ALIGN as A Customer EXPERIENCE STRATEGY
Peter Drucker, one of the most influential thinkers in modern management, made a simple and enduring point: organizations exist to serve their customers.
Internal alignment only matters if it improves the experience of the people they serve. That idea is easy to endorse and surprisingly easy to lose sight of in daily operations. Many organizations achieve strong internal alignment around efficiency, cost control, or process optimization, yet the customer experiences confusion, friction, or wasted time. Alignment that only works internally is incomplete. The real test of alignment is whether strategy, culture, and execution come together in ways that make it easier for customers to get what they need, do their work, and trust the organization they are dealing with.
Customer dissatisfaction may not be about the product or service itself, but about how misaligned systems show up in daily interactions. Automated phone trees that consume time before reaching a human. Scheduling systems that book appointments without syncing calendars. Sales or service handoffs where no one seems fully accountable. From the inside, each of these may make sense. From the outside, they feel disjointed, inefficient, and disrespectful of time.
Customers rarely articulate this as “misalignment.” They feel frustrated confused, delayed, discounted, These various forms of friction lead the customer to quietly go elsewhere.
When misalignment affects your customers’ ability to do their work, the cost compounds quickly. You may not get a second chance to make it right.
Walk the Customer Journey Together
One of the most effective ways to address this is to walk your customer journey as a team.
Start internally. Identify where you believe the experience works well and where you already know friction exists. Pay particular attention to handoffs, policies, and moments where customers are asked to repeat information or wait unnecessarily.
Then engage customers directly. Not through a survey alone, but in conversation. Surveys have their place, but they often ask customers to do interpretive work for you. For many, that is just another irritation. A conversation, on the other hand, signals that their experience matters. Invite customers to lunch. Bring coffee to their workplace. Ask for 30 minutes of their time. Listen carefully.
Share what you believe is working and where you see opportunities to improve. Ask if they agree. More often than not, they will add insights you were not aware of or confirm issues you suspected but had not fully understood. Conversely, ask them first what works for them, or what doesn’t work for them. They will have opinions.
If they offer areas for improvement, do not defend or explain why things are the way they are. Thank them. Let them know how valuable their input is. Follow up with a note that acknowledges what you heard and what you plan to address.
Then, three months later, check back in. Ask how things feel now. And three months later, check in again. That continuity builds trust and signals commitment to them.
Using ALIGN Through the Customer Lens
The ALIGN framework offers a practical structure for doing this work with intention:
Absorb what customers tell you. Listen without explanation or justification. Pay attention to patterns, not just isolated comments.
Legitimize what you hear. When customer feedback mirrors what your team has already identified, name that alignment. Ask customers what matters most to their business and which improvements would make the biggest difference.
Integrate those priorities into policies, processes, and practices. This may mean revising handoffs, simplifying steps, or clarifying ownership.
Grow capability where needed. Ensure staff have the skills, tools, and training to deliver on changes. In some cases, customers may also need support or guidance as processes evolve.
Nurture the work over time. Maintain a feedback loop with customers. Commit resources long enough for changes to take hold. Customers experience change fatigue too. Staying with improvements long enough to deliver results matters as much as making the change itself.
Alignment, Felt Externally
Alignment shows up in the customer’s experience of working with you. Customers experience alignment when it is easy to place an order, speak with the right person, resolve an issue, or suggest an improvement. Work flows smoothly, information is clear, and interactions respect the customer’s time and effort.
When alignment is strong, customers feel confident and supported. They experience consistency across touchpoints and trust that the organization will follow through. These experiences build credibility and reinforce long-term relationships.
Treating alignment as a customer experience strategy ensures that internal coordination translates into external trust, loyalty, and sustained results.