If you haven’t heard the term “world-building” you are probably doing CX all wrong.

Here’s the thing: most companies think about being “customer centric” as the goal.

They obsess over their customer and try to build experiences for that customer. They build customer journey maps, and they jump right into service models, technology, and training. They throw around terms like “frictionless” and “immersive” and “personalization”. They put together surveys that measure only basic customer expectations, get 9.5 out of 10 on those results, and declare victory.

They hire firms that think this way and they have teams of CX practitioners who were all raised to believe that is the way CX must be done.

This usually ends up producing the repetitive, commonplace, and undifferentiated experiences we see in every industry right now that rarely link to any tangible results.

Our approach is different. We start with the concept of “world-building” with every client. Before you can create experiences, service models, hospitality or design a single thing, you have to have a clear understanding of the differentiated world you are creating for every client, customer, guest, fan, or patient.

Think about that for a minute. Can you articulate the WORLD that you create for your customer? That’s a combination of your brand voice, your differentiation strategy, your community models, the way customers identify with you, and the discipline you have around your end-to-end business model.

Rather than just reacting to customer needs, you're crafting a distinct, full ecosystem that defines the brand's relationship with its customers. It's a shift from just optimizing touchpoints to designing an entire identity that resonates deeply with the people you serve.

This is why we start here during the discovery phase of any project - we build out an understanding of your customer world-building model. Then we can build out highly specialized experiences, services, and hospitality that really wow customers.

Why do we do it that way? It produces results that move the needle. We just re-audited a consulting client that is six months post implementation, and they are seeing a 24% increase in the rate of new client acquisition, and an 11% growth in average customer spend – to name but two of the metrics on their scorecard.

Don’t settle for the same old tired CX rhetoric and strategies when you think about your strategy. Start with this concept instead and challenge your teams to think about “world-building”. You’ll end up with more cohesive and disciplined experiences!