I happen to be working on customer experience project in another industry (telecommunications) and needed a way to better explain how marketing and the service profit chain work in tandem over time to shift a business from mediocre to a branded customer experience. The gap has been finding the “right” version of a customer experience maturity model. I have used the capability maturity model on several occasions, but this is too science-geeky and leaves out a dimension which I call the “art of emotion”.
Here are some variations on the customer maturity model theme.
- First out of the gate is Peppers and Rodgers Customer Experience Maturity Monitor. If you do nothing else, take a look at the framework on page 12 of the deck as it’s also a great framework for considering how you integrate social media into your marketing and customer experience approach. Refer to page 31 of the presentation for the five step framework. (Here’s another version of the presentation).
- Next, is the art with a bit of science approach, Bruce Temken’s and Forrester’s version. Page 8 of the linked pdf shows the framework and has a very useful chart showing how components of customer experience management evolve over time.
- Then our friends in the UK (one of the reasons I am huge fan of Chartered Institute of Marketing) have blended art, science, and process in their Chordant/Cranfield University version called the Cx Maturity Model.
- An older version by Ken Rudin, called the Customer Intimacy Maturity Model, actually may have been ahead of its time in suggesting emotional connect was needed.
The gap in these models for me, based on the Service Profit Chain theory, is they all lack the principles and frameworks that help you consider employee and organization maturity in parallel with the CEMM. While not designed for this purposed I ran across an employee framework based on the concepts of meeting Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and building empowerment that I consider very adaptable to help close the employee gap.
By the way, one of the best level 5 “destination” approaches I have seen is Barclays credo cards. The credo cards take the level 5 destination and create solid and coach-able pictures of the desired values and behaviours.
Are you using a framework? How mature is your organization?
Hug a customer!
