MC: 0:00

Experience Action. Let's stop just talking about customer experience, employee experience and the experience of leaders. Let's turn ideas into action. Your host, jeannie Walters, is an award-winning customer experience expert, international keynote speaker and founder of Experience Investigators, a strategic consulting firm helping companies increase sales and customer retention through elevated customer experiences. Ready Set Action.

Jeannie Walters: 0:31

If you have an organizational mission statement, do you need an organizational vision statement? What about a customer experience mission statement or a customer experience strategy statement? This is what we're exploring today on the Experience Action Podcast. Let's dive in and listen to the question.

Listener Question: 0:53

Hi, Jeannie, this is Jillian from the XI team. We get this question a lot in flight school. How do our organizational mission and vision tie into a CX mission statement and CX success statement? Thanks.

Jeannie Walters: 1:07

Hi Jillian. Thanks for asking this question on behalf of our members of the CXI Flight School. Now, for those of you who don't know, Jillian is the Director of CXI Flight School here at Experience Investigators and she does a great job for our members there.

Jeannie Walters: 1:22

Now this question comes up because anytime we at Experience Investigators approach a project, a strategy, coaching or anything around our curriculum and our CXI navigational framework, we first want to look at three distinct steps, and that's really defining a mindset, defining a strategy and then determining what discipline is required to execute on those things. Now, we do this because we have found that many, many customer experience teams or tasks are really just find and fix. They are reactive, they are ad hoc, they are things that aren't connected to a greater strategy. So taking the time to take a step back and define your mission as a customer experience mission and define your customer experience strategy success statement. By getting those defined and articulated, that will help you prioritize every action you take from there. We get this question, though, because it is a little confusing. Sometimes we go in and leaders will say, yeah, but we already have a mission statement, and there are times where your organizational mission statement will actually be able to serve as your customer experience mission statement.

Jeannie Walters: 2:41

However, I have seen that most of us do not have organizational mission statements that are really considering the customer. Who are we to them? How do we show up? How do we make sure we're living up to that brand promise? So here's the way that I like to think about it. We want to start with the bigger picture, and that requires us to look at and understand what is your organizational mission. What does that statement look like? If you have a defined vision and values, we want to explore that too. We want to make sure we understand your brand promise, and all of that is really incorporated into understanding the foundation of your purpose and long-term aspirations. These high-level statements, they communicate why the organization exists and where it's headed, which in turn should influence and inform what we do for your customer experience approach.

Jeannie Walters: 3:40

So we want to make sure that as we explore developing a customer experience mission statement, which is what we use to define the mindset at our organization, then we want to lean into those organizational statements. We want to make sure there is alignment there, because otherwise there will be disconnect and confusion. They should absolutely align. Now, knowing that, we then want to make sure that we are defining the mission statement in a way that is concise and memorable so that people can tuck it into their hearts, they can internalize it. Part of the goal of a customer experience mission statement is to make judgment calls a little easier. Otherwise, we're asking every single individual in the organization to make personal judgment calls around what does a great experience look like for customers. This helps us define what it means, define who we are to our customers and be consistent about that approach.

Jeannie Walters: 4:42

Once we have the customer experience mission statement, then we want to define what does success look like If we are really delivering on those aspirational ideals of the mission. What does that look like for our organization, for our employees, for the customers that we serve and how do we measure that success? So we need to use the customer experience strategy success statement to really define customer experience goals, activities and outcomes. That will help us know if we're actually achieving success. So, for example, you might have an organizational mission around being a leader in the wellness industry or providing wellness opportunities for every customer every day. That is important and great. That's what your organization is there to do. But then you want to break that down and think what does that mean for our customers? Well, what does wellness mean to us? Let's go ahead and define that. Let's go ahead and talk about what does wellness look like when we show up for one another? That can be the core of your customer experience mission statement.

Jeannie Walters: 5:54

But then you need to take that one step further and think okay, if we've defined wellness a certain way, if we've said that this is who we are for our customers, how can that benefit our organization and what will we measure to know if we're doing that? That's where we get into goals around things like retention or making sure that we are delivering in a way that helps people take the next step in the journey, leading to more repeat purchases, leading to more referrals, leading to higher customer feedback metrics like net promoter score or customer satisfaction rates. Sometimes this is about providing more simplicity for the customer along their journey, which in turn provides more efficiency for us. So we need to really break that down into what does that look like for our organization?

Jeannie Walters: 6:47

Sometimes we start these success statements with literally the words we succeed in customer experience when. When what? When customers feel a certain way, when they act a certain way, when they behave a certain way, and so then we can take those actions, behaviors and feelings and turn those into the measurements that we use to see if we're really delivering. Now, part of this is figuring out what do we own and what do we not own, and that's when we get into the discipline of all of this. So, while we lean into those organizational tools your organizational mission, your organizational vision, your overall organizational goals to define what are the activities and behaviors and outcomes that we're seeking in the work we do around customer experience, but then we have to figure out what are those efforts? Who needs to do what? We cannot own things like, yes, we're going to improve net promoter score if all we're responsible for is surveying for net promoter score. That makes no sense, but it happens all the time.

Jeannie Walters: 7:52

So I encourage you, if you are a customer experience leader out there, take a careful look at your goals. How are they connected to the rest of the organization and how are they connected to the actual accountability and influence and impact that you can have as a customer experience leader? If we are held responsible just for the metrics around how people feel about us, but we have no actual accountability or leadership over the very things that they're talking about that make them feel that way, then we are not set up for success. So part of my goal in developing these tools around the customer experience mission statement and the customer experience success statement is the idea that we need to empower you as an individual leader to understand what can you control and what can't you, and where can you have influence and how can you prove the return on the investment in the work that you and your teams do. All of that is just as important because otherwise people look and they say, well, these feedback metrics aren't getting any better. I guess our customer experience leader is at fault. It's scary but true.

Jeannie Walters: 9:05

We need to constantly define and defend why our roles are important, and tools like these can help you do that. But it also is about real leadership. Show up as a business leader and use terms that your other business leaders care about. So, in defining your customer experience success statement, make sure that you are using language that they care about. Do not turn this into something that they can look at and say well, those are soft skills. Yeah, it would be great to be friendly. What does that mean? What does that do for our bottom line? That's what we have to get clear on. Now

Jeannie Walters: 9:49

Now, this work that we do with both clients that we advise and consult and do workshops around, as well as members of our CXI Flight School, these tools are exactly that. They are tools. There is no one perfect way to do this. It depends on your organization and your role in it, and that's why we're so passionate about the work we do, because we know that when we see customer experience leaders really truly lead, that has a tremendous impact on the organization. That's when it turns into that win-win-win that I talk about. A win for your customers, a win for your employees and a win for your overall organization. So I hope that you will take advantage of the resources that we have available to help you really define and articulate what success looks like in your organization. And all of this has to be based on your organizational vision, your organizational mission, your values.

Jeannie Walters: 10:48

So if you, as a CX leader, are listening to this today thinking I don't know what those are, consider this your call to action to go find out and start using that language in how you talk about your customer experience efforts, outcomes and successes. I love this question because it really shows the nuance of leadership in customer experience. We have to be good at many things. We have to make sure that we are reaching across to different teams and understanding what are their contributions and how can my efforts support them. Figure out your customer experience mission statement, define your customer experience strategy success statement as well, and then take on what you can do and limit what you can't. Don't take on changing the world when you know what we only have control over a small part of it, but the beauty of the work we do is that we can have big impacts with sometimes subtle changes. By getting other people in our organization to have the right mindset to understand what success means, that's where you see real change.

Jeannie Walters: 12:04

I wish you tons of luck as you take this on and don't forget we have tons of resources for you.

Jeannie Walters: 12:10

Go to experienceinvestigatorscom and check out our Learning Center. We have lots of articles and videos and other things all about the CX Mission Statement and the CX Success Statement, and if you want that kind of support, if you are looking for really defining this in your organization, consider setting up a call with us to see if we can help you in that regard too, or check out CXI Flight School. I'm so excited for the work that you are doing today and the work you will continue to do tomorrow. Stand up for customer experience and for your role in it. You are having an impact and I never want you to forget that. Thank you for this question and don't forget you can leave me a voicemail at askjeannievip. I can't wait to talk to you soon. Thanks, everybody. To learn more about our strategic approach to experience, check out free resources at experienceinvestigatorscom, where you can sign up for our newsletter, our Year of CX program and more, and please follow me, Jeannie Walters, on LinkedIn.