Which Experience Management Activities Are Right For You Depending On Your Business Maturity Stage? #3: The Maturity Stage

We’re already at the third article in our four-part mini-series, co-created with my Experience Management peers Diane Magers, Michelle Spaul, Musa Hanhan, and Ian Golding.

After the Launch phase and maturity phase, we’re sharing our thoughts and recommendations for the maturity phase.

As always, we chose to focus on specific must-implement and must-avoid activities, so we welcome your input if you think anything important is missing.

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The Maturity Stage In A Nutshell

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In the maturity phase, the company finds itself as a well-established entity within its industry. It typically experiences a plateau compared to its previous exponential growth, as has likely captured a significant share of the market.

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The focus shifts from aggressive acquisition strategies to maintaining market position and optimizing operations. The maturity phase often involves refining business processes, improving efficiencies, and maximizing profits through economies of scale.

Companies in this stage may also explore diversification of products or services to sustain their market relevance.

Specific to experience management activities, customer retention is now the main focus and it’s common to see loyalty programs being created.

Delivering best-in-class customer experiences is now crucial and complementary to providing the best environment, tools and processes for keeping talents engaged and productive.

Strategic decisions during this phase are critical as the company seeks to innovate and stay competitive, even as it faces increased competition and market saturation.

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Must-Implement Activities

Delivering an Outstanding Customer Experience

To truly excel during the maturity stage, a laser focus on solving customer pain points is essential. There should be no recurring issues that prevent customers from placing orders. Proactively addressing potential problems before they arise, rather than waiting for complaints, is crucial. This means anticipating issues and having contingency plans ready.

Hyper-personalization is another key component. Leverage data to deliver highly personalized experiences at scale, anticipating customer needs and providing solutions proactively. As customer expectations and demands for excellence increase, personalization becomes even more critical.

An ongoing leadership support for customer experience initiatives is vital. This commitment fosters a customer-centric mindset and a strong culture throughout the organization, ensuring the entire team prioritizes customer satisfaction.

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Keeping Your Employees Engaged, Empowered, and Growing

Employee engagement and empowerment are fundamental to delivering exceptional customer experiences.

Often, poor interactions with representatives of companies, like phone providers or banks, are due to inadequate processes or training. This frustration affects not just customers but also employees, who may feel unable to do their jobs effectively and unheard by their managers.

Treating employees as assets, listening to their needs and complaints, and providing necessary training and growth opportunities are essential. Helping employees stay updated with best practices and industry standards through progressive knowledge and skills development is crucial.

Recognizing and valuing tenured employees, especially those present since the company's launch and growth phase, with unique recognition and invitations to strategy sessions, can boost morale.

Ensuring every employee understands and values the importance of exceptional customer experiences is key to a customer-centric culture.

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Making Customer-Centric and Data-Driven Decisions

After implementing a thorough Voice of Customer programme during the growth phase, which provided a continuous flow of qualitative feedback to generate quantitative insights, all the needs and complaints should already be clearly understood.

Coupling those insights with a robust business intelligence centre allows for comprehensive analysis of business metrics, combining data insights to reinforce customer sentiment. This integrated approach enables the leadership team to make well-informed, customer-centric decisions with the support of data for reliability and prioritisation.

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Innovating to Gain Further Market Share

Innovation is crucial for market diversification and addressing diverse customer needs and personas. Developing an ecosystem around your products and services can enhance market presence. An extensive research and development programme focused on creating new products and solving grander customer needs positions the company as an industry leader.

Establishing an innovation lab, dedicated to experimenting with new CX practices, technologies, and approaches, keeps the customer experience fresh and engaging.

Horizon scanning, a systematic method for identifying potential threats, opportunities, and future developments, is essential for staying ahead. This involves analysing various materials, such as news articles, academic papers, blogs, and early research reports, to identify signs of change.

Methods for effective horizon scanning include stakeholder interviews and workshops, using frameworks like PESTLE (political, environmental, social, technology, legal, and ethical influences), observing social media and online communities, using trend-tracking tools, and conducting brainstorming sessions.

These approaches help decision-makers anticipate future events, manage risks, and seize opportunities, navigating regulatory changes effectively.

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Must-Avoid Activities

Becoming Complacent

Complacency is a significant risk for any successful organization. Believing that you've achieved everything and that things will remain the same is a dangerous mindset. While you may feel secure, your competitors are working hard to catch up. This can lead to slacking in making the right decisions and ignoring crucial customer signals, such as issues or signs of defection. These signals are not just metrics but also deeper indicators that can be uncovered through data studies.

Ignoring employee feedback, ideas, and input is another pitfall. Employees often have valuable insights that can drive innovation and improvement. Challenge the status quo by eliminating outdated processes and methodologies that no longer serve the organization. Automating tasks where possible can save manpower, which can then be redirected to areas where it can create greater value and synergies.

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Losing Focus on Competition

Success can make you a prime target for competitors. From established rivals with extensive resources aiming to reclaim market share to new entrants disrupting the market with innovative solutions, the competitive landscape is always evolving. It is crucial to continuously monitor competitors’ customer experience strategies and stay informed about emerging practices, trends, and technologies.

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Inconsistent Brand Experience

As organizations grow, maintaining a consistent brand experience becomes increasingly challenging. The sheer number of teams and employees can make alignment difficult. Specialization of teams and the creation of silos can lead to poor cross-team communication.

Ensuring that your brand’s voice, values, and promises are consistently reflected across all customer touchpoints is critical, because inconsistencies can erode trust and loyalty.

Avoid a fragmented approach to omnichannel experiences. Ensure that interactions across all platforms are seamless and cohesive. Customers should have a unified experience, whether they are engaging with your brand online, in-store, or through customer service.

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In Conclusion

To successfully navigate the maturity stage, the organisation must strive for nothing less than excellence. The entire customer experience needs to be flawless, at each step of the journey, proactively addressing potential issues and adapting to evolving customer expectations.

Every team across the organization must communicate and collaborate effectively to fulfil the customer promise. Simultaneously, it's crucial to keep employees engaged and empowered to perform at their best, fostering innovation and continuous improvement.

All of this while constantly innovating, providing a unified brand experience and keeping an eye on your competition.

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In a couple of weeks, we’ll share more about the final stage: the Sustainability Stage!

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Meet the co-authors

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Diane Magers, CCXP, MBA, MS - Founder & CEO, Experience Catalysts

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Diane is a seasoned executive and change catalyst in Experience Management, Founder and CEO of Experience Catalysts, Chair Emeritus and former CEO of the Customer Experience Professionals Association, Coach. Connector. Mentor.

With a master’s in clinical psychology and an MBA, coupled with certifications in various aspects of experience management, Diane’s goal is to drive meaningful change and foster lasting relationships in our community, for brands and their customers, employees, and partners for aligned purpose and outcomes.? Some of the firms she has influenced include Sysco Foods, Sage Glass, VMWare, State Farm, AT&T Business Solutions, Invisalign, and Texas Health and Human Services. Diane is also a best-selling author (Experience Rules! The Experience Operating System), and sought-after speaker, earning the "Experience Influencer" award in the "Women in Power" category, the distinguished CX Academy's CX Fellowship Award, and the heartfelt CXPA Extra Mile Award.

Michelle Spaul - Customer Experience Management Consultant – Founder at Delta Swan

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Michelle, an independent CXM consultant, combines business expertise and a unique viewpoint to help clients understand their customers, meet their needs, and achieve outstanding business outcomes. With over 30 years of using Customer Feedback to improve products, services and touchpoints, Michelle serves the CX community with her experience and lessons, through hands on support and mentoring. She offers interventions that use empathy to influence colleagues and create sustainable change, while embedding a mindset of ‘thinking customer’.

Ian Golding – Certified Customer Experience Professional and Customer Experience Specialist

Ian Golding is the founder of Customer Experience Consultancy, as well as a Certified Customer Experience Professional and Customer Experience Specialist. A certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, Ian has spent over twenty years in business improvement, working hard to ensure that the businesses he works for are as customer focused as possible.

Ian has worked with companies including BT, Pfizer, Thomson Reuters and Cisco. He was recognized in as the?Customer Experience Magazine (CXM) Top CX Influencer.

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Musa Hanhan – Founder And Managing Partner Of Xperiente

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Musa Hanhan brings over 20 years of expertise in enhancing customer experiences and value creation. His passion lies in creating world-class strategies that build trust and loyalty. Whether designing innovative solutions or aligning practices with company values, Musa is obsessed with making customer-centric decisions. In 2018, he received the Impact Award from the Customer Experience Professional Association (CXPA) for his outstanding leadership in driving customer experience efforts at Intel. Recently, in 2024, he was recognized as one of the Top 50 CX influencers by CX Network.

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Matthieu Bonelli – Customer Experience Specialist – Founder of CXMania

Matthieu Bonelli is the founder of CXMania, a consultancy which helps organisations make better decisions for their customer experience and create successful CX Programmes. It’s an in-depth and collaborative work, where Matthieu is not only sharing advice, but also acting as facilitator and coach, by accompanying his clients through each step of their journey to customer centricity.

He has dedicated his career to the field of Customer Experience and worked with some of the most customer centric e-commerce organisations, Zalando and Casper, where he gained extensive experience and implemented projects that delivered great value to his customers.

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