Marie Kondo’ing Your Customer Experience Projects

I still have my sophomore year of high school yearbook. I know I don’t need it, I know it doesn’t fully “spark joy,” but I can’t seem to get rid of it.

In my personal life I’m not good at de-cluttering but when it comes to speaking with clients about their customer experience (CX) projects, I’m practically Marie Kondo.

Last year at this time, I was sitting down with a CIO of a midsize bank that was working on 14 different CX projects at once. The collection of projects made it impossible to focus. Fortunately for him, Gartner has its own CX Kondo-squad that goes well beyond my personal expertise.

Analysts Michael Chiu and Ed Thompson have developed research on “How to Prioritize Customer Experience Projects.” (Only accessible to Gartner clients.)

Chiu and Thompson say organizations can begin to de-clutter their CX projects by prioritizing based upon six dimensions:

1. The benefit to the customer: will this project improve satisfaction, loyalty and/or advocacy?
2. Risk avoidance: does this project increase or decrease the risk to the organization?
3. Strategic alignment: to what degree does this project align to our organization’s existing internal or external strategies?
4. Ease of implementation: how easy would it be to complete this project?
5. Financial ROI/direct payback: what revenue gains or cost savings will we see?
6. Consequences of inaction: if we don’t do this, how severe will the resulting outcomes be?

They then recommend scoring each category, for example:

Clients who are ready to de-clutter their CX projects should reach out to Marie Kondo Chiu and Thompson to schedule an inquiry and start bringing joy to CX management.