The importance of consistency

The great Bruce Lee once famously said, "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times." At first glance, this quote might seem irrelevant to business or CX, but look a bit deeper and you'll realize that it talks about the value of performing a particular task a particular way every single time. In terms of the customer journey, this means that a single positive experience can make customers happy once, but to make them loyal, you have to provide the positive experience again and again in the same way.

Providing consistent experiences, however, is easier said than done, given the numerous ways in which customers can interact with a business and the variety of offerings the business provides. It's difficult but very much doable. So let's see how it can be done.

Identify touchpoints and internal stakeholders

The first step towards achieving consistency is identifying the different channels through which your customers interact with you, including online and offline channels as well as the partner network. List out these touchpoints along with the products/services you offer through them. Next, list out the different employees (job roles, not specific individuals) and teams involved in processes across these touchpoints. By doing so, you make sure that no channel or stakeholder is left out from the overall exercise.

Nail the basics

Next, list out the processes and the intended ideal outcomes of each. Include both frequent and straightforward ones and the rare and complex ones. This could be something simple like how sales executives greet customers, how a product refund or return is processed, or how a service cancellation is executed. Look at all of these processes from a customer's point of view and frame your process and experience accordingly.

Start from the frequent and straightforward processes and define the steps involved in them. Define the role and responsibilities of each internal stakeholder in the process, the amount of time to spend on each step, and the stakeholders to be notified after the step is executed. For example, a product return process would involve the customer support, logistics, and inventory teams. Therefore, communication between each team must be seamless so that the return is processed within the stipulated time. In this case, having well-defined processes in place helps ensure that each customer who wants to return a product gets the same experience.

Train internal stakeholders

After defining your processes, conduct dry runs to make sure nothing important falls through the cracks. When a set of actions is repeated, it becomes akin to a habit, almost like muscle memory—and that is an effective way to deliver a consistent experience. If your organization has multiple branches or outlets, make sure to train team members at all locations so that every customer gets the same experience everywhere, every time.  Place particular emphasis on your brand's messaging, greetings, and offers.

Consistently positive CX cannot be looked at as just a differentiator today; it must be considered part of a brand's very identity. Therefore, even if the day-to-day running of branches is decentralized, the experience they provide must be uniform.

Document, document, document

Okay. You've now defined your processes clearly and trained your team members, too. Does this mean you've attained the end goal in your quest for consistency? Nope. There's another thing you must take care of. What if a team member who's highly knowledgeable about the processes in her business function quits unexpectedly? How can you train her replacement effectively and ensure the new team member performs the job with the same level of efficiency? The solution is documentation.

Whenever you come up with a process, make sure also to document every single detail related to it in a central repository. According to a recent survey by BPTrends, a majority of organizations model and document less than 25% of their business processes, while only 2% did the same for all their processes. A central repository of documents acts as a single source of truth and makes the task of referencing easier and quicker. With process guides at hand, teams across all functions can deliver a consistent experience, irrespective of who is present and who isn't. An important practice to keep in mind is to update the documents promptly, as and when a change is made in a process.

Audit and improve

As the adage goes, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. No matter how good your efforts to achieve consistency are on paper, their true effectiveness lies solely in the execution. Therefore, it's important to periodically verify how consistent the experience is for your customers. The easiest and most straightforward way to do this is to conduct surveys among customers to collect their feedback. Alternatively, you can also hire third-party auditing agencies to get on the ground and gauge the experience delivered, on your behalf. This method can be beneficial, especially if you're a retail business or one that predominantly functions from physical locations.

Next, process the feedback from customers and/or insights from agencies to identify areas of improvement or factors that lead to a negative experience. Tweak your processes to improve these areas and apprise team members of the changes.

Delivering consistent experiences might be difficult, but not impossible. All it requires is customer-centric focus, comprehensive processes, concerted effort, and continuous improvement. What other practices have helped you deliver consistent positive experiences for your customers? Share your thoughts in the comments section!