To succeed in the CX paradigm shift, organizations must put the customer at the center of every business decision they make, from vision and strategy to the operational model they orchestrate around various departments and cross-functional teams to provide value to the customer.
Needless to say, AI, ML, RPA, NLP, NLU, and now metaverse technologies are rapidly changing the rules of the game. To prepare for the metaverse, a new world of virtual reality, Generation Z is purchasing digital assets in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Popular shoe company Nike has already begun selling shoes for the metaverse, with some pairs going for over $100,000. By the end of this year, there will be $6 billion in transactions taking place in the metaverse, and by 2026, there will be far over $40 billion.
Google unveiled “Google Duplex” during the 2019 Google I/O event to fully transform the shopping experience. Today, technology is changing at an unprecedented speed, and most organizations that draw inspiration from the onslaught of information about various technological advancements know what they need to do to stay in the game, but the real challenge for them is figuring out how to use this information to deliver the CX they truly desire.
According to Shep Hyken’s book The Cult of the Customer, “60 to 80 percent of customers who describe themselves as satisfied do not return to do more business with the company.” Thus, in this new CX paradigm, making a customer happy may not be the right benchmark for your CX. (NPS, CSAT, and CES scores may require different benchmarking.) According to the HBR Analytics Report, a good CX is attributed to one that customer finds useful (delivering value), usable (easy to find and engage with the value), and enjoyable (emotionally engaging).
Only organizations with an ecosystem that enables them to think through this rapid change in the technology landscape and consequently, the customer behavior in order to shape their strategy and then translate it into their service delivery model, will be able to leapfrog the “CX gap” and emerge as truly customer-centered organizations.
Building such an ecosystem requires the formation of autonomous teams, the application of design thinking into the DNA of every process to innovate, and the ability to ship your product on the MVP model in the shortest amount of time, giving you more room to validate your idea and an opportunity to fail as early as possible to pivot, and quickly reach your product-market fit, “a dream come true” situation that 90 percent of startups fail to achieve.
Not to surprise anyone, all three dimensions—people, process, and technology—need to be transformed in order to create the much-needed organizational ecosystem. Organizations that lag behind any of these three are forced to retreat, engage in chaos, and things worsen when no one knows why we’re in this situation.
