In my earlier blog, Predictability
in Customer Experience Improvement – A Perspective for Grocery Retail Industry,
We deliberated on how do we use
the differentiated-needs-pyramid to understand the needs of different set of customers
for a Grocery chain and use it to define the initiatives and create a predictable
improvement in the customer experience.
In this
blog, we are going to apply the same technique to understand the internal
customers for an organization unit and how we can create predictable improvement
in their experience through planned initiatives. I have picked IT department as
an example, which serves business; enables them to perform their functions
effectively and achieve desired business goals. Business team is customer for
IT team and IT team strives to provide a superlative customer experience to the
business teams through their actions and initiatives. CIO being leader of IT
unit can use this differentiated-needs-pyramid to understand his/her customer
better and start planning on various initiatives to move the experience to
higher level. The customer in this case, “Business Team”, is not a single block
with common needs across, but have multiple segments with each one having
unique needs as well as expectations from IT department. Combination of how CIO
and team satisfies them and reinforces specific level again and again through
multiple actions across these segments determines the experience perceived by
customers. In this blog, I have considered two segments within the business
team i.e. “Business Leaders” and “Business End users” to give further clarity.
The differentiated needs pyramid which has
five levels starting from physiological needs to safety needs ultimately
self-actualization, gets translated in to pyramid shown in the adjacent fig.
The levels get translated as,
1. Availability
of IT Support
2. Comprehensive
Coverage and Secure Landscape
3. Business
Feels that IT dept understands its needs well
4. Business
is proud of its IT
5. Business
Feels Nirvana
Each level
is interpreted by different segments differently e.g. Business End users are
predominantly concerned about the product / application they are using and if
they are getting what they need from that application, they express greater
satisfaction. Their experience does not change if the application used by some
of their peers is not as effective/ useful giving them hard time. Whereas
leaders would look at entire gamut of applications supporting their business
and any one not servicing the needs will create a negative experience for them.
Therefore, an action of fixing a problem in one application, could result into
significant improvement of experience in a section of customers, no change for
a section of customers and marginal change for another set of customers. Similarly
Cost of IT is very important for leadership and not so for the Business End
user community. Ease of use is more important to End user community than the
leadership team, thus delivering a differentiated impact on customer experience
after every action is taken.
Another
aspect is interpretation of the level by segment. Let us take example of level
4, “Business is proud of IT”. For Leadership segment, it means they get
recognized in their peer groups for using specific technology, products or
something their IT team has enabled to do which has enhanced their business or
made it more effective. The end user community will be proud of their IT if
they get to work in the latest technology and opportunity to learn the latest
and greatest in their area.
Following
diagram shows the interpretation of the needs for two segments of the internal
customers i.e. Business Leaders and Business End users for your reference
In real life, Business End user segment
could be split in to some more like Finance End Users, End users on field
(sales/Delivery/Service), End users in Manufacturing plant, etc. each group has
a unique perspective on the IT support they need. Many more segments could be
added.
There is a
significant pull on every organization to go digital, implement IOT/AI/ML based
solutions to address new business challenges. Let us take a situation where an
organization wants to implement a customer facing application using Image
recognition technology. It also decides to implement an automation solution in
the warehouses so that it can create some funds which could be used for the new
project. Let us examine the impact of these actions on customer experience for
various segments
1 Business
Leadership – For this segment, IT is creating a futuristic solution for their
business problem and has a potential to increase revenue. Coupled with it, IT
is also working on another project which could bring in savings -- the action
is hitting level 4 and 5 in positive way.
2 End User
community in warehouse – This community has no connection with customer facing
application and hence that intervention does not have any impact on their
customer experience; Where as they are directly affected by the warehouse
automation project and there is a possibility of negative impact due
retrenchment possibility.
3 End User
community in other departments like Finance, sales, etc. – No impact
Now, CIO
can identify the impact on each customer segments he /she is servicing and map them
together. The big picture would clearly signal if there are any proactive steps
necessary to maintain the experience level as it is or is there a need to
create another parallel initiative to maintain the experience at the same level
in specific customer segment. This structured approach will help CIOs manage
their customers well and maintain their experience in a continuous improving
cycle.
Another way
to use this approach is to map the experience levels of each customer segment
at any time and then plan specific actions to improve specific customer
experiences at specific levels for specific segments. Periodic mapping and
measurement of customer experience for various segments will help identify
right interventions, reduce wastage and create predictable improvement in
Customer experience.
