For the past 11 days I've given you 11 missions. But today we're talking about the most important mission of all: your Customer Experience Mission.
A Mission By Any Other Name...
Keep your ears peeled in about any organization across America, and you'll hear the jargon tossed around.
"Let's talk about
our Brand Values."
"How can we communicate our USP/UVP?"
"Have you reviewed our Mission Statement?"
The effect they have on day-to-day operations unfortunately tends to range from considered occasionally by management to slapped on a motivational poster and ignored.
And that's a shame, because these are important.
Why are these things so hard for everyone to get behind? Let's investigate.
Promises, Promises...
Values, unique value propositions, mission statements: they all must be aligned with your brand promise.
Brand Promise is a means for setting customer expectations: It's what we promise to customers.
But look closely and you'll find that these are typically written from the company perspective.
Consider this Brand Promise from a leading bookseller:
The company is a leading content, commerce and technology company that provides customers easy and convenient access to books, magazines, newspapers and other content across its multi-channel distribution platform.
Not exactly classic literature, is it?
To counter this trend, let's focus on what I think is the most important tool in the mission, vision, values toolbox:
The Customer Experience Mission.
Today's Mission
Today I'd like you to create a first draft of a Customer Experience Mission.
If you're not sure where to start, your organization's existing mission statement
might be a good place to start.
But the key is to augment that mission statement to make it customer-focused.
When you're done, schedule a time to share it with your team. Ask
for their feedback. See what steps can be taken to make your new Customer Experience Mission official within the organization.
When a mission statement is customer-focused, it's less likely to be ignored and more likely to inspire.
PS - Here at Experience Investigators our Customer Experience Mission is To Create Fewer Ruined Days for Customers™. By joining this challenge and working through these missions, you're helping us fulfill that -- so sincerely, thank you!