Customer Experience is the best way to create competitive advantage. Interestingly, only one-third of business executives polled by the recent Economist Intelligence Unit say that marketing is responsible for managing the customer experience today. However, over the next five years, 75% suggest marketing will take full responsibility.
A positive customer experience is increasingly seen as a company’s most valuable asset. And, more than any other function, marketing would have been responsible for managing it across the customer life cycle, across channels from initial awareness through loyalty and advocacy and win back.
The best customer experience companies in the world emphasize the need for everyone in the organisation to play a role in customer experience delivery. Moreover, as responsibility for the customer experience looks as it’s shifting to marketing, it seems to be moving away from customer support and sales. The old distinction between sales and marketing (sales owns the relationship & marketing owns the message) has become less distinct. As consumers gain power and become less reliant on sales, the marketing function is increasingly orchestrating these relationships.
Dialogue believes that Marketing shouldn’t have sole accountability for customer experience delivery. CX involves the full enterprise. Marketing can take a central role but it doesn’t have to lead. What’s more important is that a framework is developed early across the customer emotional needs rather than company structures. This framework should allow companies to explore what the world’s best companies in other sectors do to deliver amazing customer experiences. Once the framework is in place you can then decide who is best to lead it.
Michael Killeen
Chairman