INDUSTRY OPINION 64
Sudhir H. Kalé*
Six-step plan for optimising customer experience Over the last fifteen years or so, much has been written about the primacy of customer experience to bolster organizational growth and profitability. Pretty much every large organization claims to compete on the basis of customer experience (CX). Yet, the organizational competencies required to deliver a superior guest experience are seldom understood, let alone aligned.
W
hat is a competency? Competency is generally understood to mean that a person or organization is qualified, capable, and able to understand and do certain things in an appropriate and effective manner. Distilling CX competencies is not easy because of the ubiquitous scope of customer experience. CX is impacted by the actions of every department and every level within the organization. Based on two decades of research and consulting experience, I have extracted six CX competencies which, if developed and refined, should result in a superior customer experience. Market Orientation The concept of market orientation came about in the early nineties when researchers were looking to identify what separates great companies from the merely good ones. An offshoot of the marketing concept, market orientation refers to the “organization wide generation, dissemination, and responsiveness to market intelligence.” Market intelligence is organizational understanding of customers’ current and future needs and the factors affecting them. Market intelligence thus becomes the foundation on which to build the customer experience. Without understanding customer needs and expectations, and responding to these with appropriate design and actions, customer experience will always fall short of customer expectations. Employee Engagement Employee engagement can be defined as putting forth ‘‘discretionary effort,’’ in a job-context. The discretionary effort could be extra time, brainpower, or energy. To garner requisite employee engagement competency, organizations should address the drivers of engagement and disengagement. First, there needs to be alignment in values between the employer and the employees. If the organization is looked at as something more than a provider of jobs and a means of making a living, employees will be more willing to exert discretionary effort in their jobs. Second, interactions between senior management and employees has a strong bearing on engagement. Senior management needs to communicate with employees at all
Asia Gaming Briefings | August 2019
levels in a manner that is open, transparent, and caring. The third driver of employee engagement is the relationship an immediate supervisor has with an employee. The human touch, so necessary for employee morale and well-being, is often absent in superior-subordinate interactions. The fourth major driver of employee engagement is providing a setting where employees feel that they have plentiful opportunities to learn and grow. Where development is clearly in sight, discretionary effort follows. Emotional Intelligence Over the last two decades, much has been written about emotional intelligence (EI). So, exactly what is emotional intelligence? It’s the ability to recognize, understand, and relate to your own emotions as well as the emotions of others. In his path-breaking book, “Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ,” Daniel Goleman reported on a variety of research studies making the case that skill in handling emotion is as significant as skill in handling other forms of data (such as those measured on an IQ test). A study reported by the University of Maryland in 2011 stated that over 70% of hiring managers considered EI to be more important than IQ in recruiting of employees. Emotional intelligence is comprised of five key elements: Self-awareness, motivation, empathy, social skills, and selfregulation. This combination of traits helps individuals control their own emotions while relating to people to establish a bond. Emotionally intelligent employees are almost intuitively able to assess customer emotions and expectations and respond to these in a manner that creates customer intimacy and enriches the customer experience. Service Blueprinting A service blueprint is a diagram that visualizes the relationships between different service components — people, props (physical or digital evidence), and processes — that are directly tied to touchpoints in a specific customer journey. It is a visual, information-laden document that describes where and how customers interact with your organization. The unique benefit of using a service blueprint is that it allows an organization to view the entire customer experience from the customer’s perspective. By providing
