Employers must first know what their workforce looks like compared with the labor market and inequities based on demographics. You need to identify how a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workforce can aid in enhancing customer experience.
In my CX Quick Tips interview with Omar L. Harris. I discussed How Equity, Diversity, And Inclusion Enhances CX.
You cannot make Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion a trend but rather a modus operandi of how you do your business. It’s about how you truly enhance CX because you have to reflect the customer.
Enhancing Customer Experience Through Customer Reflection
To reflect the customer means that if I’m doing a business with a certain community, that community has to be represented in my CX department.
Otherwise, how can I possibly connect with that community if I don’t have these people in my team and give them the voice to speak?
It means that I do not really include their voices when I think about strategies for customer engagement.
Sundar Pichai once said, “a diverse mix of voices leads to better discussions, decisions, and outcomes for everyone.”
To enhance customer experience, you have to represent the community’s diversity and not just one particular group. The organization must set specific goals related to DE&I based on the company’s strategic objectives.
Usually, the best way for you to make sales is using a variety of nationalities, ethnicities, races, backgrounds, values, beliefs, etc.
In my view, the more you represent that in your organization internally, the better equipped you are for enhancing customer experience. Merge the company and the customer you want to serve.
If you are looking for referral, retention, and continual relationships, the level of importance of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion increases dramatically.
Even if you are transactional and you are not trying to get a relationship with your customers by any case necessary, that’s a mistake.
The International Labour Organisation stated that “organizations with inclusive business cultures and practices are 57.8% more likely to improve their reputations..”
Enhancing Customer Experience Through Customer Relationships
Whoever owns the customer relationship is the one who owns to win at the end of the day. You want to be close to the customer, as close as you possibly can be.
The first thing is to be close to your customers, and the next is to represent them. Whatever your customer base cares about, you should also care about as an organization.
It is not enough to give lip service to it, and you have to engage
I help with Digital Growth Strategies. The issue of who owns the customer relationship is actually one of those particular areas that are getting a lot of attention because of the massive platforms.
Amazon, Space book, does space book really own your customer relationships or is it LinkedIn.
In a bid to enhance customer experience, a Forbes Insights Survey noted that 65% of senior executives said recruitment of diverse employees was their top priority.
Who Owns The Employee Relationship In Equity, Diversity, And Inclusion?
Who owns the E, the D, and the I? The Chief of Equity and Diversity is a post that is becoming very popular, which I find to be a mistake.
Does an organization really need some special individual to tell you what makes sense for the business? You should not need it; it is what managers and directors should be doing.
Your leadership development and training cover such issues. It would help if you treated employees equitably. It would be best if you also capitalized on equity; are you leveraging differences.
If you are not really interested in transformation, then having a role or specific person named something isn’t going to do anything.
According to the Boston Consulting Group, companies with more diverse management teams have 19% higher revenue.
Marketing Transition
I’m my view; Digital Marketing is just going to be called marketing in a few years. It’s just for a small period of time that the title will be like that, but actually, it’s just marketing.
Marketing is transforming to online. But because the model is just so face-to-face oriented, you have to create a department to make the transition happen, which I disagree with.
Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion come back to leadership managerial development, what you focus on getting done. This has to continue forever.
This is a miss; the reason why we are talking about E.D.I now it because we didn’t talk about it 20 years ago. It’s something that should have been done already. Because it was missed, now it’s a hot new thing.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, it’s up to the managers and what they believe. What they believe is that difference is the key to innovation.
If you as a manager do not believe it, then having an ED&I person isn’t do anything. You have to learn to manage people who are different from you.
Watch My Video On Enhancing customer experience: How Equity, Diversity, And Inclusion Enhances CX
Please Comment
- What Are People Missing Concerning Equity, Diversity, And Inclusion When It Comes To The Customer Experience?
- How can you merge the company and the customer you want to serve?
- Who owns the employee relationship in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion?
Jim Rembach is the Editor in Chief of the Customer Service Weekly and it’s Podcast host. He is President of CX Global Media and the creator of the Call Center Coach Virtual Leaders Academy. As the host of the Fast Leader Show Podcast, he has interviewed hundreds of experts, authors, academics, researchers, and practitioners on various angles, viewpoints, and perspectives for improving the customer experience. He has held positions in retail operations, contact centers, customer support, customer success, sales, and measured the customer experience. He is a certified Emotional Intelligence practitioner, Employee Retention Specialist, and recipient of numerous industry awards.