THOUGHT LEADERSHIP siloed and measure success differently, so common ground can be hard to find. This in turn causes delays, more frustration and ultimately, a fragmented customer journey that stands in the way of success.
So, how can organisations realign their teams, revamp their processes and build customer loyalty from the ground up? It’ s time to go back to the drawing board.
Perception vs reality: Are we really collaborating?
Teams might believe they’ re collaborating effectively, but research revealed that the perception and the reality are very different. In fact, 83 % of leaders reportedly experience misalignment weekly or monthly, despite their high confidence levels in their best practices. The tension between theory and practice causes teams to fall into the trap of designing customer journeys from the inside out, building around their own processes, internal hierarchies and assumptions rather than the actual needs and behaviours of their customers. The result is a journey map that reflects how the company operates, not how the customer experiences the brand.
No matter your target audience or buyer personas, you are targeting other humans and they will expect seamless, personalised customer experiences and products that speak to their pain points. Teams need to shift their mindsets and operationalise their customer journey insights, and suddenly the competing priorities disappear because everything is guided by one thing only: the customer.
Back to the drawing board: Beating Zoom fatigue with visual tools
One of the most effective ways to foster genuine collaboration is by moving away from endless meetings and calls. While they became the norm for hybrid and remote workplaces, a call is not the answer to every problem out there and that includes internal alignment.
As organisations continue to invest in tools and platforms to foster collaboration, they need to realise that in order to truly resolve the problem, they need to look at the underlying structural issues that create digital silos on top of physical ones. Companies that achieve alignment don’ t just introduce a new software, they reimagine their workflows and establish clear processes across departments and teams. This mindset shift has a direct impact on product development and ultimately, revenue.
That is not to say that tools don’ t matter at all. Companies need all three components of the puzzle: the platform, the process and the people. Journey mapping exercises used to be one-and-done research tasks that provided a static overview of the customer. Today, customer behaviour shifts too quickly for this to be a sufficient long-term solution. Businesses that truly want to create customer-centric products need to realise that journey mapping is now a continuous monitoring task which necessitates the implementation of new technologies.
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