How Changing Customer Expectations Impact Strategy Execution

There are many reasons why leading strategic execution is so difficult and, in most cases, causes companies to fail. The typical culprits of poor execution are a lack of a good strategy, poor communications, poor change management, not enough resources, and overall bad leadership.

Unfortunately for many leaders who will realize it before it’s too late, changing customer expectations is usually far down on the list and not something most leaders pay attention to. However, I think understanding changing customer expectations is critical to immediate and long-term success.

Your customers implicitly think you are in the middle of executing an incredible, game-changing, disruptive digital strategy that will exceed their high expectations. In today’s competitive business environment, customers expect a strong investment in digital and every business to have a minimum level of “digital parity.”

With digital parity being just the starting point, it is easy to understand why more than 75% of customers believe it is easy to take their business to other value providers easily switching from brand to brand to find a value proposition that meets their current and specific needs.

Recently, I conducted a Business Leadership workshop on effectively handling change within organizations and the role changing customer expectations have on leadership and business results. Here are three of the top challenges our research presented as drivers of change and disruption:

Customers are demanding connected, omnichannel journeys so your business better be agile and able to deliver value through a matrix

“Please hold while I connect you to the Customer Service department” is no longer acceptable for most customers.  Your customers want and expect connected, seamless processes that are fast and efficient.  If your enterprise, including the supply chain, aren’t in the process of being connected to deliver the ultimate value proposition your business will be in trouble very soon.

Customers are demanding personalization and customization for everything (even if your business is the low price or the innovation product play)

In this disrupted business environment:

• Customers don’t want to be treated like a cell in a spreadsheet; they want to be treated like humans with needs and feelings.
• Customers want to know that you know how they will consume the products/services and that you will continue to improve the entire experience.
• Customers want tailored relationships and experiences based on past interactions. For example, if you buy a book on Amazon, each time you come back to Amazon it suggests a new book based on past purchases.
• The more you personalize the value proposition, the more customers are likely to make a purchase.

Customers expect continuous innovation and investment in R&D and processes to keep them better connected to you and your value proposition

In this disrupted business environment:

• Customers who consider themselves innovators will only buy from customers they think are innovative companies.
• Customers who consider themselves innovators expect a faster pace of new and innovative products.  In other words, Apple launched new smartphones every two years until their customers demanded new models every year.
• Customers want to be impressed with game-changing innovations; incremental innovations won’t cut it.
• Customers are expecting that Artificial Intelligence will revolutionize the customer experience and that leading, innovative customers are already working on their big disruptions.

In summary, it’s never been more important to understand your customer’s expectations and adapt your strategy to meet their needs. No matter what your value proposition is, customers are raising the stakes and if you can’t keep up, you are out of business.