Customer Experience took the limelight at the fifth annual DX Summit from November 4-6 at the Marriott Marquis in Chicago. The 3-day event focused on the various challenges involved in delivering personalized customer experiences. Speakers at the event shared lessons on principles of design thinking, the need to focus on customer journey management, the business value of customer data platforms and the importance of becoming more empathetic to customers. In addition they held workshops on the right way to buy CX technology and the science of asking great questions to get customer insights.
Our customer experience evangelist, Ashutosh Karandikar, attended the conference and ensured the entire team stayed updated on what was happening at the event. Suyati’s focus is to deliver great experiences for their client’s customers and being part of this stellar event helped us gain insights to take our company’s CX offerings to the next level.
If you missed the summit, don’t worry. Ashutosh has simplified his learnings from the event into the following three key takeaways
(1) Define why you exist as an organization and the value you provide
This fundamental message was loud and clear – go back to the basics. Keep asking questions as to why your organization exists, what value you provide and how well you know your customers. The key learning? The entire CX transformational exercise will be of no use if we don’t have a well-developed organizational clarity and a sense of purpose.
2) Enforce Cross-functional leadership
We know our companies exist in silos! However, while some compartmentalization is important for focus and discipline, CX demands a cross-functional approach. For an organization’s CX strategy to actually work, it needs a cross functional leader who can span over all departments be it marketing , sales, delivery or even back office operations like HR and finance, and coordinate the overall efforts. The key learning here is to have a unity of purpose in every department and work collectively to understand customer needs.
3) Make CX around Journey Management, not product management!
Enterprises should focus on journey oriented CX execution that satisfy customers and deliver desired business outcomes rather than getting bogged down in traditional project-oriented CX success. Kerry Bodine, CEO of Bodine &CO encouraged organizations to adopt a holistic approach in understanding their customers needs while giving her keynote speech on “The Path To Journey Management”. She cited most of the organizations misunderstand this concept and are still focussed on customer journeys alone. The key learning? To deliver powerful customer experiences and attain business success, it is vital to keep the journey framework as the central part of business operations.
Summing up..
Focus on the basics. Think cross-functional. Manage the customer journey. The keynote speeches from various innovative minds definitely elevated our thinking and the team is highly motivated! But there’s more insights to share. Do check out the short video bites from Ashutosh to get a closer look on all the happenings at the DX summit 2019.
