Whether you’re a small startup, a national government, or a multinational corporation, you need a plan that defines how your organization will deliver customer service. In customer service, the overall plan is your “customer access strategy” (it can also be referred to as a customer engagement strategy, or just service strategy). Your customer access strategy will provide a framework to determine how to navigate changes, such as the impact of AI.

I define a customer access strategy as “a framework—a set of standards, guidelines and processes—describing the means by which customers receive or are enabled to access the information, services and expertise they need.” An effective customer access strategy includes 10 components and my encouragement is to begin by identifying them and thinking about them together.

You might be thinking, whew, there’s a lot to it! To the contrary, though, it’s a nightmare to not have a customer access strategy. I’ve found without fail that the thought you put into your customer access strategy will come back to you in both time and better decisions

How can you get started? You can use this Customer Access Strategy Worksheet to guide your discussions. There is also more detailed information in chapter four of Leading the Customer Experience.