Much has been written about the critical success factors inherent in customer experience strategies. We all lament the challenge of obtaining senior executive support; conflicting agendas; and lack of resources and investment. For one or another reason many organizations are simply unable to overcome these challenges.

All of these issues no doubt serve as obstacles to customer experience success. Yet what is often overlooked is that all these issues share one thing in common – the executive office. They point the finger upwards to the top of the organization with the expectation that senior management will address them prior to initiating any substantive customer experience initiative. Yet as I work with clients to develop and deploy their respective customer experience strategies, I have discovered a nagging challenge that carries far greater impact than all of the aforementioned challenges waiting for senior management.

During training sessions and focus groups, employees invariably comment that they are just one, often insignificant person in a huge company. They simply do not believe that they can make a difference and see themselves as little more than a cog in a wheel. I refer to this mentality as the “Tiny Screw Syndrome (TSS).” The larger the company, the more employees feel that they are insignificant and unable to make a significant impact to the broader organization.

The Tiny Screw Syndrome is among the most prevalent risks companies face on their journey to customer centricity. While senior management can be convinced of the wisdom to become customer centric (by demonstrating economics of customer experience or return on investment), changing employee mentality is far more challenging. This requires developing a culture in which every employee feels that he or she is an integral part of the company – a far longer and challenging endeavor.
Once upon a time, when now large conglomerates were still small businesses, every employee mattered. When you or your employees were out of the office, people would notice and more importantly, feel the absence. Yet as companies grow, focus inevitably shifts from people to process, leading to a diminishment of individual employee contributions. During these growth periods, employees tend to feel that they take a secondary seat to the processes and the whims of bureaucrats. To become customer centric, companies ought to unleash the power of the individual. Each employee needs to hear and internalize the manner in which they directly or indirectly impact the customer. If however they are infected by the TSS they will not focus on designing and delivering exceptional customer experiences. Instead, they will default to the process and act as a tiny screw in a big machine.

The first step to address TSS is to recognize that it exists. As we launch customer experience strategies we need to first understand the mind set of our foot soldiers and their readiness to fight the good customer experience fight. We need to understand the root causes behind the TSS and what it will take to change this mindset.
To that end, companies should strongly consider adopting a culture development program to address the root causes of the TSS and demonstrate to employees that they truly have the power to have a meaningful impact on the company during their every-day interactions with customers.

The focus today among customer experience practitioners is often upwards. They are concerned with senior executive and budgetary support. Yet the challenge is equally critical when looking downwards to every employee. As much as we need senior leadership alignment and commitment, the same is true with our employees. A balanced approach that does not ignore TSS will have a far greater likelihood of success!



Lior Arussy is the president of Strativity Group a global customer experience research and consulting firm. Arussy is the author of five books including Customer Experience Strategy – The Complete Guide From Innovation o Execution (4i, 2010).
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