This short thought leadership piece describes several barriers to success in Customer Experience (CX) programs and how to move beyond them with the right resources, tools and strategies.

1. suitecx
©2015,
suitecx
Inc.
September
23,
2015
Customer
Experience:
Ge=ng
Past
the
Barriers
to
Success
Developing
a
comprehensive
Customer
Experience
(CX)
strategy
is
more
difficult
than
you
might
expect,
and
there
is
a
lot
of
noise
in
the
marketplace
as
to
how
to
do
it
right.
However,
despite
the
massive
amounts
of
talk,
there
is
not
a
lot
of
intelligent
recommendaPons
for
acPon.
What
are
some
of
the
barriers?
Internal Organiza.onal Silos
Companies struggle with CX because it requires sharing informa.on across the
enterprise. It also requires ge>ng agreement not only on what needs to be done
but also on who will do it. Being successful at CX requires a deep understanding of
customer needs and values, as well as all the internal people, processes and
technologies that impact the customer experience. Many department heads don’t
have the cross-­‐func.onal technology and organiza.onal skills to understand what
needs to be done, let alone how to get the leadership on board to plan and
execute.
Lack of the Right Metrics
Company metrics tend to be focused on individual department performance, not
on mee.ng cross-­‐departmental goals. Achieving margins and reducing costs tend
to be the most significant priori.es. Customer experience gets put on the back
burner as goals like risk avoidance, project comple.on .me and technology
up.me s.fle innova.on and reward the status quo.
Adver.sing and Marke.ng Agencies
Modern agencies are highly competent in guiding their clients around customers’
digital and social interac.ons, as well as helping them to understand broad
emo.onal underpinnings of brand rela.onships. However, many agencies are not
as aPuned to the need to merge tac.cal evidence from on-­‐ and off-­‐line
interac.ons with the digital and social knowledge they gather. Agency-­‐driven
customer journey maps are oRen aspira.onal and not grounded in fact.
Thought Leadership
“People, process,
technology, and
metrics makeovers are
needed to implement
a modern CX program.
Companies should take
a step-­‐by-­‐step
approach, star<ng with
Customer Journey
Mapping and data-­‐
driven assessments
around CX maturity.”
Lillian Murphy
Vice President, Inventory
Yield and Club
Development
Starwood Vaca.on
Ownership
No Common Defini.on of Best Customer Experience
Marke.ng, Sales and Service are not aligned on who is the best customer and what a good experience looks like. If
each area con.nues to operate independently and by their own defini.ons, customers will feel a disjointed
experience at every point of engagement. Crea.ng a seamless experience for the customer requires common
organiza.onal understanding, data sharing and shared goals for improvement.

2. suitecx
©2015,
suitecx
Inc.
September
23,
2015
Customer
Experience:
Ge=ng
Past
the
Barriers
to
Success
How
do
you
move
forward
when
it
seems
like
an
impossible
task?
Begin with your customer data
Implement tools that enable you to integrate customer data from mul.ple sources
and systems to facilitate bePer business decision-­‐making. Aim for a 360-­‐degree
view of the customer. Clean and match your data to make it current, complete and
correct.
Update your segmenta.on/personae
Update your current categoriza.on of customers to get a bePer understanding of
your key segments. Focus on your most profitable and most growable segments
first. Understanding what is unique about each segment helps you know what
addi.onal data to collect and use to bePer personalize their experiences.
Embrace Customer Journey Mapping
If mapping the en.re customer journey seems overwhelming, begin the process of
mapping with your most profitable segment. Look at them across all the customer
touch-­‐points and the customer lifecycle in order to understand what they want
from you and how you are or are not currently supplying it. Different segments,
such as millennials and baby boomers, will experience the same interac.on with
your company differently. Your organiza.on needs to know what is most important
to each customer group (moments of truth) and what is broken (pain points).
Build an Improvement Plan
Mapping and valida.ng the customer journey helps you iden.fy and priori.ze
ini.a.ves for organiza.onal change. Create an improvement plan based on your
journey map, and hold sessions with Marke.ng, Sales, IT, Service and other
departments to agree on priori.es and assign resources to make improvements.
Thought Leadership
About suitecx®
Backed by over 120
years of combined
experience in customer
experience consul.ng,
suitecx is a set of
soRware tools that allow
users to make fact based
decisions and process
improvements that are
grounded in the
customer experience.
Customer-­‐centric
diagnos.cs, touch
inventories, journey
maps, customer
storytelling and precision
marke.ng are all
components of this
groundbreaking
soRware.
Stop using many
different soRware tools
to house your complete
customer experience!
suitecx is the glue that
keeps your customer
experience together.
Metrics, Metrics, Metrics
Create CX-­‐centric metrics to monitor your progress. Focus on business outcomes rather than task comple.on.
Revisit your customer journey periodically to measure success against the original baseline.
Contact us for more informa.on: info@suitecx.com