The Iron Triangle of Customer Experience

Every business owner and marketer in today's business probably already got the memo that customer experience is the new competitive battlefield. In fact, many marketing experts argue that customer experience is becoming the top imperative of modern business.

But while we all generally agree on the importance of customer experience, it's one of those things that's easy to say and hard to do. Not all companies are able to get full grip of this new concept. You see, the companies that get it right exhibit certain behaviors—behaviors that don't happen by accident.

In this article we're going to explore this topic in depth, we will look at the patterns and exemplars of exceptional customer experience leadership. I want to share with you the three overarching patterns of the most successful customer experience programs. Think of it as an iron triangle, where three mutually interdependent, mutually reinforcing investments propel your customer experience ambitions forward.

The best customer experience programs are:

1) Initiated by leadership.

Well beyond executive sponsorship alone, customer experience programs require senior-most executive ownership. Initiatives that lack executive ownership will likely wither on the vine. As Mercedes Benz USA CEO Steve Cannon once said, customer experience must be nothing less than the number-one c-level conversation. Otherwise, it simply won't get the attention it deserves.

2) Activated by incentives.

We're all coin operated. While customer experience may be a visible mandate handed down from the c-suite, company-wide behaviors won't manifest in any systematic way without the incentives to drive them forward. Incentives activate behaviors, the behaviors flow where the incentives go.

3) Reinforced by culture.

The top performing organizations celebrate both the customer and the employee. Companies that forget this crucial second part rarely get the emotional buy in necessary to consistently walk the talk on the front lines. The highest performing companies recognize and celebrate exceptional customer-centered behaviors and they empower employees to use both their heads and the hearts to make the right decisions for their customers in the moments that count.

While there's a lot that goes into any successful customer experience program, aligning your efforts to these three basic forces will dramatically improve your odds of getting customer experience right for your company and help your business to thrive.