Strategy is good for the customer

Just want to preface by saying this is my first self-published posting here. Thanks, Jim, for carrying the burden up to now.

I was in a training course the other day, focusing on management practices’ impact on the customer experience. One aspect we discussed was the tension some managers across industries and companies face between sudden must-do projects and the customer experience.

It occurred to me then – so I whipped out my sidekick to capture this thought – that this sort of thing could be minimized by the practice of strategy.

In most cases, the projects that catch you unawares originate from a sudden business need, yet these are the ones that ironically jeopardize the customer experience the most, with a capacity to seriously ruffle those very people needed to make and keep your business healthy. The customer has likely not made it into the plan as a driver.

Aside from the focus on business objectives, sudden projects usually also suffer from extremely challenged timelines. So there become both user and operational challenges in executing, which can influence each other for the worse. For example, the constraints of altering the technology in such a short window may force decisions that even further jeopardize the experience.

These projects may legitimately arise out of sudden changes to the competitive landscape, market, or other variables. It’s a dynamic world, and only the future dinosaurs don’t evolve with it. But this imperative doesn’t change the fact that these projects are often executed poorly, to the detriment of business outcome and customer satisfaction. Like Athena out of Zeus’ head, they often spring to life fully grown and ready to wreak havoc, only remaining to be inserted into the customer experience with as (say a payer here) little disruption as possible.

Web strategy combines deep analysis of both user imperative and business objectives together at the start. By applying this practice briefly at the outset, the plan can be shaped – even modified – to fit the needs of the customer. Instead of being a constituency about to be victimized by the plan, the customer becomes a part of it. This influence of the customer on the business can make all the difference when it’s time to get this done.

So even though I stated earlier that the customer has to be subordinated (or at least filtered) in the strategy process, this same methodology can guarantee *more* focus on the customer at the other end of the spectrum, where they may be overlooked.

Whoops, the class teacher is looking at me like she expects some kind of response. What were we talking about?