Five CX resolutions for the New Year

The earth has completed yet another revolution around the sun and begun a new one. While it sustains us through this relentless singular action, it also provides us with the time to perform our own actions that make a difference. Why, then, should New Year resolutions be restricted just to individuals and focused only on personal development? Why can't businesses make resolutions, too?

Here are some resolutions that you can make this year, so that your customers get a great experience from you all year round.

1. Increase CX focus across functions

Though CX has the word "customer" in it, its spirit shouldn't be confined only to customer-facing roles. It's when CX becomes the central focal point for all business functions that customers actually get a positive experience throughout their journey. In the past, perhaps businesses could have gotten away with doing the bare minimum with their offerings. They can't do that anymore, because we now have a new generation of customers who have quick access to information on their fingertips. Therefore, you should invest more time and effort towards making your offerings more reliable and robust than just glitzy and glamorous. Encourage team members across business functions to always look at things from customers' perspectives. If you want a particular kind of experience as a customer, you should also deliver the same experience to your customer.

And this increase in CX focus is also pertinent to internal business functions and not just external customer-facing ones. A few paragraphs down from here, you'll learn why.

2. Be more inclusive

Today, inclusive capabilities are not just good-to-haves but must-haves. Modern technology has made it easy for businesses to aid customers with different needs more effectively. If you offer products, be more proactive and find ways to make your products more accessible to all. If you offer services, encourage your team members to be more thoughtful when interacting with customers who have different needs or who are from different backgrounds.

Inclusivity, however, can't be achieved with a one-size-fits-all solution. It requires that you consider the various ways in which people can be different and provide solutions accordingly.

3. Improve employee experience further

Earlier in this article, I mentioned that internal business functions should focus on delivering a great customer experience, too. "It makes sense for functions like marketing, support, sales, pre-sales and so on to focus on CX. Why do functions like payroll, travel, and admin also have to focus on CX?" you may ask. Let's be honest. Internal business functions have customers, too, who just happen to be their very own colleagues. So when they provide a good experience to their "customers," those "customers" in turn carry it forward to the end-customers. This is what makes employee experience a vital factor when it comes to delivering good CX. Happy employees lead to happy customers. So this year, talk to your colleagues to identify which parts of their experience within your organization can be improved further.

4. Strive for consistency

Positive CX is as much about consistency as it is about excellence. Even regular customers of a brand might contemplate shifting loyalties if they don't get the same good experience every single time with the brand. "They used to be so good before, but their quality has gone downhill!" is not something any business wants to hear said about them, right? This is why consistency matters when it comes to good CX. Since consistency is all about repeating a particular action a particular way every time, it's best to take a systematic approach towards achieving it. It requires a combination of well-defined processes, training, and documentation.

5. Keep identifying areas of improvement

As the well-known adage goes, "a rolling stone gathers no moss." Similarly, a constantly evolving business doesn't become stagnant. This year, make sure to look at the feedback you receive from your customers, partners, and other collaborators, and make changes where needed. Most importantly, do this at regular intervals to check the amount of progress you've made. No matter how good your product/service is, there will always be room for improvement in it. So commit to this exercise of kaizen (continuous improvement) and keep enhancing the CX experience you deliver. Of course, you're not required to make every single improvement that you're suggested; many of them might not be practical or scalable. But start from those suggestions that come from a majority of your users and work on delivering those.

We believe these five resolutions are good starting points for your CX improvement initiatives this year. What other CX resolution do you have in mind for this year? Share them with us in the comments and keep inspiring us!