Is your organization in balance?

In many organizations shareholders have a lot to say about the policy. In times of economic prosperity, nothing is wrong, the cash register is ringing happily and everyone is happy and satisfied. But when that prosperity gives way to the first setbacks, the shareholders start to stir to guarantee their return in the short term. In both cases, the outcome in policy is the same, in both the profit and non-profit sectors. The aim is to achieve primary financial goals such as revenue growth, profit maximization and / or higher returns (in any order). With the first economic breeze or a somewhat stronger headwind such as a recession most organizations quickly switch to the ‘survival mode’. This with the result that everything is steered a little tighter than normally. If you have to believe many organizations, those financial goals can only be achieved through operational excellence. This makes sense because you can achieve results relatively quickly in the short term. These processes are internal business processes, which makes it easier to tighten them.

Despite the fact that Customer Experience (CX) is an increasing topic on the agenda of organizations, it takes unfortunately a back seat. Attention is paid to it, but it still lacks the primary back-end processes that are sensitive to the organization. Only, back-end processes are not as useful if you have few or no customers. You know that customer, that tricky factor, that ensures that your organization is viable and makes sure that you can buy your sandwich every day.
On the other hand, many good customers, optimum customer insight and relationships do not help you if your back-end processes are not in order.
Not being able to deliver on time or in full or not or not invoicing correctly is also not conducive to the viability of your organization.

You see that a business need back-end as well as front-end processes to be successful. You will be successful as a business but even more important, you will help and satisfy your customers.

Ensure balance, or let front-end and back-end processes be of equal value within your organization. A CFO and a COO are logically commonplace in most organizations. Make sure that you as an organization take your customers seriously and have this reflected by making CX part of the management of the organization. Appoint a CCO (Chief Customer Officer) who reports directly to the CEO. Not to be confused with a Chief Commerce Officer the Chief Customer Officer acts as guardian of the concept of customer experience, the development of the Customer Experience strategy, the Customer Experience Program and the omni-channel policy.

Dimension Data has published the report on their CX benchmark study 2019. This research, which was conducted among 1100 respondents in 13 sectors and 59 countries, shows that 87% believe that a good CX sets them apart from the competition. 85% indicate that customer experience encourages customer loyalty, that 50% is convinced that CX leads to cost reduction. Despite these impressive figures, it appears that only 13% believe that they themselves offer a powerful CX and that 65% of the organizations surveyed do not represent customer experience at management level. Even only 15% of respondents say that their organization uses a fully integrated and joint approach to CX.
It is clear that organizations must really work on CX and embrace the Chief Customer Officer.

Short- and long term goals do not always go hand in hand. But with an in-house CCO you ensure that there is and remains attention for putting your customers first and therefore also for positive results in the long term.
No shareholder can object to that!