leadership

I originally wrote today’s post for Momentive.ai. It appeared on their site on January 25, 2022.

Customer expectations were already changing before COVID-19, but the pandemic has amplified them and accelerated new expectations. 

As customer experience professionals, the work you do to identify improvement opportunities and other initiatives to design and deliver a better experience requires you to build the business case and help your executives prioritize those initiatives – because there are typically many improvements that need to be made.

I’ve previously written about prioritization methods and criteria:

I’ve written about change and change management several times over the years, especially last year. After all, customer experience management really is (all about) change management. Change is hard. Well, it can be. But it’s especially hard when not everyone sees or agrees with your change vision.

A couple months ago, I wrote about the difference between consensus and alignment and why that’s important to know.

Back then I wrote:

Consensus versus alignment: is there a difference? Does it matter? Where does it apply in your customer experience work?

Back in 2015, I asked a similar question about buy-in and commitment – and, importantly, why knowing the difference matters. Ultimately, you’re seeking commitment, not just buy-in. And yet, there’s a greater opportunity to get not just commitment, but alignment and commitment.

In a major customer centricity programme I ran a number of years ago, we interviewed over 100 people at all levels of the organisation. We wanted to understand how customer-centric they considered themselves to be and compare these findings to the behaviour of the whole business.

Change is hard. We know that. But it’s even harder when we hear nothing but excuses for why something can’t be done or why it shouldn’t change.

I’ve written about inside out thinking and behavior a few times, but today’s focus on inside out is a little different.

There’s the Golden Rule: treat others the way you want to be treated.

And there’s the other Golden Rule: he who holds the gold makes the rules. In other words, those with the money are in power, i.e., your customers.

I originally wrote today’s post for Shep Hyken’s blog. It appeared on his site on May 29, 2020.