-, medium-, and long-term goals of the team.  
  • Develop a Point of View on the right balance between long-term initiatives and quick wins.
  • Select one  (or two) service design projects to lead and demonstrate value across functional groups/products. Those could be your quick wins. 
  • Another could source of quick wins is fixing known experience pain points. 

That’s all for now. More to come. 

Tags:
, ,