For centuries, explorers have used the North Star for navigation into unknown lands and open seas, due to its unwavering position in our sky. Leveraging this fixed and unchanging light in the night has enabled humanity to connect and understand the boundaries of our planet.
Modern businesses also voyage into an ocean of transformative spaces, which shift and accelerate in waves. Balancing the needs of your consumers, employees, stakeholders, and industry can easily become unmooring without a constancy of direction.
Often, brands devote their time and resources to designing and determining a roadmap, with detailed milestones and measurements that are critical to what they need to accomplish. But do you know where your company is going? When the environments are as shifting as our modern world, are you keeping your eye on the horizon? Why is it important to arrive there? And what happens if you get lost?
As we strive to grow business performance while delivering exceptional employee and customer experiences, we shouldn’t let our destination get lost amid the journey.
Find your North Star
All partnerships, programs, and project teams determine direction confidently when they are led toward a purposeful destination by a North Star – an overarching goal or philosophy that is clearly defined and communicated to all team members.
Your North Star will likely evolve over time, so it’s crucial to always have this end-goal in mind, and to ensure teams are united in their efforts to achieve it.
Defining an overarching customer experience (CX) philosophy to guide your employees and shape your brand personality is a complex endeavor, but you don’t have to do it on your own.
At TTEC, we help brands craft, shape, and refine the right CX strategy, from foundation and exploration to navigation. Our CX consultants work with you throughout the process to dig deeply into your customer journey and employee engagement – along with the tools, training, and processes you need to embrace your North Star.
Follow your North Star
The term “consultant” often refers to specialists in an industry or in organizations who are essentially fixers. They’re typically deployed once brands have noticed gaps or pain points in their consumer experience. Consultants are traditionally brought in to quickly identify and help implement fixes.
At TTEC, we see a greater vision beyond the immediate iterations. We make space for innovation. We become true partners with our clients, helping them deploy best-in-class technology and people to exceed their CX goals.
Our team of trusted advisors and solutions experts are skilled at course correction, yet they are also excellent resources who can help you set your course. Among other things, together we will:
- Build trust and shared vision. A North Star is fixed and does not waver, so it must be well defined. Ask questions to identify what is most important. Dig deeply to unearth the essential values and principles. Understand the outcomes and objectives to find the patterns.
- Create space for ideation. Once our navigation guidance is aligned, TTEC ensures a foundation for collaborative design and development. Working together, we’ll consider different perspectives and prioritize to establish meaningful clarity.
- Clear the path. Consider your North Star a method to reduce bottlenecks, distractions, and decision obstacles. We’ll assess and reconsider what does not serve the vested outcomes.
- Accelerate progress. It’s key to promote projects with meaningful impact and complexity, and to foster teams that can anticipate, adjust, and realign effectively.
- Ensure alignment and foster innovation. A North Star should unite teams. It should promote sound navigation that inspires everything from continuous improvement to the art of the possible.
Refine Your North Star
CX is the responsibility of every member of an organization. By defining your CX expectations through a clear North Star, you empower your team to demonstrate those values at every level and in every interaction.
As your organization delivers on the vision, focus will sharpen and evolve. By revisiting and refining your North Star, you ensure a connected experience for your employees, your customers, and every partner on your progressive path.
Despite the turbulence of our environment or the unknown influences that may appear, the guiding light of a North Star enables your company to steer with agility and provide increasingly positive outcomes.
