CX Framework Series #6: Customer-Centric Culture

How to Align All Employees with the Customer Experience Strategy

It is very important to realize that customer experience and a customer-centric mindset are often a cultural process within organizations. For that reason, a majority of leaders stated that the existing culture within the company acts as a barrier that must be overcome before they can begin managing day-to-day operations with the customer in mind.

There are different approaches to placing the customer at the center of the organization, and two striking examples immediately come to mind. Steve Jobs always started with the customer experience and worked backward toward the technology. Second, Richard Branson, who—in contrast to the previous example—adopts an “employees-first” perspective. His view is that when you treat your employees well, they will love their jobs and convey that same positive feeling to customers, who, in turn, will feel positively about the organization and be willing to do more business with you.

Employee engagement as a driving factor for customer satisfaction

Not every organization needs to have the exact same mindset as Richard Branson to ensure customer satisfaction, but you need to have happy employees to truly make a difference. HR plays a key role in fostering a customer-centric approach throughout all phases of the HR cycle.

It starts before your onboarding process. During the recruitment process, recruiters need to focus more on talent or attitude and less on skills. Skills can (and should!) be learned and taught as your new hire settles into their role. Also, your recruiters need to recruit with a clear purpose and truly look for a good fit with the organization. And keep in mind: with every pair of hands, you get a brain for free.

When you hire an employee, encourage them to pursue continuous development, participate in training sessions, courses, and study. That way, you empower them to develop the skills they truly want. You can also make this competitive or incorporate development into a game-like setting to make it more fun and an enjoyable challenge to keep growing.

Best Practices for Improving Employee Engagement

It is very important to drive cultural change throughout the entire organization. This is an ongoing process that may be difficult to implement or sustain, but it is worth the effort, and employees will adopt some or all of the best practices. After all, they are designed to create a happier workplace for employees.

During the masterclass, we had fun working on an assignment to create a Museum of Cultural Change, where all participants shared best practices.

Among them were:

Storytelling: Share Customer Stories in (Board) Meetings
Awards: Give employees whose work led to great customer experiences an award and make them feel special
King/Queen for a Week: Hang a huge crown over the workspace of a very customer-focused employee. Everyone in the organization will notice it and congratulate them.
Random acts of kindness: Give employees a budget so they can surprise random customers with a gift
Compliment shower: Print out all the compliments from customers who gave a 9 or 10 in the NPS survey, turn the printouts into confetti, and shower your employees with a real shower of compliments at the end of a town hall meeting
Invite the customer to the workplace: just like bringing a family member to work, invite a customer over and even let them attend a meeting. See what happens within the organization and how people react
Give the customer a seat in the meeting. Create a visual representation of your customer and assign him or her a seat in the boardrooms. This way, the customer is always visible.

Ways to Reward Employees for Their Customer-Centric Behavior

photo: https://www.slideshare.net/KaiCrow/asknicely-more-valuable-customers-with-nps

The first thing that might come to mind when thinking about rewarding employees for their efforts in customer excellence is to give them a bonus when their NPS reaches a certain level. This approach is brilliant, but be aware of the potential for gaming the system. You could also reward those who are positively mentioned in customer surveys, recognize the people working behind the scenes, and empower colleagues to celebrate each other’s work. Or make it easier for your employees to achieve a work-life balance, offer benefits that reduce stress, and treat those who handle difficult customer interactions with the utmost respect.

There are many ways to encourage your employees to adopt a more customer-centric approach—you just have to be creative and stay committed to putting it into practice! It won’t be easy, since we all know that culture trumps strategy. But this is where success is achieved and where the most fun can be had.

Want to develop your Customer Experience skills?

These are just a few of the highlights Milou took away from attending the Customer Experience Masterclass. Would you like to learn more? Join our next CX Masterclass in February or June 2018;click here for more informationorhere to reserve your spot.

Customer Experience Framework and a complete list of blog posts in this series

This post is part of a broader series on all six CX disciplines that make up the CXPA Framework, around which the CCXP exam is structured and which we cover in the CX Masterclass.

Here is the complete list of the other posts in this series:

About this series

The drafts for these blog posts were written by Milou van Kerkhof following the June 2017 CX Masterclass led by Nienke Bloem and Rosaria Cirillo. Milou attended the masterclass as a newcomer to Customer Experience. These blog posts have been slightly edited and highlight only the key points from each module.

*****

Nienke Bloem is often referred to as the Customer Experience speaker in the blue dress.

She is a global CX thought leader, educator, and keynote speaker who inspires audiences with best practices and proven methodologies. She runs a speaking practice, a CX game company, and a training business; she lives and breathes Customer Experience and is the author of two books on CX.

Her two-day Customer Experience Masterclass is known as the best program to prepare for the CCXP, and she is the go-to person for CX leaders who want to advance their leadership and achieve immediate results from their Customer Experience transformation programs. Since 2020, she has been hosting a CX Leadership Masterminds program and helping leaders enhance their leadership skills and deliver an engaging CX story, including a solid CX strategy. In addition, she is a modern-day pilgrim and has drawn parallels between her journey and leading customer-centric transformations.

With over 20 years of corporate experience, she speaks the language of business. Her keynote speeches and training programs on customer experience are inspiring and practical. She is one of the few Recognized Training Partners of the CXPA, and her mission is to make customer experience work and help you achieve business results.