Consumer loyalty has declined by 14% over the last year. Simply put, in today’s fiercely competitive marketplace, businesses can no longer continue to operate in silos. Organizations cannot measure the success of their product or service touchpoints alone to secure customer loyalty1. This article explores the strategic significance of interdepartmental alignment and collaboration and how they can transform their customer’s end-to-end experience from mediocre to superior.

Research over the past 10 years shows the impact of an improved Customer Experience (CX), increases revenue2, profit3 and stock price4. While most organizations recognize the need to improve, many don’t yield high-value business results due to a disconnected and dysfunctional approach to managing and improving customer journeys.

Today’s Customer Journey Is a Complicated Tapestry of Interactions

The customer journey is the complete sum of experiences that customers go through when interacting with a company and its brand. It spans various stages but generally looks like this:

• Awareness: The customer becomes aware of a product or service
• Consideration: The customer evaluates different options.
• Purchase: The customer decides to buy a product or service.
• Retention: The customer continues to engage with the brand post-purchase.
• Advocacy: The customer recommends the product or service to others.

While listed sequentially, a journey is not a linear path but a complex and interconnected tapestry of interactions that span multiple touchpoints and channels. Each interaction, whether it’s with a customer service rep or an app, in a store or with a chatbot, all contribute to the overall experience. Given this complexity, managing these journeys requires rigor around how organizations align and collaborate.

The Role of Alignment

How aligned is your organization around the needs of your customers?

CX is a team sport, and Marketing and Creative Operations teams must put the customer at the core of everything they do. This alignment is the backbone of a successful customer experience strategy and most organizations severely underestimate the significance this plays in successful CX transformations. Customers want organizations to deliver a consistent experience that meets expectations at every touchpoint, which requires teams to reorganize, train and work cross-functionally to deliver a common target experience.

Alignment involves breaking down silos and fostering transparency and communication between different departments – marketing, sales, customer service, operations, data, technology – toward a shared vision and mission of delivering exceptional customer satisfaction. People need to understand how they fit into the larger system and need guidelines to help understand where they are going and why.

Mature CX organizations have established an aspirational vision or north star that guides all interconnected efforts. Their CX strategy is clear and frequently shared and they have recognized the need for a robust change management program to transform teams toward customer-centric goals.

The Role of Accountability

How well is your organization leveraging accountability to improve customer metrics?

Accountability is rarely talked about but it is a critical aspect of CX “healthy practices”. This ensures that people within the organization have the competence and capabilities to gather and use customer insights to close feedback loops, solve problems and help teams improve metrics and experience outcomes.

The challenge with this is, accountability isn’t fun or sexy. Most people don’t want to be hassled by the CX police. This is why accountability must be deeply tied to a customer-centric culture. Teams must have a proactive mindset and ways of working that put the customer first and foremost which is closely tied to the critical role alignment plays in accountability.

Mature CX organizations have embedded customer journey management into their operations as the new standard for “business as usual”. They use customer journeys to manage programs, projects and people. Executives use journeys as everyday communication vehicles for allocation resourcing, project prioritization and approvals. Accountability for CX and Employee Experience (EX) metrics is taken very seriously by executive sponsors and guide decision making at all levels and across the organization.

The Role of Collaboration

How collaborative is your organization?

A journey map is by far the most dynamic tool to instill a customer-centric way of thinking and working. It is incredibly powerful for informing decision makers, de-risking initiatives, aligning powerful metrics and ensuring alignment across the customer journey.

The challenge is, most organizations are terrible at collaboration. According to a Forrester study on open collaboration5:

• 80% of decision-makers said they need to improve collaboration with other departments
• 82% said that while they are more effective internally than externally, they don’t feel particularly confident about their collaboration internally either
• 75% said they need to improve collaboration within their own department

Our mature CX clients use structured collaboration to map the customer journey as a cross-functional, interdepartmental team with your customers. The process of mapping facilitates a deeper understanding of customers by pooling diverse perspectives and expertise.

Beyond engagement and productivity, the benefits of aligning and collaborating around the customer journey when you bring teams together are significant. You unlock the power of alignment, accountability and structured collaboration. Here’s how:

Unified Customer Insights

Imagine having all your customer data in one place. When departments share their unique insights, you get a complete picture of the customer journey. For example, customer service reps can share common challenges customers face with back-office teams which will help tailor messaging before, during and after key interactions.

Improved Customer Satisfaction

Aligning and holding teams accountable ensures everyone is on the same page. This consistency across all touchpoints helps deliver a seamless experience and closes feedback loops with your customers, making them feel heard and valued.

Enhanced Problem Solving

Cross-functional teams can tackle customer issues more efficiently. By bringing together diverse perspectives and expertise, these teams can develop comprehensive solutions, helping you stay ahead of the competition and make smarter investment decisions.

When your organization works together with the customer journey at the core, you create smoother, more satisfying experiences that benefit everyone.

The Future of Customer Experience Is Holistic Understanding Through Collaboration of People, Data and Technology

Customer experience can no longer be the sole responsibility of the customer service team or isolated departments like pricing, product or communications. Customer needs extend beyond these silos, and everyone in the organization should feel connected to the customer, no matter their role.

As customer expectations continue to evolve, businesses must adapt by fostering interdepartmental alignment and collaboration to gain a holistic understanding of their customers. The future of customer journeys lies in leveraging technology, data analytics and cross-functional teamwork to deliver personalized, seamless and memorable experiences.

Centering Purpose Around People

Organizations center their purpose and culture around delivering superior customer experiences. This means centering the organization’s purpose around delivering an exceptional customer experience by empowering employees with the tools, data and authority to make customer-centric decisions. When everyone in the organization feels connected to the customer, no matter their role, collaboration naturally follows. Encouraging a culture of continuous improvement, where feedback loops and collaborative problem-solving are integral, ensures that customer experience strategies evolve with changing customer needs and market dynamics.

Investing in Customer Intelligence Capabilities

Using advanced analytics, companies can gain powerful insights into customer behavior. These insights enable proactive engagement and personalized experiences. When departments collaborate to harness these technologies, they can use predictive insights to better understand and meet customer needs. Additionally, automation can streamline repetitive tasks, freeing up employees to focus on more strategic activities. Identifying which processes to automate and ensuring smooth implementation requires effective collaboration across teams.

While AI becomes integrated into CX, it needs to be used to enhance relationships with customers. How many poor chatbot experiences have you had interacting with brands using a bot to manage support experiences? According to a recent Prosper Insights & Analytics survey, customers preferred to connect with a human over an AI chatbot when seeking assistance. Another 56% of adults 18+ find “live, toll-free customer service important or very important to their online shopping experiences”.6

Organizing Teams to Work Cross-Functionally

Delivering a consistent experience across all channels—online and offline—requires tight coordination between marketing, sales, customer service, data and IT. An omnichannel approach ensures customers receive the same level of service and engagement, regardless of how they interact with the brand.

More customer experiences will be developed using digital products and services. This broadens CX ownership and requires new ways of working to manage customer end to end journeys. Using integrated platforms that consolidate customer interactions from various channels provides a unified view of the customer journey, enhancing the ability to deliver personalized and consistent experiences.

Delivering Value Through Unique and Memorable Experiences

Technology disruption will not change the fundamental importance of loyalty for business growth and sustainability. Retention, product holdings and referral rates will continue to remain critical to succeed in a competitive market. Continuously aligning to customer values will ensure new market entrants don’t take long-time customers that want faster change. Mature CX organizations continue outpacing their competitors in growth across every industry. CX leaders have differentiated their experiences utilizing AI and data to outperform their competitors and continuously fight for customer loyalty.7

Conclusion

Optimizing the customer journey is not a one-time effort but an ongoing process that requires a deep understanding of the customer at every stage. Achieving this understanding is only possible through effective, interdepartmental collaboration. By breaking down silos, aligning goals and fostering a culture of teamwork; businesses can deliver a seamless and engaging customer experience that drives loyalty and advocacy.

In a world where customer experience is the key differentiator, the importance of collaboration cannot be overstated. It is the cornerstone of a customer-centric approach that not only meets but exceeds customer expectations and ensures long-term success in a competitive market. The journey itself is the tool, but the experience is the house that teams build with that tool.

Sources:

1. https://emarsys.com/press-release/loyalty-landslide-us-consumers-demand-more-as-brand-loyalty-declines/#:~:text=In%20a%20year%20marked%20by,2022%20to%2068%25%20in%202023.
2. http://temkingroup.com/research-reports/roi-of-customer-experience-2016/
3. The Economics of E-Loyalty, Bain
4. The 2015 Customer Experience ROI Study, Watermark Consulting, http://www.watermarkconsult.net/docs/Watermark-Customer-Experience-ROI-Study.pdf
5. https://atlassianblog.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/atlassian_forrester_valueofopencollaboration.pdf
6. Prosper - Importance of Services When Shopping Online https://prosperanalytics.info/
7. McKinsey Customer Experience: Creating Value Through Transforming Customer Journey