Brands at Level 2/The Expanding Level need firm CEO guidance to ensure success.
Success in completing the Expanding Level is highly dependent on the CEO’s leadership. Teams’ and departments’ effective collaboration accelerates the pace of CX Transformation. The CEO must lead and incent teams to act in a collaborative manner. While others concentrate on tactics around building customer relationships, the CEO must remain laser-focused on reducing internal friction and ensuring effective collaboration among various groups.
A similar percentage of brands at the Beginning Level report a high level of effort around CX Transformation and Digital Transformation. At the Expanding Level we see again a similar percentage of effort around CX Transformation and Digital Transformation efforts. This indicates CX and Digital Transformation do not happen in isolation, rather they happen in lockstep with each other. The implication is multiple teams must work together to drive progress forward across different fronts of the organization. The role of the CEO is to ensure these different teams with differing mandates come together and work collaboratively and to increase the efficiency of both Transformation efforts.
TEN-POW TIP #1: Make internal organizational efficiency job #1 for the CEO. Organizations that level up are able to show significant improvement in internal organizational efficiency which is the ability of various members of different teams to work cooperatively to accomplish tasks related to CX Transformation efforts. This is a result of effective collaboration and it’s the role of the CEO to lead the effort to break down silos that inhibit strong collaboration between teams. As these silos are removed more effective collaboration takes place, it’s the CEO’s responsibility to ensure the teams and individuals that break down these silos and work collaboratively are recognized and rewarded.
TEN-POW TIP #2: Engage multiple members of the C-suite and ensure effective collaboration. It is at the Expanding Level when a lack of buy-in, sponsorship or alignment across the C-suite is most likely to occur. When the CEO hands control of CX Transformation to the CTO/CIO the pendulum swings too far toward expanding IT infrastructure and Digital Transformation efforts and when the CEO hands control to the CMO then the pendulum swings too far towards looking at CX Transformation only through the lens of Marketing. The goal of the CEO is to balance varying viewpoints and encourage cooperation between all members of the C-suite.
TEN-POW TIP #3: Increase the frequency of customer data distribution among the C-suite. An important practice the CEO must implement is more frequent sharing of CX insights, knowledge and payoffs among leaders in the C-suite. C-suite members are 2x as likely to review and apply CX data on a monthly basis (especially CX-related KPIs) compared to brands at the Beginning Level of CX Transformation. This is an important practice that the CEO must lead because it will strengthen the connection between the C-suite and CX Transformation efforts, it encourages stronger alignment across the brand and most importantly it leads to better focus and execution of CX-related activities. #CX #CustomerExperience