Some retrospective but future-inspiring reading summarising day 1 of the virtual CX Marketing Summit 2020.

Truly customer-centric companies see the opportunities for innovation and closer engagement with customers also at times of crisis.

The Coronavirus is radically impacting everybody’s life. Now more than ever, it is important to think about what your customers need, both functionally and emotionally. Then you need to flex your CX strategy accordingly and make it a key part of all crisis management actions.

This year I had the pleasure of chairing the Customer Engagement Summit, the largest customer experience event in Europe. Follow the link to read my Chair Report with the key highlights from two days spent with inspirational leaders and immersed in insightful presentations.

Do you know why your customers come into your store instead of shopping online? And do you design your stores to meet those needs and expectations, leveraging the right balance of immersive spaces and technology-enabled engagement solutions? Many retailers don’t, and that is why it is not surprising that many high street names are struggling.

Most organisations undertake some form of customer research. But are the insights they generate the best reflection of customers’ deeper needs, motivators and behavioural drivers? Do you truly understand your customers?

Customers’ intolerance for suboptimal experiences is increasingly impacting companies’ profitability, because far too often their expectations for immediate, convenient and personalised service are not met. Why are organisations still pursuing tech-first transformation without due consideration for those deeper customer needs and expectations?

While NPS plays a role to align the organisation behind thinking about the customer, it is not actually a true customer experience metric. What options do we have to measure the customer experience effectively and understand that all important customer’s emotional state?

Increasingly organisations aim to engage their customers and users at a deeper level, by tapping into their emotions and stimulating their senses. Innovative technologies are increasingly helping with this by creating sensorial stimuli to enrich the experience and influence the mind.

In the midst of the ‘Experience Economy’, where Customer Experience is the key driver of lasting customer relationships and loyalty, many organisations still leave things to chance. Instead, a clear customer strategy is essential to design and deliver coherent, meaningful and differentiated CX

Claims are a key moment in the insurance journey and key to customer retention. However, the customer experience is often a chronicle of frustrations and bad endings. How can insurers leverage technology and automation to improve the claims journey and drive loyalty and business value?

At a time when many Retailers are struggling to remain competitive and profitable, it is paramount to re-think traditional business and operating models and understand the purpose of the store in the end-to-end customer journey.

What are the key moments in your customer journey to deliver your brand promises? And have you designed those interactions to deliver the right customer experience?

What are the main customer experience trends for 2018? And are these just fashionable or truly transformational opportunities to improve customer loyalty and business value?

Do you have a clear Customer Strategy to shape the focus of your CX programme and supercharge its delivery and impact? The reality is that not only many organisations overlook this aspect of the CX programme, but many do not have the right skills and tools to design a successful and brand-aligned Customer Strategy.

Many studies show that customers’ behaviours and decisions are greatly influenced by emotions. However, most organisations are not clear about what their customers’ emotional motivators are and therefore ignore opportunities for strengthening customer engagement.

Generation Z is accelerating us into the Experience Economy. While they expect the ultimate convenience and immediacy offered by the mobile experience, they also value the power of immersive and engaging experiences - even more so than older generations.

Businesses increasingly use the word ‘design’ as the solution to many problems. However, many still adopt traditional process design techniques, which are not able to bring the right customer focus or lead to innovative solutions.

AI is currently a topic regularly debated at many decision-makers tables, especially associated with reducing operational costs. But what is AI and how can it transform your customer journey and service model?

People's decisions and behaviours are driven by emotions, but most Voice of the Customer programmes focus only on the transactional aspects of the customer journey, without trying to understand how the customer felt

Many companies aspire to deliver a great and differentiated customer experience, but their ability to deliver it is often hampered by several misconceptions about CX and a narrow view of what CX actually means. 

A healthy CX is essential to build the organisational fitness required to compete successfully in a challenging environment. Most organisations set out some CX objectives and targets at the beginning of each financial year, but how many of these organisations keep the right focus and resources behind them?

The accuracy and reliability of the Voice of the Customer data is essential to inform business decisions and kick start the CX Programme. However, many customer feedback processes are still not structured in the right way to provide a true indication of CX performance.

Who should be accountable for the customer experience and where should this sit within the organisational structure? This is still a question many organisations are debating. While there is no one-size-fits-all answer, this will have a radical impact on how the organisation approaches CX management.

There is a big disconnect between how organisations and customers think about loyalty, with many loyalty schemes focused on the needs of the organisation more than those of the customer. 

There is currently a clear trend in Customer Experience circles. It seems it has become almost impossible to attend a CX event without hearing people talking about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and chatbots. Yet, is AI still only the fancy gadget in fashion, or is it the solution to a real customer and organisational need?

“What is the latest NPS score?”. This was probably the most common question I used to hear in my CX leadership roles – and typically one asked by an executive director. However, the focus on that simple number was not enough. 

Why do so many CX initiatives fail to achieve competitive differentiation or quantifiable business benefits? My experience tells me that these casualties are due to a combination of poor strategy and bad execution, coupled with many execs still only paying lip service to CX.

Strategic talk alone doesn’t change the reality of the present. The best brand strategies are supported by a clear understanding of how they can be brought to life and become part of the DNA of an organisation – well before they start to communicate to their customers those new brand promises.