The Role of HR & Other Departments in Customer Experience

Reading about how to improve the Customer Experience (CX) is a great deal like reading about CRM. Most of the discussion seems to be focused on technology, either CRM or Voice of the Customer, when the reality is, that’s only about 20% of the total strategy.

I’m not discounting technology, but there’s more to Customer Experience than just rolling out Voice of the Customer software. Relationships need to be built with other departments so that they will do their part in helping your organization implement a successful CX strategy. Here are four factors that impact the CX. Your Human Resources Department plays a make or break roll in every one of them. Other departments such as Legal and Finance also have an influence.

1. Attitude—The attitude your customer facing staff demonstrates is vitally important. At the strategic level your organizational culture is going to be a huge factor in the attitude your employees display. Are you truly customer-focused or moving in that direction, or are you just paying it lip service. Attitude is also impacted by the individual’s personality and professionalism. Employee engagement also drives attitude. All of the above means your Human Resources Department needs to be on board with your customer experience strategy. When hiring, are they screening for the right competencies?
2. Knowledge—Your customer facing staff should also have expertise in product and industry knowledge. Again your HR department comes into play here as they must devise relevant training programs that bring new employees up to speed and keep more experienced employees up to date on industry changes. An effectively managed CRM strategy should be able to help you with your prospect and customer knowledge. The department responsible for CRM software and strategy also needs to be involved.
3. Skills—Your HR department’s trainers should be providing state of the art relevant sales and product training. Harder to train for is the ability of the individual to be an effective listener, to be able to put the customers’ needs before his own. Listening is a mission-critical skill. This is directly impacted by the degree to which your organization is customer-focused.
4. Support-- Just as an operating system like Linux or Windows isn't obvious as it operates behind the scenes, your employees need support from other departments which aren’t always obvious to the customer. This includes departments such as finance (for car dealers) customer support (for copy machine sellers) and legal (ensuring that polices do not conflict with the customer experience). Your organizational culture surfaces here as well since the more you empower your employees to create truly innovative customer experiences, the more liley you are to achieve true customer-focus.

If your customer experience strategy is just seen by others as the responsibility of one department, you could be in for a tough implementation. Gaining support and buy-in from other departments is mission-critical.

Regards,

Glenn

Experience me on Twitter. I’m @txglennross.