Leveling up.

The term “leveling up” seems to be having a moment.*

In the past few weeks, I’ve seen it used in the contexts of gaming, business and professional development.

Essentially, it means to advance or improve, as in “moving to the next level.”

I’ve been thinking about leveling up in the context of customer experience (CX). Just last week, a prospective client (with a younger leadership team) asked: How can we level up our CX game?

I started this discussion by going back to fundamentals. For me, the best practices can be summarized with three words.

1.???? Intention. If CX is going to be a priority, it must be prominent in your strategic plan and be supported by management with both clear messaging and sufficient resources. The delivery of a quality CX needs to be a core activity, not a side project.

2.???? Focus: Identify and address the CX issues that are important to your customers. Don’t assume anything. Conduct research to uncover the pain points and opportunities that will make a difference. Put your initial focus on the 2-3 issues that matter most. Which leads us to …

3.???? Measurement. What are you trying to improve? Customer retention? Net Promoter Score (NPS)? Depth of relationship? Perhaps it’s a combination of targets. Ensure that you have established an accurate baseline and continuously monitor the success of your CX initiatives. Don’t confuse activity with results.

Remember, good CX is just good business. It follows the same rules as any other aspect of strategic planning. This is a whole different world from the “customer service” training of past decades. Being nice to your customers is… well…. nice. But it doesn’t always equate to a good customer experience. It is a necessary, but not sufficient, element of success.

Organizations that provide a superior end-to-end CX outperform their peers in terms of retention, organic growth, profitability and – importantly – employee engagement.

Those are some great reasons to “level up.”

Thanks. - Paul

*Note to grammar nerds: According to my language usage guides, both Canada and the USA use the spelling “leveling.” In the UK, they use “levelling.” It’s yet another example of writing standards coming in and out of favour/favor. ?? ?

S.T.A.R.T. stands for Strategic, Tactical And Random Thoughts. And you can find it Here.

? 2024 Paul Mlodzik Consulting Inc.