This 4-part series of articles is based on ideas from my book The Center of Experience, in which I explore the relationship between customer experience and employee experience, and how organizations can achieve transformative results by embracing a customer-centric culture.

Let’s explore the 5 stages of experience maturity.

Stage 1: Analyze

At this stage, an organization has functional competence, so is able to provide good products and services, but is only beginning to evaluate enhancing experience. Employees have the tools, environment, and technology to perform assigned tasks, but emphasis is not placed on their well-being or experience.

Customers are able to purchase products and services from the organization, and when successful, the experience is positive.

We can then look at the three primary categories of maturity as defined below:

Competence

There is functional competence within the organization in providing customers with good service, but teams and initiatives are siloed, and contributions or ROI are not immediately apparent. EX and CX are not embraced as keys to organizational success. When good employee experience or customer experience happens, it is not necessarily intentional.

Awareness

There is awareness within the organization that improved experience for both employees and customers could be beneficial but lack of consensus or understanding of how or where to start.

Action

CX and EX teams are taking ad hoc action, if any; there is a disconnect between experience team(s) and the rest of the organization, if any communication exists.

Stage 2: Experiment

At this second stage, an organization has begun trials to improve EX and CX. The organization begins to implement initiatives to engage employees with varying degrees of effectiveness. Experience and/or marketing teams are performing tests and optimizing portions of the customer experience.

Competence

At the experiment stage in maturity, there is activity related to innovation in both employee and customer experience, but there is not yet a cohesive strategy that ties this work together. In other words, customer experience initiatives and teams are having success in a silo, and so are employee experience teams, but the two are not connected in a meaningful way.

Awareness

At this stage, the organization has a clearer vision of how enhancing CX and EX can measurably improve key metrics in theory (or possibly in very small pilot projects), but it is not ready to commit large amounts of resources to do so. Experience enhancement initiatives are being created but have not made it to production yet.

Action

Proofs of concepts and trials are implemented. Experience team(s) and the rest of the organization are still disconnected.

Stage 3: Influence

In the influence stage, an organization is able to measure engagement from its employees and customers. Employees are provided with processes and methods to make their jobs easier and more satisfying. Interacting and buying from the organization is a positive experience, made easier by processes, environment and technology. Somewhere between stage 2 and 3 is where the “novice” customer experience organizations exist, which, according to a 2019 Hotjar CX survey, comprise about 40% of all companies[i]. Please note that this study only pertains to customer experience and not a combination of both CX and EX.

Competence

EX & CX initiatives are in effect, and are influencing decisions across the organization in a positive way, with visibility to stakeholders across the organization, and demonstrable measures of success.

At this point, customer and employee experience have also been explicitly stated as being key to organizational success.

Awareness

At the influence stage in maturity, the organization has several successes with experience design improvement in production across different lines of business, practice areas and teams. There is increased focus on coordination and sharing of learning between teams.

Action

The organization is proactive in identifying experience-related issues; there is closer coordination between customer experience and employee experience teams and other parts of the organization.

Stage 4: Impact

At this fourth stage in the maturity model, an organization and their customers are starting to feel results in their investments. Employees are actively contributing and feel valued by their employer and satisfied with their work.

Customers feel rewarded and valued and become frequent customers, recommend to others, and post positive reviews. Between stages 3 and 4 is where that same Hotjar study would peg “competent” companies in CX, which comprise about 38% of all organizations.

Competence

At this stage, the organization has a good understanding of how investments in EX and CX can contribute to the bottom line based on some recent successes.

Awareness

The organization has a strategy to incorporate enhanced experience in its major initiatives, and has some incidental success with some experience improvements. There is an understanding that operational streamlining is required but lacking definition of it.

We call this stage impact because stakeholders within the company are starting to see meaningful progress and returns from their investments in experience.

Action

Despite being proactive in identifying solutions, the organization is still mostly reactive in its solutions, and due to lack of repeatable processes, the organization finds itself re-inventing approaches to improving experience, losing significant time in implementation and organization, high cost-to-benefit ratio.

Stage 5: Transform

In the final stage, an organization is actively integrating its CX and EX efforts for the growth of the organization. Employees are actively improving the company, and are able to collaborate with customers to improve their organization. Customers are actively involved in providing feedback and ideas to improve the company’s products and services.

This is the area where the same Hotjar study would consider an organization to be “mature” in CX, which comprises only 12% of companies. Remember, this also doesn’t include how both EX and CX are combined into Brand Experience. While there isn’t a standardized measurement of that just yet, based on my experience, the percentages of mature and competent companies would be lower if both were factored together.

Competence

At the transform stage in maturity, the organization is reaping the benefits of EX and CX being priorities. Strategic initiatives include experience as a key component and design element.

Awareness

A sharp focus on employee and customer experience as a competitive advantage is embedded throughout the whole organization. The company is continuously looking for ways to further improve, expand and invest in processes, tooling, and skills.

Action

Continuous improvement is occurring across both customer and employee experience; teams are working together and there is alignment across CX and EX strategy, design, and implementation.

When an organization can align employee and customer experience and get to reach the Transform phase in all three categories, it truly starts to achieve Return on Experience (ROX).

As we discussed previously under the measurement component section, this return can be seen through indicators such as an improvement in Net Promoter Score (NPS) from customers and Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) in employees, as well as more tangible results such as the following:

• Improved employee retention

• Improved employee productivity

• Increased customer loyalty

• Increased word of mouth referrals

The experience maturity model within the Center of Experience identifies ten elements that require an organization’s attention. An organization needs to improve balance across these elements to deliver the accelerated transformation that unified EX & CX can deliver.

In the next article in this series, we’re going to explore the 10 elements of experience maturity.

This 4-part series of articles is based on ideas from my book The Center of Experience, in which I explore the relationship between customer experience and employee experience, and how organizations can achieve transformative results by embracing a customer-centric culture.