CX Journey™

Convenience: Just One Reason Businesses Should Accept Mobile Payments

2013-05-23T09:44:00.001-07:00

Today I'm pleased to present another guest post by Chris Martin.

Here's a question: Why would a customer willingly go to a store where there are fewer choices, average customer service, and the goods are priced higher than can be found elsewhere? One word: convenience. The proliferation of convenience stores across the country is proof that buyers value convenience as much as (if not more so than) price, selection, service, and other market factors.

Customers Love Mobile Payments
Mobile payment systems have received a lot of publicity pertaining to their advanced level of technology. But the prevalence of mobile payments wouldn't be growing significantly if they weren't convenient for businesses and purchasers.

In fact, the most important aspect of mobile payments' convenience does not involve the business at all. People love having choices, so allowing them to pay for goods or services with a credit card gives them the option of keeping more money in their bank accounts for a bit longer. And after all, the customer is always right, right?

Businesses Love Mobile Payments
But mobile payments are incredibly convenient for merchants, too. For starters, businesses don't have to buy, lease, or otherwise obtain additional equipment like checkout machines, swipe terminals, or specialized keypads. All they need is their smartphone or tablet computer and perhaps a credit card reader that plugs into their digital device (these readers are often supplied free of charge to mobile payments account holders).

The most obvious convenience of mobile payments is the elimination of a physical link to a power source. Businesses don't need a telephone landline, data cable, or even an AC power cord in order to accept mobile payments. If merchants have a wireless Internet connection and/or a cell phone signal, credit card transactions can be processed securely, quickly, and easily almost anywhere on the planet.

For many businesses, the ability to accept mobile payments means the eradication of invoicing. Instead of writing up an invoice, giving it to a client or customer, and then waiting for a check in the mail, mobile payments can complete the entire transaction within seconds - and the funds are transferred into the business owner's account with a few days' time. And the convenience of improved cash flow cannot be overstated for a small business.

Mobile payments also improve the convenience of the actual credit card transaction. Customers approve the transactions by using their fingers to sign a touch screen rather than fiddling with a pen and a small credit card slip. In addition, customers receive an electronic receipt that is sent to their email address - so they don't have to mess with keeping or storing paper credit card receipts.

Marketers and Accountants Love Mobile Payments
There's another aspect to this e-receipt process that is often overlooked by businesses. As part of the transaction, customers provide their email addresses - which can be used for marketing purposes for the business. In other words, businesses don't have to wrangle contact information out of a customer because it is already folded into the transaction process. How convenient is that?

Finally, most mobile payments services can simplify a business owner's bookkeeping functions to some degree. Generally, these systems can display the past purchase history associated with a given credit card number, which can aid the merchant not only in accounting but also in future marketing efforts. Some mobile payments systems can even be linked directly to a company's back office so that transactions don't have to be manually entered into a computer at the end of the day.

It's surprising (or perhaps not) how many buying decisions are based primarily or solely on convenience. So if you want a competitive edge in the marketplace, mobile payments can help make patronizing your business substantially more convenient - and your customers will notice.

Chris Martin is a freelance writer who writes about topics such as small businesses, home improvement, and online reputation management.

The Problem with Inside-Out Thinking

2013-05-21T09:16:00.000-07:00

I originally wrote today's post as a guest post for I Want It Now on March 18, 2013.

TSA recently announced that it was changing some of its carry-on restrictions next month; in addition to certain types of knives, they will allow passengers to bring golf clubs, hockey sticks, and plastic bats onto planes, all of which had been restricted post-9/11. Other than the obvious question about whether the world is a safer place now than it was then (or even a month ago), is this really such a good idea? Where did this come from?

Supposedly, this brings U.S. carry-on rules in line with those of the EU. Who decided that what the EU was doing was a best practice?

According to the president of the Transportation Workers Union, Stacy Martin, "This policy was designed to make the lives of TSA staff easier, but not make flights safer." Her comments come as a direct result of what TSA Administrator John Pistole said: "Frankly, I don't want TSA agents to be delayed by these." Clearly he believes the destructive weapons of choice have shifted, but I think when you take your eye off the ball, that's when the other team scores. My two cents.

Anyway, there's more to this story than just that, and I don't really want to debate it; that's not my point here. I'm using this as an example for my topic, and I want to focus on those two statements in the previous paragraph - and the problem with inside-out thinking when it comes to customer experience.

Inside-out thinking means your focus is on processes that are designed and implemented based on internal thinking and intuition. The customer's needs and perspectives do not play a part in this type of thinking. You make decisions because you think it's what's best for the business.

Outside-in thinking means that you look at your business from the customer's perspective and subsequently design processes and make decisions based on what's best for the customer and what meets the customer's needs. You make decisions because you know it's what's best for your customers.

When TSA is thinking about processes and policies that simplify things for their own good, without considering the impact on their customers, then that is inside-out thinking. This is a prime example, another quote from John Pistole: “The idea that we have to look for, to find, and then somehow resolve whatever that prohibited item is -- that takes time and effort." Yea, but that time and effort will hopefully save the lives of hundreds of people (your customers).

There was a glimmer of hope when I read an article a couple days ago that lawmakers are trying to reverse this decision. And I quote: "This decision appears to have been made without formal engagement with stakeholders impacted by this policy, including those most likely to come into contact with someone possessing a knife on a plane - flight crew members and air marshals."

Um, what about the other passengers? Aren't they also stakeholders impacted by the policy?

OK, so let's just assume for the sake of this post that everything TSA decided was truly done without taking into consideration the customer perspective or the impact on the customer.

It might be inside-out thinking when there's a conscious decision to make process, policy, people, systems, or other changes that:

1. Don't improve the customer experience at the same time
2. Are about maximizing shareholder returns, not about benefits for the customer
3. Improve internal efficiencies but to the detriment of customer interactions
4. Are cost-cutting measures that also negatively impact the customer experience
5. Might be the wrong process, policy, people, or systems to change

By contrast, outside-in thinking flips each of those points on its head and looks like this. There's a conscious decision to make process, policy, people, systems, or other changes that:

1. Improve the customer experience at the same time
2. Are about maximizing benefits for the customer
3. Improve internal efficiencies known to be painpoints when executing customer interactions
4. Are cost-cutting measures that significantly improve the customer experience
5. Are the right process, policy, people, or systems because you've listened to customer feedback and know how customers are affected

Outside-in thinking, i.e., applying the customer perspective to every decision the company makes, leads to a number of things, none of which you'll get by making decisions that are not based on what's best for your customers...

•   reduced complaints
•   increased satisfaction
•   increased referrals
•   increased repeat purchases
•   improved ease of doing business
•   fewer lost customers

... all of which translate to reduced costs and increased revenue. Now who can't get on board with that?

Here are a few business leaders who get it:

Don’t try to tell the customer what he wants. If you want to be smart, be smart in the shower. Then get out, go to work and serve the customer! -Gene Buckley, President Sikorsky Aircraft

This may seem simple, but you need to give customers what they want, not what you think they want. And, if you do this, people will keep coming back. -John Ilhan, Crazy John's

For us, our most important stakeholder is not our stockholders, it is our customers. We're in business to serve the needs and desires of our core customer base. -John Mackey, Whole Foods

Disrupting the Automotive Customer Experience

2013-05-17T08:54:00.000-07:00

This is the second in a two-part blog exchange I’m doing with Denise Lee Yohn. Because we have similar perspectives on customer experience, we decided to share with our readers each others' thoughts on disruptive experiences. Last week, I discussed on Denise’s blog how Square is disrupting the payment experience. In this post, Denise describes how Tesla Motors is disrupting the automotive buying experience.

“A new kind of car. A new kind of car company.”

Saturn may have used those lines to launch its brand 20 years ago, but it’s Tesla Motors who is truly disrupting the automotive industry today.

Saturn may have challenged the conventional designs of American-made cars, but Tesla has combined an electric powertrain and luxury sports car style into a new breed of automobile unlike anything seen before. Saturn may have instituted a different culture and organizational design, but Tesla is run by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and engineers whose tech start-up sensibilities contrast sharply with those of automakers. And Saturn may have trained dealers in low-pressure sales and encouraged them to pay salespeople salaries rather than commissions, but Tesla has set out to fundamentally change the car buying and owning process.

It is this last point that I find most noteworthy because the automotive customer experience is in dire need of change, and Tesla seems to be re-designing every aspect of it. As Chairman, Product Architect, and CEO Elon Musk explains, “At Tesla Motors, we really want to improve aspects of the car business that we've found unpleasant as consumers.”

The company is disrupting the automotive shopping experience in five significant ways:

1. Customer decision-process: Tesla’s stores and galleries are located in venues with high foot traffic and visibility like high-end malls and shopping districts, including San Jose’s Santana Row. Of course the company enjoys the brand halo that comes with such aspirational adjacencies, but its strategy has a more fundamental objective.

In mainstream shopping areas, the company can generate broader brand awareness than its start-up ad budget could produce – and it can reach people before they’re even considering buying a car. The company knows it’s important to reach people at such an early stage in their decision-process because they need to be educated about electric vehicles before they’d be open to Tesla as a brand for them.
Critics question if shopping malls are the best venues to reach qualified buyers – and indeed, I imagine Tesla stores get more than their fair share of lookie-loos. But if a retailer wants to connect with new customers and get them to add the brand to an established consideration set, it can’t expect to be a destination – it needs to be where the brand can be discovered.

2. Role of salespeople: Given the prevalence of online research in today’s automotive purchase process, most people have already decided what car they want to buy before they head to their local dealer – and many already know the fair price for it. So car salespeople’s roles have been reduced to Vanna White-type product demonstrators and price negotiators.

But Tesla’s salespeople, “Product Specialists,” play a far more significant role in the customer journey. They’re focused on educating people first about electric vehicles in general and then about Tesla specifically. So they’re not paid on commission and their goal is to increase demand, not close a sale. Tesla’s vice president of sales and ownership experience, George Blankenship, says that it’s their goal for “everyone to leave our stores with a smile on their faces. I want people to want the car, I don’t want to sell them the car.”

3. Controlled and designed experience: Other automakers have franchise contracts with independent companies that sell vehicles to their respective dealerships. The dealers hire and train the sales and service staff and determine their pay, and they set the sales price of each car. Thilo Koslowski, an automotive analyst at research firm Gartner Inc., explained the risks involved with the established model, saying, "Every time you have a franchise involved you lose part of that intended customer experience because they are independent businesses and have different goals. They use different processes and sales strategies with customers.”

Since Tesla sells directly to consumers through their stores and website, it retains control of the customer experience. And it has designed the experience to be like an Apple store, a Starbucks, or a good restaurant – a comfortable place where people feel welcome and want to hang out. Musk describes the store design as “beautiful and stylish, but also simple, fun, and friendly at the same time.”

4. Experiential and emotional appeal: Blankenship explains that the stores are intended to “entice, inform, and engage” people in order to “create a highly interactive buying experience.”

Usually one or two cars are showcased in the center of the store and people are encouraged to get into them to form an initial impression. Car design options are displayed and lit dramatically on the walls, while other displays highlight various aspects of the cars such as the motor and charging socket. People can interact with one of a few large flat-screens with touchscreen capability that serve as in-store design kiosks through which they can customize their own car – and eventually make a reservation to purchase it.   And prospective customers can test-drive one of several cars that are stored in a designed parking area nearby.

The company aims to “put as much energy into making our stores look good as we do with our cars,” wrote Musk. The idea of a store being one of the most powerful expressions of a brand is one I’ve explored before and Tesla certainly proves how impactful a store can be in terms of emotional expression and connection.

5. Consistent brand standards: Tesla has torn down the invisible but unmistakable wall between the sales and service standards that people encounter at most car dealerships.   Instead of presenting an inviting, glamorous sales experience and a functional, generic service one, Tesla designs its service centers to be inspiring and interesting. In fact, Musk described how they’re modeled on the private VIP lounges for airline frequent fliers.

I suspect that the sales and service businesses are managed separately in other automotive retail networks. With their distinct objectives and operations, it’s no wonder that what the customer experiences in one area bears little resemblance to the other, and there’s limited, if any, consideration given to fostering a connection between the two. But, applying the highest brand standards to every experience is what distinguishes Tesla and other extraordinary retailers from their rivals. They design their businesses with the brand vision at the center and ensure there are no disconnects across experiences.

Tesla’s disruptive strategies have not been welcomed universally. Due to perceived unfairness to other dealers, the company was denied a special exemption that would have let it operate a dealership in the state of Virginia. It’s unclear whether or not the company will encounter similar barriers as it expands into more markets.

This setback demonstrates how difficult retail disruption can be. Visionary entrepreneurs like Musk, Warby Parker co-CEOs Neil Blumenthal and David Gilboa, and Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, conceive of radically new ways of doing business in service of providing more inspired experiences for customers. But, old systems and established brands resist change. Let’s hope Tesla and others keep fighting for it!

Denise Lee Yohn has been inspiring and teaching companies how to operationalize their brands to grow their businesses for 25 years. World-class brands including Sony, Frito-Lay, Burger King, and Nautica have called on Denise, a brand-building expert, speaker, and writer. Read more by Denise at http://deniseleeyohn.com/bites/best-bites.

#CXPA13 Day One Live Blog: Mary Lee, AAA Northern California, Nevada, and Utah.

2013-05-14T16:59:00.001-07:00

The Customer Experience Professionals Association annual Member Insight Exchange kicks off this morning in San Diego, CA, at the Hotel del Coronado.

The final session that I'll be blogging about today is by Mary Lee, Director of Member Experience at AAA Northern California, Nevada, and Utah. She'll be sharing lessons learned around building a new VOC framework.

AAA is a federation of separate AAA clubs. AAA NorCal started in 1900 and has 4.2 million members.

The AAA Member Experience Journey

Services with membership: travel, emergency roadside service, homeowners insurance, auto insurance. AAA used to be the only place where you could get these services.

The AAA Brand: people helping people.

Competitors: Allstate, USAA, Geico, State Farm, Farmers, Progressive, General Insurance. AAA market share is about 20%.

"With great brand power comes great responsibility."

Member Promises:

We will keep you safe and secure. (auto insurance)
We will offer you the right product at the right time. (long-term, loyal members)
We will reward your loyalty. (aspirational; example is birthday card that Southwest sends)
We will provide helpful and knowledgeable service. (roadside service)

Most important to remember: one member, one AAA. All that the customer cares about is that they deal with AAA, not with NorCal or SoCal clubs. It's all one club. Customers must see that employees represent all of AAA, which is often difficult to do. The club is separate from the insurance company, but that's all seamless to a member.

For their employees, they encourage them to think about the experience as if they were the member. Does that make sense for you?

Why focus on customer loyalty?

Satisfaction alone is not enough.
Increases in NPS proven to tie to financial results.

Used to have a very silo'd approach to listening to members. They have since transformed to a single listening system, a single source of truth. From there, they then look at results by type of transaction and by geography with the same type of feedback but with a clear window into the customer experience from start to end of lifecycle.

There are 96 offices in the AAA NorCal footprint. They did a Member Experience Roadshow to enable all employees to know: how they're doing, what NPS is and why it matters, and what the employee's role is in delivering that experience. They also use it to gather feedback and build connections.

Where is AAA NorCal on their journey?

Well on their way
Incentives and annual goals tied to the relationship survey (result: people are more interested, for better or worse)
Impact on member experience is part of many, though not all, conversations
Recognition that such an evolution doesn't happen overnight (they started July 2010)

Challenges:

Software issues
Obsessive interest in the score
Scores led to "data chasing"
Building muscle memory

Lessons learned:

Change management is critical element to include in the effort.
Constant and consistent leadership support is essential.
It takes a village.

"If you focus on the customer, it changes the tenor of the conversation that you have with people."

Thanks, Mary! Great job. Good luck with your continued journey.

#CXPA13 Day One Live Blog: Joe Wheeler, The Service Profit Chain Institute

2013-05-14T16:03:00.001-07:00

The Customer Experience Professionals Association annual Member Insight Exchange kicks off this morning in San Diego, CA, at the Hotel del Coronado.

The next session I'll be sharing is by Joe Wheeler, Executive Director of The Service Profit Chain Institute. I last heard Joe speak about 10 years ago, and he's always got great stories. Looking forward to hearing his presentation, which is titled, "Just Tell Me What You Are Feeling! – Uncovering the Actual Emotions of Your Most Valued Customers."

Joe Wheeler will be announcing a new capability that The Service Profit Chain Institute will be launching July 1, 2013. There are great tools for automating customer experience mapping and enterprise feedback, but we're missing tools to map emotions. The new tool with use facial recognition to read the emotions of your customers.

"The truth is, what makes a brand powerful is the emotional involvement of customers." -Charlotte Beers

The Service Profit Chain Institute has a six-step process for how they work with clients called the Customer Experience Workout. They built a platform to simplify.

Business Case
Define the potential financial gain to be achieved by improving the customer experience.

Collaboration
Engage colleagues, key stakeholders, subject matter experts, and customers in the work of improving the customer experience.

Mobility
Leverage mobile devices to capture insights and media about the customer experience at key touchpoints.

Technology
Uses leading edge facial expression technology to capture the emoitnoal repsonse of customers to potential improvements in the experience.

Execution
Applying Experience Blueprints that translate new design strategies into operational, product/service, and behavioral changes in the experience.

Monitoring
A simple dashboard that links to the organization's existing customer measurement system.

A Proven Process: Seven Principles of Customer Experience Design
1. Experience design starts with Leadership Alignment:

Understand the current experience
Define the brand platform
Design the customer experience
Deliver to exceed customer expectations
Measure to continuously improve and innovate

2. Establishing the Business Case:

Start with the results
What would the experience look like to achieve those results
Establish baseline for key segments
Conduct sensitivity analysis specific to customer behaviors
Determine costs assocated with influencing customer behaviors
Calculate the NPV from each customer experience improvement

3. Map the Current Experience:

Define the touchpoints
Describe the customers' actions at each touchpoint, add photos and rich media to elaborate
What is the customer thinking or feeling during this experience

Finalize the draft of the experience map, and then involve your customers

4. Define the Brand Platform

Brand position: what the brand stands for.
Brand promise: the unique value that is delivered.
Experience theme: the unifying cues that bring to life the brand promise and evoke the emotions we want the customer to experience.

If you don't pay attention to your theme, to the cues, you can crush your brand.

What is your "Central Narrative?" The story that the customer is telling about them and you. Do you know what story your customers are telling about your brand?

5. Design the Customer Experience

6. Deliver to Exceed Customer Expectations

7. Measure to Continuously Improve and Innovate

Thanks, Joe, lots of great tips and advice. Good luck with the new platform launch!

#CXPA13 Day One Live Blog: Carol Buehrens, ICW Group, Customer Journey Mapping

2013-05-14T15:10:00.004-07:00

The Customer Experience Professionals Association annual Member Insight Exchange kicks off this morning in San Diego, CA, at the Hotel del Coronado.

The next session I'll be sharing is one that I'm moderating for Carol Buehrens of ICW Group. She'll be sharing best practices from her experience mapping the journey for ICW Group's customers. ICW Group is an insurance company that sells through individual brokers. The brokers are their customers.

Customer Journey Maps: The Pathway to Exceptional Customer Experiences

Customers are experiencing your company through people, processes, etc. Customers interact with various departments in the organization, but your departments don't know who your customers are. Suffice it to say that your departments and your experiences are silo'd. How do we overcome that?

Customers have experiences with your company, but do you know who they are? That's where customer journey mapping comes in.

Journey maps help you capture the customer experience from the strategic viewpoint at a variety of touchpoints. They help you identify touchpoints and find opportunities for improvement. Most importantly, they allow you to map your customers' emotions, too.

Journey maps are comprised of phases, and each phase is comprised of a bunch of touchpoints: mail, support line, whitepapers, account manager conversations, etc.

"Emotions are the foundations for experiences."

When creating a journey map, start with a strawman version of the map, but you know there is a lot more going on under the water! To help you create your high-level journey map, Carol provided a template and an interview guide in her handouts/workbook. The interview guide has 15 questions to help get the conversation started.

Customer journey mapping traps:

Wear the customer hat! The journey map is developed from the customer viewpoint.
Watch out for the sharp barbs, e.g., "dumb customers." Great opportunity for associates to learn to wear the customer hat.
Do not put internal process flows on your customer journey map. There can be a separate map, a process map. The focus on the customer journey map is on the customer.

Insights from ICW Group's customer journey mapping exercise:

New agents are most expensive; they're hands-off and not really doing anything yet.
New agents spent 35 hours of effort for one customer, which involved communications, building relationships, and training

Why customer journey mapping:

They expose experiences and issues in a visual format.

ICW Group's goals with this effort:

Keep the magical star stuff – they examined what their stars were doing: their communications, their voice, their ideas.
They wanted consistent messages throughout the journey, to help avoid the confusion agents reported.
They knew, from looking at “stars," that this process could be streamlined and much more efficient. They wanted to shave the process down by half.
The information they supplied agents needed to be concise and helpful. It needed to add value to the process.
That means they needed to develop supporting materials: training guides, brochures, flyers, and other collateral.
And, the entire process needed to be clearly branded, so that it was memorable and stood out against their competition.

Their results:

Journey mapping provided a strategic view of what their customers were experiencing.
It helped them identify weaknesses, long processes, and gaps in their service.
It brought several groups together in order to work on improving their customer’s experiences.

Which means:

They were able to provide a fun, creative solution (e-cards) that everyone enjoys.
The big news – they reduced their own internal efforts from 35 hours down to 5 hours!

And enjoyed a savings of $2,250,000!

Lessons learned:

Find what Journey Mapping technique works for you at your company.
Use the CX Toolkit that Carol provided.
Customize your own toolkit.
Always stay focused on your customer, and look for opportunities to provide your customers the WOW factor.
Remember to identify your customers emotions, motivations, and expectations.
Keep plugging away!

Sage advice. Thanks, Carol!

#CXPA13 Day One Live Blog: Keynote Tom Feeney, CEO, Safelite AutoGlass

2013-05-14T09:02:00.003-07:00

The Customer Experience Professionals Association annual Member Insight Exchange kicks off this morning in San Diego, CA, at the Hotel del Coronado.

Our first keynote speaker this morning is Tom Feeney, CEO of Safelite AutoGlass. His presentation, "The Road to Success Through People," is about how Safelite overcame difficult financial conditions to become the dominant auto glass repair company in the country by relentlessly focusing on employees and customers.

Tom kicked off his session by saying that he believes that they have not yet even begun to tap into the greatness within Safelite. Three takeaways he hopes we'll leave with from his presentation:

Some of the operational changes around feedback and measurement
Lessons learned over time on strategy of putting people first, which positions Safelite for the next transformation of the organization in 2013.
When you put people first, you can correlate to business results.

They operate in a negative services industry, those industries that you don't think of until you need them. They operate in a low need, low involvement, and low awareness world. But when you do need them, you hope they remember your jingle, remember you. Tough business to be in.

"Delighting customers when they have to have the experience is the ticket to revenue growth."

Creating customer loyalty during the experience is a ticket to referrals, but it's a long, hard journey.

Safelite Transformation Journey

First chapter of transformation journey: people first
Vision: To become the "natural choice" for vehicle glass replacement and repair services in the United States, where natural choice means to be the one and only company a customer thinks of when they have broken auto glass.

Two important pillars in the roadmap: employees and customers.In the past, Safelite was operationally focused and put shareholders first. To make the change to a customer-driven organization, who comes first: their people come first.

Safelite's Objective for first stage of transformaion: driving performance with an obsessive focus on talented people inspired to deliver great results.

People first means: leadership, caring, talent, focus. But they needed more detail around that, so they came up with their People Pledge.

Safelite's People Pledge:

You'll experience great leadership
We focus on you first
We hire top talent...that includes you
You'll work in a caring culture

Striving for a culture where people are inspired to achieve because they want to, not because they have to.

But leaders must walk the talk! "Leaders are expected to cast a positive shadow."

Safelite uses NPS as their key metrics because the best way for them to get new business is through referrals. For NPS to truly work for Safelite, it must be more than a score - rather a way of life, part of their DNA.

To transition to NPS, they had to change their vocabulary, from "customer satisfaction" to "customer delight." Satisfaction is just not good enough any more. They must turn the ordinary into the extraordinary, to differentiate their service. But they also had to have the people to deliver this service. "Delight" is a powerful word and really kicked off a transformation in how their people delivered service.

Employees don't mind if you raise the bar, as long as they are involved in the decision and get recognition for doing good things.

Customer Delight Lessons

Leadership training is just as important as field training.
Spread the "best to the rest" (share best practices in peer-to-peer training)
Measure and communicate at the individual level
Align awards and compensation with desired behavior
Celebrate successes

For "best to the rest," they engage in "boot to boost to boot camp." Low performers go to boot camp, where top performers share best practices and teach what they do. Then everyone attends "boost" for further training across the board. And finally, top performers are then brought into boot camp again.

Their philosophy in celebrating successes: "over-recognize, over-celebrate... but be authentic about it. Otherwise, you will lose your organization."

Three key metrics told them when they were ready to move to the next level of transformation: employee engagement scores, NPS, sales and profits.

The higher the level of employee engagement leads to higher business results/performance. It's millions of dollars on the bottom line, without raising prices, cutting costs, or acquiring new business.

Their NPS moved 14 points in five years, which Tom attributes to:

People first
Changing vocabulary from "satisfaction" to "delight"
Creating a belief in associates that they have greatness within them
Following their roadmap for cultural transformation

Second chapter of transformation journey: customer driven
Second stage of transformation: moving from operationally-focused to customer-driven organization. New vocabulary from "people first" to "people powered" and "customer driven."

Most transformations are "evolution" and not "revolution." Safelite is evolving as a company and transforming along the way.

The difference between "people first" and "people powered."

"People first" became about me; "people powered" is about the organization.

New objective: drive business performance by putting people first and having an obsessionve focus on having talented people who are inspired to deliver great results. Through...

Engagement
Talent
Leadership development

Customer-driven means to achieve extraordinary results by looking at the business through they eyes of the customer, making us easy to do business with, and ensuring their experience is memorable.

Four elements to a customer-driven strategy:

Listen
Focus
Delight
Create

A critical piece of this part of the transformation: change how you think and change the priority of your thoughts.

"Individuals can delight customers, but it takes an entire organization to be customer driven."

A key part of being customer driven is being memorable. This is their associate's pledge: Service so great... it's memorable

60 days in, they have found that this is creating a sense of purpose for their jobs. It will likely be a huge part of increasing engagement, as it leads to greater pride in their jobs.

Why is memorable better than delight? "Memories are important because they last." If you remember the experience, that leads to referrals, which are critically important to Safelite business.

"No matter where you are on your journey, there is always a customer waiting to be amazed."

Customer Experience Lessons from Mom

2013-05-10T09:48:00.002-07:00

Image courtesy of Cellnique

In honor of Mother's Day this weekend, I thought this was a fitting time to share some customer experience lessons from Mom.

It's been a while since I've done a "Customer Experience Lessons from..." post. I enjoy writing them, so I'll be doing more of them real soon.

As I'm writing my blog, I often weave in stories about my kids - lessons I've taught them or conversations we've had that seem to apply equally to this world of customer experience. Time to put them all together in one place. So here goes...

If you ignore him, he'll go away.

Yup, if you ignore your nagging brother so he doesn't get a rise out of you, then he'll go away. Guess what? If you ignore your customers, nagging or not, they'll go away, too!

Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

The Golden Rule. Clearly, this is the one secret ingredient to a great customer experience. This should be the first sentence in every new-hire training manual.

If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything.
You get more flies with honey than with vinegar.

These two get to the same point. Choose your words wisely. Be polite. Be kind. Be respectful. This is an important rule to follow when it comes to how to interact and communicate with your customers. And this might be a good time to add that bashing your competitors is not a marketing strategy.

Look both ways before crossing the street.

This one might seem odd, but I think it applies well here. The street is your journey, the both ways you'll want to look: at your customers and at your employees. Both experiences are important to the success of the business.

Actions speak louder than words.

Don't pay lip service to improving the customer experience and never do it. Don't apologize for a service failure and then refuse to correct the issue. If you say you're going to do it, do it. Better yet, just do it - then you don't have to say it.

If your friends jump off a cliff, will you jump, too?

Just because your competitors do something a certain way doesn't mean you need to. Just because it works for your competitors does not mean it is suitable for you. Everyone wants to model Zappos, but you can't be Zappos. Your organization and your culture is different; we can learn a lot of Zappos, but we cannot replicate their culture within our organizations. Why not innovate and offer some new approaches to products, services, and your customer experience. What makes your brand unique?

If you make a promise, keep it.

Your brand promise is, well, a promise to your customers. Everything you do should reflect this promise. Consistency is key. It sets expectations and defines the benefits customers can expect to receive when they engage in your services or use your products, when they experience your brand.

Don’t slouch; sit up straight.

This one is simple: presentation is everything. Dress well. Make sure your facilities are clean. Here's a great example: send your plumbers out clean shaven and smelling good, a la Mike Diamond.

It doesn’t matter who started it, you end it.

Don't argue with your customers. The customer isn't always right, but you must always do right by the customer. You'll gain way more by doing right than by arguing and blaming.

Work it out; I'm not going to fight your battles for you.

Empower your frontline or customer-facing staff to resolve issues - on their own. Consider Ritz-Carlton. They allow employees to spend up to $2,000 to make a situation right with a customer, without having to get it blessed by a supervisor first.

Answer me when I ask you a question!

Look at me when I'm talking to you!

I'll combine these two because they have similar implications - namely, when there's a customer standing in front of you, he should be the only thing you're focusing on. When a customer asks a question, submits a query, or needs help, answer him. Be timely and responsive. Ever heard of "the 10 and 5 rule?" When a customer is 10 feet away, acknowledge him with a wave or a smile; at 5 feet away, say, "Hello."

Money does NOT grow on trees.

This is true. Money doesn't grow on trees. And there's no other way your business will survive if it scares away its only source of money: customers. Customers pay the bills.

You have an answer for everything, don't you?

Good, bad, or indifferent, sometimes you need to just be quiet and listen.

"I don't know" is not an answer.

If you don't know the answer, go find out. Customers don't want non-answers.

Is that a promise or a threat?

Mean what you say. Say what you mean.

What's the magic word?

Always say "please" and "thank you." Especially "thank you." Never forget to thank your customers for their business.

There are a lot more, but this blog post can only be so long! One of the things my mom said a lot when I was younger was, "You need that like you need a hole in your head." Still makes me laugh today. Wish I could have worked that in here somehow!

What sage advice has your mom given you that you've been able to apply at work every day?

Happy Mother's Day!

Could Your Online Reputation Be Driving Customers Away?

2013-05-09T09:06:00.000-07:00

Is your reputation scaring customers away?

Today I am pleased to present a guest post by Debbie Allen.

Business owners are forced to take notice of things that affect their sales. Whether the impact is positive or negative, evaluating the impact allows a business person to understand how to help keep the business running more smoothly.

Not surprisingly, a business’s online reputation can play a major role in its success or in its collapse. The reality is, customers pay attention to the things they read and hear about a company. If your business’s online reputation is less than positive, it could be driving away customers.

Cleaning Up Your Company’s Online Reputation

Social Media Sites
Reputation management is an ongoing task. Business owners should take the time to regularly monitor comments and feedback about their company at social media sites.

According to a survey by eMarketer, almost half of all consumers expect customer service complaints to be resolved on social media sites. Many consumers consider this method more convenient than calling customer service departments. When businesses ignore these complaints, customers and would-be customers become alienated. In addition, other followers at the social media site will see that a complaint has been left unaddressed. This is unprofessional and disrespectful to the person with the complaint. In general, not responding to comments, feedback, and complaints can create a negative image of the business.

Online Review Sites
According to a study by Nielsen, when it comes to trust value, online reviews are second only to word-of-mouth recommendations for consumers. In other words, consumers value online reviews more highly than TV commercials or online banner ads. With that in mind, monitoring what is being said about your business on online review sites is very important. It’s a fact that unhappy customers are more likely to write reviews than those who are satisfied. Cleaning up negative reviews begins with responding to the person(s) that submitted the less-than-favorable comments. Besides working to resolve the problem with the unhappy customer, it is also a good idea to encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews about their experiences.

Google It
Every business owner should take the time to regularly Google the name of the business. Search results will probably include the business website, various business listings, social media profiles, listings at review sites, and other online mentions. Most people do not search past the first or second page of results. With that in mind, it is not too difficult to bury any negative results found (but that doesn't mean they should be ignored). Savvy business owners create new, appropriately optimized content, which will quickly move up in search engine rankings.

Reputation management is key to the success of your business.
The reputation of a new and developing business may seem unimportant or nonexistent. However, every business has a reputation of sorts, and it can take years to establish a solid reputation of integrity and honesty. Sadly, without careful reputation management, that reputation can quickly be crushed.

Whereas a positive reputation can definitely help ensure the success of a business, a negative reputation can lead to its demise. With that in mind, taking steps to build and maintain a stellar reputation is an essential part of business management.

Debbie Allen is a professional freelance writer and blogger who specializes in online marketing strategies and topics of interest to women.

Image courtesy of basketman at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

The Longest and Hardest 9 Inches in Employee Engagement

2013-05-07T09:23:00.001-07:00

Image courtesy of 9 INCH Marketing

I love the concept behind Stan Phelps' 9 INCH Marketing; the name refers to the average distance between the brain and the heart of your customers and your employees.

As Stan says: it's the longest and hardest 9" in marketing. At its core, the concept is all about winning the hearts and minds of your customers and your employees. In CX Journey speak, it's a long, slow journey for such a short distance.

Stan published his first book, What's Your Purple Goldfish, early last year to help with the customer mind-heart journey; about a month ago, he published What's Your Green Goldfish to help with that mind-to-heart employee journey. I would recommend getting your hands on both books!

Today, I want to focus on What's Your Green Goldfish. I was excited to read the book because I was really starting to think that there are just too few companies focusing on the employee experience. This book gave me hope. Trust me - there are many more companies out there that have their work cut out for them in this area, but these 1,001 examples of how companies take care of their employees are refreshing!

The Green Goldfish book is filled with a lot of great ideas and approaches to understanding employee engagement, but I like that Stan carries the 9 INCH theme through this book. He outlines the 9" between the head and the heart of the employee and gives examples for every inch along the journey. As I read about each of the nine inches, I couldn't help but think of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Check these out and see if you agree. (Note: Stan sent me a preview copy of the book; the final version may have different names or different orders to the 9 inches than what I've outlined below.)

Stan calls the first three inches "The Basics," defined as creating a stable environment.

First Inch: Onboarding/Food and Beverage
Make a solid first impression with your employees. Get onboarding right and get your new hires started off on the right foot. Stan says that less than 25% of companies have a formal onboarding process.

Second Inch: Shelter and Wellness
Your workspace, your physical environment, where you work - these are all important to moving to the second inch of the journey. In addition, supporting healthy living and healthy behavior results in healthy, happy, productive employees.

Third Inch: Time Away and the Modern Family
Having time off is key, but in the States, we have the fewest number of days off work every year. Typically, full-time employees get two weeks, plus maybe 10 holidays throughout the year. Here's the problem: many of us don't even take what we get. As David Murphy of North Face said: "Vacation days are like aspirin; they only work if you take them."

The other component of the third inch is the needs of the modern family; this doesn't just refer to same-sex couples but also to spending time with family, caring for elderly parents or ill family members. Companies who support all of these scenarios are well ahead of the pack.

Stan refers to these next three inches as "Belonging," defined as enabling high-functioning teams and recognizing their efforts.

Fourth Inch: Retirement and Flexibility
Flexible work arrangements improve satisfaction and productivity. I can speak to that. I work from home, and I always say that I get more done in six hours at home than in 10 hours in the office. I love working from home.

As for retirement, both matching and contributing along with retirement planning services help to prepare employees for the "after life."

Fifth Inch: Team Building and Transparency
Being part of a team and feeling connected to those you work with, all working to achieve a common goal, is critical to employee engagement. Working in an open, transparent environment toward that goal is even better.

Sixth Inch: Attaboys and Attagirls
Without a doubt, recognition for your work gives you that sense of accomplishment and belonging. We feel like we've added value, while at the same time, it boosts our own sense of worth.

Stan calls the last three inches "Building," which he describes as empowering employees to learn, give back, and take control of their destinies.

Seventh Inch: Training and Development
Wouldn't you be excited about working for a company that helps you (or wants you to) grow as an individual and as an employee? That includes both in-house and external training, as well as tuition reimbursement. Both companies and employees benefit from this leg of the journey, where companies truly invest in their employees.

Eighth Inch: Giving Back and Paying It Forward
Making it easy for employees to give back, pay it forward, and offer up their time to serve those in need certainly shows that the company cares about humanity, in general.

Ninth Inch: Empowering Dreams and Goals
Stan describes this final inch of the journey as enabling employees to do their best. Help them find their way, support them with training and resources, and then step aside so they can do what they need to do.

Grab a copy of the book. It's fun to read what companies are doing for their employees, and it will give you some ideas that you can probably easily implement (while other examples require a bit of heavy lifting) within your organization.

Love this quote from the book by Google's Chief People Officer Laszlo Bock when ask why Google sets the gold standard for taking care of customers:

"It turns out that the reason we're doing these things for employees is not because it's important to the business, but simply because it's the right thing to do. And from a company standpoint, that makes it better to care than not to care."

Jeff Bezos Gets Customer Experience - But What About Employee Experience?

2013-05-02T07:58:00.001-07:00

Two weeks ago, I wrote a post about Jeff Bezos' latest shareholder letter and his commitment to, or obsession with, his customers. One of the responses I got to that post was from Micah Solomon, who suggested that it would be equally valuable to review how Amazon treats its employees.

In response to Micah's note, one of the things I looked at was the situation at Amazon's Lehigh Valley warehouse, where employees were subjected to unbearable working conditions in the heat of the summer. Conditions were so bad that people were taken away in ambulances to receive medical attention for dehydration, heat exhaustion, and more. The Morning Call, a Lehigh Valley newspaper, has kept tabs on Amazon employees in the area and how they are treated; they have a section of their site devoted to stories about Amazon.

While those events occurred in 2011, as recently as February of this year, there was an issue with the way employees were being treated in Germany. A similar story comes from a British warehouse.

The issues reported in Lehigh Valley, Britain, and Germany occurred with warehouse (fulfillment center) employees. A factor to consider in these scenarios is that vendor partners were involved, whether it was to provide the talent or the security. This begs the question, does Amazon not appropriately vet its partners? Is Amazon responsible for the experience these partners provide? Yes.

Amazon has a responsibility to contract with reputable partners who treat their employees well - and who provide services that meet Amazon's standards.
If Amazon doesn't hold their partners to their own standards, then they are as culpable as the partner.

In an e-commerce world, is employee experience as important to customer experience as it is in a physical, brick-and-mortar retail world? On its own, yes, the employee experience is always important. But thinking of the impact on customer experience, in a world where human interaction is really limited to a rare customer service call (I've never called Amazon, though I've been a customer for a long time), service that is often circumvented by proactive systems and great policies... what then? Note this:

Employee experience is always important!
Employee experience, frontline or behind the scenes, always drives customer experience.
Employee experience unleashes passion and innovation that creates that wonderful customer experience.
For those employees that can't see it, make the connection to help them understand their impact on the customer experience, of course!

But I digress...

I reviewed Amazon's shareholder letters from 1997 through 2012. Mr. Bezos doesn't devote much time to the employee experience in these letters, but he does talk about hiring and hiring the right people. I appreciate that and have no qualms about that, but just like customer acquisition is expensive, so is employee acquisition; hence, heavy focus should be place on retention.

Here's a smattering of what he's said about employees over the years in his shareholder letters:

1997: The past year's success is the product of a talented, smart, hard-working group, and I take great pride in being a part of this team. Setting the bar high in our approach to hiring has been, and will continue to be, the single most important element of Amazon.com's success.

It's not easy to work here (when I interview people I tell them, “You can work long, hard, or smart, but at Amazon.com you can't choose two out of three”), but we are working to build something important, something that matters to our customers, something that we can all tell our grandchildren about. Such things aren't meant to be easy. We are incredibly fortunate to have this group of dedicated employees whose sacrifices and passion build Amazon.com.

1998: It would be impossible to produce results in an environment as dynamic as the Internet without extraordinary people. Working to create a little bit of history isn’t supposed to be easy, and, well, we’re finding that things are as they’re supposed to be! We now have a team of 2,100 smart, hard-working, passionate folks who put customers first. Setting the bar high in our approach to hiring has been, and will continue to be, the single most important element of Amazon.com’s success.

During our hiring meetings, we ask people to consider three questions before making a decision (I've abbreviated):

Will you admire this person?
Will this person raise the average level of effectiveness of the group they’re
entering?
Along what dimension might this person be a superstar?

... We intend to invest in teams, processes, communication and people development practices. ...

Can you believe it? In 15 years of letters, that's it. Technically, he repeats this message when he adds the 1997 letter to each year's letter, but that's not the same thing. He does briefly acknowledge and thank the employees for their hard work in a few letters, but it's nothing more than half a sentence or a word acknowledging the employees in the same breath as processes and systems. Keep in mind, he does a fabulous job of verbalizing his obsession with customers and the customer experience. I don't want to take away from that. You can just feel it when you read the letters. But... employees are important, too.

He talks about hiring, which is really important, but what about the things Amazon is doing for its employees after their Day One? What's the culture? According to Jeff Bezos: "Our culture is friendly and intense, but if push comes to shove, we’ll settle for intense." Define intense.

What do employees say about working at Amazon? For that, go to Glassdoor and Indeed for employee reviews. Glassdoor ratings are average, but I think if we cut those reviews by role and/or by country, they will vary greatly. My unscientific review proved to fit that hypothesis. Indeed offers forums for people to ask questions about working conditions, etc., and this particular string about Amazon's culture shows that Fulfillment Center employees have no kind words about working conditions; even a developer has some harsh words, but closes with:

"Some of this might sound harsh but the fact is that most of us love what we do - we're always creating new and awesome things, get to see our work in the wild and feed off of each others enthusiasm and energy. The technical side of Amazon is not for everyone but if you're passionate and good at what you do, have had some measure of success and are a alpha-type personality, you'll do fine. In fact, there is quite a bit of attention put on hiring to make sure you fit all these criteria because, like I said, Amazon is definitely not for everyone."

Not for everyone.

Hiring the right people is key to delivering the right customer experience, but it's also important to achieving employee engagement and to having a great employee experience.

What does Amazon say about the employee experience? What do they tell recruits? Despite the fact that Jeff Bezos makes little mention over the years about the employee experience, Amazon does devote a few pages to what it's like working at Amazon, including their values, which they call Leadership Principles, and a page about Working at Amazon. This is a recruiting video about working at Amazon:

Link to this video

Is a relentless pursuit of customer experience excellence OK at any and all costs? Or is this what it means/takes to be "customer obsessed?" What do you think of their latest employee patent that "facilitates improvement in the results of human performance of tasks" but is apparently also about not paying people for unsatisfactory work?

I'd love to hear from Amazon employees. What's your take on the employee experience at Amazon?

To promote cooperation and team work, remember, people tend to resist that which is forced upon them. People tend to support that which they helped create. -Vince Pfaff

Hotel Manager Abandons Desk Job to Become a Customer Experience Rock Star

2013-04-30T08:51:00.000-07:00

Today I am pleased to present another guest post by Sarah Simon.

After a restful night’s stay at the TownePlace Suites in Plano Texas, I headed downstairs to drop my key and have a quick breakfast. At the end of the hallway by the lobby stood a smiling, laughing man, cheerfully engaging customers. “Good morning, how was your stay?” he inquired. “Please, we’ll take your bag to the front desk and watch it while you enjoy breakfast!” I felt like road warrior royalty! My suitcase and laptop bag were promptly whisked away while the man introduced himself. I recognized his name at once – Pablo Villarroel – from the friendly and welcoming letter tacked visibly on the in-room refrigerator wishing me a pleasant stay.

As manager, this man could have spent the morning hiding behind his desk, avoiding the “messy” business of dealing with customers, as staff tended to the hurried business travelers rushing to check out. Instead, he placed himself where he knew many of us would end up – at the breakfast area near the lobby – and greeted us each with a warm welcome, a bright smile, and a handshake. Not only does this man obviously enjoy his job but he also shares his passion for customer delight with everyone he sees! His cheerfulness is infectious; every staff member I encountered smiled and greeted me warmly, like a friend. The desk staff made eye contact and seemed eager to help. The effect is to make each and every customer feel valued.

Up until my interaction with Mr. Villarroel, this had been just another very nice stay at a business hotel: clean, spacious room, friendly and helpful staff, nice landscaping, comfortable bed, etc. So what went so right here? Managers like Mr. Villarroel don’t grow on trees and cannot be cloned, but what about this experience could a hotel chain replicate elsewhere? How can your hospitality company facilitate customer-focused behavior among your general managers?

1. Rethink Hiring/Promotion: Hire and promote the right people who care about your hotel guests. Hotel managers need a wide array of skills, and liking people and caring about their happiness and comfort should be higher on the list than I suspect many hotels place this because it’s a “soft skill.” Guess what? Your customers remember a manager’s smile and handshake, not his accounting or ability to process forms.

2. Sincerity through Empowerment: The last thing Marriott or any hotel chain should try to do is issue an edict to their property general managers telling them to copy Mr. Villarroel’s behavior. Customers can tell a lousy acting job a mile away. You hire smart people for a reason: so you can tell them “here’s where I want you to go” and trust them to get themselves there. Help managers set customer experience goals without dictating their behavior for sincere results.

3. Incentive Customer-Centric Behaviors: Do your expectations of your property managers over-emphasize behaviors that have little direct impact on the customer? If your KPIs scream “back-office busy work” and not “customer engagement,” be careful what you ask for – your managers just might deliver! Your job description should include “customer engagement” right next to budgets, staff management, and operations skills. Failure to make room for customer interactions means even well-intentioned managers will opt to hide at their desks doing "busy work" instead of wading into the corridors to greet hotel guests.

4. Train for Empathy: Even for the most-seasoned road warriors, travel can be tiring and stressful. Interrogating TSA agents, eye-rolling front-desk clerks, exhausted waitresses, and heartless hotel registration clerks can all be part of the travel game…but they don’t have to be. Your hotel can be a sanctuary to the road-weary traveler. When hotel managers travel for business, require them to keep a journal of particularly good and bad experiences. Ask them to put themselves in the shoes of a tired, confused, worn-out hotel guest with a lost reservation. Maybe even arrange a “mystery shopper” experience at sister-hotels where the manager stays an evening and reports on the highs and the lows of their customer experience. By putting the shoe on the other foot and encouraging hotel managers to see the hotel experience from the guest’s perspective, you can encourage empathy in their interaction with visitors.

5. Recognize Excellence: Go ahead and make a case study out of your top performers! Recognize the superb customer centricity and inspire colleagues to excel by building a case study around your rock stars, maybe having them present to colleagues or write posts to the company intranet. Strong performers thrive on recognition for a job well done, and sharing customer success stories helps to further sow seeds toward a customer-centric atmosphere at your company.

Top-notch, customer-focused hotel general managers don’t grow on trees. But by promoting and rewarding customer-centric behavior among your management, you can optimize the experience your guests have when staying at your properties. Guests don’t see what happens in the back office, and nuts and bolts like “clean, spacious rooms” are easily commoditized. But providing hotel visitors with a peaceful, friendly sanctuary where they feel right at home leaves a lasting impression. This sanctuary isn’t built on management “hard skills” alone but requires a customer-focused gentle touch from a manager willing to leave his or her desk to extend sincere hospitality to each and every guest to make them feel at home.

Sarah Simon is a career insights professional with 16 years of experience in the feedback industry. Specialties include VoC architecture, journey mapping, developing linkages to business performance, reduction of customer defection, results analysis and communication, with expert survey design skills. She is the survivor of a botched early-generation "big data mining" operation and is happy to live to tell about it.

The Only CEO Who Matters

2013-04-25T09:45:00.001-07:00

Sam Walton once said, "There is one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else."

It is this premise that Chuck Wall personifies in his new book, Customer CEO: How to Profit from the Power of Your Customers. This is a well-written, easy-to-read book about the powers possessed by your customers - powers you may not have considered - and about how to become a successful, profitable business by harnessing those powers to transform the organization, the culture, and how it thinks about delivering the customer experience.

Chuck draws on his background as a marketer and an entrepreneur, along with feedback from, or interviews with, more than 100,000 customers of his various clients over the years to explain the powers and to make his point. The great thing about the companies Chuck uses as examples? They are not all "the usual suspects." He shares details from 30+ companies, some that you may not have heard of or that you may not have thought about when you've searched for examples of who gets the customer experience right. That doesn't lessen their impact and is, actually, quite refreshing.

There are nine customer powers that Chuck identifies through his research, and he explains each one using real-life examples. He then outlines how to harness each one to evolve your company into a customer-centric organization. I'll briefly summarize the nine powers below, but before I do that, here's a quick video about the book. See if you can identify any of the powers as you watch it.

Link to this video

Didn't catch them all? OK, here they are.

The Power of Me: What's in it for me?

I am the customer. I am always right. I am the reason you are in business. I pay your bills. I will share my experiences, good or bad, with everyone around me. I'll even share them with you, but I expect

you to do something with it.

The Power of Value: What's this worth to me?

Value means different things to different people. Each of us decides what something is worth or what its value is based on our needs at the time. That value can be determined by both internal (need) and external factors. One thing is for certain, though. Customers don't want to pay too much or get ripped off.

The Power of Performance: Does it do what I need it to do?

This power revolves around design thinking. Better design - be it products, services, etc. - leads to better customer experiences.

The Power of the Heart: How does it make you feel?

Customers will make that emotional connection with companies and brands that understand them and take the time to really get to know them.

The Power of Simple: Why is this so difficult?

Offering too many variations, making things difficult to assemble or use, incorporating extra or unnecessary steps into a process. These are all examples of where simplification would be a customer delighter.

The Power of Yes: Why is the answer always No?

The golden rule. Treat customers the way that you want to be treated. Get it right. Go the extra mile. Do the little unexpected things. Empower employees to always do what's right for the customer. Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "Never allow a person to tell you 'No' who doesn't have the power to say 'Yes.'"

The Power of Platform: What about my ideas?

This power is all about how social and how vocal we've all become. We are share happy. Good or bad. Ideas, suggestions, complaints. It's all a gift from us to the companies we interact with. Our ability to share has been amplified by the platform. Companies must adapt and learn to communicate with, and respond to, customers wherever they are.

The Power of Rebellion: How do I break the rules?
There are too many bad rules and policies. What's the point of some of them? There are best practices, but who are they best for? Companies are so bland and blah. Why does everyone have to do the same thing? Which companies are going to break the mold and really set themselves apart from the rest of the pack? Who's going to create a unique and better experience for me?

The Power of Purpose: Do we share the same values?
We like to do business with companies that: do the right thing, put our best interests first, and value the same things we do. Companies that we can trust. Companies that we believe in. Companies whose purpose, whose why, aligns with our own.

Honestly, these all sound pretty reasonable to me. Nothing crazy here in terms of customer expectations. Any company that not only understands these powers but also puts them to good use is ahead of the game. Customers have a choice. They don't have to buy from your company; they can go elsewhere. Take the time to understand and to really know your customers so that you can become their primary, or even only, choice.

Chuck closes the book with this Customer CEO Manifesto, as well as a guide to becoming a Customer CEO Champion. I recommend adopting this Manifesto as your own!

The greatest assets companies possess are not their buildings, brands, or backgrounds. It’s their customers.

Remember... there's only one boss. There's only one CEO who matters.

If you don't really believe that your customers are in charge, you are being stubborn. The reality is that your existing and potential customers can choose to do business however they want. You are merely one option in lives filled with too many choices, distractions, and debt. They can live without you. -Chuck Wall

Good Old-Fashioned Customer Service

2013-04-23T09:33:00.001-07:00

My latest was originally published as a guest post on CustomerCEO.com on January 16, 2013. It's presented here with a few updates.

Remember the good old days, when you didn't have to pump your own gas? Whatever happened to full-service service stations?

I was watching American Pickers on the History Channel with my parents over the holidays; I noticed that the pickers seemed to be enamored by old service station memorabilia. Finding that memorabilia took them down memory lane, where they recalled days of true service stations. I'm guessing some of my readers are even too young to remember them. For those who are, you'll appreciate this commercial!

Link for this video

These service stations are a great example of what service should be. At least that's how I remember them!

Let me explain. In the "old days," you could pull into a gas station and not even have to get out of your car. A filling station attendant, aka "gas jockey," would be standing there, ready to: greet you, fill your gas tank, clean your windows, check your tires, and maybe even check under the hood. And these perks were free. They were part of the service experience at these stations. You paid for the gas but not for the service. Getting gas for your car was an experience, and it took a little more time than pumping your own gas does today. The attendants actually talked to their customers and got to know them.

If you google "service stations," you come up with next to nothing. Why? Because these full-service stations are pretty much non-existent in the US now, except for in two states, New Jersey and Oregon, where it's against the law to pump your own gas. (Apologies to my readers outside of the US; I realize these full-service stations do/may exist in your country.) If you live in either of those states, let me know if the level of service you get is comparable to what was offered back in the "old days."

Watching that American Pickers show got me thinking... what was so special about service stations? And how do we bring that level of service back? What can we learn from these full-service service stations?

Well, we certainly cannot underestimate the importance of...

service with a smile
a friendly greeting
staff appearance
enjoying what you do
hiring people people (or is it "people persons?")
"I'll take care of it for you" attitude
knowing your customers (literally) and their needs
a personalized experience, including greeting customers by name
trust relationships (some station owners allowed customers to "charge" gas and settle their bills every month)
going the extra mile

Link for the video

I love the closing line of the commercial: "At Texaco, we're working to keep your trust." Is there a brand that uses (or deserves to use) that line today?

What happened between then and now? Why can't we get this kind of service today? Not just from a gas station but from any company with which we interact?

How do we instill this type of "at your service" attitude into frontline staff or into anyone that touches the customer? Is it a realistic expectation?

I'm of the opinion that it's all about the people you hire. That attitude can't be trained.

I am convinced that nothing we do is more important than hiring and developing people. At the end of the day, you bet on people, not on strategies. -Lawrence Bossidy, Former COO of GE

Where, Oh Where, Has Common Sense Gone?

2013-04-19T08:30:00.000-07:00

Apparently it's been around for a while; the dictionary says so...

I find myself using the phrase "common sense" more and more every day... to describe the basic tenets of customer experience and employee experience... but also to describe humanity in general. Unfortunately, as I do this, I actually question it more than I praise its use.

What happened to common sense? Did stupidity really take over? Did we forget about manners? Did we really all forget what we were taught as kids? Were we not taught these things as kids? Can common sense be taught? Or are we born with it? (I don't think we were, but according to the definition in the dictionary - see image above - it's a "normal native intelligence.") Are there exercises to teach or to strengthen common sense?

Why do we have to post signs like this one? Why do we have to remind brands to do the right thing? Why do we need to tell companies to treat their employees right? Why do we have to explain that customer experience is important to the bottom line? Why do we have to remind companies not to tweet during tragedies and to not use those tragedies opportunistically? Why do we have to remind customer service reps that their job is to help people?

Yea, I'm more full of questions than I am of answers. I shake my head about this every single day.

So I started to search for an answer to my question, "Can common sense be taught?" I started my search at home. As you might already know, I have two young sons, and I can pretty much guarantee you based on this very unscientific sample size, that not everyone is born with common sense. I find myself saying, a lot, "Guys, use a little common sense." And then teaching them that, before they react, they should consider the following:

Think before you act or answer.
Does it make sense?
Is it the right thing to do?
Would I want to be treated that way?
Is that what you've been taught?
Is that using good judgment? (Yea, they know what that means.)

And the list goes on and on. Every day. Over and over again.

I'm not asking for the Mom of the Year Award here. But I will ask, does every parent do that? Did your parents do that for you? Is that how common sense is taught? So I did a little research and came across a quiz on the Discovery channel's website with some interesting facts that I think help us explain a few things, especially as they relate to customer service and the customer experience. The following items (in italics) are pulled from that quiz.

The Merriam-Webster definition of common sense specifies "sound and prudent judgment." That judgment must be based on things that are common knowledge and established facts, either by the person making the judgment or by society in general.

So, is it not common knowledge or an established fact that a customer service rep or a frontline employee is there to help customers? Is it not an established fact that customer experience drives growth and profitability?

In order to have common sense, you need to know things and be able to make deductions (reason). For example, you know that stepping in front of a speeding car is likely to get you killed, so common sense indicates you shouldn't do it. However, a 1-year-old doesn't know that a speeding car is deadly, so he cannot act accordingly.

Great. Deductive reasoning is important to good judgment. Should this be a new hiring question, test, or criterion?

The brain produces emotions faster than judgment. The region of the brain that controls emotions reacts faster than the region that controls decision-making. The difference is just milliseconds, but it could be enough for an irrational response to something.

OK, now we're getting somewhere. This is why the customer service rep made a snide remark when you got upset about something on your phone bill that you didn't expect. Emotions first, judgment second. Think about how you can factor that into your employee training.

Common sense is meant to keep us safe and living "a reasonable way," according to the Cambridge Dictionary.

I say, "Define reasonable." I think we've moved into a circular argument here.

Common sense requires social interaction. Common sense is usually connected to universal truths. If you don't have regular social interaction, you might not learn what constitutes common sense and how to use it. This is why very smart people who spend a lot of time by themselves might seem to lack common sense.

Hmm. Does this mean we need to hire social butterflies? I think you're not going to want to be on the frontline and customer-facing if you're not social. I don't really want my employees learning common sense on the job, do I?

According to Bruce Charlton, editor-in-chief of the journal "Medical Hypotheses," people who lack common sense often have a high IQ. Charlton believes that a lot of people with very high IQs tend to ignore common sense (or learned cultural behavior) in favor of reasoning. This might seem smart, but Charlton believes it often leads to geniuses coming up with strange responses or behaviors.

There you go. Hire dummies.

Common sense is "fluid." What was common sense in the 15th century might not be common sense today. Some ideas that used to be common sense have been since proved wrong and discarded.

Makes sense.

What is considered common sense in one country does not necessarily add up to common sense somewhere else. If you live in a city, common sense indicates that you must look both ways before crossing the street to avoid being hit by a car. But if you grew up in a rural area, you might not look before crossing because aren't used to dealing with traffic.

Makes sense, too. How will you apply that concept to your employee training programs? Your product design? Your documentation? The way you interact with customers?

Knowledge can help develop your common sense. The more knowledge you have about things, the more decisions become a matter of common sense. For example, if you know what poison ivy looks like and you know the unpleasant effects of topical contact with the plant, it becomes basic common sense not to touch it. A person without this knowledge can't make this common sense judgment.

Aha, so it can be taught!

Common sense is all learned. Common sense in humans is based on learned information, even when it seems that it's connected to innate reactions and senses. For example, you don't put your hand in the fire because it hurts. This might seem like an innate sense (we're programmed to avoid pain), but the truth is that until you put your hand in the fire for the first time (or somebody tells you why you shouldn't), you won't know.

OK, I'm definitely on the right track with my kids then. But for your employees, does this mean common sense training becomes a part of your employee onboarding and ongoing training? Read on...

Common sense can be partially taught to an adult. It's possible to teach somebody common sense, but it would require exposing that person to a lot of "what if" situations and then explaining what the common sense response would be and why.

Is this part of "hire for attitude, train for aptitude?" Does common sense become part of "aptitude?" Are you prepared to teach your employees common sense? How much are you responsible to teach them, if they're going to represent your organization? Should there be a "common sense test" as part of the hiring process?

I'm still left with a lot of questions. Would love to hear your thoughts, now that you, too, know a bit more about common sense.

The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense. -Thomas Edison

Using Social Media to Deliver Customer Service

2013-04-18T08:19:00.001-07:00

Today I'm pleased to present a guest post by Chris Martin.

As a business owner, you recognize the importance of good customer service. So you provide options for your buyers, offer as many amenities as possible, and get to know what your customers want and need - and do it all with a big smile on your face.

Why not use social media to help you with your goal of improving customer service? Here are a few ways to accomplish this:

Set up a different Facebook page for customer service. This will impress your customers because they know that you are taking your service seriously enough to create a dedicated page for it. But it also helps you because it allows you to view customer feedback in one place instead of paging through your news feed of messages on your standard business Facebook page. This customer service page can be branded similarly to your main page, but it should also display frequently asked questions as well as complete contact information for customers who have a problem or issue.

Use social media to respond to complaints quickly. Setting up an alert on your Facebook customer service page will notify you when someone has posted a complaint or question. And Twitter's built-in immediacy will allow you to see a customer complaint as it comes up on your feed. But most importantly, responding quickly lets all of your social media customers know that you value their feedback and are trying hard to provide the best service possible. That in itself will help boost your online reputation.

Use social media to communicate during a crisis. Emergencies happen - like your website or e-commerce site crashing, your supply chain being disrupted, your database being hacked, or even your phone system going down. This is when you can turn to social media to alert customers to what is happening. You can use Twitter, Facebook, or other sites to provide periodic updates about the problem and keep customers informed that you are actively trying to resolve the problem. This will help give your customers peace of mind in the midst of a crisis.

Use social media input for employee training. Not only can social media act as a communication channel for customer service, but it can provide a valuable training resource as well. If you take a few examples of questions, comments, or complaints that were posted by customers on your site, you can show them to your employees and instruct them on how to properly address these issues. Then if your workers are confronted with a similar problem in the future, they will know how to handle it correctly.

Use Facebook metrics (and those on other sites) to gauge customer response. One of the great things about Facebook is that it incorporates impressive business page tools and metrics to help you measure traffic and page views. You can easily see which topics, posts, and marketing initiatives are popular with customers and which ones aren't. Twitter, MySpace, and other sites have handy metrics as well. Paying attention to them can help you tweak your overall branding and marketing strategies.

When it comes to businesses, social media isn't just for marketing and community outreach anymore. It can be utilized as a tool to demonstrate your willingness and eagerness to provide your customers with service that exceeds their expectations.

Chris Martin is a freelance writer who writes for numerous websites and is also a ghostwriter for several blogs. In addition, he is an accomplished voice actor and an experienced sportscaster. Martin has also worked as a radio DJ, a traffic reporter, and a public address announcer for sporting events - and he actively monitors his online reputation on Reputation.com.

Jeff Bezos is a CX Dream Come True!

2013-04-16T07:31:00.001-07:00

Last week, I wrote about Union Bank and their "Do Right" campaign. I love the campaign, but I was left with questions as to whether employees live it and customers experience it. One company who leaves me with no such questions is Amazon.

In preparation for the upcoming 2013 Amazon Shareholders Meeting in Seattle, Amazon released their 2012 Letter to Shareholders (link will download the letter) late last week. Let's just say that it does not disappoint. Jeff Bezos continues to prove that he and Amazon put customers first. You can download and read the letter for yourself, but I'll call out some of the highlights in a moment.

What I love is that Mr. Bezos also includes a copy of the first shareholder letter he wrote, back in 1997 (the year Amazon first went public). Apparently he attaches that original letter to every year's shareholder letter, reminding us that "it's still Day 1," meaning that we still have a lot to learn and much room for growth and improvement.

This guy is a CX dream come true!

In that 1997 letter, he outlines a long list of items that summarize his fundamental approach to management and decision making. I'll call out the first and the last bullet points; all of the others (7) in between relate to investment decisions.

First bullet point: "We will continue to focus relentlessly on our customers." Yay!

Last bullet point: "We will continue to focus on hiring and retaining versatile and talented employees, and continue to weight their compensation to stock options rather than cash. We know our success will be largely affected by our ability to attract and retain a motivated employee base, each of whom must think like, and therefore must actually be, an owner." Yay!

In that letter, he goes on to describe what it means and what they had done to show they truly obsess over customers - and the business outcomes as a result of doing so. And he explains what it's like to work at Amazon and the type of employees he's looking for: "The past year’s success is the product of a talented, smart, hard-working group, and I take great pride in being a part of this team. Setting the bar high in our approach to hiring has been, and will continue to be, the single most important element of Amazon.com’s success."

Back to the future... let's see how he did with all of that. The 2012 letter has all the ingredients of a customer-centric company. I think it's safe to stay he's stayed on course for the last 15 years. I'll pull out some key quotes to highlight that.

"...our energy at Amazon comes from the desire to impress customers rather than the zeal to best competitors."

"...but it is a fact that the customer-centric way is at this point a defining element of our culture."

"One advantage – perhaps a somewhat subtle one – of a customer-driven focus is that it aids a certain type of proactivity."

"These investments are motivated by customer focus rather than by reaction to competition. We think this approach earns more trust with customers and drives rapid improvements in customer experience – importantly – even in those areas where we are already the leader."

"We didn’t “have to” make these improvements in Prime. We did so proactively."

"It has been a game changer for our seller customers because their items become eligible for Prime benefits, which drives their sales, while at the same time benefitting consumers with additional Prime selection."

"We build automated systems that look for occasions when we’ve provided a customer experience that isn’t up to our standards, and those systems then proactively refund customers."

"Most customers are too busy themselves to monitor the price of an item after they pre-order it, and our policy could be to require the customer to contact us and ask for the refund. Doing it proactively is more expensive for us, but it also surprises, delights, and earns trust."

"There isn’t competitive pressure to pay authors more than once every six months, but we’re proactively doing so."

"We want to make money when people use our devices – not when people buy our devices. We think this aligns us better with customers."

"Yes, we are actively telling customers they’re paying us more than they need to."

"...internal motivation – the drive to get the customer to say “Wow” – keeps the pace of innovation fast."

"Proactively delighting customers earns trust, which earns more business from those customers, even in new business arenas. Take a long-term view, and the interests of customers and shareholders align."

"We don’t celebrate a 10% increase in the stock price like we celebrate excellent customer experience."

All I can say is, "Wow!" I have no doubt in my mind about these words and what they mean; I've been an Amazon customer for a very long time. I've never been disappointed, but I've been delighted many times.

As a leader, Mr. Bezos shows that he's both the customer and the employee champion. Reading through the 2012 letter again, the following traits and qualities come to mind - all of which are certainly descriptive of a customer-centric culture:

Trust
Transparency
Best interest of customers
Integrity
Honesty
Not being opportunistic
Customers ahead of shareholders
Innovation
Passionate
Humble
Proactive
Delight

Do any of those describe your organization's values and culture?

I dare you to find another shareholder letter that rallies this one!

We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It's our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better. -Jeff Bezos

Getting Used to Being in High Places

2013-04-11T07:52:00.002-07:00

Signing the summit register on top of
Sheeprock (8,877 feet) in Colorado, USA

Today I am pleased to present another guest post by Sarah Simon.

Looking down from the top rappel anchor as
the first of our party begins the descent

This post marks another installment in my series on lessons from the high country. In this series, I share with you some wisdom the mountains have taught me that can be applied to your Voice of Customer and Customer Experience initiatives.

What the Mountain Teaches
We are enjoying a beautiful day of climbing on Sheeprock, a bold granite dome in the South Platte region of Colorado. Warm April sunshine rains down on us all day, and we share the crag briefly with a herd of Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep, ewes and lambs moving over challenging terrain with effortless grace. Three pitches (sections of climbing between belay anchors approximately the length of your rope) of technical climbing bring us to a wide open rocky summit pitted with potholes full of sun-warmed water.
After a brief snack and picture-taking, we begin our descent, which will include a two-stage rappel. The first rappel is a pleasant glide down the bulbous granite face of Sheeprock – no problems. It was the bottom of the first rappel that things got interesting, as four of us lined up like sardines at a canning factory on a tiny little ledge. When I say “tiny,” I mean I had to either stand on my toes or turn my climbing shoes sideways to stand on the ledge. No one seemed to mind but me. The longer I stood there with my left calf cramping, the more unpleasant the experience became. To be honest, I wanted off that ledge "right now!" but knew I had to just be patient and tolerate the situation. Still, waves of mild panic kept washing over me and I was clearly unhappy to be stuck like a fly on a granite wall tethered to the mountain by a mere daisy chain (a type of modified climbing sling).

When it at long last was my turn to descend from that micro-ledge, I fumbled with my ATC (rappel/belay device), setting the teeth in the wrong direction, which would have resulted in less friction and a less-controlled descent. I finally stepped off that too-small ledge, not a moment too soon, and merrily returned to the waiting earth below. The rest of the party soon followed and we re-coiled the ropes for the scramble back to our gear.

Beginning the second and final rappel.
The climber at top left is standing on
the dreaded little ledge.

On the outhike, I did a sort of post-event evaluation to try to understand just why this incident got to me so badly. On the one hand, it’s perfectly logical for most people to be uncomfortable 50 or so feet off the ground, literally hanging by a thread, surrounded by air. But I’m not “most people,” I’m a mountain climber, and being perched up high in the sky on tiny little ledges is part of the game. Quite simply, I needed to get more used to being in high places. And as we say in the climbing world, the best way to learn to deal with exposure is to deal with exposure. Game on!

Applying This to Customer Experience
Once upon a time, market insights professionals could hide in a dark basement office and never see the light of the c-suite. Marketing merrily served as the conduit between the insights we generated and the decision makers that consumed them. Marketing’s attitude toward market intelligence workers was something like, “Stay in your dark basement cave, strange little analytical one, we’ll handle the execs for you.” In fact, some of us were mysterious, Merlin-esque business clairvoyants – pocket protectors and SPSS Syntax - who no one would dare present to the executive team. Years ago, as a junior researcher, I attended a Burke conference during which the instructor implored us to be thought leaders and not order takers. We looked at each other and then at him and said: Yeah, right, who are you kidding?

My, how times have changed!

Today, we are the direct conduit of insights between the customer and the decision makers. Some of the strongest VoC / CX teams I’ve admired have a direct seat at the executive table, with a Chief Customer Officer confidently positioned among the heads of sales, marketing, operations and finance. As the customer has migrated to the center of many business models, so has our role migrated to the front and center within our organizations. No mere order takers, our VoC / CX strategies are used by key decision makers to drive customer-centric improvements.

But as the status of VoC / CX increases, so does the risk we as individuals expose ourselves to. Sure, there’s glory in high places, but being way up high for extended periods of time can get a little scary. There’s no more retreating to the dark research dungeon, no more letting marketing be our mouthpiece. We now stand as the voice of our customer within the c-suite. Forget blending into the warm cozy background, my friend; Customer Experience is an increasingly high-profile gig these days.

As a Customer Experience practitioner, you can’t afford to be afraid of heights. It’s time to get used to being in high places. Assume that airy perch with confidence.

Sarah Simon is a career insights professional with 16 years of experience in the feedback industry. Specialties include VoC architecture, journey mapping, developing linkages to business performance, reduction of customer defection, results analysis and communication, with expert survey design skills. She is the survivor of a botched early-generation "big data mining" operation and is happy to live to tell about it.

What Does it Mean to Do Right?

2013-04-09T07:21:00.002-07:00

It's strange to say that a commercial from a bank moves you, but when they pull in Maya Angelou to speak on their behalf, it raises an eyebrow or two.

Maya is the person who is quoted as saying:

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

I could list a whole host of quotes from Maya, but you get my drift. That one, especially, is the mantra for customer experience. So, yea, wow! A bank has her hocking their wares?! Pretty amazing.

The bank I'm referring to is Union Bank. According to their website, they operate retail locations in California, Oregon, and Washington, and they have commercial locations in Texas, New York, and Illinois. They've been around for quite some time (150 years), and I remember working with them as a client when I was with J.D. Power and Associates in the early 1990s. I don't have a relationship with this bank and never have, but I was really intrigued by their advertising in the last couple of months, particularly their new tagline and commercials that involve "Doing Right."

In the CX world, we talk a lot about doing the right thing at the right time with the right data, right tools, right culture, right people, etc. But I was curious about the "practical application," especially since Union Bank has adopted it as their tag line.

Best I can tell, they've created three commercials and a website to support this message. Here's the commercial with Maya Angelou.

How does she define "Doing Right?"

Being honest and fair
Say it, show it, and don't stop

Edward James Olmos also did a commercial for Union Bank. In his commercial, he defines Doing Right as:

Trust
Integrity
Commitment

Union Bank also has a "generic" commercial with no actors that is called, "Doing Right. It's Just Good Business." In it, they define good business and doing right as:

Building long-term relationships
Continuing lending when customers need(ed) the money most (i.e., during the tough economic times of the last five years)
Not getting involved in sub-prime lending

As I mentioned above, they have a website that is all about this new branding. It further outlines what they mean by Doing Right, starting back in their early days:

Diversity: hired first female employee in 1890
Rewarding entrepreneurial spirit
Corporate social responsibility
Freedom of choice: you get to design your checking account with the features you want it to have
Choosing long-term relationships over short-term profits
Partnering with small businesses
Doubled lending to small businesses through the economic downturn rather than cutting lending or stopping it altogether
Supporting the local community and encouraging employees to give through community service
Flexible hours so "your hours are bankers' hours" (facilitated by multichannel banking solutions)

What do you think? Is this how you would define Doing Right, for a bank or for any company? Do you have a relationship with Union Bank? Everything they say about Doing Right is great. But are they living up to these expectations? Do their actions speak as loud as (or louder than) their words?

“I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way (s)he handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.” -Maya Angelou

Actions Speak Louder than Words

2013-04-04T08:13:00.001-07:00

Image courtesy of IBM Big Data

Today's post was originally published on April 2, 2013, on IBM's The Big Data Hub.

While basketball fans are deep into their Sweet 16/March Madness brackets at the moment, I was asked last week to provide my picks/brackets for IBM Big Data's The Smart Sixteen Big Data Challenge. I'm not a basketball fan and have never paid much attention to March Madness, but this intrigued me.

The image to the left shows the brackets; I selected Predicting Customer Behavior as my Top Priority, and my team has made it to the Elite 8. [Update: I am now in the Final Four!] This is where the fun begins! At the end of last week, a little challenge arose on Twitter with some of my fellow #CXO tribe mates, so I'm writing today about why, for the Marketing region, Predict Customer Behavior will womp on Improve Campaign Effectiveness to take the final win and the championship trophy.

First, a little background on the two teams :

Predict Customer Behavior: The strength of this team comes from its ability to work with a single view of the customer by leveraging data from across the enterprise (including external sources) for deeper customer insight.

Improve Campaign Effectiveness: Changing your shot mid-air takes skill. This entire team is able to determine in real-time the right message to engage customers and prospects with timely, personalized marketing.

While I see the value in being able to tweak your shots and your strategies as the game evolves, I think that if you spend your time practicing, watching films, and really understanding everything there is to know about the other team and about what your audience enjoys seeing, you'll start the game ahead of the curve.

What does it mean? It means your game plan to create a personalized experience looks like this:

1. Define who your customers are
2. Understand the problems they are trying to solve/needs to be filled
3. Identify the customer journey (use a journey map)
4. Bring together all disparate data sources
5. Create a single view of the customer
6. Analyze that data to tease out insights and deeper understanding
7. Share those insights with the people who need to use it

Customers are tired of mangled multichannel experiences and the "Why don't you know me?" syndrome that causes them to have to repeat and re-enter account numbers, contact information, and other details with every interaction. At the same time, they delight in things like Amazon's "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought" feature or in businesses that make recommendations based on past purchases or conversations. While I agree that it can sometimes be creepy (like the story about Target and the pregnant girl), I believe there is more good than harm that comes out of predictive analytics.

[BTW, in some ways, I feel like predicting customer behavior is a precursor to improving campaign effectiveness; therefore, predicting customer behavior must win this championship!]

While predicting customer behavior is the framework or the foundation of the game, improving campaign effectiveness is like telling the audience why you're losing and what you're going to be doing about it.

I think this is a classic "chicken and egg" story: should Marketing prioritize messaging or should the organization as a whole focus on getting the customer experience right with every single interaction. I favor the latter because, when done right, the proper (personalized) messaging will also come out of that. Doing things right is also more cost-effective than tweaking your messaging on the fly.

I like to tell my kids, "Your actions speak louder than your words." Making customers feel like you know them is more important than the messaging, which ultimately happens organically when you get the experience right.

I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts. -John Locke

Good Business Strategy Doesn't Always Result in Good Customer Service

2013-04-02T07:54:00.000-07:00

Today I am pleased to present a guest post by Kena Amoah.

The competition for airlines in the US is getting smaller and smaller. Last Wednesday, the merger between American Airlines and US Airways was approved, making it the world's biggest airline. In 2010, a merger between United and Continental Airlines happened, further narrowing the playing field after a Delta-Northwest merger in 2008.

While these mergers were decided for financial reasons, there is no question that customer service is always affected when a merger occurs. Many of the airlines want customers to believe that these mergers provide more choices and better service, but the past has shown this is not entirely true. Historically, complaints have gone up significantly after a merger. According to a recent CNN Money report, when United and Continental merged in 2012, complaints went up 60%. The Delta-Northwest merger showed similar statistics, along with a decline in on-time performance during 2009 and 2010.

Some credit the rise in complaints after mergers to the difficult transition airlines face. Not only are they combining their operating systems, but the cultures are combined as well. The new hybrid culture provides for more opportunity to miss the mark on customer service. Who do passengers call? And whose guidelines are followed in the event of a complaint? Many questions need to be answered during a merger in order to maintain quality customer service.

Aside from mergers, airlines have been a huge source of customer complaints lately due to "unbundling" services. If you've flown recently, you've probably experienced this first-hand. Gone are the days where you can check as many bags as you'd like for free. Now if you want to check a bag at all, you're probably going to incur a fee. Consumers are not happy with the additional fees piling up on top of the already higher flight costs. There are a lot of such complaints on the Nevahold customer service platform.

Maybe the American-US Airways merger will set a new standard for customer service during a merger; after all, they aren't United, which now accounts for one in three airline complaints.

US Airways and American Airlines have already begun letting customers know about the upcoming transition. After the announcement on Wednesday, both airlines changed their Facebook cover pages to a uniting message.

Good luck to them. And to us!

Baptism by Fire

2013-03-29T09:06:00.001-07:00

At the summit of the Grand Teton, 13770 ft / 4197 m, Wyoming, USA 1996

Approaching my challenge: The Grand Teton from the parking lot, July 1996

Today I am pleased to present another guest post by Sarah Simon.

I spend a lot of time in the mountains - seeking their summits, their beauty, their good tidings. Climbing for me is more than a hobby; it’s an obsession and a lifestyle. The mountains have taught me a lot of valuable lessons over the years. It’s occurred to me that many of these lessons can be applied to Voice of Customer and Customer Experience. And so I bring you a short series of customer experience lessons from the High Country. This series is intended to be light-hearted and inspirational in nature, and I hope you enjoy it as such.

What the Mountain Teaches
It’s the summer of 1996, I’m a 22-year old kid – wiry with dirty blond pigtails, plus a crooked grin and a high-mileage sedan. I’m working for a ranch in Wyoming, and an amazing opportunity presents itself: Would you like to climb the Grand Teton?

As part of my employment, my boss arranged for a guided group climb of the second highest peak in the state. Standing an impressive 13,770 feet / 4,197 meters above sea level, the easiest route to the top of this majestic peak requires technical climbing. For those less familiar with the sport, I mean helmets, ropes, harnesses, carabiners, cams, and nuts. At this point, my technical climbing experience is limited to indoor gym climbing, a high ropes course or two, some more-involved caving adventures, plus some outdoor rappelling practice.

Me? Climb “The Grand”? <gulp!> Sure!

After two days of rock school, practicing climbing moves, essential rope knots, and safety practices, we are off on our two-day adventure. Much of the first day is spent hiking to the saddle, gaining several thousand vertical feet along the way. We have to traverse some snow fields higher up, but the day is mostly mellow. At the saddle, we settle in for dinner, then snuggle into our sleeping bags for a well-earned rest.

The alarm rings. It’s 3:00 AM, pitch black, and bitterly cold. Headlamps flicker on, and the climbing hut becomes a hive of activity. Soon, we are dressed with our boots laced, harnesses pulled snug and shouldering our packs, we head into the mountain chill toward the summit. The sun slowly rises in the east, casting upon Idaho the pyramidal shadow of the monster I’m about to climb. I realize the enormity of what I’ve committed to. Holy *&@#.

As we ascend, the day grows brighter and the terrain steeper and more demanding. We begin the technical climb. The exposure is huge – my head spins, the holds seem miniscule, my mouth goes dry…I’m scared. But my fear is tempered by other sensations: Joy, elation, thrill. Soon the sun warms the mountain, and I can smell the minerals in the craggy vertical rock just inches from my nose. Final exams, bills, relationship woes – all these worries slip away as I’m focused on the here and now. I feel more alive than I’ve ever felt before. I’m actually enjoying this!

We pop out onto a jumble of boulders, and suddenly there is no place else to go, no more climbing to do. We’ve reached the summit! We snap some quick hero shots on the top, drink in the incredible views, and then begin our descent. The overhanging 50-meter rappel went by quickly and painlessly. We weaved our way back to the saddle, rested, and had some snacks, then hiked back down to the valley.

Looking back, I laugh a little at my hubris. Some kid with zero alpine climbing experience taking on a peak like the Grand Teton is pretty audacious, even with strong young knees and a guide! Much of my bliss was due to ignorance, I confess. I lacked the climbing experience to really appreciate, at a gut level, the risks I was exposing myself to. Yet I had overcome mental fear and physical challenges and made it to the summit and back. Strolling the sidewalks in Jackson Hole later that week, I had a spring in my step, a boost in my confidence. I was proud. I had not only survived, but thrived, on the Grand Teton.

Applying This to Customer Experience
I meet a lot of people in this industry who entered their Voice of Customer and Customer Experience roles very suddenly and with minimal formal preparation: A vacancy opened at the company; you were reassigned to build a new department; “someone’s got to do this” and that someone is YOU. You wake up one morning and have “Customer Experience” in your title, and you may be a bit uncertain of what the future holds. A lot of you are living “Baptism by Fire” as we speak. I cringe at the challenges you face, but I delight in watching the bold among you ignore the inner fear and outer naysayers and just jump in, do your best, and make this thing happen!

I know many of you are climbing your own Grand Teton with your Customer Experience programs: tall orders, difficult terrain, frightening conditions, unfamiliar skills requirements, long days, high expectations. At times you might feel scared, overwhelmed, in over your heads. I’ve been there. You can do it! Jump in with both feet, give it all you’ve got, and make a splash. Don’t just survive your Customer Experience and VoC program – learn to enjoy it and thrive.

It’s not such a bad thing if, nearly two decades later, you get to look back and shake your head at your own hubris – through the lens of success.

Sarah Simon is a career insights professional with 16 years of experience in the feedback industry. Specialties include VoC architecture, journey mapping, developing linkages to business performance, reduction of customer defection, results analysis and communication, with expert survey design skills. She is the survivor of a botched early-generation "big data mining" operation and is happy to live to tell about it.

CEM Toolbox: Apostle Model

2013-03-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

I started my CEM Toolbox series back in January and haven't kept up with it at all. There have just been so many great things to write about since then. I'll strive to get back to it, and if you have any suggestions for the Toolbox, I'm all ears!

Last week, Howard Burns of Microsoft and I hosted a CXPA Roundtable about the Apostle Model. As we wrapped up the call, I knew this would be a great topic to add to the Toolbox.

I've written about the Apostle Model a few times, but it's time to update the theory with some practical application.

As a refresher, the Apostle Model is a different way (as opposed to NPS, for example) to segment your customers for the purpose of understanding loyalty and driving customer-centricity in the organization. This model uses two questions (overall satisfaction and likelihood to repurchase) to create the segments. The image above gives you a quick look at the segments and how they are defined.

Toward the end of the Roundtable, Howard talked about his experience with rolling out the Apostle Model within Microsoft. Some things to consider if you plan to use this model in your organization:

1. Know and understand your customers. This is important for everything you do, but it's important when you're choosing a loyalty model/metric or deciding how to segment your customers. According to The Service Profit Chain, "Organizations that have not identified the customers they are targeting have a special handicap in achieving total customer satisfaction. They too often attempt to please everyone, creating too many 'merely satisfied' customers and too few 'apostles' in the very core of the customer base in which they should be investing. Further, customer satisfaction measures too often are averaged across segments and not related to other measures that could provide insights into profitable strategies." Amen.

2. Understand the metric. What is the Apostle Model? Understand how it works and the fact that it provides a different view of the customer. Overall satisfaction is overall satisfaction, but adding a second dimension, i.e., likelihood to repurchase, like the Apostle Model does, creates a different perspective. Also, determine the best loyalty measure for your organization to use in the Model. Microsoft uses a composite/index as the value for the y-axis.

3. Sell the metric. Why are we using this one? Executives within your organization will not just accept a metric because you say it's the one to use. Do your homework. Explain why this is the best one for your organization, for your customers. Prove it.

4. Educate. Once you've sold it to the executives, you need to socialize it with the rest of the stakeholders within the organization. As a matter of fact, you'll need to educate everyone, not just stakeholders.

5. Validate. Clearly there will be several validation points along this journey, including before you even sell the metric to your executives. But after you roll it out, you will want to continue to validate to ensure this metric makes sense for you.

6. Now what? Prepare a prescriptive guide that outlines how employees will deal, respond, and interact with the different customer segments differently.Why? Again citing The Service Profit Chain: "Satisfaction scores provide useful early warning of problems, but... satisfied customers do not systematically buy more than... unsatisfied ones." This is why they did the research that resulted in the Apostle Model. Once we accept the fact that satisfied customers are not loyal customers, we need to realize that we need to outline how we will interact differently with customers, depending on who they are.

Result: A personalized customer experience. Hmmm... what a novel idea.

There is a big difference between a satisfied customer and a loyal customer. -Shep Hyken

Customer satisfaction is worthless. Customer loyalty is priceless. -Jeffrey Gitomer

Crucial Elements in Preventing Customer Defection

2013-03-22T08:25:00.000-07:00

Customer Feedback Analysis and a Service Recovery Program: Crucial Elements in Preventing Customer Defection

Today's post is republished, with the author's permission, from the original post on Etuma.

No matter how great a product your company provides and no matter how carefully you safeguard against faulty products, things go wrong: delivery systems fail, component suppliers ship faulty parts, customers use products improperly, or sometimes customer expectations are simply wrong. All these are quick opportunities to lose current and potential customers, including not only the dissatisfied customer or customers but also every other customer or potential customer they interact with about the problem. To avoid unnecessary customer defection, companies need to have a process in place for dealing with these types of issues. This process is typically called a “service recovery program,” and it requires accurate and effective detection systems, a preemptive action plan, and resources ready to take immediate action.

The service recovery paradox is a popular hypothesis, which states that a customer who has a less than satisfactory experience with a company’s product, but who receives a high level of attention and compensation for the problem, can actually end up being a more loyal customer than one who never had any problems with the product to begin with. This hypothesis is debatable and, of course, in reality not so simple, but experts agree that a service recovery program is an essential element in a company’s customer experience management process.

Why is customer feedback analysis important to a service recovery program?

The right customer feedback analysis service will provide a unique opportunity to recognize product, service, and delivery failures in real-time and to take corrective action quickly, effectively, and to the customer’s satisfaction.

So, what are the characteristics of the right customer feedback analysis service?

1. A real-time customer feedback analysis service enables companies to detect customer dissatisfaction as soon as it happens and to take action before the customer has been lost and/or starts to interact with others about his dissatisfaction via, for example, social media.

2. A multi-channel customer feedback analysis service enables companies to react to customer complaints from social media as well as traditional “complaint channels” like feedback forms, call centers, event-based surveys, and email.

3. An effective service recovery program–one that results in saving the customer or even improving his level of loyalty–is well-thought out and extremely reactive. A centralized customer feedback analysis service enables companies to shift valuable human resources to planning and carrying out recovery efforts.

4. An efficient customer feedback analysis service allows companies to shift financial resources typically spent on analysing data to recovery program planning and execution and, perhaps most importantly, compensation for dissatisfied customers.

Matti Airas is the CEO of Etuma. Etuma's main mission is to provide customers with services for free-form text feedback analysis covering various feedback channels (social media, forums, NPS, transaction queries, etc.), to help improve their overall customer satisfaction.

America's Most Trustworthy Companies

2013-03-19T08:31:00.001-07:00

Trust in business is an important concept. I've written about it a few times in the past, so imagine my curiosity when Forbes published their list of America's 100 Most Trustworthy Companies yesterday.

Apparently this isn't the first year for this list, but it's the first time I've seen it - or perhaps the first time I've taken note of it. I decided to dig in to find out how 100 companies landed at the top of this list.

What exactly qualifies these companies as the most trustworthy?

Since you're reading a blog about customer experience, you know where my thoughts will go in terms of qualifications. But let's see what Forbes and GMI Ratings, the company behind the rankings, used to compile this list.

The first paragraph of the article states that, despite the fact that investors have lost faith in a lot of corporations, "many corporations are models of openness and integrity."O really?

Here's what the rankings are based on:

60 different governance and forensic accounting measures
accounting transparency
lowest incidence of high-risk events
appropriate board supervision

In a nutshell, they say the ratings are based on the quality of corporate accounting and management practices.

I can't argue with "transparent and conservative accounting practices and solid corporate governance and management," as the article notes. I've written about transparency before, so I'm on board with its importance in any organization. But I think transparent companies are open about more than just their financials; they're also open about policies, pricing, support, social responsibility, products and product issues, hiring practices, and more.

Without a doubt, trustworthy companies should...

be transparent with their customers, not just for their shareholders
act with integrity not only in their financial practices but also when it comes to their customers and their employees
put employees and customers first, ahead of shareholders
act in the best interest of their customers and employees
be fair, reliable, and ethical in all practices, not just in financial or management practices
not take advantage of, or act opportunistically with, customer vulnerabilities
deliver predictable and consistent customer experiences

Can America's 100 Most Trustworthy Companies qualify for the list based on those criteria? What do you think?

Trust is like the air we breathe. When it’s present, nobody really notices. But when it’s absent, everybody notices. -Warren Buffet