May 19, 2010
Stat of the week: the leader gap
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This week we look at perceptions about customer experience held by different leadership levels of the organization. You’ve heard about the digital gap. The income gap. The political gap. Is this the leadership-customer-focus gap?
Check out these percentages:
72% of C-level leaders in our study said there is a definition of customer experience that is well understood across their organizations.
We found no such declaration among director level leaders, where 52% said there is no definition of customer experience that is well understood across the troops.
When we cut the data a by functional area as a comparison, we found that senior leaders surpass even leaders from sales and marketing functions in reporting the a widely understood customer experience.
Is what we have here a failure to communicate? Weak alignment on strategy? On values? Imagine if the the groups held common understanding.
In a comment on our very first stat of the week, Tim Sanchez wondered what front line employees would say. As our study covered 644 leaders at manager level or above, we can’t quite answer Tim’s question, but this week’s stat doesn’t offer much optimism that we would find front line employee perceptions in sync with the top team.
What would you like to know about which – and how – leaders are using customer experience to improve business performance?
Employees have no idea about what it is or how to measure it. I don’t think it is possible to manage consistent improvement of Customer Experience without it’s measurement. We study and measure delta between Customer Expectations and Customer Experience with a large number of specific products, and it is always a surprise on our customer’s faces when they are exposed to our findings, as this definition is very ambiguous in their minds.
Hi Linda,
Unfortunately, it isn’t surprising. I see this daily.
I think part of it is due to people not wanting to deliver bad news to their management. But, more importantly, I doubt that executives really want to hear what their employees think. And this is especially true when it means looking at anything other than short-term (and short-sighted) profits.
Cheers!
Eric
Interesting point, Gregory. Measurement of customer experience – however it is defined – could go a long way to bridge the leader gap. It is human nature to work on the things that get positively reinforced – so I’d add that measurement should accompany – and support -what gets reinforced.
Appreciate your thoughts.
LCI
[...] recent statistic from Linda Ireland’s Customer Experience for Profit blog revealed that 72% of C-level leaders claim there is a definition of customer experience that [...]