The Will To Transform Customer Experience

Customer experience transformations succeed or fail based on one invisible factor: whether employees genuinely want them to work.

Most changes to the customer experience focus on the wrong things. 

Leaders are always worried about process maps, technology rollouts, and training programs. They make precise plans for projects and keep track of how well they are going. They talk about the vision over and over again and keep track of how many people know about it. 

They don’t think about the most important thing: Employee Will. 

Research indicates that fostering employee “will” to alter organisational operations is the determinant of transformation success or failure. Companies that work to create this will cultivate important skills and work with rigour are much more likely to do better than their competitors.

Employee will is more than just engagement or buy-in. It’s about using the group’s energy to make changes. It’s the difference between workers who follow new rules for customer service and those who really care about how customers do. 

Why Will Matter More than Skill 

Traditional change management says that if you provide staff the correct tools and make sure they know how to use them, they’ll automatically give customers better service. But talents without will make interactions robotic. 

Employees follow the scripts, finish the training modules, and check the boxes, but clients can see the difference between real care and just going through the motions.  

When workers want to change, they don’t simply make things better for customers; they also come up with new ways to accomplish things. They perceive chances that leaders would never have thought of. 

They become into internal advocates who get their coworkers to do things by being really excited about them, not by sending out corporate messages. 

Studies on psychological ownership indicate that employees who foster a true sense of ownership over their firm actively facilitate growth through enhanced job engagement. It’s not about stock options or profit sharing; it’s about caring about how the client feels. 

The Three Es: A Framework for Building Will 

Research has shown a three-step way to build employee will: Elevate, Empower, and Energise. 

Elevate a strong core of employees across levels to lead the transformation. Most firms only involve 2% of their employees in transformation programs, while 7% of employees need to be involved for them to work. The best changes get 21–30% of employees to play important roles.  

This isn’t about getting more people to come to meetings. It’s about making real ownership. When a customer care person helps come up with a new way to handle complaints, they own it in a different way than when they just learn how to do it. 

Empower a broader group of change leaders to embody new ways of thinking. These people aren’t just ways to talk to one other; they’re thinking partners who break bad habits and show how to put customers first. They make it seem normal to focus on customers instead of forcing it. 

Energise all employees about the transformation. This is more than just town halls and newsletters. It’s about getting every employee to understand how they can help make the customer experience better and get them really enthused about the chance to do so.

The Psychology Behind the Will 

To understand why some workers have real will, and others don’t, you need to look at how people think. Studies on intrinsic motivation indicate that individuals are motivated by autonomy, mastery, and purpose. 

Transformations in CX that use these drivers make changes that last. 

• Autonomy means giving employees real input into how customer experience improvements get implemented in their area. Instead of mandating specific behaviours, successful transformations create frameworks that allow local adaptation. 
• Mastery means helping employees develop genuine expertise in understanding and serving customers. This goes beyond product training to include skills in empathy, problem-solving, and relationship building. 
• Purpose means connecting daily work to meaningful customer outcomes. When employees understand how their specific role impacts customer lives, they develop emotional investment in doing it well. 

When staff really desire to improve the customer experience, the results happen swiftly. They become ambassadors for their customers and do more than what their jobs need. They work together across departments to help customers with their difficulties. They come up with ideas for improvements that management would never have thought of.  

Most importantly, they give customers real experiences that feel real because they are. Customers can tell the difference between staff who follow the rules and employees who really care about their success.  

Research continually demonstrates that employee attitudes regarding change are critical determinants of transformation results. When most employees really want to make the customer experience better, the change becomes self-sustaining instead of needing ongoing management attention. 

Building Will, Not Just Compliance 

Better processes or greater training aren’t what make customer experience makeovers work or fail. It’s about whether staff really want to make consumers’ lives better.  

To do this, we need to go beyond the usual ways of managing change that focus on communication and compliance. Instead, companies need to make it so that workers really feel like they are responsible for how customers turn out.  

The three Es framework gives you a plan: 

• Elevate employees to help come up with ideas;
• Empower them to show new behaviours;
• And Energise them about how important their job is in making customers happy. 

Along with the five activities that establish transformation will, this method lays the psychological groundwork for long-term improvements in customer experience. 

Transforming the customer experience isn’t a problem with the process; it’s a problem with people. If you get the human part right, everything else will work out.

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