Dennis Wakabayashi On Navigating Organisational Silos For Ultimate CX
The biggest challenge organisations face in achieving the ultimate customer experience often lies within their internal structures and practices.
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What is the biggest challenge stopping a brand from attaining ultimate CX? The most significant roadblock is often internal. Organisational silos that impede a unified customer experience, says Dennis Wakabayashi, the Global Voice of CX.
Picture this: In a bustling company, a customer service team faced a rather tricky predicament. They lacked real-time access to inventory data, which, as it turned out, led to some unfortunate miscommunication and unmet expectations among their customers.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the office, the marketing department was enthusiastically crafting campaigns that made bold promises about exciting new product features and benefits. However, there was a tiny hiccup – the product team hadn’t quite managed to implement these features just yet. This created a noticeable disconnect in the overall customer experience.
Tackling this challenge required an integrated strategy harmonising all customer touchpoints and gathering real-time feedback for immediate action. According to Wakabayashi, long-term metrics, such as Customer Lifetime Value, should be prioritised to measure the effectiveness of these strategies. Advanced CRM systems, analytics dashboards, and Customer Experience Management platforms are critical tools for navigating these complex waters successfully.
Root causes of silos
- Departmental Rivalries
- Lack of Effective Communication
- Absence of a Unified Vision and Strategy
- Not Measuring Progress
Silos instigator #1
A conventional hierarchical organisational structure often leads to the division and isolation of various job functions, creating significant challenges in delivering a cohesive customer experience. In contrast, newer companies adopting a flatter organisational architecture tend to excel in providing seamless customer experiences.
“If you find yourself in a traditional corporate hierarchy, the best thing you can do is create councils, advisory boards, or cross-functional teams supported by the organisation that have a little more leeway to bring teams together to create seamless customer experiences.”
Silos instigator #2
Incentives with an organisation often need to be more aligned, compounded by your corporate hierarchy. “A team with the incentive or the KPI to get customer acquisition has a very different agenda than those trying to get retention. So when we look at how teams are ‘incented,’ it often is the root cause of why people don’t get along or work together to create customer experiences that are new and innovative.”
How do you fix this?
Wakabayashi recommends an incentive map. “Before starting a customer experience initiative, we take the organisational chart, identify the people in the chart who are crucial to the success of our CX program, and then just label each of their incentives. And where incentives are misaligned, we escalate that to the leader above the two people and have a conversation about ways to align or create incentives that unite the teams to common goals.”
Silos instigator #3
Let’s address the issue of technology disparity. Organisations implement technology solutions gradually, spanning many decades, and not all of these technologies seamlessly integrate with one another. In such situations, it becomes crucial to pinpoint specific areas for enhancing the customer experience.
“Find out if there are middleware technologies that will bridge the gap between your data sets. And by doing that, introducing these third party bridges to data, you can get metrics that are aligned to the incentives and to the organisational structure that push you towards better CX.”
Metrics to help seal the silos
Wakabayashi recommends three critical approaches for measuring the breakdown of silos within your organisation: Cross-departmental communication metrics, alignment objectives scorecard, and a customer feedback loop.
Ask the right questions
- How many meetings are you having?
- How many cross-departmental leaders are attending?
- How often do we meet?
“These sorts of communication measurements that are internal to your teams, give everyone around you a snapshot or a point of reference towards the change you’re introducing to your organisation.”
Second, the alignment of the objectives scorecard. “We want to have a scorecard with all of our KPIs that are aligned to the team or cross-functional goals. So, sharing a set of metrics, monitoring them where we have commonalities, and seeing the progress or lack of progress gives us an insight into how well the team delivers seamless customer experiences.”
KPIs could include:
- Cross-departmental project success rates
- Customer Satisfaction Scores (CSAT) pre and post-integration efforts
- Employee Satisfaction Scores related to inter-departmental collaboration
Fostering organisational change and collaboration among teams is a perspective to consider when measuring KPIs related to customer experience. Additionally, it’s essential to emphasise the significance of a customer feedback loop. This allows us to gain insights into how customers react to individual and collective initiatives over a specific time frame.
The looming barriers to the elimination of silos
Meanwhile, there are potential problems that organisations might encounter as they work to eliminate these silos. “When we think about breaking down silos, we also have to mitigate the risks of breaking them down.”
“People love innovation, but they hate change. To overcome the fear, the uncertainty, or the doubt of change, hold regular workshops to bring teams together to educate, enlighten, and prepare them for the road ahead. By communicating proactively, you can decrease the amount of anxiety that your organisation has towards change, and create a pathway that leads people to a common goal.”
Training opportunities
- Cross-Training: Educate employees on the roles and challenges of other departments.
- Team Building: Activities that promote inter-departmental relationships.
- Leadership Programs: For rising stars to learn the ropes of integrated strategy and execution.
By addressing the challenges head-on, organisations can break down silos and move closer to achieving the ultimate customer experience, where every touchpoint aligns seamlessly to meet customer needs and expectations. In Wakabayashi’s words, “Make people feel safe, find smart ways to do proof of concepts, and bridge the data.”
Catch Dennis Wakabayashi’s keynote address on “Empathy Echoes: The Human Tapestry of Global Connection” at the CX NXT Summit, at Address Dubai Marina, Dubai on 15 and 16 November.
