The meaty facts and figures surrounding our growing obesity crisis has seen a turnaround from government this week as ministers potentially plan a crackdown on junk food advertising and two-for-one offers.

Whilst Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is claiming he is winning over allies, Prime Minister Theresa May is apparently unconvinced. Weighing up the balance of accusations of meddling which could increase the cost of living for the country’s households, versus the supporters who say the policies are designed to protect the health of our children.
 
It’s a big, complicated topic and one which will need some ‘chewing over’ – excuse the pun! We know from experience that fad ideas are rife in the food and diet industry; what’s good for you one week is unhealthy the next; but underneath all the distractions and ‘quick fixes’ we know a balanced diet and exercise is the key to being healthy.
 
In some ways customer service is a bit like the diet industry; easily distracted by shiny new toys and methods offering ‘quick fixes’ to long-standing problems. But again, experience often shows us that these become jaded relatively quickly and customers can find holes in the systems that can rapidly begin to fail.
 
The biggest challenge is to ‘make those changes for life’ – working out how to offer up and keep the right promises to customers; allowing access in the way that works for them and really closing the gap across the organisation around who is responsible anyway?
 
To do that, we need everyone in the business signed up to a programme to take action centrally. All individual actions are important and we all can cite great examples of outstanding service; but we’re battling against the odds if the whole organisation isn’t on board with everyone accepting that their only point in being there is to serve their customers or citizens.
 
We had our own measuring tape out this week at our Future of CX Forum which was tackling some of these issues head on. Discussion challenged some of the things we do as a given. Does a high c-sat score actually indicate that customers are happy? Are we asking the right questions? What metrics are we using and why? And don’t forget the powerful voice of front-line colleagues; their voice is as important as that of your customers in working out where the issues are. 
 
In addition, CCA’s accreditation model provides a robust framework to bring together all parts of the organisation to work together and identify the gaps which need attention. We can’t necessarily promise weight loss, but definitely a slimming down of confusion over how customer centric your organisation is.

Find out more about our next CX Forum here.