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How To Implement Sustainability Frameworks That Also Improve Customer Experience

Forbes Business Development Council

Principal Program Manager at Microsoft, driving Strategy, Growth and Success in Conversational AI for Customers and Partners.

One of the best definitions I've found of our current climate, economic and sustainability crisis is depicted in Greta Thunberg's The Climate Book: The Facts and the Solutions. Thunberg's account lends a valuable perspective on the journey to understanding sustainability. It highlights many of both the specific and broader issues related to the sustainability, climate, economic and societal challenges we face today.

Within the last five to 10 years, we have seen a shift in more businesses adopting sustainability frameworks (with consideration to sustainability research from the UN and the IPCC) whilst maintaining profit and growth.

Sustainability's importance to business development is further illustrated within the statistics and profiles broken down in this piece from Grow Ensemble. Today, savvy enterprises are actively considering what they can do to reduce the use of natural resources, minimize waste and promote social and economic equality.

Sustainability frameworks today can also positively impact a company's customer service operations while providing and contributing to sustainable outcomes. The connection between sustainability and customer experience has also been recently highlighted by Clarasys and BearingPoint in Harvard Business Review for their findings on how it can attract customers and positively impact employee experiences.

In this article, I will outline three different sustainability frameworks and offer readers some actionable tips on ways to implement them in a way that can also improve the customer experience.

A Triple Bottom Line Framework

A first example and perhaps one of the pioneers of the triple bottom line framework is that introduced by Novo Nordisk in 2004.

As outlined in this piece from Investopedia, and as observed in the framework implemented by Novo Nordisk, organizations choosing this option seek to diverge from the traditional approach of focusing on one dimension—the only "bottom line" being profit. A triple bottom line, meanwhile, provides three dimensions of consideration to consider, those of profit, people and planet.

A few actionable considerations for implementing a triple bottom line approach, as illustrated by Nordisk, is to take a full view of your organization not just from a profit perspective but also when looking at it from the additional perspectives of people and the planet; what do you see? Novo Nordisk highlights that success is how those three guide their company. You can start, for example, by taking a leaf from their book and publishing a yearly report on performance in those three key areas—even if it's internal.

A Sustainable Technology Framework

Companies today should consider sustainability frameworks that are also capable of not only improving customer service operations but also providing and contributing to sustainable outcomes. As Jon Chorley outlines here, "some of the same technologies that businesses have used to improve customer service can play a critical part in improving sustainability."

The consideration that the very same business technology can be used in both service and sustainability is important, and through standard processes like CX journey mapping and modern cloud business application technology, this means companies today need don't need to reinvent their entire technological portfolio to implement a more sustainable framework.

A Sustainable Procurement Or Customer Preferences Framework

Another popular approach is to focus on customer preferences. A sustainable procurement framework can help guide businesses seeking sustainable outcomes, meant to ensure that products and services are sustainably and ethically sourced.

This type of framework can provide data that can be embedded within a customer's journey to help provide such "opt-in" experiences. This can prove particularly impactful, especially as McKinsey offers that many larger organizations already have what it takes to implement such frameworks. In addition, consumers are becoming much more curious about the lifecycle of the products they are purchasing, so this framework can help organizations have that information available within their CX journey to help show them what sustainability options could be offered.

A Social Responsiveness Or CSR Framework

For organizations seeking to implement sustainability by making a connection between the end customer experience and the employee experience, social responsiveness and CSR frameworks can help provide the guidance they are looking for. A social responsiveness framework focuses on addressing social issues such as poverty and inequality, such as by providing fair wages and benefits to employees and supporting local communities.

This was considered so important for organizations that the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) created the ISO 26000 to above all encourage organizations to do the right thing for stakeholders, the supply chain, consumers and local communities.

Meanwhile, a corporate social responsibility (CSR) framework focuses on helping a business build better relationships with employees and, in turn, helps companies create better relationships with their customers and improve their reputation. This was also found in a study by Barakat, S.R. et al. (2016) on how CSR frameworks had positive impacts on employee satisfaction.

Social responsiveness and CSR can start with a simple act of talking to those in your company and asking what these mean to them. What does social responsiveness mean for them? What about CSR? Trends and insights can arise to help identify what kind of values employees have and begin to surface solutions to help you make them a cornerstone of your framework. Even the action of having the conversation is a step in the right direction for organizations looking to implement sustainability strategies.

Which Framework Is Right For Your Organization?

I hope this article helps highlight some actionable strategies for organizations seeking strategies to implement a sustainability framework. Today's companies have many resources as well as models available to them when it comes to bolstering their company's resilience, reputation and bottom line.


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