Write your CX Vision in two hours

You want to create a customer experience vision.

A CX vision is the foundation of any service culture. It's a shared definition of an outstanding customer experience that gets everyone on the same page.

The one thing stopping you is time.

You cringe at the thought of endless focus groups, exhaustive committee meetings, and months of back-and-forth. All that to create an incomprehensible word salad that nobody likes.

There's another way.

My proven process takes just two hours. The result is a razor-sharp customer experience (CX) vision that everyone can understand and embrace.

In this post, I'm going to explain why:

  • Two months is too long

  • Two hours is just right

Why two months is too long to write a CX vision

I’ve seen a lot of CX vision projects take two months (or longer). Almost all of them have failed to deliver a useful statement.

The two-month approach relegates the CX vision to a side-project.

Committee members get distracted. Executive sponsors aren’t actively involved. Focus group participants wonder what became of their input.

It leads to a lot of talking in circles. People get confused. The plot is quickly lost. Somebody eventually raises the question, "What are we even trying to do?"

The result is a bloated nonsense paragraph.

One company created a CX vision that covered an entire wall in its lobby. The vision was full of big, impressive words that had absolutely no meaning.

Employees weren’t inspired. They viewed it as a symbol of wasted time.


Why two hours is just right to create a CX vision

Imagine your organization on its best day.

One of those magical days when everything goes right. Customers are delighted. Teams are working in concert. Everyone is dialed in.

Those days happen. Maybe not as often as you'd like, but they happen. And it's on those days that you're fulfilling your CX vision. You just have to describe it.

The two-hour meeting is focused on defining that best day in one crystal clear, razor sharp sentence. It takes just two hours because the goal is to articulate what's already there.

Kitchens for Good provides a great example.

It's a nonprofit that runs a culinary apprenticeship program for people who face barriers to traditional employment. The CX vision at Kitchens for Good is also the organization's mission statement.

Here was the old mission:

Kitchens for Good uses food to transform lives and nourish communities by providing people with the skills and support to launch meaningful careers.

It had some good elements, but nobody could remember it. There were too many words and it wasn’t direct. The mission lacked punch.

A cross-functional team of Kitchens for Good employees wrote a new statement in just two hours. This one is much sharper and easy to memorize:

Transforming lives through culinary arts

The new statement represents Kitchens for Good on its best day. Look at this Instagram post announcing the graduation of three apprentices and you'll see it:

How to create a memorable CX vision

A good CX vision has three characteristics.

  • It's simple and easily understood.

  • It's focused on customers.

  • It reflects both who you are now and who you aspire to be in the future.

I explain the complete step-by-step CX vision writing process in this guide. Here's an overview:

Start with a little preparation:

  1. Get input from employees.

  2. Gather existing missions, visions, and other statements.

  3. Assemble a team of 7-10 people.

The meeting itself lasts just two hours. You'll need a highly-skilled facilitator, so decide whether you need to bring in outside help.

During the meeting, focus on word-smithing a CX vision that reflects that “best day.” It should be one simple sentence that describes what the organization already does well and hopes to do more consistently in the future.

The goal is to write something that immediately grabs people.

"This is exactly why I work here!" exclaimed one participant at a vision writing session I facilitated. The new CX vision clearly captured that "good day" essence.

Conclusion

Writing a CX vision should take just two hours. All you need is a little bit of preparation and this step-by-step process.

It’s the foundation of a customer-focused culture. The type of culture where all of your employees are obsessed with service and always seem to do the right thing.

Get a complete service culture guide in The Service Culture Handbook.

Lessons From The Overlook: See the Big Picture

Note: Lessons from The Overlook is a periodic update on lessons learned from owning a vacation rental property in the Southern California mountain town of Idyllwild. It's a hands-on opportunity to apply some of the techniques I advise my clients to use. You can find past updates here.

One small mistake caused the whole relationship to unravel.

My wife, Sally, and I had high hopes when we hired a company to install air conditioning at The Overlook. We were looking to find a reliable partner that could service the HVAC system going forward. Our property manager was interested in a referral to serve the more than 50 homes they managed.

The company's general manager made one small mistake when he wrote the estimate. And when that mistake began to unravel, he focused on the wrong details. It soon became a big problem.

This could have been prevented if the general manager had seen the big picture.

Ecobee thermostat running at The Overlook.

Why you should anticipate problems

Service failures can cause customers to actively consider pulling their business. It takes time and money to make things right. You are almost always better off preventing a problem than having to fix it.

The problem the general manager missed was a simple one.

The thermostat at The Overlook is located in the living room. The heat from the afternoon sun tricked the thermostat into thinking the house was hot, so the air conditioner kept running even though the rest of the house was cold.

He spent a lot of time walking the property when he created the estimate. Many other problems were anticipated. His thoroughness was one of the reasons his company won the business, despite being the most expensive bid.

The one mistake shouldn’t have been a big deal. But the problem got worse.

Installation day was a long one. The crew was hoping to get the system installed in one day, because the company was located an hour away. A second day of work would mean two hours of driving.

They were anxious to leave when they started to check the system. The desire to leave quickly overrode the desire to avoid a second trip.

They missed the problem with the thermostat. What they didn’t realize at the time was a second trip would now be inevitable. A trip that would inconvenience the company, and also inconvenience the customer.

Think about the time and effort you put into solving customer problems. How much could you save in time, money, and customer goodwill if those problems were prevented?

How focusing on the little picture can cost you

Getting stuck on a small detail can dramatically increase your costs. Tiny mistakes become huge service failures that drive customers to your competitors.

Sally and I noticed the problem with our AC system the next day. The living room was warm in the afternoon, so it kept running while the rest of the house was cool.

I called the general manager and talked through the issue. He recommended we install some temperature sensors in other rooms. The thermostat could then take an average of all the temperature readings throughout the house and use the average temperature to decide when to run.

We set a time the following Monday for him to come back and meet Sally at the cabin to install the sensors. That was two hours of driving for him, so an extra cost. The Overlook is a two-hour drive from our house, so Sally spent four hours driving plus the extra time on site—effectively the entire day.

He arrived at The Overlook without the sensors. 

They weren't in stock. Rather than re-scheduling the appointment for a time when he had the sensors on-hand, he decided to move forward with the meeting. Sally didn't find out until she was already at the cabin.

The general manager focused on the little picture—keeping the meeting—and lost sight of the fact that he would have to waste two hours and Sally would have to waste an entire day.

He agreed to order the sensors and come back to install them. We tried to handle that appointment remotely, but the technicians sent to do the work couldn't access our smart thermostat without one of us present. Another failure of anticipation.

The technicians just left the sensors at the cabin, which caused another problem. We had guests coming in a few days, and couldn't just leave equipment lying around. Another failure.

This required another visit for Sally. Another day wasted driving to the cabin and back. The general manager saw his profits whittling away, so he initially balked at meeting Sally at the cabin to help install the sensors. He tried to convince Sally that she could do it on her own in "five minutes." Another failure.

He finally relented and agreed to meet her at the cabin. It ended up taking him, an HVAC expert, two hours to get the system working properly, not the five minutes he had promised.

Time and time again, the general manager missed the big picture:

  • The thermostat is the key to the whole system.

  • We all wanted to minimize time-consuming trips to the cabin.

  • A good impression could lead to 50 or more new customers.

Focusing on the big picture can help you avoid problems and repeat problems. It can also help you understand the true value of making things right instead of worrying about small expenses.

Take a moment to think about the big picture from your customer's perspective. How can you help them achieve their goal?

How to focus on the big picture

Customer-focused companies start with a customer experience vision. This is a shared definition of an outstanding experience that gets everyone on the same page.

On an individual level, I recommend the Thank You Letter challenge. It's a powerful visualization exercise that helps you earn positive customer feedback.

Give yourself more time to see the big picture and anticipate problems by slowing down. It’s counterintuitive, but you can often serve customers faster when you go slow.

Think about our AC system. The general manager could have prevented three extra trips to our cabin for his company, plus two extra trips for us, if he had just taken a few minutes to note the location of the thermostat when he created the estimate.

How to Write Your Vision in a Virtual Meeting

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A new client is headquartered in Seattle, but they have employees all over the west coast and as far east as Denver.

The client recently gathered a team in Seattle to write the company's customer experience vision statement. They used the step-by-step instructions from The Service Culture Handbook to guide them.

It was expensive and time-consuming to fly people to headquarters, but my client felt it was worthwhile. Participants were motivated by the process and felt the result was truly reflective of the company culture.

Many companies don't have the option to bring employees together right now. Travel budgets are being slashed and in-person gatherings are limited. Employees might be located all over the globe where there are extensive restrictions on international travel.

I'm going to show you how to adapt my vision writing process to a virtual meeting. To keep this post shorter, I'll focus on the changes you need to make to the original process.

A group of coworkers participate in a video conference.

What is a customer experience vision?

It is a shared definition of outstanding customer experience that gets everyone on the same page.

Having a customer experience, or CX, vision allows you to align your people, process, and product in the same direction. You can use it to avoid internal conflicts and get everyone focused on delivering a consistently good experience.

Here's an example from Convo, an app-based video relay service for deaf and hard of hearing people:

Our mission is to connect humans through universal communication solutions shaped by visual and cultural experiences.

This statement was created using the process in The Service Culture Handbook. In the book, I called this statement a customer service vision. Over time, I've realized the importance of focusing on the broader customer experience. 

Fortunately, the process for writing a customer experience vision is exactly the same.


Prepare your virtual meeting

The in-person meeting lasts two hours, but I’ve found the virtual meeting should be scheduled for 2.5 hours. It takes a bit more time to get everyone to collaborate virtually.

Aside from adding 30 minutes to the meeting, there are a number of steps you should take beforehand to ensure the meeting is a success.

Some of those steps remain the same, whether you're facilitating virtually or in-person. You can read the full process in this guide, but here's a summary:

  1. Get buy-in from senior leaders.

  2. Identify existing cultural artifacts.

  3. Invite a cross-functional group of 7 to 10 people to participate. (Closer to 7 works better for virtual.)

  4. Send out your one-question survey.

  5. Identify your primary customer.

The one-question survey is sent to all employees who will be covered by the customer experience vision. Participants are invited to provide a free text response to this question:

What would you like customers to think of when they think about their experience?

Virtual meetings require some extra preparation in addition to the steps above:

  1. Video conferencing platform

  2. Shareable documents

  3. Downloadable handout

Video Conferencing Platform

A video conferencing platform is essential so people can see and hear each other, and see the various draft vision documents you create.

There are three basic criteria for selecting a platform:

  1. Compatibility. All participants must be able to access the platform.

  2. Audio/Video: Every participant should join with audio and video.

  3. Sharing: You’ll need the ability to share websites and presentations.

I've facilitated virtual CX vision writing sessions with both Zoom and MS Teams. Both platforms work well and are easy for participants to use.

The biggest difference between the two is Zoom allows you to create breakout rooms. The breakout room feature allows the meeting to run much closer to the original process, where two teams create their own separate draft visions before joining their ideas together in one statement. 

You'll need to make an adjustment to the process if you aren't able to put people in breakout rooms. I'll go over those adjustments in just a moment.

Shareable Documents

It's easy to use white boards or flip chart paper when facilitating an in-person meeting. While many video conferencing platforms have a whiteboard feature, I prefer to use a shareable online document, such as a Google Doc.

Here are some of the advantages:

  • Multiple people can edit the document at once

  • The documents automatically save changes

  • You can easily access and share the documents outside of the meeting

These are the steps to creating your shareable documents:

1. Create all documents ahead of time, so you have them handy while facilitating the virtual session. All of the documents should be blank.

2. Make sure each document is fully shareable so you can share them with participants and access them yourself during the meeting.

3. You'll need just three documents if you'll be using breakout rooms, labeled as follows:

  • Team A

  • Team B

  • Group

Adjustment for no breakout rooms: Create a shareable document for each participant and one for the entire team. I found it easiest to name the documents after each participant while naming the group document "Group." For example:

  • Melanie

  • Elijah

  • Dennis

  • Christina

  • Chloe

  • Freddy

  • Luka

  • Group

Downloadable Handout

Each participant should receive a downloadable handout prior to the meeting. The handout contains important information that participants should have access to throughout the session. 

I ask participants to do one of two things so they can easily see it without leaving the virtual meeting:

  1. Print out the document, or

  2. Display it on a second screen

I've created a Google Doc template that you can use. Here's an overview of the four sections it should contain:

Feedback and artifacts. Include a word cloud image of the one-question survey results. (Refer to this guide for more information.) This section should also contain any existing cultural artifacts, such as the company's mission statement, vision statement, values, brand slogan, or service standards.

Customer profile. Identify your primary customer along with additional examples of customer groups. The CX vision should focus on your primary customer.

Check questions. List the three questions used to quality check a vision statement.

  1. Is it simple and easily understood?

  2. Is it focused on our customers?

  3. Does it reflect both who we are now and who we aspire to be in the future?

Document links. Provide links to all the shareable documents you'll be using in the vision writing session.

Bonus: Participant bios. In larger organizations, the participants in the vision writing meeting might not already know each other. If that's the case, it could be helpful to include very short biographies of each person in the handout. Name and role is good at a minimum. Keep in mind that there is no time built-in to the meeting agenda for introductions.

Preparation Summary

Make sure you complete all of these steps before your vision facilitation meeting:

  1. Get buy-in from senior leaders.

  2. Identify existing cultural artifacts.

  3. Invite a cross-functional group of 7 to 10 people to participate. (Closer to 7 works better for virtual.)

  4. Send out your one-question survey.

  5. Identify your primary customer.

  6. Select a video conferencing platform.

  7. Create shareable documents.

  8. Make the downloadable handout.

  9. Share the video conference login information and downloadable handout with all participants.

Facilitate the vision writing meeting

The meeting to write your customer experience vision should take 2.5 hours. The process for facilitating a virtual meeting is largely the same as the original, with three small changes:

  • Jump In

  • Virtual Facilitation

  • Breakouts vs. No Breakouts

Jump In

Start the meeting right on time and get to business. You will feel time pressure throughout the meeting, and you do not want to add to it. The time pressure is by design, since a little pressure makes it easier to get participants' gut reactions.

Here are a few tips:

  • Start the video conference a few minutes early to welcome people.

  • Begin the meeting promptly, even if people are late.

  • Skip introductions. I’ve found them to be unnecessary and time-consuming.

As a facilitator, part of your role is to keep things moving!

Virtual Facilitation

Running a virtual meeting of any kind takes a little more energy than running that same meeting in person. We lack the visual cues of seeing each other's body language. You can't just grab a marker and draw an illustration on the whiteboard.

Here are a few general tips for effective virtual facilitation:

  • Make sure all participants are visible on their web cameras.

  • Call on people from time-to-time to ensure everyone participates.

  • Keep the meeting moving, but be patient as people work with the technology.

Breakouts vs. No Breakouts

The original process breaks the group into two groups and gives each group 15 minutes to write a draft vision. This can be followed if your video conferencing platform allows you to create breakout rooms, but you'll need to make a few adjustments if this feature is not available.

Breakout Rooms

This works nearly identical to the in-person process. One small change is you should have created three shareable documents prior to the meeting, labeled Team A, Team B, and Group.

Here's what to do when it comes time to divide people into groups to draft vision statements:

  1. Form two teams (A & B) of roughly equal numbers.

  2. Ask each person to open the shareable document for their team (A or B).

  3. Put participants in their breakout rooms and give them 15 minutes to write a draft vision statement.

  4. Participants should type their draft directly onto the shareable document.

  5. Pop into each breakout room from time-to-time to check on progress, answer questions, and remind people of how much time they have remaining.

At the end of the 15 minutes:

  1. Go into each team's shareable document.

  2. Copy their draft vision statement.

  3. Paste the draft vision statement into the Group document.

You can then share the Group document with everyone and resume the normal meeting agenda.

No Breakout Rooms

You'll need to make a few more modifications to the process when the video conferencing platform you're using does not have breakout rooms. I took a remote facilitation idea from leadership expert, Grace Judson, and slightly modified it.

You should have created a shareable document for each participant plus a "Group" document prior to the meeting.

  1. Ask each person to access their own shareable document.

  2. Give participants five minutes to write a draft vision statement.

  3. At the end of the five minutes, copy and paste each person's draft statement into the Group document (keeping the author anonymous).

You can then share the Group document with everyone. Here's where we make one more modification to the facilitation process:

  1. Have participants quickly read all the statements.

  2. Ask people to identify common themes.

  3. Discuss what elements, words, or phrases people particularly like, and why.

The remaining process remains the same.

Need Extra Help?

There's a lot here. The process can seem intimidating at first. But don't worry, I'm here to help!

There's one last danger I want to point out. 

Each step in the process has been carefully chosen and tested. While you might be tempted to make some modifications, experience suggests that's a bad idea.

Why You Need a Customer Experience Vision

Advertising disclosure: This blog participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

There's some confusion between customer service and experience.

I know I've contributed to it. For years, I've talked about having a customer service vision—a shared definition of outstanding service that gets everyone on the same page—as the cornerstone of a customer-focused culture.

Yet I've recently started calling it a customer experience vision.

One reason is I wrote The Service Culture Handbook from a customer service perspective, but the concepts apply equally well to customer experience. Book Authority put the book at #14 on its list of best customer experience books of all time.

Customer feedback has also shaped my thinking. 

I've heard from hundreds of business leaders who are working on their vision statements. The place where most people get stuck is thinking too much about their service, and not enough about their customers' experience.

So here's why you need a customer experience vision, whether you're focused on experience or just customer service.

A person using a marker to connect various business concepts to customer experience.

What's the difference between service and customer experience?

A lot of customers talk about service and experience interchangeably. That's okay for customers, but it's limiting for business leaders.

Customer service is the assistance a company provides to help people buy or use its products. Customer experience is the sum of all interactions a customer has with a company.

I'm writing this from my favorite local coffee shop. The barista provides great customer service by being cheerful, quickly making drinks, and calling people when their drink is ready. 

The coffee shop provides a great experience by having strong wifi, ample seating, and music at just the right level to help you feel vibrant, yet focused. The parking lot outside, which is entirely out of the coffee shop's control, is also part of my experience when I come here.

You’ll miss a lot if you own the coffee shop and you only focus on making sure your baristas are friendly, efficient, and helpful. Here’s a more in-depth explanation that highlights additional differences between the two concepts.

Why do we need a customer experience vision?

In a word, silos.

They plague companies big and small. People tend to approach their jobs with a very narrow focus, especially if they don't have regular customer contact. Marketing does marketing, operations does operations, service does service, etc.

Here's an example of someone who technically did their job correctly, but completely missed the big picture.

A customer experience vision gets everyone on the same page. It describes the type of experience you want your customer to have, and provides a beacon for everyone to work towards.

  • Product Development

  • Manufacturing

  • Marketing

  • Operations

  • Customer Service

Even finance, human resources, and IT departments, teams that don’t traditionally talk to customers, can become customer-focused when they operate under a common vision.

Why change the name to a customer experience vision?

Focusing on customer experience creates a better statement, even if you're just writing your vision for a customer service team. There are three qualities of an outstanding vision:

  1. Simple and easily understood.

  2. Focused on customers.

  3. Reflects both who we are now and who we aspire to be in the future.

Many leaders have told me they struggled with the second part, keeping it focused on customers. People naturally default to thinking of themselves, even when writing a vision statement.

For example, one small business owner recently told me his team was stuck on adjectives that describe customer service such as helpful, friendly, and efficient. My advice was to reframe the discussion to think about why you are doing those things.

Here are a few examples:

The vision at food distribution company, KeHE, is "We serve to make lives better." The company tries to improve the lives of all its stakeholders through the distribution of fresh, natural, organic, and specialty foods.

Equipment financing company, GreatAmerica, defines its vision as, "We help our customers achieve greater success." The company's primary customers are office equipment dealers, and GreatAmerica is trying to help those businesses become more successful.

The USS Midway Museum is a retired naval aircraft carrier that has been rated as the top tourist attraction in San Diego. The customer experience vision at the Midway is "Preserve the historic USS Midway and the legacy of those who serve; Inspire and Educate future generations; and Entertain our museum guests." The people who work there are passionate about educating people on what it was like to serve on the ship.

Aren't they really the same thing?

Fundamentally, yes. There's no difference between a good customer experience vision or a customer service vision. In fact, the process for writing one is exactly the same.

You can still call it a customer service vision if you want. Depending on the audience in front of me, I will too.

Keep in mind that companies already use other statements as their customer experience or customer service vision:

  • Mission

  • Corporate vision

  • Values

  • Brand slogan

  • Customer service motto

Whatever you call it, focusing on your customer's experience makes it better.

Take Action

Here are a few resources to help you write your vision statement.