Like all strategies, customer experience strategy is about resource allocation. Where are you going to concentrate your scarce resources to make a difference? What initiatives are you going to fund and staff that will give you a competitive advantage? If every business and function make these decisions independently, adopts its own measurement systems, trains its people in independent ways, the result is what business strategists call ‘a big mess’.

Think about military strategy. No president of any country at war ever declared ‘We are all in charge of our military strategy. Just go out there and win.’ That makes no sense whatsoever, and the same is true of CX strategy. You must explicitly state what you are trying to achieve, both internally and externally.

We live in a dynamic world. A single person must be in charge of your company’s strategy and governance. And it is critical that person is in touch with corporate leadership to ensure CX strategy is aligned with business strategy.

They need to drive common understanding and actions based on the following dimensions:

• Customers: How have wants and needs been changing over time and how well do you and your competitors serve those expectations?
• Partners: What do your distributors, resellers and implementation partners want from you and how well do you and your competitors meet those needs?
• Competitors: How have your traditional competitors been improving customer experience? Are new competitors emerging who offer revolutionary experiences that will disrupt your market?
• Industry dynamics: What changes in your industry will affect the experiences you and your competitors can offer and which of these changes really matter?
• External factors: How are influence such as government regulation changes going to affect your customer experience strategy?
• Internal realities: What is your ability to execute on any of the insights you gain from answering these questions?

These are the top-level questions that must be answered in a comprehensive CX strategy. To be effective, multiple answers and multiple strategies must not be allowed. This requires a strong CX governance structure with a single leader.

A strong governance and accountability approach can help carry to your program from its beginning to more advanced operations and impact. Be sure your governance team understands that its remit includes continuing engagement with an evolving program over the long haul. Leverage your team to help navigate the challenges of building the data assets you’ll need to practically align your CX efforts to company strategy and outcomes. To get there, download our guide, take our comprehensive training course, or read about the future of NPS.