Pillar 3 of the Customer-Centricity Maturity Model
People & Skills
This area focuses on what type of appreciation your organisation has towards investing in a multi-disciplinary team to help drive an intelligent customer-led user experience improvement programme. It looks at skill sets including user research, UX design, web development, persuasion and copywriting.
The Assessment Points
3.01 Behavioural & User
Research Resource
For any business to become truly customer-centric, they have to invest in 1-1 user research, whether planned and carried out internally or externally.
A specialist in behavioural research working through the end-to-end customer experience provides invaluable insight for improving the end to end customer experience, and they are influential in developing a customer-centric mindset.
3.02 Data & Analytics Resource
Alongside expertise and resources for user research, it is crucial that businesses invest in specialists in web analytics and data analysis.
The more advanced the expertise, the greater levels of insights and stories that will be gained from the behavioural data of the customer experience, in turn leading to stronger, more valid insights from which to make business decisions.
3.03 UX Design Resource
UX designers are responsible for the interactions that users experience online.
Harnessing a team of experienced UX specialists who use quantitative and qualitative data to inform new experiences (in a collaborative team dynamic), leads to an increased probability that new experiences will significantly impact user behaviour and performance metrics.
3.04 Development Resource
Investing in specialists in both front-end and back-end development are integral to realising the growth potential of being a customer-centric organisation.
Considered investment in front-end and back-end development will remove the friction hindering user experience improvements and allow for the creation of more innovative new UX designs with a greater chance of commercial impact.
3.05 Experienced Lead Strategist
Alongside having a senior, influential champion (ideally one of the C-suite), a business needs an experienced lead strategist who will spearhead the delivery of customer experience improvement strategy.
This person not only oversees the customer experience roadmap, but coordinates all divisions engaged in the process and feeds the continuous stream of data and customer learnings around a business.
3.06 Human-Computer Interaction & Persuasion
Understanding why people do what they do and why they make decisions are crucial skills which enhance any business striving to improve its customer experience.
There are a wide range of techniques which can be used to engage visitors, persuade visitors, delight visitors and overall, provide visitors with an exceptional customer experience which they will tell others about.
3.07 Persuasive Copywriting
The words people read about a companies products and services play a highly significant role in determining whether they will choose to become one of their customers. From social media adverts and magazine adverts through the landing pages and product pages, communication through words influences decisions.
Companies that have people within the organisation that understand persuasive copywriting have a competitive advantage, as this is still a very undervalued area of marketing.
3.08 Accessibility Resource
Accessibility Specialists are integral to helping an organisation meet the needs of and be usable by as wide as audience as possible, including customers with disabilities.
Embedding accessibility and inclusive design practices will enable the organisation to provide an exceptional customer experience, delivering experiences that are inclusive and engaging.
