Unite the silos: The channel-by-channel curse

eConsultancy just put out a guide around customer experience best practices, some of which are detailed in this blog post. Two stats jumped out at me right away — and those two stats are indicative of problems that some CX teams are having. Good news, though: they are also indicative of opportunities for growth and revenue within your organization.

The first stat is seen visually here:

Look at the dark blue bars for company respondents. 40% report that different departments have different agendas, while only 29% are saying it’s a collaborative process. And, while the numbers are lower, we still have 14% of respondents saying their company prioritizes short-term profits over customer lifetime value.

Neither of these are good positions. “Different departments having different agendas” is somewhat logical — usually departments are compensated on different things, so each department prioritizes what will get them the most reward. I understand that, and we’ve all worked in companies that are heavily silo’ed.

The problem is: generating revenue has become increasingly about the customer, and the customer has so many different touchpoints with your organization. They may contact a call center, or they may reach you on Twitter. They might visit a physical store or buy your products on their iPad. Touchpoints extrapolating + the continued importance of customer experience = silos need to become a relic.

I am all for uniting silos, and bringing senior leadership together in some form of shared accountability. That’s the only way you’re going to see customer-driven growth. Unfortunately, it appears 4 in 10 companies (at least on this survey) aren’t there yet.

This is an opportunity. If you want predictable revenue and growth from customers, start with better internal alignment.

Now here’s the second visual/stat that popped:

“Design and measure on a channel-by-channel basis” won the day. This is also less than stellar. Again: unite the silos. That doesn’t just mean the people. It also means the information. Data is streaming everywhere now, but 80% of it is dark and untouched. That means it’s collected but either (1) never used or (2) used in different ways by different divisions, so ultimately it’s useless. On top of that, only 23% of companies — less than 1 in 4 — are able to generate real-time insights with customer data. If you add those two facts together with this survey, here’s a landscape you come to:

• Companies are collecting lots of data.
• Most don’t know what to do with it as it arrives (real-time).
• Much of it sits on the shelf even later than that.
• When it is worked on, oftentimes it’s channel-by-channel.

If you want bottom-line success right now, this is a huge opportunity — because it’s quite possible your rivals aren’t doing it. First step: align your people and their vocabulary. Second step: align the information being presented and discussed. Are those simple steps? No. They will take time. If you want some actionable examples of how CCOs have brought together teams and information, check out any episode of my podcast — I always ask questions on uniting leadership teams.