Broken IT = Broken CX….. the rest of the story?

As someone who shares a passion for delivering outstanding, frictionless customer and employee experiences (CX and EX), I found the article by Harley Manning at https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/broken-cx-harley-manning-x65pe/?trackingId=KUbQ7q%2BJRb6BHla5Q57IdQ%3D%3D to be insightful, thought-provoking and on-target. No doubt many of us have encountered similar scenarios, whether as customers, or whether within the confines of the organizations with whom we’ve worked.

Harley’s recommendation to make the case for CX improvements by telling the human stories associated with the frustration and pain a customer or employee experiences when things don’t work as expected is outstanding advice. Those tasked with making such cases would be wise to heed it - and executives being presented those cases would be wise to hear them out!

With those kudos delivered, there is one area of the article that, I believe, is an opportunity for additional consideration and tangential discussion, though Harley may not have intended it.

I therefore humbly offer some added food for thought to Harley’s wise words, from a different perspective.? One not focused on what he has already addressed, but rather on organizational behavior and working effectively, as a team and an organization, both to design CX solutions that are bullet-proof as well as to resolve CX issues quickly, efficiently, and permanently when those solutions are not.

Often, how things are said delivers a message. Sometimes intended and sometimes unintended. This “how” can, if not careful, unintentionally advance a brand of organizational thinking and culture in some corners that, in my experience, can be sub-optimal to the cooperative teamwork needed to truly deliver outstanding CX or to address a CX incident speedily in crisis-mode. While surely unintended, the article’s title, “Broken IT = Broken CX”, and the language used within in certain spots, risks doing this. This is what inspired me to offer my thoughts.

Really outstanding business solutions, and the CX associated with them, almost always involve a combination of technology, process, policy, people and data (in no particular order given they are, in my experience, typically of equal importance).? This is where methods like customer journey and ecosystem mapping, root-cause analysis, fault-tolerant design, and several other methodologies Harley did and did not mention become so critical (often, before technology even enters the equation)!

So, while I can perhaps be accused of "splitting semantic hairs", care must be taken not to immediately conclude, or use language that would prematurely encourage the conclusion, that everything is an “IT” problem, lest other potential root causes be overlooked. Perhaps put a different way, while Broken IT very often = Broken CX (or EX), Broken CX does not always = Broken IT.

Harley’s case study is case in point.? Certainly, the customer facing failure described where the message center was non-functional was, clearly, a case of Broken IT = Broken CX.? The back office issue, however, is far less clear.? Was it a data issue? Was it human-error? If so, was that due to poorly designed manual processes and/or policies, an information system that was not designed to avoid human error, or some combination?? We can’t be sure.? It’s a case where broken CX may equal broken IT, but without close cooperation and investigation between those who run and operate the business and those in information technology with the remit to run and implement the systems, we can’t be certain. Care should be taken to allow that cooperation and investigation to play out, before reaching conclusions.

In my experience, organizations who pay equal attention to all the elements mentioned -? information technology, process, policy, people and data - are the ones most successful in delivering outstanding CX (and business solutions in general). And this equal recognition, from an organizational behavior standpoint, breeds a level of cooperation, collaborative spirit, and collective, shared responsibility across the business operations and IT functions that is both effective, gratifying, and ultimately results in better experiences for customers!

So proceed cautiously.? While “Broken IT” often results in “Broken CX”, the inverse is not always true!? Create an organizational environment that recognizes this and works on all the elements noted in equal measure and your customers (and as a result, your company) will be the better for it!