Do you see the X within transformation? Often we talk about digital transformation… which is not about digital, it’s about transformation. This transformation means not just using digital tools & channels, it means changing the entire business… and this in direction to the customer and his experiences with our products / services.
Principle 1 – Vision to Strategy to Execution
In another post I have described the pyramid from vision over mission to strategy and execution.
Often strategies are missing and if they are there they change and exist beside other strategies…. the result: Strategy A goes left and strategy B goes right, they are not aligned in the same direction through the vision on top. After some month strategy B changes then into another direction..
The vision on the top of the pyramid is very important but needs less time, the main time is needed for execution. At the end of the day we don’t need to pray for one direction (vision, strategy or execution), we need to cover the entire picture…. this is why consulting companies are currently buying agencies (like Accenture) and agencies are doing more and more strategy.
Principle 2 – Customer First
The headline says everything. Customer Experience takes place everywhere, online and offline. Through the digital channels we have more and more data. This data enables us to understand the customer. If we use this data we can build the right experience, if not, our competitors will do so. With their data customers share, they have a huge power we can’t ignore. That’s why we need to place the customer in front of corporate interests, there is no reason to say “but”. Our corporate goals must be fully aligned behind customer goals and employees need to have customer goals in their set targets.
Principle 3 – Listen, Understand, Predict, Adopt
If you look at an buying process for example we have main 3 phases:
- Interest
- Need
- Pain
We need to know in which phase our customer is at the moment and which information are relevant at this time. Further, if we understand him, we can predict his next steps and help him go through his way / path.
On the other side if we have realized that someone has clicked somewhere on TV equipment and place from this time on TV equipment ads everywhere this person feels tracked and is really annoyed. This is re-targeting which is based on past information which are most of the time not any longer relevant.
Principle 4 – Build Experiences
Do you know the elements of building experiences?
Trust is one element which is based on empathy, logic and loyalty. If someone does not trust you, you can do the best job without success. Read my series about trust.
Another element is how helpful your communication and information (content) to solve the current questions are and how much tailored the content is. We get so much information every day that we just read the headline and maybe the excerpt…. but if this tells us that there is high relevance in it we read the entire content. Let’s assume we have 3 articles which could help someone… dou you think we should send all 3 to him? Maybe it is better to build one new out of these 3 with just the relevant blocks and leave out everything else. So relevance is the other element.
Principle 5 – Transformation vs. Translation
Transformation is if we change the core. This can be the business model, the market approach or something else. Often the core isn’t touched and just a shell is placed around to adopt the old business to the new market / requirements. This is no transformation, this is translation.
Read this: Do you know why your #Transformation is no #Transformation?
Principle 6 – No Buzzword-Bingo & No Excuse for…
Understand what you are talking about… Mot people don’t do so or just think so. Even big magazines / newspapers mix Digital Transformation and Digitalization for example.
You know the Gardner Hype Cycle? If a Keyword is at the peak everyone is talking about just because it is trending. This is great to spread it out, but if thee is something new coming up we need to understand it before we talk about it.
This let us to the next point. Things are changing and we nee to keep up to date. There is no excuse for doing things always the same way like the last 5, 10, 20,… years before. We do not need to follow each hype, but we should listen to it, understand it and prove it with an open mind.
Principle 7 – Agility
In principle 6 we talked about the hype, the new topics who ar coming up. Therefore we net to be flexible. Agility is the keyword here. To build the right experience we need adopt to the changing interest, needs, pains… and requirements of our customers. Therefore we can’t be rigid and use the old waterfall approach, doesn’t matter if it’s how we go into the market, our communication or our product development.
Agile Transformation is not about Scrum, Kanban or other. This are very good methods which helps to do the transformation. So they are the means for the purpose. Read more here.
Principle 8 – Rethink Your Corporate Structure & (Employee) Goals
How can a company be customer centric if their employees have corporate goals? So driving organizational change is a must have.
The way here isn’t easy. First of all we need to change personal goals to team goals and later on this team goals to global goals… all aligned on the customer. If this is done, we can start thinking changing departments. One approach is to dissolve sales & marketing and place their work under a new customer department. This I have described more detailed in another post.
Principle 9 – Lateral Thinking and Crazy Vision
Reading this article the one or other will think my thoughts are a bit crazy. Maybe! I think we need to be more crazy, have real visions who are driving us and we also need to leave the the usual path to create something real new and generate growth.
Copying the iPhone was working very well, but someone must have been the first with the smartphone. Another analogy: Fashion is not made by people who wear it, it’s made by people who don’t wear it.
Principle 10 – No more Channel Thinking
If we think about the principles 1-9, do you think that a channel focus is the right direction? #CustomerExperience is an holistic approach and takes place within online-, offline and non-marketing.
- Does your customer cares about the channel you reach out or does he cares about the right information at the right time and in the right format? Think about yourself, most people change channels quickly and several times a day.
- Do you now the difference between Multi-, Omni and Cross-Channel? Your customer realize when you reach out on different channels with the same message… that’s penetrating and not moving the conversation and experience forward. Here is my differentiation of Multi-, Omni and Cross-Channel: https://esser.me/channel
If you want to read more about this check out my other post under https://esser.me/highlights.
I also can recommend reading Brian Solis: LinkedIn & Website
