In my latest email from the Customer Experience Professional Association (CXPA), I was interested to see the role of Journey Manager being advertised for BMW Group Financial Services Australia. I believe the creation of this role signals the next step in CX evolution – a greater focus on managing customer journeys and not just touchpoint redesign.
CX pioneer Kerry Bodine, first talked about the evolution of this role at the SDN 2018 Conference. Her research on the role shows growth in similar appointments across the UK, USA and Europe, with organisations such as Royal Bank of Scotland, Nestle, Vodaphone, John Lewis and Qantas taking the lead.
What is a Customer Journey Manager?
The role of the Journey Manager is to work cross-functionally to enable the business’s functional and process groups to work together, rather than in silos, to improve the customer’s experience across the end-to-end journey, rather than at touchpoint level.
Working across all levels of the business, a Journey Manager will be a driver of change management. With cross-functional group authority and reporting to the C-level, the role has a remit to tackle the problematic ‘frozen middle’ where the traditional silo mentality is prevalent.
Necessary for the role are journey management frameworks and tools to understand customers and how experience are being delivered; clarity of customer purpose and principles to guide new behaviours; and strong leadership and stakeholder management skills to empower cross-functional collaboration and communication.
The back story
In Bodine’s presentation at SDN 2018, she points to McKinsey & Company’s research, From Touchpoints to Journeys: Seeing the World as Customers Do, to underscore the importance of a Journey Manager role in aiding CX transformation.
McKinsey’s research demonstrates that “companies that perform best on journey have a more distinct competitive advantage that those that excel at touchpoints.” and “a one point improvement in satisfaction, on a ten point scale, corresponds to at least a three percentage point increase in revenue growth rate.”
CX is changing
For Customer Experience and Service Design practitioners these are exciting times. As with great times of change that have going before, we will look back on these times with the knowledge that we were part of creating new growth opportunities, new ways of working and most importantly, helping to make a difference in customers’ lives.
Example of advertised Customer Journey Role
BMW Group Financial Services Australia is looking for a Customer Journey Specialist. Our Process Management & Quality function is currently looking for Customer Journey Specialist to conduct the daily the coordination, strategic steering and Customer Journey governance with respect to the implementation of the Target Customer Journey and the management of the coordination/implementation of initiatives aligned with BMW Sales, the APAC Roadmap and Target Operating Model. This role will require you to manage various internal local and regional stakeholders to drive various Customer Journey initiatives, manage budget and forecast and act as the main contact for all strategic change initiatives to align with global operations guidelines.
McKinsey article: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/from-touchpoints-to-journeys-seeing-the-world-as-customers-do