CX in the Lab
Elevating customer experience at Abbott Laboratories
We were asked to partner with Abbott Corporate Marketing to elevate the awareness and maturity of customer experience strategy within the organization. Abbott had made a lot of strides in terms of consistent branding at key customer touch-points but had not looked at experience in terms of customer journeys and applied true customer experience methodologies. We developed a plan to begin the CX journey by achieving three important milestones:
Demonstrate CX Practices for a key initiative
Developing a CX Playbook with input from key stakeholders around the company
Developing a model for an Abbott CX Index to measure customer experience
Demonstrating CX – Abbott Talent Acquisition
Abbott HR identified the improvement of recruitment of R&D Scientists and Engineers as something that was incredibly beneficial to the company. We conducted the following activities:
Competitive Content Analysis
Insight development from interviews with recruiters, employees and lost candidates
Journey definition from candidate segmentation
Current state journey mapping for each candidate segment
Future state opportunity identification, prioritization and ideation
Value to Abbott HR:
Identification of competitive content opportunities
Deeper insights about each candidate segment
Current state journey maps defining the unique needs of candidates and Abbott’s role at each step of the journey
Definition of Abbott’s unique value proposition to allow for better candidate targeting and improved recruiting communication
54 future state opportunities overlaid onto the candidate journeys
Sketches for key, prioritized opportunities
Validation of on-going Abbott HR initiatives
We are currently in the process of finalizing design and printing of the Playbook. It will also be distributed globally in an interactive PDF format. Future workshop strategy and development is being discussed.
Developing an Abbott CX Index
Corporate Marketing had some success with using playbooks to encourage Abbott employees to sign-up for more advanced workshops. We created a CX 101 playbook to create awareness, develop a baseline of CX understanding and encourage sign-up for future workshops. The content included in the playbook was as follows:
Introduction to Customer Experience (CX)
Getting Started & Case Studies
Play 1: Empathy and research Insights
Play 2: Mapping Customer Journeys
Play 3: Synthesis and Problem Framing
Play 4: Ideation and Prioritization
Play 5: Prototyping and Testing
Play 6: Measurement and Continuous Improvement
Play 7: Operationalization and Planning
We are currently in the process of finalizing design and printing of the Playbook. It will also be distributed globally in an interactive PDF format. Future workshop strategy and development is being discussed.
Developing an Abbott CX Index
Corporate Marketing wanted to begin the process of measuring customer experience by developing a new CX Index. We conducted the following activities:
Interviewed key CX measurement SME’s to develop a clear POV
Conducted a workshop to uncover the vision for the Index
Identified 5 key internal and external measurement areas of CX
Created a map to connect the 5 areas to the measurement types
Developed a concept for the dashboard views
Defined a maturity plan
“The best practice of CX measurement is that the score itself is important but is less valuable than the insight that helps you make continual improvements—and drive higher scores.”
— Abbott CX SME
We determined that the best way to begin to implement the Index was to start with CX maturity and measure CX Excellence through an internal survey that would look at:
The perceived value of CX
The perceived CX priority within the company
The CX priority within the division/group
Exposure to customers (directly and indirectly)
CX tools and processes
Cross functional work practices
CX Measurement
Connection of CX to employee incentives
Successful CX case studies
Top area where CX can benefit the division/group
Preferred learning methods
Known CX supports within the company
Abbott is currently determining the way to execute a survey and tie it to future CX Playbook workshop development and sign-up.