Experience-Centric Organizations Operate Differently than Others.

I see a lot of people discuss “Customer Experience” like it’s a bolt-on to what they already do. It’s the thing you do after you sort out the product offering, the operational infrastructure, the service offerings…. Then you think about the customer’s experience at the end.

Experience-centric organizations start with the customer’s experience and design their offerings, operations, and service around what they want the customer to experience. It sounds simple and obvious. I hear leaders talk about being “customer-centric” all the time. The reality is that it almost never happens in practice. “Customer-centric” is usually words on a wall in the break room or the mantra for the company meeting once a year.

I can say that with confidence because we regularly audit “customer-centric” companies.

We are expert at ferreting out the truth behind the actual customer experience, uncovering the current impact it has on company performance, and then designing actionable strategies to win with a differentiated offering. We blend brand strategy, analytics, creative design, and market knowledge to produce fully bespoke experiences. Most firms have a playbook that they use over and over for every client. Most CXOs run the same plays they’ve been taught are safe or trusted from previous jobs.

In Q1, we just wrapped up 7 new audits: Luxury Retail (2), Automotive, Private Aviation, Home Building (2), Retail Banking. What were some of the themes we saw across all of these industries?

💥 Inflated survey results. Asking questions that were almost guaranteed to be 5/5 because they were so basic. Show me your survey, and I’ll tell you a lot about your standards. If they are high standards, and high scores, I’ll be shocked.

💥 Experiences that felt like they were designed in 2010. A single WOW moment I could get at any of their competitors? What a waste of resources for absolutely nothing. Yet, these are celebrated as “amazing” by the company. Not by the customer.

💥 Inflated employee engagement scores. Behind closed doors during an audit, employees have a very different lens on corporate “customer-centricity”.

💥 All, even the best, were fumbling on the basics of customer service. The leaders would tell us they were “Great at Customer Service. We are trained, and our teams do this really well.” Then we mystery shop, and it is frankly, a mess. Poor execution, inconsistent performance, lacking on fundamentals.

💥 Employees with completely different approaches to customer engagement leading to zero brand identity and huge variance in experience.

Think this doesn’t apply to your company? Think again.

This quarter almost all of our audits were for high-performing companies, with CEOs who want to stay ahead and stay on top. No obvious red flags in their customer data. No burning CX issues. Just a hunch that they could do more. And they were all right.