Greg Kihlström is a best-selling author, speaker, and entrepreneur, and serves as an advisor and consultant to top companies on marketing technology, marketing operations, customer experience, and digital transformation initiatives. He has worked with some of the world’s top brands, including Adidas, Coca-Cola, FedEx, HP, Marriott, Nationwide, Victoria’s Secret, and Toyota.
He is a multiple-time Co-Founder and C-level leader, leading his digital experience agency to be acquired by the largest independent marketing agency in the DC region in 2017, successfully exited an HR technology platform provider he co-founded in 2020, and led a SaaS startup to be acquired by a leading-edge computing company in 2021. He currently advises and sits on the Board of a marketing technology startup.
As an advisor and consultant to enterprise organizations, I have seen firsthand the importance of customer journey governance. With customer preferences constantly changing and technology evolving rapidly, it’s more important than ever to have a solid strategy in place to ensure that your brand always delivers the best possible customer experience. In this article, I’ll be discussing why customer journey governance is so crucial in today’s fast-paced and highly competitive business landscape, as well as sharing some tips and insights for setting standards, educating team members, and measuring ROI on your customer experience initiatives.
Why Customer Journey Governance Matters
Customer journey governance refers to the practices, policies, and procedures put in place to ensure that an organization’s customer journey initiatives are aligned with its overall business strategy, are of high quality, and are delivered efficiently and effectively. It involves defining roles and responsibilities, establishing decision-making processes, and ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements and customer privacy standards. The goal of customer journey governance is to create a seamless, consistent, and positive experience for customers across all touchpoints and channels, leading to increased loyalty, retention, and revenue growth.
With definitions out of the way, it’s important to understand why customer journey governance matters so much in today’s world. In the past, brands could sometimes get away with delivering subpar experiences in cases where there was less competition, or where the barrier to entry was too high for upstarts and/or disruptors.
But now, consumers have more options than ever before and are quick to switch brands if they’re not happy with their experience. This means that every interaction a customer has with your brand matters – from browsing your website to making a purchase to seeking help from your support team. By implementing strong governance policies around each touchpoint in the customer journey, you can ensure that every experience is positive and consistent across all channels. Let’s look at 4 key areas that customer journey governance can have a positive impact on, and that your governance efforts should prioritize.
Setting Standards for Customer Journeys
Let’s start with one of the core components of governance. One of the keys to successful customer journey governance is setting clear standards for how your brand interacts with customers at each stage of their journey. This might include guidelines around tone of voice, response times for different channels (e.g. email vs social media), or even specific scripts for sales or support interactions. By clearly defining these standards and ensuring that everyone on your team understands them, you can create a cohesive experience that meets customers’ needs no matter where they are in their journey.
Training and Education
Another important aspect of customer journey governance is education. It’s not enough to simply set standards – you also need to make sure that everyone on your team understands why those standards matter and how to implement them effectively. This might involve providing training sessions, creating educational materials (such as a customer service playbook), or even gamifying the learning process with quizzes or rewards for employees who consistently deliver great experiences.
Keeping an Eye on ROI
Of course, measuring ROI on your customer experience initiatives is also crucial. After all, you want to ensure that all of your efforts are actually making a difference in terms of customer satisfaction and loyalty. This might involve tracking metrics like NPS (Net Promoter Score), CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score), or even revenue generated from repeat customers. By collecting and analyzing this data regularly, you can identify areas where you need to improve and make data-driven decisions about where to focus your resources.
The Impact of AI on Journey Governance
Finally, AI has the potential to revolutionize the way we interact with customers – from chatbots that can answer simple questions to predictive analytics tools that can anticipate customers’ needs before they even know what they want. By staying ahead of these trends and incorporating them into your customer journey governance strategy, you can create a truly modern and effective approach to delivering great experiences.
Conclusion
Customer journey governance is absolutely essential in today’s fast-paced business landscape. By setting clear standards, educating team members, measuring ROI, and staying ahead of trends like sustainability and AI, you can create a cohesive approach that consistently delivers great experiences for your customers.
Whether you’re just starting out with your governance strategy or looking to take things to the next level, I hope these tips have provided valuable insights into why this topic matters so much – both for your brand’s bottom line and for building long-term relationships with your customers.