Can everyone own something so valuable?

The benefits of a good customer experience can not be overstated. Companies are realising that the best way to ensure a powerful customer experience is to empower their employees to close the customer feedback loop. However, there still seems to be some confusion about who needs to actually take ownership of the process.

Who is taking ownership at the moment?
Your company may have somebody with a title like ‘Chief Customer Officer’ or ‘Director of Customer Experience’ who is in charge of customer experience management. These people likely encourage anyone and everyone to share ownership of the customer experience process. However, if you insist on giving ownership of the customer experience to every individual in the firm, you can run into a ‘tragedy of the commons’ situation. When everyone is told that the responsibility is shared, people will naturally act in their own self-interests and assume someone else will take charge. Despite the intent, responsibility for customer experience falls by the wayside, its priority plummets, and your customers suffer as a result.

Who should be taking ownership?
While it might seem intuitive to encourage people to take charge of customer experience throughout a company, the truth is that in order to be effective, the responsibility must rest on the CEO’s shoulders. They are the one who have the ultimate power to adopt and enforce company structures aligned with customer needs, ensuring customer experience becomes the primary intent of the company.

If your CEO is not articulating how important customer experience is to every facet of your organisation, you’ll never be truly customer-centric. But if they are, distinct competitive advantages will follow, no matter what market you’re operating in.

Originally posted on The Customer Experience Company blog here