Mapping the Maturity of Your Customer-Driven Growth Engine

The five competencies of your customer-driven growth engine are comprised of a series of actions and decisions that impact both the operation of your business and its cultural disposition.

Over time, the customer experience competencies will move from being disruptive to part of business as usual.   In this evolution, leadership and employee behavior will mature from requiring facilitation to natural collaboration once skill sets have become embedded throughout the organization.

In phase one, usually years one through three, activities are focused on:

• Uniting leadership and the organization
• Convincing people to participate
• Building the foundation for competencies
• Fixing things to show proof and value

The role of Chief Customer Officer will sync to this path. As the work matures and progresses, the CCO and his/her team unite the organization on the purpose of experience development, which enables decisions and behavior that improve customers’ lives.

For each phase of the Maturity Map, I’ve identified actions and behavior changes along the continuum of years one through five as the competencies are being embedded. After year five, it is a matter of sharpening and improving these competencies for your organization.

Remember, the five competencies are not a program, but rather a repeated cycle of:

• one-company awareness
• understanding
• focus
• united action