Kate Feather

Forrester reports in The State of Customer Experience, 2011 that 51% of companies do not have a formal customer experience strategy in place, yet 63% wish to differentiate from their competition on the basis of the experience delivered. This research seems to demonstrate an obvious truth: it is often easier to say something than to do it. So how do company leaders begin creating a customer experience strategy that will differentiate them from their competitors?

Lead with Your Business Strategy

In their 1997 best-selling business book, The Discipline of Market Leaders, Michael Tracey and Fred Wiersema describe three fundamental business strategies: operational excellence, product leadership and customer intimacy. Each is defined below:

1. Operational Excellence: Efficiency, streamlined operations, no frills, and volume...

Your Silent and Invisible MVPs

Many of you will be familiar with the Washington Post article about Joshua Bell, the renowned classical violinist who performed unnoticed and unrecognized in a DC metro station during a busy January 2007 morning commute. One of the world's most accomplished musicians was playing one of the world's most precious instruments and 1,097 people rushed past as if he were silent and invisible.

While you will likely never encounter an accomplished musician providing the soundtrack for your daybreak travels, this story still raises the questions – what incredibly special moment, people, and experiences are we rushing past each day? What brilliance is concealed within our own organizations?

Every company has great talent. Some companies know exactly who they are. They value them, learn from them, promote them, and imitate them. Others, like the oblivious DC commuters in...

Customer feedback is clearly a core part of any customer-centricity strategy. Knowing how customers experience your service and brand is essential to putting the customer's voice at the heart of your people, process, and technology decisions. You can't know how they experience it without asking them.

That said, I am repeatedly amazed by the number of "customer-centric" feedback programs that themselves make the experience of giving feedback dull, irrelevant, difficult, and time-consuming for the very customers these companies say they are committed to engaging, delighting and "wowing."

Take, for example, a recent survey I received after staying at a Hilton Hotel in the Chicago area while attending a three-day conference. The survey claimed it would take 7-10 minutes of my time, which seemed a bit excessive. However, in reality it was a 20-minute commitment. 20 minutes? This is longer than the combined total of all of my interactions with the staff at the...