Outputs and Outcomes – what is your Poison?

An output is something you produce; an Outcome is a result of what you produce. “I have answered the customer query” is an output, “I have solved the customer problem” is an outcome. Here’s another… “We have made 10 cars today” is an output, “I have sold 10 cars today” is an outcome. As Steve Jobs said in 1997, “You have to start with the Customer Experience (and their successful outcome) and work backwards.”

Unfortunately, most organizations focus on outputs and correspondingly can get really good at doing dumb things. Think of the call center and the major typical KPI of Average Handle Time (AHT). That is an output measure. But what is the actual Outcome achieved from the customer contact? If your primary focus is the AHT, that’s what will drive the behaviors of the people as a priority over everything else; no matter how much you talk of customer-centricity, if you pay them for great AHT, that is what they will focus on.

A model that we use to help us connect the dots is the Customer Performance Landscape.

It is a fantastic tool for creating the linkages between everyone and everything to ensure we are all aligned to Successful Customers and grow shareholder value. You can experience this in our ACX Master program.

Learn more here: https://bit.ly/ACXM2021


Do you want to embrace advanced Customer-Centric thinking and become Outside-In?

https://lnkd.in/djWxB8m

👉 Step #1 – Review the upskilling options to become an ACX Professional & ACX Master: https://lnkd.in/dANgYX59

👉 Step #2 – Get The Book: Outside-In The Secret *FREE*  https://bit.ly/OI2021now

👉 Step #3 – Connect With The Community: https://linktr.ee/SteveTowers

👉 Step #4 – Keep Pace with Change: Recent Keynote – The Hard Benefits of XM | https://cemnext.com/xmroi2023

👉 Step #5 – Review the Testimonials Accredited Customer Experience Professional – BPG (bpgroup.org)

The CX Quote Book… How do You Increase Customer Loyalty?

Get the Book here: http://bit.ly/CX365Quotes


Do you want to embrace advanced Customer-Centric thinking and become Outside-In?

https://lnkd.in/djWxB8m

👉 Step #1 – Review the upskilling options to become an ACX Professional & ACX Master: https://lnkd.in/dANgYX59

👉 Step #2 – Get The Book: Outside-In The Secret *FREE*  https://bit.ly/OI2021now

👉 Step #3 – Connect With The Community: https://linktr.ee/SteveTowers

👉 Step #4 – Keep Pace with Change: Recent Keynote – The Hard Benefits of XM | https://cemnext.com/xmroi2023

👉 Step #5 – Review the Testimonials Accredited Customer Experience Professional – BPG (bpgroup.org)

The CX Quote Book… Make a Fortune…

Get the Book here: http://bit.ly/CX365Quotes


Do you want to embrace advanced Customer-Centric thinking and become Outside-In?

https://lnkd.in/djWxB8m

👉 Step #1 – Review the upskilling options to become an ACX Professional & ACX Master: https://lnkd.in/dANgYX59

👉 Step #2 – Get The Book: Outside-In The Secret *FREE*  https://bit.ly/OI2021now

👉 Step #3 – Connect With The Community: https://linktr.ee/SteveTowers

👉 Step #4 – Keep Pace with Change: Recent Keynote – The Hard Benefits of XM | https://cemnext.com/xmroi2023

👉 Step #5 – Review the Testimonials Accredited Customer Experience Professional – BPG (bpgroup.org)

The CX Quote Book… 365 days of inspiration!

Get the Book here: http://bit.ly/CX365Quotes


Do you want to embrace advanced Customer-Centric thinking and become Outside-In?

https://lnkd.in/djWxB8m

👉 Step #1 – Review the upskilling options to become an ACX Professional & ACX Master: https://lnkd.in/dANgYX59

👉 Step #2 – Get The Book: Outside-In The Secret *FREE*  https://bit.ly/OI2021now

👉 Step #3 – Connect With The Community: https://linktr.ee/SteveTowers

👉 Step #4 – Keep Pace with Change: Recent Keynote – The Hard Benefits of XM | https://cemnext.com/xmroi2023

👉 Step #5 – Review the Testimonials Accredited Customer Experience Professional – BPG (bpgroup.org)

🖐 The Five Avoidable Mistakes of 80% of Customer Experience initiatives

Strategic positioning of customer experience is now widely recognized as a key to business success.

If you’re customer-first and do it in a smart way, then it can help the company.

Gartner 2021

Unfortunately, the majority of many well-intended CX initiatives become a victim of organization inertia and bureaucracy and sink to the level of metrics on dashboards buried in functional departments.

At best these failing efforts deliver small incremental performance improvements rather than providing the customer and business insights necessary to strategic success.

We have identified five major errors and causes of failure

1. Top teams have unreasonable expectations of CX success

2. Customers needs are not clearly defined from the Outside-In

3. CX Initiatives are not implemented with transformation in mind.

4. CX Initiatives focus on the wrong measures, rather than successful customer outcomes.

5. CX Initiatives go way down deep into functional complexity

👉 Error #1: Top teams anticipate CX Success without understanding the enterprise was never designed to do this stuff.

Talking about customer experience and implementing the changes necessary to delivering CX success are two quite distinct things. Many organizations brief their senior people with the importance of the business transformations underway, why a focus on the customer is essential to survive and thrive, and why it is necessary that the dots are connected from every activity to the customer experience. Fair enough. However, Top teams then anticipate internal leadership towards customer centricity but at the same time do not enable the underlying functions to realign to achieve successful customer outcomes.

The organization structure, rewards systems and technology were never designed to deliver great customer experiences

The realization that the organization structure, rewards systems and technology were never designed to deliver great customer experiences, they were in fact originally designed with an industrial age mindset to achieve industrial age goals. To achieve strategic CX success, it is necessary to understand the limitations imposed by inside-out thinking (getting better at doing stuff faster) and help the organization migrate to Outside-In thinking and practices (alignment to delivering Successful Customer Outcomes)

👉 Error #2: Customers needs are not clearly articulated and underpinned by smart Outside-In metrics

The challenge here is two-fold. Do we understand who our customers are, and what success looks like from their perspective?

It is frequently observed that 80% of profit comes from 20% of customers however organizations are especially fickle when it comes to understanding where they should focus limited resource to get the maximum sustained return from the appropriate customers.

Good discipline here is about identifying the categories of customer and prioritizing them in terms of needs and success. That can mean migrating away from undesirable customers. Intrinsic in this failure is arbitrarily segmenting customers by circumstance (where they are based, the length of relationship, immediate spend available etc.) rather than categorizing customers based on their needs.

Needs assessment is NOT about asking customers what they want.

Needs assessment is NOT about asking customers what they want.
If you asked your kids what they want for dinner, don’t be too surprised if they say burgers, ice cream, chocolate and gummy bears, on one plate. That question is just plain stupid. So why go asking customers what they want?

Smart CX companies figure out their customer needs even when the customer doesn’t know them. Case in point would be the launch of the iPhone more than a decade ago.

Apple’s genius was in understanding the new customer and getting ahead of the game to design products and services that met, at the point of launch, something customers could never have articulated.

This is not, however, an excuse to stop listening to customers, that is more essential than ever before. Just stop asking them dumb questions which may cause you to do the wrong things (rather like Nokia did).

👉 Error #3: For CX initiatives delivering success will require change and transformation

This is a very common problem and is rooted in the idea that CX initiatives are just another thing to integrate into the existing ways of working. This couldn’t be further from the truth. A fundamental of successful CX initiatives is identifying and implementing the ongoing change required across the enterprise to align everything to Successful Customer Outcomes.

align everything to Successful Customer Outcomes.

Once the customer needs are articulated work backward to recraft the appropriate structures that will guide the enterprise progressively towards success. That will, of course, require potentially significant changes to the shape and technology of how work gets done. It will reach into every nook and cranny of the business. Ultimately the organization may look quite different from the industrial age model and will become shaped to achieve the ongoing change brought about by the digital revolution.

👉 Error #4: CX Initiatives focus on the wrong measures, rather than successful customer outcomes.

The Successful Customer Outcome is like the beacon on the hill; everyone should be aligned and progressively moving in that direction. If your metrics are not contributing to that alignment, you may be getting better at doing the wrong things (in the context of delivering an optimized CX).

There is a remarkable lack of science in this sphere of CX Initiatives.

Here’s a good question to ask anyone in the business “is everything you are doing aligned to delivering a successful customer outcome?” and if the answer comes back with anything other than “yes, 100%” you may be doing dumb stuff really well. The why of that is easy to understand – you get what you measure, and frequently companies excessively measure outputs (what is produced) rather than business outcomes (what is delivered).

If you task people to measure outputs and reward them for improving those outputs, there is often a repeated disconnect between the work performed and the end customer delivery. Getting a balance right here is essential.

There is a remarkable lack of science in this sphere of CX Initiatives.
Reliance on simplistic measurement systems, with ‘one question rules them all’ approaches is not only misleading but may cause you to do precisely the wrong things.

👉 Error #5. CX Initiatives go way down deep into functional complexity

CX Initiatives have lofty visions but all too often become bogged down in organization politics and the natural resistance to change. Often the local leadership pays lip service to the customer experience ‘it is not my job after all’ and this resulting crawl ultimately thwarts the CX initiative.

focus on winning the triple crown – simultaneously improving the Customer Experience, Reducing Costs and Growing Revenues

To deliver and ensure ongoing success, the guiding light of the Successful Customer Outcome and it is associated focus on winning the triple crown – simultaneously improving the Customer Experience, Reducing Costs and Growing Revenues – should be on every agenda in the business. Linking the triple crown across the departments and divisions dispels the practical objections as everyone becomes accountable for demonstrating their substantial triple crown contribution. This, in turn, ensures a significant contribution to delivering the ROI for the CX Initiative.

There are many bear traps and blind alleys to avoid on the journey to delivering CX success however an understanding of the most common errors will ensure a greater chance of success. After all the goal is to deliver strategic Successful Customer Outcomes that result in terrific and rewarding customer experiences.


Do you want to embrace advanced Customer-Centric thinking and become Outside-In?

https://lnkd.in/djWxB8m

👉 Step #1 – Review the upskilling options to become an ACX Professional & ACX Master: https://lnkd.in/dANgYX59

👉 Step #2 – Get The Book: Outside-In The Secret *FREE*  https://bit.ly/OI2021now

👉 Step #3 – Connect With The Community: https://linktr.ee/SteveTowers

👉 Step #4 – Keep Pace with Change: Recent Keynote – The Hard Benefits of XM | https://cemnext.com/xmroi2023

👉 Step #5 – Review the Testimonials Accredited Customer Experience Professional – BPG (bpgroup.org)

How to Meet the challenge of the Digital Customer

Executives are struggling. There is a collective fear of the Kodak Moment, where previously established businesses evaporate like the morning mist. This fear is driven by the unsettling realization that the Digital Customer is literally changing everything, and if your business relies on outdated techniques and approaches (you know who you are) then you will indeed experience a rather unpleasant surprise. 

Executives are searching. Then there is the good news that online conferences, seminars, and workshops are full to overflowing with questful people looking for the answer. That’s good, however, 90% of what they hear and see is simply putting ‘lipstick on a pig’.  It is the same old same old adopting fancy language and claiming salvation -if you would just follow the script and suspend your fear, uncertainty and doubt.

The new Kodak Moment is when you realize that Customer Needs have shifted so significantly from your products and services that it is too late to change

Avoid the Kodak Moment and let’s all get more scientific about the Customer Experience.  
https://www.cxobsession.com/2016/05/27/how-to-meet-the-challenge-of-the-digital-customer-video-free-book/

Executives are frustrated. The foolhardy keep hoping that doing the same thing faster will produce a different result. Isn’t that the definition of insanity? Meanwhile inexperienced youngbloods advocate revolution and change, without fully comprehending how the future is actually, pragmatically going to work. But there might be hope for some.

Executives (increasingly) are getting it. There are some refreshing conversations driven by leaders who are guiding their people, customers and shareholders to higher ground and safety. They are building new capability and bringing a far sight vision into today’s reality. 

The challenge? How do you engage with the enlightened and get with the survivors, nay the thrivers, for the next decade? Well, not surprisingly that is what many of my talks and work with global leading companies are all about. So when one of the most successful CEO’s challenged me to write something that would light the fire of those still gripped by fear I stepped up. Watch the two minute video and download the FREE book , and then join us on the journey.

Let’s all get more scientific about the Customer Experience. 
https://www.cxobsession.com/2016/05/27/how-to-meet-the-challenge-of-the-digital-customer-video-free-book/

Do you want to embrace advanced Customer-Centric thinking and become Outside-In?

https://lnkd.in/djWxB8m

👉 Step #1 – Review the upskilling options to become an ACX Professional & ACX Master: https://lnkd.in/dANgYX59

👉 Step #2 – Get The Book: Outside-In The Secret *FREE*  https://bit.ly/OI2021now

👉 Step #3 – Connect With The Community: https://linktr.ee/SteveTowers

👉 Step #4 – Keep Pace with Change: Recent Keynote – The Hard Benefits of XM | https://cemnext.com/xmroi2023

👉 Step #5 – Review the Testimonials Accredited Customer Experience Professional – BPG (bpgroup.org)

See you on the inside.

Three Secret (Top Team) Reasons why we have to get more scientific about the Customer Experience

Complexity is an insidious thing. Humans seem unable to keep things simple and will add rules, reporting lines, and complications seemingly for the fun of it. And process people take it to a whole new level.

Why is that so? There is a simple answer, but many people don’t like it, or don’t want to admit it; if you pay people for doing dumb stuff they get really smart at it.

Are you rewarding people for doing dumb stuff?

Politicians are especially good at creating fiefdoms and empires, and the ones really clever at that rise above the rest, making the problem progressively worse by in-turn recruiting like minded people. 

Now as much as humans have traditionally done this, there is a new kid on the block. And this new kid is defining a whole new way of being, one that is built and operated with the customer at the center of everything.

Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t that people haven’t talked about the customer before, just this time it is very different. The new game is all about customer experience management (CEM). 

Here are a few of the meaningful stats that back this up.

According to Gartner, 89% of all businesses will compete on customer experience this year.

Another 89% believe customer experience will be their main differentiator by 2022.

The Temkin Group found that companies that earn $1 billion annually can expect to earn, on average, an additional $700 million within 3 years of investing in customer experience.

 84% of companies who claim to be customer-centric are now focusing on the mobile customer experience.97% of global consumers cite customer service as important in their brand choice and loyalty.

CX also influences on-the-spot purchasing, too – as 49% of buyers have made impulse purchases after receiving a more personalized experience.

BPG Research 2021

And for those organizations effectively embracing the customer experience CEM is much more than journey mapping and the surface experience. For the leading companies, CEM is the opportunity to connect everything they do, from the customer interaction, right through to individual task, activity, and systems that support them.

Interestingly this eradicates unnecessary complexity and creates a virtuous circle. You figure out what a successful customer outcome looks like, you align everything you do to achieve it, the customer ‘gets it’ and comes back for more, and you evolve the customer experience to be even better next time. 

It is a bit like a fitness regime as you get fitter, you get faster, you become better, and what was once difficult becomes easy.

👑 Those who Get It Win the Triple Crown

Not surprisingly great CEM drives down the cost of delivery, improves service and grows revenue. This triple crown of deliverables becomes the tangible measure of success for Customer Experience Management.

And as if this wasn’t motivation itself to do more CEM the work environment is simplified; we can increasingly reward each other for delivering results and outcomes (doing the right thing), rather than just measuring and rewarding what we do (doing things right).

That is what I mean when we say ‘let’s get more scientific about the customer experience’

Do you want to know more?


BP Group Signs New Partnership with The CX Group

BP Group
London, England

>> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE <<

London, England Mar 11, 2021 / PRNewswire / — BP GROUP seals new African Partnership with The CX Group

As the Customer Experience begins to dominate the attention of global leaders BP Group, leaders in business transformation and Outside-In thinking and practice announced today their official partnership with The CX Group based in South Africa.

Yugeshree Frylinck, founder and Chief Experience Officer at The CX Group, confirmed that they have signed the partnership deal with BP Group to serve customers in Africa seeking to grow their Customer Experience and Process Management competencies.

The CX Group is well known across Africa and operates within private and government institutions, offering training and consultancy services delivered by a team of globally recognized CX consultants acknowledged as specialists in customer experience and realignment to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

Eldon Phukuile, The CX Group Director of Customer Experience, explained that they decided to partner with BP Group as global leaders in the Customer Experience and Business Process industry with long term clients in 124 countries and another 29 partners across all continents. “The potential benefits of the partnership will be our incorporation of the Next Practice approaches”, said Eldon, “into medium and large traditional institutions needing to upskill and meet the increasing challenges presented by the shifts brought about by both the pandemic, evolving customer and opportunities of the digital age”.

Steve Towers, BP Group CEO, welcomed their newest partners. “Since 1992 we have led the way with the battle tested proven methods and approaches to help corporations and government institutions realise the benefits of delivering Successful Customer Outcomes”. He added, “we very much look forward to now supporting The CX Group in bringing progressive approaches to the African region and beyond. We are pleased to strike this partnership agreement as the CX Group is active in helping the complete CX community, through a number of associations including the CXPA, CXSA and CXCOP embrace progressive approaches to elevate CX into key strategic and operational roles.”

James Dodkins, CEO of Rockstar CX and BP Group Senior Partner, added “CX has come so far in the last few years and it is especially refreshing to see such explosive community growth across Africa. With this new exciting partnership, we will assist in growing the professionalism of individuals and organisations alike.”

Contact:
Steve Towers – steve.towers@bpgroup.org
+44 (0) 7429 518277
linkedin.com/in/stevetowers

James Dodkins – james.dodkins@bpgroup.org
+44 (0) 7809703073
linkedin.com/in/jamesdodkins


Eldon Phukuile – eldon@thecxgroup.co.za
+27 (0) 82 997 2990
linkedin.com/in/eldonphukuile

Yugeheree Frylinck –  yugesh@thecxgroup.co.za
+27 (0) 83 367 5677
linkedin.com/in/yugeshfrylinck

About BPG (BP Group)

The BP Group https://www.bpgroup.org/ (established in 1992) is founded by Steve Towers https://www.stevetowers.com/, a global thought leader in customer-centricity and process excellence. With a network of global partners to deliver coaching, training and consultancy in CEMMethod®, BPG’s vision is to make transformations a reality for clients and reap the benefits of improved service, lower costs and higher revenues.