Standard Setting

Last week we discussed “Moments of Truth” inside your customer journey map. The idea of doing this is to help the whole team understand what expected standards you are aiming to create for your customer to enjoy.

One of the biggest mistakes to avoid is to put a lot of time, effort and energy into the creation of a customer journey map without integrating it into the culture of your company.  This can often be seen in organisations that create vision, mission and value statements, stick them around the walls and then immediately forget them -  it is almost like you have ticked the box that said “do this” and forget that actually the whole purpose is to apply and integrate these into how you do things from then on forward.

When you set a customer journey and define the “Moment of Truth” that you want to happen at each point, it is valuable to understand that this needs to be a living document.  One only needs to look at the way businesses have had to change and adapt to incorporate the requirements around Covid restrictions to understand how fluid this document needs to be to remain relevant.

The idea is to ensure the people in your organisation are living the spirit of the document and not aiming to just follow the letter of the law.  This is where setting a clear brand standard and experience expectation becomes so important.  When we are clear what the  brand stands for and what experience were aiming to create, it gives the team far more  latitude to be responsive and responsible for a situation in front of them.

An effective way of integrating this into your culture is to encourage your team to catch other team members  doing this right. At team meetings, encourage team members to point out  occasions where they have seen other team members creating the customer experience that your brand is renowned for. This has the dual impact of ensuring team members know what they're looking for and therefore know the standard, and encouraging team members to be actively living and breathing the standard in their work everyday.

When you are really clear on the customer journey you are creating and it is based around the culture you want to create, you will find that you have examples everyday that you can draw on to encourage similar behaviour.  This creates a pride within the team around what they stand for and how they operate.  Team members take ownership of the standards; they uphold them and expect others to do the same. A great example of this can be seen in the induction video South-West Airlines created to explain their culture to new people joining their company.

Clarity = action. When the standard is clear and reiterated constantly, people are far more likely to live it. Check in with your team to see where you need to be clearer on your standards.

Here’s to your success!