Like it or not, the success of your customer experience initiatives depends on business technology.  

That’s because the quality of customer interactions with your brand results from a complex system of interdependent people, processes, policies, and technology that we call the “customer experience ecosystem.” And just like a natural ecosystem, when your CX ecosystem gets out of balance, every part of it suffers — especially your customers.

An increasing number of CIOs, enterprise architects, and application developers get this. That surprises many of the marketers and other business people I talk to on a regular basis. But it shouldn’t: Business technology leaders are ideally placed to see the connective technology tissue needed to create a standout omnichannel customer experience.

To help shed insight into the complex interplay of customer experience and business technology, I recently sat down with Stephen Powers, Forrester vice president and research director serving application development and delivery professionals, to record a podcast. You can hear it in its entirety below (episode 1) or choose topic-sized cuts (episodes 2, 3, and 4).

You can also download the podcasts through iTunes and subscribe to Forrester's podcast series

And if you want to learn more about how to define, implement, and manage customer experience, just follow this link to our website dedicated to customer experience, Why Customer Experience? Why Now?

Enjoy!

Episode 1 (Note: This is the full episode; the other three are shorter cuts of the same conversation.)

Title: Building A Better Customer Experience

Description: You can’t improve the customer experience simply with a slogan. It requires systematically breaking down the different ways customers interact with your brand, fixing what’s broken, measuring the results, and making a compelling business case for customer experience enhancements.  

Running time: 28:07

 

Title: Balancing Business Demands With IT Capability To Deliver Great Customer Experience

Description: You can’t “buy a box of customer experience.” Business executives need to understand the specific areas where so-called customer experience management vendors can help move the needle on performance.

Running time: 11:46

 

Title: Outside In Thinking About Customer Experience

Description: Great customer experience is the result of an orchestrated customer experience ecosystem that includes many functions that customers will never see.

Running time: 10:42

 

Title: Do You Need A Chief Customer Officer?

Description: Many firms are putting a single executive in charge of the customer experience. But that’s not necessarily the right model for every organization.  

Running time: 7:32