The Role of Leadership in Driving a Unified Customer Experience

There’s no question that customer experience (CX) matters to organizational success. Brands that prioritize customer experience are 60% more profitable than their less CX-obsessed counterparts. It makes sense when you consider that customers are 2.4 times more likely to stay when companies solve their problems quickly. And while there’s been a lot of talk about AI chatbots solving everyone’s CX woes (the verdict is still out on that one), there’s one crucial element to driving a consistent, unified customer experience (UCX) that’s often forgotten about — leadership involvement. Without it, there can be no UCX or the incredible benefits it offers to brands across product and service lines. 

UCX ensures customers feel like they’re always interacting with the same company at every stage of their customer journey, no matter the channel or purpose of the interaction. In action, UCX includes:

• Unified branding, messaging, and culture
• Consistent access to company people and resources
• Easy communication channels
• As little friction as possible

It also requires operational excellence in the customer journey. Lance Mohring, Field CTO at 3Pillar, elaborates. “It’s enabled by appropriately governed data sharing between marketing, sales, support, and operations layers to ensure things like customer context, history, needs, and personalization are in place.” Overall, the brand voice, core messaging, look, feel, and personality should remain the same, no matter the customer’s interaction or communication channel. 

So, why does UCX matter? It increases customer satisfaction by providing a consistent interaction between the customer and the company across various touchpoints. 

Consistency briefs trust and loyalty as customers realize they’re working with a reliable, cohesive brand. Ultimately, UCX isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s a must-have, right up there with a strategic price point and high quality product or service. Case in point: 73% of customers consider experience a crucial factor in their purchasing decisions (ranking it  just behind price and product quality). UCX is truly about meeting customer expectations. 

On the topic of customer satisfaction, one of the most important benefits that UCX provides is the reduction of friction and confusion for customers. Seamless interactions mean fewer obstacles experienced by customers, which leads to greater satisfaction. Customers who encounter impediments to the purchasing process will usually switch to a competitor who has less friction in their CX. 

And as the customer experience is rooted in consistency, it reinforces brand messaging, identity, and values, which drives stronger brand recognition and loyalty. That type of customer retention helps reduce customer acquisition rates as well. 

By prioritizing UCX, brands can build and strengthen relationships with customers, leading to high rates of satisfaction and loyalty and increased revenue. 

UCX isn’t something that exists and operates and siloes, relegated to the User Experience (UX) department. At its core, it’s a strategic brand initiative. Thus, leadership alignment and support is paramount. To drive UCX, leaders must take a visionary role, articulating a clear vision of what the experience should look like. That includes communicating how UCX aligns with the business strategy and where it can help contribute to achieving organizational goals. It also includes defining measurable objectives for the initiative and making sure all company departments are aligned with the overall vision for UCX in action. 

A big part of what leadership will focus on when driving UCX initiatives is the development of a UCX-ready culture. This cultural shift will include prioritizing CX and continuous improvement. Furthermore, UCX should be woven into company values and operations to further build a customer-centric mindset. 

Leadership must also prioritize Leadership Experience (LX) and Employee Experience (EX) as they are significant components of and direct influences on UCX. Effective LX equips leadership to inspire and guide teams in support of UCX objectives. Positive EX, on the other hand, drives a motivated, engaged workforce that can deliver UCX. 

As leadership evangelizes the UCX strategy across the organization, it’s essential to advocate for resources, technology, processes and investments to implement, sustain, and refine the initiative. Likewise, at the tactical level, leadership will need to establish clear feedback channels and measure objectives to evaluate performance. The UCX strategy will be adjusted and refined as needed to ensure success. 

Let’s take a closer look at the role of leadership in driving UCX and essential best practices for success. Lance recommends centering your UCX strategy on these four tactics. 

1. Set measurable goals aligned with the business strategy

This strategy looks like defining specific objectives related to the desired outcomes of the UCX initiative. Some examples include increasing customer retention rates, improving the Net Promoter Score (NPS), or reducing customer acquisition costs. These goals should be communicated across the organization so that everyone is aware. Furthermore, it’s worthwhile to explain the role each department plays in achieving these goals. 

2. Unify Brand, Design Languages, and Messaging

If you’re going to create a unified experience for customers, you have to have consistent branding, design, and messaging. Leadership should have a significant stake in the development of a cohesive brand identity. If your brand messaging and design are already cohesive, it’s wise to ensure you’ve standardized design languages and messaging as well so there are no inconsistencies across channels. 

3. Identify and Unify Communication Channels

With this tactic, leadership should identify all of the channels through which customers interact with the company. It’s important to prioritize the unification of data and categorize and integrate communication channels. That way, customer interactions are consistent and customers can access the information they need. Lance also advises plotting the data and messaging on the customer journey and auto-assigning the ideal resources for the need and part of the journey. 

4. Measure Results and Adjust/Refine Strategies

Finally, ensure that you are regularly measuring and evaluating your UCX strategies. Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to assess your objectives and how well you’re achieving them. This effort may include analyzing the sentiment of customer feedback and performance data. Based on this information, you can make data-informed decisions that will get you closer to your goal of delivering a UCX. 

Ultimately, leadership involvement is make-it-or-break-it for driving UCX. As you work to implement a consistent experience for customers across all channels, you’ll likely uncover areas for improvement. It can be challenging to identify which changes will deliver the greatest value. We can help. 3Pillar’s UX assessment zeroes in on high-value opportunities and includes actionable next steps so you can deliver the best experience possible.