When was the last time you took time out of your day to not only think about your customer's experience but actually walked in your customer’s shoes? Over the past few years I have had fantastic engaging conversations with some of the industry's leading experts in CRM and CEM. Many of them have been or currently are CEOs, COOs or CMOs for major brands. I always find it interesting to explore with them how often they use their brand's products and services as well as take the time to really experience their brand by walking in their customer's shoes.
The good news is that most if not all of them have used or engaged in the brands they lead at least once. Many of them engage with their brands on a daily basis either by consuming them or using them. They look at reports on a daily basis that measure satisfaction, show purchase trends, monitor net promoter scores and some even handle customer escalations. Most surprisingly however, very few of them have taken the time or effort to walk through the full customer journey and experience what it is like to be a prospective consumer of their product. Now don't get me wrong most if not all of them have spent time thinking about the customer experience, even mapped it out in a boardroom, they have gone online and purchased their product and some have even called the customer care line but very few take the full end to end journey themselves.
One of my favorite shows is Undercover Boss. The premise of the show is where the CEO, owner or leading executive takes time off from his daily duties and spends several days in the life of an employee of their company. It never fails, they always find an unsung hero within their company, practices that they personally find appalling and policies that when created sounded like a good idea but in practice does not compliment the brand they are trying to achieve.
What would you discover if you became Undercover Customer Experience Officer and walked through your brand’s customer journey?
