PEOPLE, ENABLED BY SUPPORTING PROCESSES, DRIVE POSITIVE CHANGE

JOURNEY’s belief in placing ‘the customer at the heart’ of organisational thinking appears simple in concept but it can be difficult to achieve in practice.

‘Putting the customer first’ remains the single most powerful means of unlocking the real potential of your organisation and the people working within it. Delivering a quality service to users is what every public service organisation is about and JOURNEY has consistently found that experiencing positive, personal customer interactions to be the single most critical motivator for the majority of employees.

Aligning everyone in the organisation towards the same goal of delivering satisfactory customer service might seem obvious. By failing to achieve it an organisation will inevitably struggle and could quite possibly fail.

Key Organisational Features of True Customer Alignment

The organisation will have a joined-up view of both ‘people’ and ‘processes.’ Alignment is not just about one or the other; it is about both working powerfully together.
Everything it does will be underpinned by a disciplined approach to Customer Planning (customer insight and data synthesised into actionable knowledge.)
It will be actively leading for the customer and empowering colleagues to act and behave as necessary to deliver improved customer experience.
It will ensure that all processes are designed to support staff in achieving their goals, rather than having the potential to detract, frustrate or even block staff from thinking and acting upon simple ‘customer first’ principles.

Service will fail in the eyes of your customers if:

your employees are unclear about what is required of them to deliver great service, or:
they do not fully understand customers’ needs and what they can do to respond to them, or
they do not always act so that the customer sees that they are putting them first.

True Customer Alignment is achieved, therefore, when the whole organisation both understands Customer Expectations and has the appropriate ‘people and processes’ in place, fully focused on delivering against them in actual Customer Experience.

Energised staff, committed to great customer service and focused on ‘getting it right, first time, every time’ – and fully aligned with leaders and processes that shares the same aim – will inevitably provide the foundation of a successful service organisation.