Why Are Retail Customer Experience Programs Failing? 5 Steps to Take to Improve 

Customer experience doesn’t belong to one team; it’s an organizational initiative that needs an aligned vision. From the eyes of the customer, CX is a journey across many touch points—discovery, online, in-store experience, buy online + pickup in store (click and collect), purchase, delivery, install and perhaps returns.

CX practitioners cannot identify, determine the root cause, and implement a customer experience solution alone. The improvements that are identified in customer insight data require numerous teams and functions to work together to address the issues. In many cases, the retail customer experience leaders are responsible for part of the journey—not end-to-end—and are often asked to lead by influence rather than accountability.

The first thing retail customer experience program leaders must do is align with their colleagues on business goals. The next step is to highlight the impact of your CX program on those business outcomes to win executive-level support. Higher buy-in for your CX program will happen if you can support other’s goals along the way.

5 steps to improve buy-in for your brand’s retail customer experience program

1. Identify what excites and motivates all key players within your organization

Individuals and teams may be motivated by entirely different things within a company. While a team may be motivated by financial rewards like bonuses or performance benchmarks, individuals may be driven by getting involved in programs that provide career growth and recognition. Understanding what motivates each person and group can make getting a larger share of group buy-in much more straightforward.

2. Focus on educating, even when it isn’t delivering the desired results

Building a continuous learning environment is vital if you expect others to buy into a CX program and execute tasks to the best of their abilities. Internal environmental factors such as low morale, negative culture, and lack of trust could impact your CX program. If individuals feel disconnected from a program manager, functional teams, customers, or company, the CX program will likely fail. Be sure your program is seen and used as an engine of positive growth.

3. Make sure everyone understands and adds their contribution to a CX program

Once you’ve identified what motivates individuals and focused on gaining their trust, connecting the dots between what motivates them and CX program goals becomes much more straightforward. Create workshops and invite others to contribute to determining the program goals, allowing the wider team to share their concerns and ideas.

4. Introduce and maintain regular meetings providing updates and results achieved

Setting goals and establishing performance metrics at the beginning of a CX program is not enough. CX leaders should ensure they reaffirm goals and regularly update relevant parties on progress to avoid decreased buy-in and support. Remain consistent in what you say, what you share, and how often you communicate.

5. Remain transparent and seek continuous feedback

It isn’t enough to only provide insight into what is going well—including failures, lessons learnt, and tangible improvement plans will establish trust and gain buy-in on the CX program. This last step is simply considered good leadership.

The biggest takeaway here is your customer experience program results should impact the bottom line of your business—and the impact stronger when everyone is in alignment. Start by getting aligned on goals. To help, read this guide: Strategies for Smart Goal Setting and Advancing your Outcomes.