Is your company always trying to chase the next big idea in terms of customer experience? Organizations that have achieved customer experience success, have a dynamic CX focus that infiltrates every area of the business. How do they achieve this? They build a corporate culture that enhances their employee experience.
There is a direct link between engaged, motivated employees and customer experience success. That is to say, the path to engaged employees is governed by your corporate culture. Your corporate culture is soul food to your employees. We explained more about this in our previous article.
Here are 5 tips to building a corporate culture to drive your EX and enhance your CX.
Tip #1 – Collective Consciousness
This is a set of shared beliefs, ideas, attitudes and understanding between members of an organization. It is important to build a collective consciousness because it will determine your company purpose and the promises you make to your customers. Furthermore, it will also guide behaviour to ensure your company delivers on the promises you make to your customers. Without a strong collective consciousness, companies undoubtedly land up promising one thing but delivering something else. This results in disappointed customers with a diluted trust in your brand.
The way to establish a collective consciousness is to ensure you have the following in place:
- A clearly identified CX-specific mission statement. This differs from your company mission statement as it is customer centric.
- A well-designed customer journey where everyone in the company understands their role in delivering this
- A well-designed supplier journey because all stakeholders need to be part of the big picture if you intend to achieve your goals.
Tip #2 – Communication
It’s not good enough for leaders to define the mission statement, identify key company values and design the customer journey. These cannot be mounted on the wall as memorial plaques for all to see. No! They need to be effectively and continually communicated. They need to be integrated throughout the organization. Above all, they need to come alive and be the life force of the company. In other words, these elements must naturally infuse all behaviours and day to day functioning within the company to achieve a common goal.
Similarly, employees need to feel empowered and enabled to communicate to company leads about what is or is not working. In this way, you will establish open two-way communication allowing your corporate culture and collective consciousness to be dynamic and iterative continually growing and remaining relevant.
Tip #3 – The External Is A Reflection Of The Internal
Your company culture is an important driver of positive employee experience. It therefore, must embody values that reflect those of your employees. When your employees feel aligned with company values and feel respected, trusted and valued by the company for which they work, they will uphold these values with pride. They will feel a sense of belonging and connectedness that will enable them to deliver on the standards and promises made to your customers. In short, if you want your employees to care about your customers, you need to first have a culture that cares for your employees. In this way, your Ex will drive your CX.
Tip #4 – Action
As mentioned above, your company values and CX mission statement cannot remain concepts in the minds of your executives. They need to be actioned. There are various ways to achieve this and here are some ideas:
- Set up experience programs for your employees as well as to your customers. This is a function within your company whose purpose is to measure, understand and improve the experiences your customers and your employees are having.
- Make everyone in your organization accountable for Cx success metrics.
- Give appreciation and recognition to individuals with CX success stories. This buolds morale and encourages others to follow suit.
- Incorporate CX into weekly staff meetings where you can discuss customer success, pain points, surveys and solutions.
Tip #5 – Rome Wasn’t Built In A Day
Consider CX culture on a continuum. Where is your company on this range? What are your strengths and where do your challenges lie? Defining your corporate culture is not something that gets ticked off the to do list once. It is an iterative process. It is an ongoing, living, guiding force. Furthermore, it will change as you grow and as your customers and employees change and their needs move with the times. In conclusion, to remain relevant, your company culture will require ongoing time and input.
Read more about CX and EX here.
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Written by Yael Benjamin