Our ideas

As a means towards innovation and customer-centricity, “design thinking” is lauded as a technique to infuse creativity throughout an organization. We know it’s being taught to future business leaders at places like Stanford’s d.school, but how’s it being applied in the real world? Global enterprise services leader Citrix provides an interesting example.

Despite the increasing prevalence of digital-only services, our daily lives are still comprised of many person-to-person interactions with service providers. From restaurant waitstaff to call center agents, our experience with services is heavily influenced by those we engage with. Focusing on the customer experience is at the heart of successful organizations, and good employee experience […]

We’ve previously looked at the role of Chief Customer Officer (CCO), through the eyes of someone in the role. But what can be learned about this up-and-coming job title through surveying multiple people? Forrester’s Paul Hagen stepped in to find out.

Hierarchical structures and organizational silos are common within modern businesses, but their existence both hampers customer experience and impedes efficiency, according to some. In this post, we look at both issues, and solutions that have been proposed.

“Put your staff first, customers second, and shareholders third.” If that advice sounds illogical, you might expect it’s come from someone with little business success to speak of. But think again; it’s from none other than Sir Richard Branson (who, not coincidentally, knows a thing or two about customer experience too).

With predictions from marketing, technology and customer experience for 2013 in full swing, changes in the boardroom are emerging as far as customer advocates are concerned. In an interview with Marchai Bruchey (CCO of Thunderhead), Neil Davey discusses her role, activities, and responsibilities as a chief customer officer, making corporate culture more customer-centered.

An organization’s structure is often the underlying reason preventing it from becoming truly customer-centric, according to customer experience consultant Colin Shaw. Only a willingness to change this structure will truly put it on the path to delivering an excellent customer experience.

Investments in technology… A shiny new website… A re-invigorated brand… There are many tangible efforts that can be made to pursue customer experience goals. But they need to be complemented by activities that affect the organization more deeply.

Besides Design, there are several other organizational challenges regarding customer experience; two of which are Culture and Strategy. In his article with the thought-provoking title Culture Eats Strategy For Lunch, Shawn Parr explains the crucial role, value and relevance of an corporate culture and how customers directly experience this culture.