Whenever we discuss customer experience development within the team, I often come up with fundamental questions,
such as "Are we delivering a true customer experience?", "Is it integrated?" or "Are all our initiatives merely reactive?"
This type of question is very important because it reflects the growing awareness of the importance of customer experience, not only as an added value, but as an essential part of organizational success.
With the increasing focus on the customer as the center of every development we undertake, practical tools have emerged to help us measure our maturity in this aspect, the most important of which is the Customer Experience Maturity Index.
In this article, I share what it is, why your organization needs it, what its five levels are, its six components, and how you can start your improvement journey based on it.
What is the Customer Experience Maturity Index?
The Customer Experience Maturity Index (CEMI), also known as Customer Experience Maturity Assessment (CEMA), is a framework that shows how far an organization has progressed in building an integrated customer experience. Imagine a five-stage roadmap, starting from the stage of random business-centric interaction and ending with the stage of customer-centric excellence, where customer experience becomes an integral part of every decision the company makes.
Our consultants at Steady Pace Consultancy also define this index as a systematic assessment process that helps organizations understand the sophistication and efficiency of their CX practices, across a range of key areas such as Strategy, Leadership, Culture, Measurement, and Technology.
Why is this assessment important? The importance of this assessment can be identified in five key points:
· Identify strengths and weaknesses
· Identify gaps
· Build a realistic and actionable improvement plan
· Track progress over time
· Build sustainable value over the long term
Why does your organization need this assessment?
"Improving the customer experience" is often talked about as a general concept, but without clear indicators it will be very difficult to measure progress and integration, and this indicator will give you an objective view that will help you determine where your company or organization is on the five levels that we will explain below, and also provide a unified language that all the team understands to help them understand the picture more clearly, and most importantly help you turn individual initiatives into sustainable organizational work.
The five levels of customer experience maturity?
Organizations differ in the way they approach customer experience; some are still trying, while others have reached the stage of delivering a complete and professional experience. To understand this disparity, our consultants at SteadyBase Consulting have developed a special five-stage model that illustrates the level of maturity in customer experience, from the basics to full excellence, and each level reflects the degree of awareness, the tools used, and the integration of efforts within the organization to effectively improve the experience.
Important note: Each organization defines these five levels according to its own "model." Here's the model we use to assess and determine where your company or organization stands today. In terms of customer experience:
1- Business-centric
2- Beginner
3- Intermediate
4- Sophisticated
5- Customer-centric
These are the five levels, but before you know where your company is, we need to clarify what happens at each level, and we'll start from the lowest level to the highest:
Level I: Business Centered
At this level, there are no clear customer experience practices.
Efforts are focused on completing processes and responding to cases without a comprehensive consideration of the beneficiary's expectations.
The second level: Beginner
At this level, some practices are beginning to emerge, but they are still limited and inconsistent.
Customer experience is treated as a separate initiative, rather than an integrated organizational approach.
Third level: Intermediate
At this level, there are clear plans and operational initiatives to improve the customer experience.
However, operationalization is uneven, and practices still lack integration or strategic linkage to performance.
Level IV: Sophisticated
At this level, customer experience is integrated into overall performance, linked to data, and continuous improvement.
Impact is measured based on clear indicators and recurring organizational practices.
Fifth level: Customer Centered
At this level, the highest of all, customer experience becomes part of the organization's culture and organizational direction.
Data and participatory design are used to create sustainable solutions and are linked to transformation and strategic planning.
After learning about the five levels of customer experience maturity, a logical question may come to mind:
"How can I assess my organization's level, and who is responsible for this task?" Does the responsibility for assessment lie solely with the CX department? Or does successful CX require the participation of all departments in the organization for true customer centricity?
How do you know what stage you are in, and why do you need a multidimensional assessment?
Remember the five-stage roadmap we mentioned at the beginning of the article? Now that you understand these levels or five stages, you want to determine where your company is on this map! In order to accurately assess the maturity of the customer experience within your organization, it is not done through a single question, nor through a general questionnaire sent to everyone. It requires an organized, holistic view that covers the core components that make up the entire experience.
At Steady Pace Consultancy, we have developed our digital platform BSure to help organizations implement a comprehensive and thoughtful customer experience maturity assessment by focusing on six key components that are key to understanding the reality of the experience and accurately determining the level of maturity.
6 key components of a customer experience maturity assessment, according to the SteadyBase Consulting model
1. Customer-Centric Culture
· Does the organization's culture truly reflect the customer's priority?
· We assess the extent to which customer-centric values are embedded in employee behavior, training processes, and day-to-day decisions at all levels.
· Teams or organizations responsible for the assessment: Executive Leadership, HR/People Team, Operations, and Frontline/Operations.
· This component encompasses the overall culture, internal values, and daily behaviors related to the customer experience, so it is important to involve more than one entity in the assessment to ensure the vision is comprehensive.
2. Customer Experience Strategy (CX Strategy)
· Is there a clear roadmap for customer experience?
· We ask questions about whether the strategy is written, rolling, supported by senior management, and how it relates to business objectives.
· Teams or organizations responsible for the assessment: Executive Leadership, CX/Strategy Lead, Marketing/Product/Operations, and Marketing/Product/Operations teams
· This component focuses on having a clear, written vision for the customer experience, and the extent to which it is understood and implemented across departments. It is essential to involve senior leadership along with the executive and strategy teams to ensure evaluation from all angles.
3. Organizational Adoption & Accountability
· Is the customer experience a shared responsibility, or is it the sole responsibility of one department?
· We measure how aware each department is of its role, and the level of internal coordination and integration in delivering a unified customer experience.
· Teams or organizations responsible for the assessment: Executive Leadership, HR/People/Ops Leadership, Departmental/Functional Teams.
· This component focuses on the clarity of roles and responsibilities for customer experience within the organization and measures the extent to which there is an organizational model that defines who is responsible for what and how each function contributes to directly supporting the experience. Involving different levels here is necessary to understand the extent of commitment to CX as a shared responsibility within the organization.
4. Voice of the Customer
· How well is the organization able to truly listen to customers?
· We explore the mechanisms for collecting customer feedback, how well it is analyzed, and how quickly it can be turned into tangible improvements.
· Teams or organizations responsible for the assessment: CX/Insight Lead, Marketing, Digital, IT, Operations/Frontline Teams.
· This component focuses on an organization's ability to effectively listen to its customers through multiple channels such as surveys, communications, and call centers. It measures the quality of data collection, how different teams interact with it, and how the results are used to continuously improve the experience.
5. Experience Design & Innovation
· Does the organization rely on innovation in interaction point design?
· We assess the use of design tools, guided experimentation, and continuous testing to improve the journey.
· Teams or organizations responsible for the assessment: CX/Design Lead, Product/UX/IT/Ops teams, Frontline/Customer Service teams.
· This component focuses on an organization's ability to design a thoughtful and integrated customer experience across all interaction points, and its use of design tools, innovation, and continuous improvement. The assessment here requires the involvement of the teams responsible for product development, technical optimization, and user experience, as well as the teams that implement these changes on the ground.
6. Metrics & ROI
· Is the real return on customer experience being measured?
· We focus on the metrics used, the link between customer experience and financial performance, and the extent to which data is used to make strategic decisions.
· The teams or organizations responsible for the assessment: Executive/Strategy Leadership, Customer Experience, Data, and Analytics Teams, CX/Data/Analytics Team, and Department/Ops/Service Leads.
· This component focuses on an organization's ability to measure customer experience outcomes and link them to performance indicators and financial return. The assessment includes the extent to which data is used to make strategic decisions, and the effectiveness of the link between improving the experience and achieving business goals.
Important information before starting the assessment:
Each of the six components is typically assessed using a scale from 1 to 5, with the number reflecting the organization's maturity in that aspect from inception to excellence.
At Steady Pace Consultancy, we tailor a set of precise and targeted questions for each team within the organization, tailored to the nature of your business and the complexity of your organizational structure. For a customized assessment model based on this approach, contact us, and our team will support you in assessing your customer experience maturity.
How does assessment work within the BSure platform?
With BSure, you can create customized customer experience maturity surveys based on the six-component model developed by SteadyBase Consulting.
The platform provides an easy environment for you to create these surveys and route them to different teams within the organization, from executive management to HR, to marketing and support teams, allowing you to collect accurate data from multiple angles.
But here's the most important difference:
If you want a comprehensive analysis and correlate the results to your organization's actual maturity level, SteadyBase Consulting offers you full support, through:
· Designing customized questionnaires that reflect the nature of your business and the composition of your organization, aligned with the six components of customer experience maturity.
· In-depth data analysis based on a proven consulting methodology that compares the performance of each department or team against a certified maturity benchmark.
· A comprehensive executive report that accurately displays your current position, revealing strengths and opportunities for improvement across the various components of the experience.
· Formulate a practical roadmap to help you move from the current stage to more mature stages with clear steps and actionable recommendations.
In conclusion..
In the journey of building a mature and integrated customer experience, it's not enough to know the importance of the experience; you need to measure, understand, and continuously evolve.
With a clear roadmap and an integrated assessment model based on six key components, the next step becomes clearer and more realistic.
With BSure, you can start designing your internal surveys and collecting data from your various departments easily and professionally.
If you're looking for a consulting partner to help you turn data into strategic decisions and provide you with accurate analysis that reflects the reality of your organization, the Steady Pace Consultancy team supports you with practical experience and proven assessment models that have worked in multiple environments.
