We all know a lack of coordination between an organization’s departments can be one of the key factors in causing a poor Customer Experience. As an end to end Customer Experience touches many parts of the organization this is one of the key challenges an organization faces.

I always remember speaking, a number of years ago, on the same platform as Tom Peters. I always remember Tom saying ‘any organization of over five people is too big’. Clearly this was an intended exaggeration but his point was sound. When you get more than 5 people complications set in. Lack of communications, politics, etc. People are tribal. Sales don’t like Marketing and vice versa. Operations think they do the real work, everyone hates Finance! People are naturally very focused on their own department, their own problems, their own job and their own status….don’t even get me started on company politics! Whilst most people will be mildly interested in the problems other parts of the organizations are...

Changing a culture takes time. When I first started Beyond Philosophy some ten years ago, one of my first clients was Yorkshire Water, a water utility in the North of England. Over the ten years I have seen them change to become a customer=centric organization that leads their market.

I always remember my first conversation with their then CEO, Kevin Whiteman. He said he wanted to improve the "feel" of service. He explained they had undertaken a lot of work on the rational physical experience but reconsidered this only got them to satisfaction. He wanted to go much further.

Like the Water industry in many parts of the world, they are monopolies. I was puzzled, why did Kevin want to improve their experience and become a more customer-centric organization? I challenged Kevin: "Why would you want to provide a great experience, your customer can't go anywhere else"?

Kevin's reply has always stuck with me. He told me that when you focus on the customer it acts as...

What are the things that have made you cry at the movies? Was it the scene in Titanic when Jack dies and slips away into the icy water? How can you fail to be touched when you see pictures on TV of starving children in Africa? Who can fail to be inspired when they see disabled/handicapped people fight through adversity and undertake a feat of endurance? The human spirit is what defines us. It is the essence of our being.

The alarm clock rings and on Monday mornings we go into work and seem to detach our hearts; we then spend our business life working on the basis that all Customers are rational and logical beings and only buy on price. How utterly ridiculous! Why does this happen? Why is it that something as obvious as Customer emotions and the effect on Customer retention are lost to business?

I was inspired to write this blog after reading Bill Gibeault of Story...

Over the last ten years I have had the privilege of designing many customer journeys for our clients. I would like to share with you some of the critical aspects of this work to enable you to design a great experience for your company. 

Organization confuse processes and experiences.
Many times, organizations think their internal process and the Customer’s experience are the same but they are not. A process is a series of internal steps you would like a Customer to take. A Customer experience is the experience Customers have of that journey. These are very different. People (Customers) are ‘conscious beings’ and therefore every waking moment we are having ‘experiences’. This is why we name our journey mapping tool Moment Mapping® , it maps the...