Rick Bertheaud, Principal, Management Consulting

High-performing shared services organizations go well beyond the basic value proposition of efficiency and effectiveness. They focus on customer relationship management (CRM) to improve their strategic relevance, deliver long-term value and elevate the shared services brand.

But CRM is just the beginning. The next step is to evolve from managing customers’ relationship with shared services to managing their experience. The discipline of customer experience management (CEM) turns customer satisfaction into loyalty and advocacy for shared services.

How do you get there? It comes down to managing every customer and consumer touch point. Consider these key principles for CEM:

• Evaluate your customer engagement model. Are you taking advantage of all communication channels? Are you developing strategic messages about shared services? Stay in touch with customers to gather feedback and concerns, keep in front of emerging business issues and manage your message.
• Consider your organizational structure. Part of staying relevant with the customer is assessing your leadership team and governance. Do you have the right skills? Are you focusing on areas such as communication and change management, customer engagement, risk and compliance? The right leadership skills are an important part of the customer experience.
• Design the right offers and experiences for the right customers. Look beyond transactional services to develop experiences that delight customers, provide strategic value and create brand advocates.
• Focus the entire shared services organization on delivering the experiences. Consider creating cross-functional teams to determine customers’ needs; then deliver on them by measuring experience-oriented objectives.
• Develop the capability to please customers again and again. Loyalty and advocacy come from consistently great service, not from satisfaction that spikes in one month and plummets in another. So provide effective training, establish direct accountability for the customer experience, and look for new ways to measure it while creating meaningful insights.
• Converge all services into a brand experience for customers. Simplify complexities for customers, develop effective communications and reporting materials, and consider appointing service delivery managers to serve as the primary point of accountability for customer satisfaction.

 
Add it up, and CEM – with the goal of delighting customers and creating loyal advocates – can change the way the SSC provides value.  For more insights on CEM for shared services, please see my paper From CRM to CEM: Taking Your Shared Services Brand to the Next Level.

Filed under: How to..., Shared Services by EquaTerra