Create your roadmap to customer experience excellence

Transcription

1 Create your roadmap to customer experience excellence Use the Customer Experience Maturity Model to assess and evolve your organization s digital maturity BY THE SITECORE BUSINESS OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES (SBOS ) TEAM

2 Table of Contents Introduction... 2 The Customer Experience Maturity Model... 2 The strategic value of customer experience maturity... 3 The risk of business as usual... 4 A sense of urgency: what s changing the marketplace... 5 Your roadmap for customer experience excellence... 5 Roadmap to Initiate stage... 6 Roadmap to Radiate stage... 7 Roadmap to Align stage... 8 Roadmap to Optimize stage Roadmap to Nurture stage Roadmap to Engage stage Roadmap to Lifetime Customer stage Top risks to avoid in your CX program Understanding your Customer Experience Maturity Assessment: The Context Marketing Brain Published 10 / Sitecore Corporation A/S. All rights reserved. Sitecore and Own the Experience are registered trademarks of Sitecore Corporation A/S. All other brand and product names are the property of their respective owners. This document may not, in whole or in part, be photocopied, reproduced, translated, or reduced to any electronic medium or machine readable form without prior consent, in writing, from Sitecore. Information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Sitecore. 1

3 Introduction Whether you re a digital marketing executive or practitioner experienced or new to the field it can be daunting to plan out how to evolve your technology, processes, and people to support a more seamless, personalized, and omnichannel customer experience. Digital transformation is challenging, in our experience, precisely because it s hard to know where or how to start or what approach is required. If you re using the Sitecore Experience Platform to market in context of customer interactions and deliver a seamless experience across channels this white paper is for you. We developed the Sitecore Customer Experience Maturity Model (CXMM) to help our customers assess current digital capabilities and map out a plan for evolving. For instance, Jon Orton, director of marketing operations at manufacturing company Uponor, says: We ve used the Sitecore Digital Maturity Model to tell our story internally, and we treat it like a visual roadmap. We ve said to our business leaders that maturity is going to happen, and we show where we might align with the model. When we first started using Sitecore, our early focus was on content. It s now on user experience and moving through the maturity model to build lifelong customers, which is a different mindset. Read on to find out how you can use the CXMM to assess your own digital maturity and plan the transformation that will deliver a more personalized, seamless, and omnichannel customer experience. The Customer Experience Maturity Model Customer experience can be defined as the totality of all interactions a customer has with your brand during the customer life cycle (from awareness to consideration, purchase, use, and loyalty/advocacy). Customer experience maturity refers to your organization s ability to engage the customer with the right experiences at the right place and at the right time, by using best practices to maximize the value to the customer and to your organization in return. Today s marketers know that they need to focus on providing excellent omnichannel customer experiences in order to drive brand affinity and engagement, increase sales and cross/upsells, and build lifetime loyalty. However, for most businesses, building best-in-class customer experiences is a long-term strategic goal that requires the right building blocks and a cultural focus across the organization. The majority of marketing organizations today are in a steep learning curve as they strive to adopt advanced marketing technologies, establish new data-informed processes, and build customer-focused, tech-savvy marketing teams. At SBOS, we use the CXMM to help organizations understand their current state of customer experience maturity and how to reach the next levels of excellence. We group the seven stages of customer experience maturity into three basic phases: The Attract phase starts with the Initiate stage, where most organizations have only basic websites that are little more than static online brochures. Often the copy is inside-out, meaning it s more relevant and meaningful for the company than it is for the audience, and the focus is on attracting as many visitors to digital channels as possible. Success often is measured by visits, time on site, and page views. In the Convert phase, organizations have aligned digital KPIs to their strategic objectives and strive to take advantage of marketing technology and optimization processes. They are focused on converting visits to the digital goals that matter most for the business, they personalize content, and they run tests to see what delivers the best results. In this phase, they are focused on carefully nurturing individuals with automated, trigger-based marketing and experiences that delight. In the Advocate phase, the focus is not just on net-new customer acquisition, but also on customer retention and increased customer lifetime value. These organizations collect all customer interaction data into a connected, comprehensive view that enables them to engage the customer with better, more relevant experiences across all touchpoints. 2

4 As an organization progresses through the stages of customer experience maturity, it strengthens its connection with customers through personally relevant content and calls to action tailored to the individual s intent and behavior. Customer experience maturity is about marketing in context of customer interactions and creating the best possible experience for the customer, resulting in loyalty, repeat business, advocacy, and lifetime value. The strategic value of customer experience maturity Customer experience has become a competitive differentiator in the marketplace. For many emerging and growing organizations, it is the foundation of their entire business model. Investments in customer experience are driving increasing business impact just look at the numbers: Forrester declared that the Age of the Customer started in , and stated that, going forward, customer experience is the most important competitive lever left for any organization. Forrester assessed that customers are 4.5 times more likely to pay a premium if the experience is excellent than if it is poor. Gartner declared that, Today, 89% of marketers compete primarily on the basis of customer experience. 2 McKinsey & Company studies have shown that investments in customer experience improve revenue growth by 10% to 15% and even reduce the cost of service by up to 20%. 3 Strategic value Initiate Uses a brochure site presence on the web with campaign capabilities and web analytics. Radiate Focuses on distributing content across channels, starting with the customer s most used channels. Examples include establishing a mobile site and sharing content on social networks. Customer Experience Maturity Model Align Aligns digital initiatives with strategic and marketing objectives. Content is optimized to focus on customer needs and intentions. Optimize Focuses on optimizing digital initiatives. Uses a combination of analytics aimed at actionable insights, and then optimization is executed with testing and personalization. Nurture Focuses on the customer and builds strong relationships through automated trigger-based dialog. Relevant conversations happen in the customer s preferred channels. Engage Establishes the data infrastructure that connects online and offline customer data repositories into a central customer repository. Customer profile data can be used in real time for relevant one-on-one dialog across channels. Lifetime customers Optimizes the connected cross-channel customer experience by using real-time data and predictive analytics to anticipate the needs of customers and create timely, relevant one-to-one dialog. Attract Convert Advocate Maturity 1 Forrester, Make The Case That CX Transformation Is Both Important And Urgent, Aug. 17, Gartner, Customer Experience Primer for Linking customer experience to value, McKinsey presentation by Joel Maynes and Alex Rawson,

5 Aberdeen research showed that best-in-class firms (top 20%) retain customers at 29 percentage points higher than all others, grow at 28 percentage points faster than all others, and derive an average 15.3% profit margin above all others. 4 Sitecore s own research with solution partner Avanade has shown that for every $1 invested in improving the customer experience, brands estimate a value of $3 in return. 5 On a more tactical level, for applied customer experience practices, ROI data presented in our ebook The business case for context marketing shows detailed and attributable business impact: A/B testing: 96% of organizations using testing had increased conversions of 1% or more, and 77% had increased conversions of 6% or more. Personalization: Organizations using personalization to optimize the website experience see a 19% uplift in conversions on average. Marketing automation: Companies that automate lead management see a 10% or greater increase in revenue in six to nine months. Companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower cost. Over 40% of the companies that were at the top of the Fortune 500 in 2000 were no longer there in 2010, according to Babson College business school. The risk of business as usual Business impact + _ Adapting business models through digital transformation or digital first Business as usual 4 The customer experience value chain, Aberdeen, October Customer experience and your bottom line, Avanade and Sitecore, March

6 Digital Darwinism is unkind to those who wait. R Ray Wang, Constellation Group Your roadmap for customer experience excellence The following section provides guidance and customer experience program recommendations at each stage of customer experience maturity in the following key areas: 1. Level of customer experience A sense of urgency what s changing the marketplace Clearly, there s a robust business case for accelerating investment in customer experience. Moreover, we believe that customer experience is more critical today than ever before for ensuring long-term business success. In the age of the customer, only the fittest organizations will survive and thrive. And unfortunately, we ve observed that the longer an organization waits to start, the harder it is to catch up, let alone lead. The pace of improvements in customer experience and marketing in context is accelerating. Customers increasingly expect special experiences, moments of delight, and seamless interactions in both physical and digital channels experiences that reflect their unique circumstances and relationship with the brand. What we see in the marketplace is that customer expectations are not set by the competition in each industry. Instead, they are raised every day through every brand interaction in a person s life. Once an individual experiences new or advanced digital capabilities and features in Amazon, Uber, or Facebook, they expect the same capabilities and the same level of personalization across all the business systems and consumer brands they use. 2. People 3. Process 4. Technology Use the roadmap to assess your organization s maturity level and to guide your planning and investments in creating customer experience excellence. The drivers of customer experience maturity In the Customer Experience Maturity Model, we identify three primary drivers that shape how marketing in context capabilities are built over time while delivering real business value at every phase of maturity. Keep these in mind as you prepare to evolve your organization. 1. Align marketing strategies and tactics with strategic business objectives and drivers. 2. Collect and connect data to create a connected view of the customer. 3. Provide real-time, contextual customer experiences across all channels. What s your customer experience maturity level? Take the assessment at: 5

7 Are you in the Attract phase? Strategic value Initiate Uses a brochure site presence on the web with campaign capabilities and web analytics. Radiate Focuses on distributing content across channels, starting with the customer s most used channels. Examples include establishing a mobile site and sharing content on social networks. Align Aligns digital initiatives with marketing objectives and marketing objectives with the strategic drivers of the organization. Attract Maturity Roadmap to Initiate stage This is the most common stage of customer experience maturity that we see today. In this initial stage of the Attract phase, organizations provide a static, one-size-fits-all experience across different channels. Many organizations in this stage have not yet started developing a customer experience vision. From a customer s point of view, the experience is not personalized to their channel, needs, activities, or journey stage. People Roles at this stage tend to be a few centralized marketing resources. Typical core roles include: Web team leader: Has overall responsibility for the web program owns the digital marketing presence with a focus on marketing activities. The web team leader often develops content and tracks simple metrics. Content marketer: Responsible for content creation, combining content strategy with editorial skills. Stays apprised of other business units content strategy. UX designer: Responsible for the overall user experience. This includes designing the information architecture and user interaction design. Digital analyst: Provides basic reporting with free analytic tools for reporting purposes, focused on activity levels (e.g., visits, page views). Process Organizations at this stage blast all of their customers with the same information, focused on product and service rather than a customer problem/solution. Measurement is focused on volume of visits, opens, likes, and app downloads. Most content is optimized for discoverability (SEO), but not responsive to the unique context of each customer. Technology At this stage, organizations use non-integrated marketing technologies such as basic websites, basic spray and pray marketing tools, and basic social presence. Although they may have a CRM system, the data is not integrated with the web channel. 6

8 Tactics The focus of tactics at this stage: Brand-centric content SEO broadcast Recommended reading If you re in the Attract phase, you might benefit from reading our web page The Customer Experience Maturity Model and watching how Dollywood formed closer, more contextual relationships with millions of visitors across all its digital channels. Roadmap to Radiate stage To progress to the Radiate stage of customer experience maturity, let these people, process, and technology recommendations be your guide. The Radiate stage is characterized by widening the digital experience to all relevant paid, earned, and owned media channels for your customers. People At the Radiate stage, customer experience maturity will require (a) engagement with business management and (b) staffing the team with the skills and expertise required to define, create, deploy, test, and measure customer experience transformation. To achieve Radiate stage goals, we recommend adding the following roles to the customer experience team: Customer experience leader: Responsible for leading the experience team on an operational level, with authority over several channel silos and approval of technology investments at the functional level. Content marketer: Responsible for understanding customer segments, defining customer journeys, and developing content aligned to specific journey stages, for specific segments. We recommend coordinating content creation throughout the organization to maximize efficiency and messaging consistency. Technical solution architect: At this stage, we suggest formalizing a team role for an architect responsible for the technical structure of the systems, ensuring all organizational requirements are addressed by the technology configuration. The technical solution architect should be versed in both the current business stack and the IT roadmaps for context marketing and adjacent information assets and applications such as CRM, catalog systems (PIM), commerce, and apps. Digital analyst: At this stage, we recommend a lead business intelligence analyst who will create crossfunctional and cross-channel dashboards, enabling the organization to use data for campaign conversion tracking, initial A/B testing, and channel insights. Channel manager: To begin optimizing user experience in individual channels (such as web, social, mobile, , apps, and commerce), this role focuses on optimizing the user experience, demand generation campaigns, and customer journey engagement. Process Start with the end in mind (what data is needed to provide the best possible experience), and use this to implement simple data collection processes and contextual customer experiences to create the foundations for customer experience maturity through integrated channel experiences, the collection of data that will enable better customer intelligence and understanding of the customer experience, and an outside-in, or customer-focused, creation of content: Shift to content that s focused on the specific needs of your customers. Place emphasis on mobile responsive/adaptive design. Customize content by channel particularly , mobile, and social channels. Introduce the structure of customer journeys, and map existing/new content to provide value/assistance to your customers in context of each specific stage in their journey. Configure marketing technology to begin collecting better customer experience data. 7

9 Segment your lists, and customize to provide contextually relevant content for each segment. Begin to tailor social engagement to customer segments to create content that s more relevant to specific customer groups. Consider introducing mobile apps to accelerate a more integrated/synchronized experience across channels of engagement with your brand Technology The key additions at this stage are robust context marketing tools that will enable cross-channel marketing: Begin shifting from static content systems to a robust content management system and processes. Begin shifting from spray-and-pray , to more strategic programs, using better automation and analytics. Introduce basic A/B testing to begin to optimize content to improve conversions. Tactics The focus of tactics at this stage: Adding mobile, social, PPC channels Integrating messages across channels Recommended reading For step-by-step guidance on how to create customer segments and personas, map customer journeys, map content to journey stages, define calls-to-action, and optimize conversion performance, download The Digital Relevancy Map white paper. Roadmap to Align stage To progress to the Align stage of customer experience marketing maturity, use these people, process, and technology recommendations as a guide. The Align stage is characterized by a focus on the customer journey and aligning the organization s strategic objectives to digital goals. People To align customer experience design and execution with strategic objectives, the customer experience team will require people skilled in using the marketing technology platform capabilities around: Collecting customer intelligence Measuring important digital goals Managing inbound marketing campaign activities Engaging executives, gaining sponsorship, and collaborating across the organization To achieve Align stage goals, we recommend adding the following roles to the customer experience team: Executive sponsor: To actively engage senior leadership in the customer experience program effort, ensure needed resources and budget are secured, provide input on desired business outcomes, and help engage customer touchpoints across the organization. Digital strategist: Supporting the customer experience leader, the digital strategist translates the organizational strategy into a cross-channel experience strategy. This role studies customer segments and cross-channel behaviors, and formulates digital campaign and experience strategies that address key business and marketing objectives such as customer acquisition, engagement, share of wallet, loyalty, and advocacy. Marketing technologist: To fully and correctly utilize the marketing technology platform capabilities, this critical new and hands-on role executes and optimizes marketing tactics within the technology platform components. Working with the digital analyst, this individual also makes optimization recommendations based on customer knowledge and deep familiarity with potential configurations. 8

10 Process Align the customer experience with the organization s strategy and its most important business drivers. This will ensure measurement of the right outcomes and guide conversion steps to the right business drivers. Align marketing objectives with the organization s strategic objectives. Align digital goals with marketing objectives. Align communications, nurturing, and automation with social experience, website experience, and mobile experience. If commerce is part of the business model, begin to integrate commerce with campaigns and segmentation schemes. Define weighting for digital goals according to their impact on the business goals. Technology Configure marketing technology platform to enable personalization, testing and simple automation, and customer experience analytics. Tactics The focus of tactics at this stage: Campaign optimization Assessing quality of customers Comparing cross-channel effectiveness Recommended reading At this stage, you will likely benefit from reading our blogs Personalization demystified and Using PIE to choose target audiences for personalization. Map most important customer journeys, for select target segment. Shift from tracking volumes to tracking customer engagement and effect on strategic objectives using an engagement value score to understand the relative value by campaign, channel, segment, content assets, and customer journey stages. 9

11 Are you in the Convert phase? Strategic value Optimize Focuses on optimizing digital initiatives. Uses a combination of analytics aimed at actionable insights, and then optimization is executed with testing and personalization. Nurture Focuses on the customer and builds strong relationships through automated trigger-based dialog. Relevant conversations happen in the customer s preferred channels. Convert Maturity Roadmap to Optimize stage To progress to the Optimize stage of customer experience maturity, use these people, process, and technology recommendations as a guide. The Optimize stage is characterized by a focus on personalized experiences and messages, an integrated experience across channels of engagement. Customers may see offers and content on the web channel reflecting specific interactions they had on social channels, or fulfilling promises made through an campaign; the web experience and calls to action increasingly reflect their particular persona, purchases, and both implicit and explicit preferences shared with the brand. People In this stage, the team culture and capabilities shift from gut-level analysis to true data-driven marketing. In addition to the changes mentioned in the Align stage, roles continue to mature to enable more advanced content, personalization, and testing components of the customer experience: Content marketer: Drives the creation of interactive content that s leveraged by user data, customer experience analytics, and personalization tactics. As the content team grows, this role is also responsible for establishing robust publishing workflows for the extended business team. Marketing technologist: This role is focused on executing personalization tactics, tests, experience automation plans, , and social marketing tactics that leverage user data available in the platform. Working with the digital analyst, they also make optimization recommendations using their customer knowledge and deep familiarity with potential configurations. Digital strategist: In addition to their other responsibilities, the digital strategist is focused on developing specific tactics that can leverage existing or new user data and cross-channel capabilities (e.g., contextual commerce). Often, they are responsible for analyzing content consumption and developing user personas to inform tactics, and they work with the analyst to create actionable insights and new tests. With much better customer experience analytics, they can also optimize marketing spend. 10

12 Digital analyst: In this stage, the organization increasingly focuses on collecting more and better customer intelligence, tracking and connecting the rich data, analyzing it, and acting on it as described above. The digital analyst now focuses on actionable recommendations for optimizing business results through improved content, design, and personalization for high-value segments. They design and evaluate tests based on solid business acumen and data-driven customer insights, and routinely analyze behavioral reports and path analysis. KPIs are measured toward specific marketing objectives. As the practice of marketing in context and customer experience begins to drive positive outcomes for the business and strategic competitive differentiation, organizations at this stage of maturity begin to consider creating a centralized organization. The degree of centralization of context marketing resources depends upon the organization. To facilitate centralized customer experience maturity, we recommend creating a digital center of excellence to provide shared customer experience services. This center of excellence provides shared infrastructure support and marketing experts, while the other (e.g., BU-specific) marketing resources focus on their unique customer requirements and programs (yet leverage centralized capabilities and guidelines). Process In this stage, use customer experience data insights to begin to optimize the customer experience through simple personalization and testing, with the purpose of increasing conversions on the most important digital goals. Start with quick wins to lift conversion through customer journey stages use A/B testing. Start using context marketing data (e.g., real-time behavioral and historic customer data) to inform personalization. Predictive personalization: Automatically match visitors to preset profiles based on the customer s content consumption, offering the most relevant content and calls to action. Connected personalization: Leverage customer data acquired in different channels (commerce, CRM, web forms) to enrich a customer s experience. Technology To enable this stage of customer experience maturity, the marketing stack requires an integrated marketing technology platform that can capture customer behavior across channels and points of engagement, and centralize the data into a connected, 360-degree customer profile. The content management system must be able to share content across channels in a personalized manner, running marketing-driven testing optimization to tune conversion performance. Tactics The focus of tactics at this stage: Personalization A/B testing Tracking customer behavior to collect better customer intelligence Personal profiles Recommended Reading At this stage, you ll benefit from reading our white paper Context marketing organization and governance and our paper The context marketing technologist. Two other assets that would be helpful are our ebook The context marketing workbook, an interactive and hands-on guide, and the white paper How to personalize your website to boost conversions. Rules-based personalization: Set rules to personalize a customer s experience based on channel, referring source, campaigns, search words, current behavior, past behavior, and so on. 11

13 Roadmap to Nurture stage To progress to the Nurture stage of customer experience maturity, use these people, process, and technology recommendations as a guide. The Nurture stage is characterized by a focus on building strong relationships across channels, using trigger points and personalized conversations over prolonged periods in the customer s preferred channels. In this stage, the organization s DNA includes ongoing management of context marketing as the way of doing business. Customers now feel that they are known and appreciated, creating a sense of trust and loyalty. They are more willing to engage in longer conversations, disclose more data regarding their preferences, and participate in communities of interest, typically using preferred social channels. People In this stage, building a culture that is customer-focused and reorganizing to enable true cross-channel collaboration are a must. This is where the executive sponsor s role is key. While all roles require a higher level of sophistication in planning and executing various tactics, we would like to highlight the following: Program manager: The complexity of the program now requires orchestrating activities across internal and external teams across multiple initiatives project visions, scopes, goals, investments, and resources to accelerate time to results and reduce implementation risks. Channel manager: In this stage, channel experts need to understand other channels, outside their own, in order to collaborate and create connected experiences to meet overall business goals. For organizations that rely heavily on social channels, social community managers may be added to focus on social/professional media marketing and community development and management. Even offline channel managers (e.g., event managers, store managers) need to be involved, as context marketing enables seamless nurture across online and offline channels. Data analyst: This role is added to dive deeper into the rich data in the experience database and other customer data systems. This individual uses more sophisticated analytics, attribution, and ROI. Data visualization and predictive modeling tools enable the data analyst to identify critical conversion paths and segment journeys to take advantage of complex, high-value opportunities. Organizationally, the digital center of excellence continues to formalize to act as a coordinating mechanism, ensuring a unified customer experience vision is maintained and innovative, consistent strategies are implemented. Process In this stage, organizations are focusing on putting their customers on the path from micro conversions to macro conversions, with particular attention to important marketing and commerce funnels that support their strategic objectives. They have well-defined user journeys for 3 5 of their most important customer personas that are used actively to optimize experiences. Optimization techniques are more sophisticated, leveraging more data from more channels at the best place and time to nurture customer relationships. Data is leveraged into detailed customer-journey maps that incorporate appropriate touchpoints based on detailed analysis. They employ structured processes for testing and personalization (often through a welldefined optimization sprint process). Experimentation in new interaction approaches may lead to breakthroughs, and multivariate testing enables further optimization of key experiences. There is increasing emphasis on cross-channel conversations that are more customer-centric listening to behaviors and responding when and where the customer prefers. Social channels are more integrated, and conversations are more individualized in all channels. Engagement or marketing automation is utilized, including trigger-based campaigns based on key user journeys, such as cart abandonment recapture, onboarding subscribers, cross- or upselling, and customer re-activation. Organizations measure performance, engagement, and KPIs aligned with business objectives. 12

14 Technology Customer experience automation is the key new capability in this stage, utilized to orchestrate the experience across channels, with attribution analytics to track users through experience journeys. It s critical to have a centralized, connected customer experience database as part of your experience platform. To enable a multichannel experience, it s important to implement social channel integration at this stage. Tactics The focus of tactics at this stage: Customer-centric, trigger-based dialog Collecting explicit and implicit customer behavior Automated flows Recommended Next-Step Assets At this stage, you ll benefit from clear personalization examples our white paper 10 personalization tactics outlines ten examples of low-hanging fruit for personalization so you can get started quickly. 13

15 Are you in the Advocate phase? Strategic value Engage Establishes the data infrastructure that connects online and offline customer data repositories into a central customer repository. Customer profile data can be used in real time for relevant one-on-one dialog across channels. Lifetime customers Optimizes the connected cross-channel customer experience by using real-time data and predictive analytics to anticipate the needs of customers and create timely, relevant one-to-one dialog. Advocate Maturity Roadmap to Engage stage To progress to the Engage stage of customer experience maturity, use the following people, process, and technology recommendations as a guide. The Engage stage is characterized by a focus on establishing the data infrastructure that connects online and offline customer data repositories (e.g., POS, CRM, call center, customer service systems, membership systems, and printing channels) into a true, central, 360-degree customer data hub. This enables tracking of more strategic KPIs, more precise channel attribution, and targeting across online and offline channels. Customers experience better, more relevant and consistent experiences across online and offline channels experiences that address their needs and wants at their chosen time and channel, building on all interactions in all touchpoints. Customers experience richer outcomes, reduced friction, and more control of their relationship with your brand. People In the Engage stage, it s important that the customer experience team breaks organizational barriers to facilitate cross-functional and cross business unit collaboration. With increased investment and impact to the business, an executive-level steering committee may be required at this stage. The steering committee may also determine plans based on additional corporate or organizational strategies such as M&A and substantial changes to the business model. Other topics addressed at that level include the definition and review of the program plans and KPIs, technology ecosystem investment approval, critical business process changes, and risks and issues management. For large, complex organizations focused on customer intimacy, we often recommend the following roles: Senior experience architect: This role creates holistically integrated, data- and research-driven experience designs for connected channels and customer segments. Chief customer experience officer: Executive-level leader to own customer experience program activity at top-management level. 14

16 Data architect: In more mature programs, this role defines what data will be captured and where, and how it will be cleansed, used, secured, governed, managed, and connected across systems. In this phase, it is critical that team members are crosstrained so they are able to participate in and contribute to the execution of an omnichannel vision. Process In order to serve the customer more relevant experiences across all touchpoints, the focus is on connecting online and offline customer intelligence into a centralized, 360-degree customer view that can be used in real time across different channels. Create a well-defined personalization governance process, including global and local guidelines. Establish new processes to integrate and govern the data and act on it in all channels, including, for example, personalized call center, store, and printed communications based on web browsing, commerce, and social channel campaigns and interactions. Technology At this stage, it s important to invest in data hub technology and the ability to integrate and attribute user data (i.e., all inbound communications and touches of existing and prospect customers) across all channels. It is also important to establish the technology that will give you the ability to execute (e.g., dynamically use content and offers) in real time in any of those channels based on the data. Implementing these sophisticated tactics requires a very high degree of integration across all customer-facing systems. Tactics The focus of tactics at this stage: Connected customer data regardless of touchpoint Recommended reading At this stage, you ll gain further insights on the experience architect role from our white paper The Experience Architect. Roadmap to Lifetime Customer stage To progress to the Lifetime Customer stage of customer experience maturity, use these people, process, and technology recommendations as a guide. The Lifetime Customer stage is the final stage of the CXMM, where connected real-time data across all channels is used to anticipate customer needs and create timely, optimized, oneto-one omnichannel experiences at scale. At this stage, organizations provide a very consistent and unified brand experience online and offline. Customers experience very little friction as the organization presents them with easy decision paths that offer all the right information, based on deep knowledge of their situation and needs. Many of the customers at this stage are loyal advocates, with a substantial portion viewing themselves as customers for life, who would go out of their way to do business with the customer-centric organization in this top stage. People At this stage of maturity, the primary focus shifts to fostering and strengthening a customer-obsessed culture necessary to drive new innovation at this level of maturity. To continue to innovate and maintain a competitive advantage, the culture must encourage risk-taking and form innovation teams focused on key leverage points, aiming to repeatedly break performance records. These innovation teams tackle a broad array of customer-facing, business model, marketing, and other processes: Companies continue to add resources in all the disciplines discussed earlier. Continued evolution largely originates around data analysis, predictive models, and machine learning. Roles that strengthen these capabilities are recommended. At this stage, the organization uses uniform KPIs that optimize for customer outcomes and profitability, rather than performance management within specific silos in marketing, sales, and customer service. 15

17 Process To create a consistent customer experience online and offline, across all channels, all processes at this stage are coordinated across organizational functions and business units. Use big data, sophisticated personalization algorithms that leverage machine learning, advanced attribution, and look-alike modeling to deliver seamless, contextual experiences that adapt dynamically as customers needs and behaviors change. Deepen relationships with customers by involving them in innovating and testing new products and processes in formal advisory panels and other feedback channels. Measure performance and KPIs aligned with the customer life cycle across multiple channels, both online and offline. Optimize marketing across the channels customers prefer, with clear understanding of the associated engagement value and return on marketing investment (ROMI). Leverage predictive models to identify, evaluate, and select the optimal testing scenarios. Leverage continuous (Agile/Scrum) design and develop cycles to iterate rapidly. While optimizing the customer experience, optimize for longer-term outcomes such as loyalty, lifetime value, and share of household or a contact s network spending. Like Amazon, continue to raise the customer experience bar by innovating and disrupting don t rest on your laurels. Technology In addition to the technologies implemented in stages 1 6, all departments and business units at this stage use a connected view of the customer that crosses offline and online channels. There is a large investment in big data, analytics, predictive modeling, machine learning, and other AI tools for data-driven innovation. 16

18 Tactics The focus of tactics at this stage: Data-driven customer business Data at every touchpoint is immediate, relevant, and predictive Automated data analysis and optimization Recommended reading At this point, you ll benefit from understanding what you can achieve with machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). Read the following three blog posts, part of our Mind in the Machine blog series: How machine learning will optimize marketing results, Marketing AI is here: An expert tells how to keep up, and Where machine learning in marketing is going. Top risks to avoid in your CX program Here are some of the mistakes we have observed that you want to avoid in your customer experience programs: Risk Lack of executive sponsor Lack of aligned vision and business case Business-as-usual thinking Assuming customers are standing still Assuming competitors are standing still Underestimating investment requirements Assuming no significant organizational changes Description Without a senior executive sponsor who is focused and passionate about the customer experience opportunity, your effort will run into resistance and silo d mentality and will be challenged to gain the momentum derived from adequate funding, resourcing, and risk-taking required for success. A customer experience program, like any other ambitious program, requires a clear vision, strategy, and the business case to sustain an aligned effort by all impacted organizations. If your team is not challenged to adapt the business and the supporting process and technology to the customer-centric vision, you are likely to be paving the cow path and not deliver on customer expectations. Customer expectations are raised constantly by leading competitors as well as providers in related or comparable industries. Plan for where the standards are going to be months ahead. Focusing on what competitors are offering today is ill advised, as many are increasingly focusing on customer experience as a competitive advantage. Don t wait for them to disrupt you disrupt yourself. Since customer experience is a strategic lever, there are a number of process changes and new technology investments to make. Too often we observe organizations that try to patch through with old systems, or are simply not scaling their efforts to address an adequate vision of how they expect to evolve their context marketing to customer expectations. New customer experiences require new team roles, training, and organizational changes. They should be planned for up front. Often, incentive structures need to be aligned with the new approach. 17

19 Understanding your Customer Experience Maturity Assessment: The Context Marketing Brain The CXMM helps you assess your current maturity, so you have a starting point to plan for short-term maturity initiatives as well as a long-term vision of where your organization should be in one to three years. As an overlay of the CXMM, we also assess your Context Marketing Brain, which represents your organizational readiness to create better-connected customer experiences for your customers and ecosystem. The Context Marketing Brain will give you insights into your organizational strengths, weaknesses, and readiness in five key areas: Governance & Resources Channel Marketing Organizational Alignment Contextualization Customer Insights Governance & Resources This scores your organization based on which resources you have that are critical for running customer experience programs. This also evaluates any governance practices you have in place, as governance is key for creating betterconnected experiences across different organizational teams, as well as for sharing common taxonomies, which simplifies the insights from multiple customer databases. Channel Marketing Here, you ll see how well your different channels are connected the better they are connected, the higher your score. For example, if your , apps, and website are connected, a customer interaction in any of those channels can trigger a relevant message in the next appropriate channel. Organizational Alignment This assessment examines how much your executives are committed to creating better-connected customer experiences in the context of the customer s in-the-moment intent. This is the most important area to be aware of any low score in organizational alignment means you don t have commitment and will be fighting for budget, resources, and the power to create experiences that matter for your customers. If you have a high score, you have the perfect foundation to get more investment (which will help you increase the scores in the other four areas). Contextualization This score represents your ability to personalize experiences for your customers in the context of their needs. A higher score means you have more sophistication in terms of using advanced personalization across different channels and leveraging real-time data that you collect and process. Customer Insights What s your CX Maturity level? Take the assessment at: This score will help you understand how much intelligence you have about your customers across their different channel interactions with your organization. A higher score means you have better insights that can be leveraged to provide more relevant experiences. 18

20 About SBOS The Sitecore Business Optimization Strategies (SBOS) team works with customers and partners to accelerate context marketing transformation. SBOS shares best practices on tactics, process, methodology, and organization to realize business value and increase customer experience maturity. It s a business-centric, data-driven context marketing process that accelerates successful project outcomes and reduces business risk. The SBOS team supports Sitecore customers and implementation partners through their transformation from marketing with a brand-centric, static web presence to marketing with a personalized, contextual, omnichannel digital platform that creates great customer experiences and builds customer loyalty. The SBOS team can help you work smarter and deliver better outcomes through a continuously updated set of practices, methodologies, tactics, and tips developed across Sitecore s ecosystem of customers and partners. About Sitecore Sitecore is the global leader in experience management software that enables context marketing. The Sitecore Experience Platform manages content, supplies contextual intelligence, automates communications, and enables personalized commerce, at scale. It empowers marketers to deliver content in context of how customers have engaged with their brand, across every channel, in real time before, during, and after a sale. More than 4,900 brands including American Express, Carnival Cruise Lines, easyjet, and L Oréal have trusted Sitecore for context marketing to deliver the personalized interactions that delight audiences, build loyalty, and drive revenue. 19