Brief for a customer experience programme
Why have a customer experience brief?
Whether it is to measure your Net Promoter Score, develop a Customer Journey Map, or to support your orgaisation to become more customer orientated, ultimately the aim will be to improve your customers’ experience.
If you are looking to utilise the skills of a third party in partnering with you to develop and execute your customer experience programme the development of a brief will be an excellent starting point. It will not only help you pull your own thoughts together and identify exactly where you need that support, but will also enable the third party supplier to provide clarity on how they can help you. It also has the benefit of supporting comparison between potential supplier proposals.
Background research to develop the customer experience brief
Initially many companies will start their own investigation into either how to improve their customer experience programme, or indeed how to create one, by perhaps talking to their peers in other organisations, and almost certainly through online desk research. Indeed that may be the very reason why you have visited the Customer Champions website.
We often find that following that initial background research companies do benefit from contacting one of our consultants to talk through what they are looking to achieve and the best way of going about it. All of those activities then allow the development of a brief, but what should go in a customer experience brief?
Contents of an effective customer experience brief
Although clearly every programme has its own individual requirements we would suggest that if a brief can as a minimum answer the following questions it will enable you to evaluate potential partners. It will also ensure the solution they develop for you meets your needs and increases the probability of the programme’s success.
- What does your organisation want to be able to do through this customer experience programme that it can’t currently do?
- What is the key business issue or challenge or opportunity?
- How does the customer experience programme align with the corporate strategy?
- Where in the journey of delivering a customer experience programme are you? Has something previously been running within your organisation, and if so what was successful and where were the challenges?
- What information do you already have about your customers’ experience?
- What key questions does this programme need to explore or find answers to?
- Are there specific groups of customers that should be focussed on?
- What outputs are required and how frequently?
- What deadlines do you have for the programme?
- What budget is available?
In addition to answering the above questions, providing an overview of your organisation, the market in which you operate, and a profile of your customers is valuable insight to share with your potential partners (it may be appropriate to ensure there is a non-disclosure agreement in place).
Next steps to develop your customer experience brief?
If you would like to arrange an informal discussion with one of our consultants please do get in touch. Customer Champions have a pre-formatted briefing document that can be made available to you, simply get in contact to discuss your potential needs and we would be delighted to help you develop your brief.