Customer experience architecture

Service providers are continually reshaping their offering in response to changing customer needs and demands. As customer expectations change, businesses need to rethink the experiences they deliver. Meeting new demands does not only require delivery of the right propositions – it also requires developing broader capabilities around the needs of people, across the entire eco system.

Adapting to the fast-moving customer world

Most organisations are not designed to meet the changes that occur in their customer’s lives. Stable organisational structures, designed around the needs of the organisation, struggle to provide the flexibility needed to meet the demands of customers. These rigid structures constantly create barriers to customer interactions. They also impact customer loyalty as well as the businesses’ ability to offer more relevant products and services.

Evolving organisational design around customer needs

From business architecture to agile methods, organisations constantly try different approaches to move the organisation forward and get closer to their customers. Yes, few organisations manage to truly connect with their customer and meet their needs. There is often a gap between what customers really need, and what the organisation must be capable of doing. Bringing the customer perspective into traditional change disciplines bridges this gap and enables the organisation to evolve its design around its customers.

Seeing the organisation through your customer’s eyes

The complex systems, processes and connections within many organisations make it challenging to understand how different teams and departments impact customers. Looking at your organisation from the outside in, rather than from the inside out, provides insight into how customers see different departments working (together). Customers using a service are generally the ones who are exposed to the entire organisation, and its vast amount of divisions, departments and groups. Seeing the organisation through your customer’s eyes helps to build a true picture of the organisation and its impact on the customer experience.

Design the business around customers’ experience

Shifting the focus from inside out to outside in helps build an understanding of the experiences customers demand through all their interactions with the organisation. Using this knowledge, the right capabilities can be planned and delivered. Designing your business around the needs of people and shifting the organisation to a customer first mind-set enables you to differentiate and grow sustainably.

Customer experience architecture translated into organisational capabilities

The customer experience architecture connects all aspects of the customers’ experience with the business and the organisation. It maps the fluidity of customers’ needs and expectations, highlights major opportunities to have business impact and translates these into clear organisational capabilities. Understanding capabilities from a customers’ perspective helps determine which aspect delivers the core capabilities – people, process, system – and how this should be developed.

Co-creating your business with customers

Adopting a customer experience architecture driven approach puts the focus on understanding customer journeys, channel integrations and fulfilment. Adopting this approach, as opposed to the traditional organisational capability perspective, ensures the architecture of the business grows and evolves in line with customer demands. In addition, a more flexible and cohesive structure enables the business to co-create its design – as well as its experiences with its customers.

Delivering frictionless experiences

A customer driven architecture provides the ability to design organisational capabilities from the customer perspective. By mapping how customers use and experience a service, it becomes clear how different departments and groups within the organisation impact that experience. Collaboration of a variety of skills from different disciplines leads to a cohesive design, which delivers the experiences customers demand, across all key interactions and channels.

Connecting customers’ to the business capabilities

Keeping up with the constantly evolving needs of customers has become increasingly complex. To stay ahead organisations must start designing their structures and capabilities from the outside in, ensuring the business is evolves around the needs of customers. A customer experience architecture not only designs from the outside, it also brings you closer to your customers and their needs which ultimately allows for co-creating excellent experiences.

Authors: Mike Clark & Melvin Brand Flu

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