CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
Leading Customer
Excellence
By Carolyne Gathuru
E
very marketer’s dream is to be
the voice of an organization
that has a culture of customer
service excellence, and to ensure that all
the marketing promises they make to
customers and potential customers are
truly actualized.
There’s nothing more frustrating than
selling ‘hot air’ and having customers
conclude that all the marketing promises
made have amounted to naught. This
means therefore, that delivery of the
organization’s marketing strategy, requires
that the Chief of Marketing is invested in
ensuring customer experience excellence
is an organization wide conversation.
Given that word of mouth continues to
defy all technological innovations as
the most impactful marketing tool, and
great word of mouth is the highest sales
conversion instrument, it is incumbent
upon marketers to take keen interest
in embedding
excellence.
customer
experience
The best way to do this is to win over
the hearts of top leadership towards
customer service delivery, without which,
customer excellence programs will not see
the light of day. Leaders across the board
right from the governance structures, to
top management and all other levels of
leadership below, need to fully understand
and embrace that customers come first
and organizational success will follow.
When customers are placed at the center
of all operations, policy making which is
a top leadership responsibility will benefit
from customer centricity. Customer
focused policies govern the development
of procedures and processes that are
designed to have good customer outcomes.
Top leadership need to consider three
main areas to ensure that they are setting a
There’s nothing more frustrating than
selling ‘hot air’ and having customers
conclude that all the marketing prom-
ises made have amounted to naught.
This means therefore, that delivery of
the organization’s marketing strategy,
requires that the Chief of Marketing is
invested in ensuring customer experi-
ence excellence is an organization wide
conversation.
32 MAL34/20 ISSUE
great foundation for customer experience
success:
Leading CX Corporate
Strategy
When developing corporate strategy, there
must be no instance where the strategy
is complete without a specific pillar on
customer experience excellence. There is
no specific prescription for how exactly
this must be done, and every organization
has the creative liberty to fashion their
strategies as they please, for as long as
there is a specific customer service agenda.
The team leading the strategic planning
needs to ensure that whether it is placed
as a foundational base, or an overarching
theme or as one of the key strategic
pillars, is not the issue. What counts is
that it sits right there in the center of the
strategy, taking its rightful place alongside
the common strategic pillars on financial
excellence, human capital excellence,
business development excellence and
innovation excellence.
When organizational targets are being
set for delivery in the immediate, short,
mid and long term of the strategic period,
CX goals need to be developed and
documented for action and follow up.
Indeed the proverbial empty chair needs
to be in place at every board meeting
where a seat is reserved for the ‘customer’
to ensure that throughout the boardroom
discussions, the Voice of the Customer is
not forgotten.
Very often organizations make inward