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My peers and I on the Gartner for Marketing Leaders team are planning a new primary research study to learn how marketers are approaching, measuring and executing their customer experience (CX) management programs. One of the challenges we have had to address is how to distinguish those professionals who lead or are involved with CX as a disciplined and strategic practice versus those who merely execute tactics to improve customer experiences. The difference is one that is lost on many business leaders, and it is the reason so many CX programs grapple to deliver demonstrable results.
Put simply, if we ask business executives, "are you involved with efforts to improve customer experience?," who wouldn't answer in the affirmative? Everyone from the call center representative to the product manager to the content marketing leader to the CMO would claim they are enriching customer experiences. But how many of those would be involved in or leading a methodical, strategic practice to understand, define and improve their brands' CX? Customer experience management is not defined by intentions or even a few choice actions but by the commitment to an analytical, deliberate, organized CX approach.
A metaphor may help to explain what I mean. If I volunteer to speak in front of a classroom for an organization like Junior Achievement (a wonderful experience I recommend for every professional, by the way), does that make me a teacher? No, the fact I give an hour a week to help students, while being a positive contribution, is very different from being a teacher. Teaching is a full-time job and a discipline that includes processes like developing curricula, assigning and documenting grades, meeting with parents, and creating a safe and disciplined learning environment. Contributing in the classroom is not the same as being a teacher, and in fact, if you volunteer for JA, one thing you'll learn is how your role in the classroom contrasts with the teacher's.
Likewise, wanting to improve the customer experience and even acting to improve it are not the same as executing a systematic, organized CX program. Changing an app to be more usable or authoring content to answer customer questions is no more proof of organized customer experience management than is speaking to students a determining factor of teaching. CX is not defined by intentions and actions but by processes, scope, focus, data, goals, and metrics. Many CX efforts and programs are not built to succeed because they neglect to recognize that difference.
Is your CX program built to succeed or to fail? That is not a simple question with a simple answer, but I will provide a list of attributes that are commonly associated with CX programs that tend to struggle. To see this list and read my entire blog post, please visit my Gartner blog.
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