Customer Experience 101
“Customer Service” is usually one of the key training courses on which large organisations send customer facing staff.
Most of the time, this kind of training (depending on which level of worker it’s aimed at) instils the skills of greeting, selling, serving, handling telephone calls and complaints either face-to-face or over the phone.
What comparatively few organisations have yet to grasp is the concept of “Customer Experience” (CX from now on). This concept has been going for some time and encapsulates more how customers feel when they deal with an organisation. In other words, which emotions do they experience?
Many of us can produce “horror stories” of dealings with organisations that, if anything, embedded in us the resolve either to minimise potential dealings with them or better still, not deal with them at all.
Bernoff, Manning and Bodine in their book Outside In examine the entire process of CX. There’s an organisation (the XM Institute) that collects data and organises training, seminars and conferences around the entire topic of customer experience.
One thing that has become clear is that a large part of customer experiences tend towards the “mediocre” level. This means that, if we’re lucky, our customers will come away from having dealt with our organisation feeling what can only be described as “OK…” at Best.
The great news is that it takes comparatively little effort to up our game from “mediocre” to “good”. More’s required to go from “good” to “excellent” and remain at “excellent”. This involves instilling a set of thought processes and mindsets into the very “DNA” of an organisation and its workforce to ensure that, no matter where the customer “touches” the organisation, they’ll find that the product or service was:
Able to fulfil the need described by the business’ catalogue, brochure or even reputation.
Easy to use.
Enjoyable to use.
Now ask yourself, how often can you say truthfully that experiences with various institutions and organisations “ticked” all three boxes? If they ticked 2 out of 3, that’s not good enough and rates as a “low good” if you’re lucky.
What would it take to change it?
Is this happening in your organisation?
I deliver change in markets ranging from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email.
Labels: Customer Care, Leadership, Selling, Teamwork
Don’t Hire Skinny People!
This was the advice given to me by a (no doubt) well-meaning person in one of the markets in which try worked.
A little more research on this word of advice informed me that what they really meant was that “skinny” staff were fine, but they were more prone to falling sick or to exhaustion after stressful events in their lives. This person’s belief was that they lacked the necessary physical stamina to cope which then somehow translated into mental stamina.
Happily, experience shows that it’s not just “skinny” staff who are prone to this. It can happen to anyone of us. Body shape, height or size don’t matter. In fact, if the person is “skinny” because they run marathons, etc, then they’re likely to be far fitter and have more stamina than most of their colleagues (as well as eating more healthily, perhaps)!
It got me thinking though, what other inherent or secret biases may people have? How much can this impact interviews? What about the "wrong school", "overqualified", "lives too far away", and other such "excuses"?
We’re all prone (unfortunately) to inherent and unconscious biases due to the way we were brought up, our family, our education, our culture, the country we live in and so on. Being conscious of these is one thing, ensuring they don’t get in the way of hiring effective people is totally another.
I deliver change in markets ranging from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email.
Labels: Career, Leadership, Social
Star Wars
Earlier this year, I attended a 50th anniversary screening of “Star Wars: A New Hope” in Kuala Lumpur. The original was actually released in May 1977 (which technically made this the 49th anniversary but never mind) and I remember going to see it as a 15-year-old with my younger brother at a cinema that no longer exists.
Some may accuse me of being a “nerd” (or worse!) but what was fascinating was how many people of all ages and cultures had gathered for this event. Most, to be fair, were at least in their 20s or 30s and wouldn’t have seen the original, digitally un-enhanced version “back in the day”. What united us all was a love of this incredible “space opera”: the characters we all know and love and some of the most famous lines in sci-fi history (“I’ve got a bad feeling about this…”, “I find your lack of faith disturbing,” “That’s no moon, it’s a space station!”).
Some of the audience were in Star Wars costume (I wasn’t, although I did wear a shirt with small prints of one of the spaceships from the franchise).
The film was accompanied by live music by the Malaysia Philharmonic and from the first bars (the “20th Century Fox Fanfare”) to the final credits, all the music we knew and loved from the first film was instantly recognisable and performed flawlessly. At times one couldn’t hear the dialogue as it was drowned out by the orchestra but most of us knew those scenes well enough not to have to worry (and in any case, Malay subtitles were played underneath for those who needed to follow along!).
As we left, I looked around the audience. There were smiles, laughter, shared memories strangers chatting with strangers and general happiness on the faces of people who’d relived memories of their past and had been allowed to forget for a moment what was going on in the current galaxy…
What united us across age groups, nationalities, religions and cultures? Quite simply, an overriding bond of love of “Star Wars”; something that transcended all these boundaries and reminded us all, in the end, of our underlying humanity, sense of fun, childhood (in my case) but also our ability to get together no matter what our differences might be.
I deliver change in markets ranging from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email.
Labels: Leisure, Social
