Good customer experience has moved from ambition to necessity for almost every industry, especially where competitive pressures exist. Experiences that attract & retain customers while reducing costs should be deemed as essential, particularly in challenging times where discretionary spending is decreasing for many customers.

Improving customer experiences needs to begin with a "zero-based redesign" as McKinsey noted. They go on to suggest that companies need to ask of themselves "What would be the best possible experience a customer could have when completing this task?"

Reading McKinsey's piece had me reflecting on an interview I conducted with a colleague some years back. In the piece, we considered the value of 'having a vision for the future' while also being cognizant of achieving the vision 'one step at a time' - the latter being critical for ensuring a low-risk project with measurable outcomes. These successful steps focus our customer stakeholders (owners, heads of departments, etc.) to know they can apply their own "discovery approach" to think how else they can deploy CRM across the business.

It's only once a business understands the potential of the CRM tool - through safely delivering a first, exploratory, phase - can they implement further sets of great customer experiences. With this approach to front digitization, any business can reduce costs, improve experiences, and update their operating approach.

In the next piece, we talk about the cost of 'doing nothing'