The 7 most popular Customer Experience Articles

Google tells us that Customer Experience is a significant and trending topic, the graph below ably demonstrates that point. (See google trends)

However, given all the noise what are THE most popular articles on the theme?
Here we present the seven most popular of the last couple of years.
Read and share

7th: Putting customer experience at the heart of next-generation operating models

McKinsey

This one for is McK’s second in the top seven this time…

“Digital is reshaping customer experience in almost every sector. Digital first attackers are entering markets with radically new offers, disrupting the ways that companies and customers interact and setting a high bar for simplicity, personalization, and interactivity.”

Jump to the Full Article here.

6th: Internet Of Things Will Revolutionize Retail

Louis Columbus

Teaching MBA courses in international business, global competitive strategies, international market research, and capstone courses in strategic planning and market research gives Louis the opportunity to research mega trends. Add to his portfolio writing for Forbes establishes his credentials in the space of customer transformation. In this article, he reflects on the coming ‘Internet of Things’ everywhere, and the impact on business and customers.

“87% of retailers will deploy mobile point-of-sale (MPOS) devices by 2021, enabling them to scan and accept credit or debit payments anywhere in the store…”

Jump to the Full Article here.

5th: The expanding role of design in creating an end-to-end customer experience

McKinsey

The second of McK’s into the top seven this time. Lines between products, services, and user environments are blurring. The ability to craft an integrated customer experience will open enormous opportunities to build new businesses.

“As digitization drives more and faster disruptions—and as customers increasingly desire the immediacy, personalization, and convenience of dealing with digital-marketing leaders—the business landscape is undergoing an upheaval.”

Jump to the Full Article here.

4th: The Employee Experience Is the Future Of Work

Jeanne Meister

Working at Future Workplace, (an HR Advisory and Research firm) Jeanne casts her glow over the changes to the employee role within business today. She is also the co-author of The Future Workplace Experience: 10 Rules For Mastering Disruption in Recruiting and Engaging Employees:

“Today, almost every company is undergoing a digital transformation. Cloud and mobile computing, artificial intelligence, and increasing automation have created the potential to transform nearly every aspect of a business.”

Jump to the Full Article here.

3rd: United Airlines Changes Its Policy On Displacing Customers

Richard Gonzales
Correspondent, San Francisco, National Desk NPR. With an eclectic style ranging across diverse topics such as medical marijuana, gay marriage, drive-by shootings, the U.S. Ninth Circuit, the California State Supreme Court and any other legal, political, or social development he understands CX first hand. Here we see a well-accounted discussion of, yes again, United Airline’s trials and tribulations.

“United Airlines crew members will no longer be able to bump a passenger who is already seated in one of the airline’s planes…”

Jump to the Full Article here.

2nd: How to Gamify your Customer Experience and Win…

Mike Dillard
Proudly proclaiming himself as a disrupter and innovator Mike’s perspective on Customer Experience is refreshing and unique in a world of sameness. He writes with an entertaining AND well thought out logic.

“I honestly can’t think of a more difficult industry to get into than candles. You have thousands of manufacturers who are all selling the same thing… A piece of wax with a string in the middle and the only way to differentiate yourself is by changing your label, along with the size, color, and smell of that wax.”

Jump to the Full Article here.

1st: Delivering exceptional customer experiences – an art and science

Luke Shave
Luke works on the Retail partner side of Microsoft and benefits from first-hand experience of the changes in and around Customer Experience.

“Interacting effectively with customers has traditionally been a form of art, especially in face-to-face settings. But now that customers are increasingly shopping on social media, mobile apps, and websites, a bit of science can help win their loyalty. How can retailers combine customer service expertize with advanced technology to create exceptional customer experiences?”

Jump to the Full Article here.

It will be interesting to note your favorite… more soon, meanwhile
Ciao, Steve

www.stevetowers.com

www.bpgroup.org (27 years young this year!)

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10 Steps to Achieve “Outside-In” Capability

SynopsisIn the previous articles we have reviewed the global business transformation underway and how Advanced BPM is helping notable organizations assert their leadership. In this final article we’ll look at the ingredients of success and ten best practice ‘how tos’ to deliver the transformation.

This final part of the six part series we review how world leading trend setter companies are achieving dramatic success with an ‘Outside in’ approach.

For every dumb inside-out example there’s now a rival, usually leading the pack who like Southwest Airlines are so outside-in focused that they are more than profitable. They crush the competition with an ability to reduce costs and improve service simultaneously. So what are the lessons we can learn from the leaders?

The ‘How To’ Top Ten List to Achieve Outside-In Capability

1. Define your Customer
A couple of kick starters here include asking the organization ‘what business are we in’ and ‘who is the person/group/company that provides us with revenue’. Too often organizations create a mass of so called internal customers and the resulting customer-supplier internal relationships do not contribute to achieving a Successful Customer Outcome for the real customer.

OutsideIn The Secret

2. Articulate your Successful Customer Outcome (SCO)Easyjet, Europe’s 2nd largest airline defined a relatively simple SCO – “Bums on Seats”. Everything they do across people, process, systems and strategy is aligned with achieving that. Hallmark Cards based in the US out of Kansas City define their SCO as “Expression’. A good SCO will catapult performance as people better understand how their contribution adds to the achievement of the SCO.

3. Establish your alignment to achieving the SCOFour areas to start from include people reward systems, systems capability, process maturity and strategic endeavour. If you have a scorecard or Strategy map ask yourself how many performance measures (a) contribute to the SCO, and (b) are forward looking to progressively help us get better at delivering results. We can’t go forward by just looking in the rear view mirror.

4. Identify customer touchpoints – Moments of Truth (MOT)Customers are the Cause of Work. Every interaction we have with them results in work for our organization and creates Points of Failure. Apple have done a miraculous job in creating the i-phone and integrating the MOTs into one slick interface. Rather than many key presses for a simple operation like getting the contact list those various actions have been combined into one finger swiping Moment of Truth and in doing so made the customers life simpler, easier and more successful. Once you have identified the MOTs the edict is ‘remove or improve’.

5. Reveal internal hand-offs – Breakpoints (BP)Moments of Truth spawn Breakpoints. Every customer interaction requires us to go away and do stuff internally. The resulting activity with hand-offs between departments, people, systems and functions are Breakpoints. These Points of Failure result in unnecessary non value added work which from recent BP Group Research may be as much as 70-90% of what actually goes on in a company. Once identified Breakpoints should be removed.

6. Capture the Business Rules (BR)Business Rules determine our behaviour. They tell us what to do and when. Frequently BR’s were created to prevent things going wrong and get forgotten as we change and develop our businesses. Identify them, make them explicit and challenge them.

7. Perform an Impact and Risk Assessment against Customer NeedsAre you delivering what the customer says they want, or actually what they really need? Henry Ford said “If I had asked them what they wanted they would have said faster horses”. Are you creating the equivalent of faster horses and then wondering why sales are struggling? Do your processes rely on input from self-selecting customers analysed by the marketing teams? Get the customer in there. Seek the answers and then match the real need.

8. Develop an Outside-In Action PlanMany of the inside-out plans are really obvious as the actions are more about dealing with symptoms and affects rather than the true causes of work. Truly Outside-In Action Plans are about reinforcing the achievement of SCO’s through process change and subsequently defining and managing new customer expectations. How many of us knew we needed an Apple ipod before they were invented? What about that extra fancy drink from Starbucks that you are addicted to? What about the personal loan that hits your bank account the same day?

9. Execute the Plan as you go (simple and no nonsense)Many plans stay exactly that – just plans. The Outside-In reality demonstrates that many actions revolve around stopping the dumb stuff which shouldn’t need escalated sign-offs and committees to push them through. One recent survey suggested that more than 80% of the effort around plans in inside-out organizations consisted of talking about, getting buy-in and then achieving sign-off. If you are doing dumb stuff then stop it. Now.

10. Begin the Journey to the Outside-In world now.Waiting for executive sign-off or consensus will never get you off the launch pad. There’s that old Irish joke of when you are lost in Eire and you stop to ask a guy directions and he ponders, stares off into space for a couple of minutes and then offers the sage wisdom “I wouldn’t start from here”. Most of us don’t have a choice – just get started.

Examine everything you do from the CEM perspective and begin where ever you are currently to implement this ‘call to arms’. Your progress as individuals, teams or improvement initiatives will get noticed soon because you will be achieving triple crown success – taking out costs, improving service, and ultimately driving more revenue to the bottom line.

“…keep things simple. People get lost when a systematic approach becomes over complex and they lose sight of the actual goal.” Richard Branson, 2007

In doing so you will be creating a sustainable, agile and responsive enterprise where everyone explicitly contributes to individual, team and corporate success.

All the Very Best in your journey!

If you are interested in delving deeper get the book ‘Outside-In The Secret’

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The program, now in its tenth year, utilizes the BP Groups approaches and framework to help you and your organization win the triple crown – simultaneously reduce costs, grow revenues and enhance service.
Producing Immediate and sustainable business results across any industry and sector.

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