We’ve all had moments where our interactions with a brand result in us feeling delighted. Where we walk away with a sense that the organization knows us, they care about our needs and respond to them in ways that exceed our expectations. Where it’s not only about providing a frictionless purchase experience but that extra something that leaves us feeling warm and fuzzy. This may happen at any touch point with the brand – in a retail environment, within a mobile app experience, or navigating an IVR system – maybe even all three.

Many factors may contribute to creating this type of customer experience, but in my view, they can be boiled down to:

‍

After we have this type of experience with a brand, it can’t help but expose the shortcomings (or flat out failures) on the part of competing brands. We question why other organizations aren’t delivering similar experiences, and it’s easy to assume that they simply don’t value your business the same way. While this may be true in some cases, more likely, the other organizations are stuck in what I call self-imposed customer apathy. It’s not that they don’t want to be serving you better. It’s not that they don’t see the value in providing these delightful experiences. Instead, it’s that they’ve built organizational and technology barriers around their business that essentially prevent them from doing these things.

Technology silos

‍

Over the past 20 years, most large organizations have invested millions of dollars into their technical infrastructures. As industries and customer demands change over time, so do the technology requirements to meet them adequately. Sadly, this resulted in a fragmented technology landscape within most organizations. Each piece of hardware and software has its specific role but works in isolation from the other components. For example:

Analytics software that doesn’t interact with CRM content management systems, separate from e-commerce platforms or other secure transactional portals, ID and authentication services disconnected from personalization and recommendations engines

True. Organizations can’t be blamed for building their infrastructures this way since no ‘all-in-one’ solution exists. But this isn’t an excuse for not investing in more customizable and flexible solutions that better address these needs. In my view, organizations that choose to stand by their antiquated infrastructures merely to justify their past investments in a flawed platform will be left in the dust.

Organizational silos

‍

In the same way technology platforms need to continually interact with one another, so too do the teams within an organization. The most unified platform in the world won’t help in the least if each business unit is working in isolation. Much like the technical infrastructure silos, organizational silos were built to respond to the changing needs and priorities of the business. And while the teams themselves may remain, the lines of communications between one another must be reestablished.

Customer data, for example, being fragmented across five different business units, helps no one. Each BU holds only a glimpse into the customer’s relationship with the organization, and the customer receives a fragmented experience as a result.

A lack of an overall, unified customer experience strategy

‍

And of course neither of the above matter if an organization hasn’t placed customer experience as a top priority. The difference between claiming you acknowledge the importance of customer experience versus actually putting a plan into action is obvious. And yet so many brands seem to be left scratching their heads wondering why their bloated ad buys and consumer research activities are doing nothing to improve the overall customer experience.

‍

Make no mistake. I’m not saying it’s not an easy change for an organization to make, but the question isn’t whether or not they can afford to make the necessary adjustments. Instead, like so many other disruptive changes, it’s the acknowledgment that they can’t afford not to initiate this change.