Category: Customer Experience

10 ways to know whether the customer comes first

Stop making dumb things happen faster for less money!
A lot of companies pay lip service to customer-centricity, write contributors Steve Towers and James Dodkins, but not many “walk the talk”. Here are 10 differences between inside-out and outside-in companies.
There is a lot of talk today, more than ever, about customer centricity,
client focus, customer experience strategy and Outside-In. Many organizations have adopted aspects of these disciplines and where many have achieved monumental success others have fallen by the wayside. Why is this? The problem is perception.

Is your company just paying lip service to customers?
Countless organizations have said all the right things to make the workforce believe that they are becoming a customer-focused organization and then doing the complete opposite.
The effect of this is rising costs, shrinking revenues and ever lowering customer satisfaction.
The problem with this is that there is now a collective of organizations that have a “customer centricity doesn’t work” mentality. It’s like putting a rain hat in your pocket, going out into a storm, getting wet hair, then swearing the hat is useless. Just having the Outside-In customer centricity ideals is not enough; you have to use them in the right way.
So, how do you know if you work in an Outside-In organization or an Inside-Out organization wearing an Outside-In mask?
Table 1: Inside-Out or Outside-In?
Inside Out – attending to tasks and activities
Outside In – aligning to Successful Customer Outcomes (SCO’s)
Doing things right
Doing the Right things AND doing things right
1
Pyramidal management knows best
Context and customer defined
2
Business as a factory (left to right)
Customer Oriented Architectures
3
Benchmarking competitors
Determine customer needs and trends
4
Customer feedback retrospective
Customer needs designed and delivered
5
Process Improvement and optimization
Customer Experience innovation
6
DMAIC/SIPOC/DFSS/Lean
CEMMethod/4D’s
7
Improving efficiencies
Developing value for the customer
8
Model and method oriented
Customer journey and experience focus
9
Top down business architectures
Customer centric frameworks (context sensitive)
10
Remuneration for tasks completed
Rewards based on delivery of SCO’s

Let’s review the not so subtle differences

#1: Pyramidal management

Does your CEO really know the most about your organization? Can your CEO really relate to customers? Let’s face it, your CEO probably hasn’t spoken to a customer in years (if ever) so, why are they best qualified to determine how your organization is run? Maybe they aren’t…
#2: Business managed as a factory (left to right)

What percent of the work within your organization is manufacturing? What if you don’t manufacture anything? Then why does everything within your organization look like a factory?
We can’t meet the future with an industrial age mindset… join the rest of us in the 21st century.
#3: Benchmarking competitors
If you benchmark against other competitors you will, at best, only ever be as good as them, no better, most of the time worse and you will always be one step behind the trend.

Are you still managing a business that you think looks like this?
Rather than focusing on what your competitors are doing, focus on what the real need of the customer is and deliver that, innovate the customer experience, there is no easier way to become a market leader…let your competitors benchmark you. 
#4: Retrospective customer feedback
Asking customers “how did we do” is stupid, asking customers “how did we do” 3 weeks after it happened is even more stupid, allowing customer to self-select for a survey to tell you how you did 3 weeks after is happened is even more stupid than that.
If you want to get totally non-representative, inaccurate, and relatively useless data on how some customers may have felt you performed at some point then the traditional methods are fine (NPS, CSi, etc).
To measure a customer experience properly and objectively you need to first know what makes a great customer experience and measure if you are doing those things, we need to get scientific about the customer experience (CXRating).
If you are still in the land of subjective, self-selecting, retrospective feedback, chances are you have no idea just how well, or poorly, you are performing…even if you think you do.
#5: Focus only on process improvement and optimization
Taking what you are already doing and making it happen in a shorter time frame, more efficiently or for less operating cost is not good enough any more. If you are doing dumb things all you are doing is making dumb things happen faster for less money.
You should focus on innovating the customer experience. Any work within your organization is caused by a customer interaction somewhere down the line. If you engineer and innovate at the causal level, you will make the customer experience better and eliminate swathes of pointless dumb work that you are wasting time on every single day…simple really isn’t it?
#6: Trying to use DMAIC/SIPOC/DFSS/Lean to optimize the customer experience
If you are using process improvement methodologies that were created to optimize manufacturing processes to optimize the customer experience then you will find yourself in a mess.
Use a 21st century methodology like the CEMMethod that was designed for this day and age to really turbo charge your customer experience efforts. Have you ever heard the phrase “trying to fit a square peg into a round hole”? Methodologies like Lean and Six Sigma were great at what they were created to do, but they were not created to improve customer experience… and therefore won’t.
#7: Improving efficiencies for internal customers only
Trying to make things more efficient for yourselves inside your organization – more often than not – will actually make things worse for the customer. Don’t just perpetuate the Inside-Out mindset. You need to make sure that everything you are doing is actually creating value for customers. Don’t focus on internal customers, focus on real customers… they pay your wages.
#8: Model and method oriented
Don’t get shackled by the oppression of the models and methods that ‘the man’ has said you should use. You shouldn’t focus on trying to implement a model or method you should be focused on how to make the customer experience better… whatever it takes.
#9: Top down business architectures
Do you work in an environment when the person above you tells you what to do and you tell the people below you what to do? If your whole working life is focused on trying to make your boss happy what aren’t you focusing on?
That’s right, the customer.
As soon as we enter a habitat like this we make a habit out of ignoring what’s right for the customer over what is perceived to be right for the organization. I’m not saying you’ll be able to change this overnight, I’m just saying it’s wrong and will eventually lead to your organizations downfall… don’t get left behind.
#10: Remuneration for tasks completed
If you pay people for doing stupid things, they get very good at doing them. Traditionally, you will get paid for completing tasks and activities, filling in forms, processing invoices, taking calls etc.
If everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) was paid for delivering customer success just imagine how different your working environment would be. Empowering workers to be able to do whatever it takes to deliver customer success is the polar opposite of workers having to complete X number of forms in a day… this is maybe the biggest game changer of them all.
Steve Towers & James Dodkins
 

Reflecting on his success – a Virgin still?

This video from a few years ago captures both the man and the moment.

He goes from strength to strength and this quote epitomizes his credo “I believe that drudgery and clock-watching are a terrible betrayal of that universal, inborn entrepreneurial spirit.”

Rock on Richard, carry on challenging and changing. At the end of the day it is the customer who wins because of you.

Where is your work ethic mate?

One day a fisherman was lying on a beautiful beach, with his fishing pole propped up in the sand and his solitary line cast out into the sparkling blue surf. He was enjoying the warmth of the afternoon sun and the prospect of catching a fish.

(from the desk of James Dodkins)

About that time, a businessman came walking down the beach, trying to relieve some of the stress of his workday. He noticed the fisherman sitting on the beach and decided to find out why this fisherman was fishing instead of working harder to make a living for himself and his family.

“You aren’t going to catch many fish that way,” said the businessman to the fisherman, “you should be working rather than lying on the beach!” The fisherman looked up at the businessman, smiled and replied, “And what will my reward be?”

“Well, you can get bigger nets and catch more fish!” was the businessman’s answer. “And then what will my reward be?” asked the fisherman, still smiling.

The businessman replied, “You will make money and you’ll be able to buy a boat, which will then result in larger catches of fish!” “And then what will my reward be?” asked the fisherman again.

The businessman was beginning to get a little irritated with the fisherman’s questions. “You can buy a bigger boat, and hire some people to work for you!” he said. “And then what will my reward be?” repeated the fisherman.

The businessman was getting angry. “Don’t you understand? You can build up a fleet of fishing boats, sail all over the world, and let all your employees catch fish for you!” Once again the fisherman asked, “And then what will my reward be?”

The businessman was red with rage and shouted at the fisherman, “Don’t you understand that you can become so rich that you will never have to work for your living again! You can spend all the rest of your days sitting on this beach, looking at the sunset. You won’t have a care in the world!”

The fisherman, still smiling, looked up and said, “And what do you think I’m doing right now?”

FREE BPM-CEM-OutsideIn course. And receive a complimentary book – Outside-In.

Outside-in approaches create a completely new reality that reshapes how we manage and organize work so much so that functional pyramidal structures become artifacts of the past. 

Born in the complexity of the 21st century Outside-In companies believe that all effort in an organization should be centered around the customer and ultimately deliver Successful Customer Outcomes (SCO).

Part of the insight of Outside-In companies is the identification of work that does NOT contribute to the SCO and accordingly may be ‘dumb stuff’ – work that can be eradicated and removed. In doing so Outside-In wins the triple crown of simultaneously reducing costs, enhancing service and growing revenues. Leading practice organizations include Apple, Southwest airlines, Google, Samsung and Zara. In our book “Outside-In – The secret of the 21st century leading companies” we review many examples and lay the foundations for systematic approaches to enable Outside-In thinking and practice by all.
To access the online course: www.processmiracle.com
To join us on the journey: www.bpgroup.org

Towers-Dodkins, April 2014.

CEMMethod step 2: Crafting the Successful Customer Outcome

If you find this a useful addition to you Outside-In* toolkit let us know and we will release more 🙂

Will you Fail?

From the desk of James Dodkins
We can probably reasonably observe, without fear of understatement, that the
customer has changed forever. The reason our organisations exist, the people
who pay our wages, the cause of all the work we do has evolved beyond
recognition.
And yet has your organisation changed in response to this evolution?
Do we do our work in a different way from the last century?
Is work still flowing top to bottom and left to right?
Are we thinking about how our processes connect with customer success?
In the BP Groups research and experience with the leading companies of the
21st century the answer is … YES, some in fact do understand and act on
this new imperative. However the majority, including some previously
prestigious names are not getting it. Look at the troubles of Nokia, Kodak,
Sony, British Airways, Air India, United… the list is extensive and
disturbing.
For our examples of successful transformation and realignment we can include
Emirates, Zappos, Zara, Apple, Indigo, Hallmark and BMW. A wide selection
from different industries, cultures and operating models. We will get to
specifics later, for now let’s review the reason for their successful
adoption of Advanced BPM, otherwise known as Outside-In. The customer!
If things are changing faster Outside than in you will fail
The accepted business wisdom until the end of the last century was the
adoption and exploration of ideas originally described by Adam Smith in theWealth of Nations, published in 1776. This seminal work introduced the world to the concept of the sub division of labour.
Written during the advent of the industrial revolution the ‘Wealth of Nations’ created a framework for organising manufactories and people into similar skills and disciplines. In fact the original work in a Scottish pin factory demonstrated 20 fold improvements to productivity and as such became a template for achieving industrial and commercial success.
Two and a half centuries later the model is still taught in business schools and academia as the way to structure and organise work. After all it worked for 200+ years?
We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we
created them (Einstein)
And there is the rub. The challenges we face in the 21st century are very different to those being addressed by Adam Smith and the industrialists of the Napoleonic era.
Let’s get to grips with some of the shifts…
Kindest Regards
James Dodkins
Chief Customer Officer
BP Group

Twitter – @JDodkins

Six steps to winning with the Customer Experience

1. Start by identifying the Moments of Truth (customer interactions)that exist across all of your customer experiences (you can create more specific experience maps later).


2. Make a list of all the Moments of Truth (MOT).For each MOT write a description, method of interaction, and customer expectation.
We use the Diagnostics dashboard to make sure we turn the MOTs into 15 quantifiable and actionable metrics.

There are three ways to collect and collate this information:

  • Workshops of all interested people.
    That includes customers, advisors, employees and management.
  • Recording of actual experiences.
    Yes, record the experiences and evaluate afterwards. We use a video technique that identified Moments of Truth with red flashes, Internal Interactions with blue and decision points as green.
  • Analysis of customer feedback.
    Review the letters, calls and social network commentary and capture the experiences to gain insights and a better understanding.

3. Document the learning and produce a visual illustration(process activity maps).


4. Use the maps to identify areas working well and those that need improvement.Focus on the critical MOTs — those crucial interactions that determine whether the experience you are creating delivers the optimum encounter, expectation and emotion.


5. Build a Action Plan to engineer the ABACUS of the customer experience.
At each stage identify the relevant MOTs that cover off these elements:

  • Awareness
    When and How does the customer become aware of the process, product or service you offer?
  • Buy-In
    How and Where does the customer ‘get it’ and become an advocate for the experience?
  • Acquisition
    How is the purchase made. Not just a product buy but the actual commitment.
  • Care
    Why should the customer care? How do you ensure the trust and commitment is reciprocal and reinforced?
  • Use
    How does the product, service work. Has it been designed from the customers perspective (Outside-In)? Ease of use goes beyond efficiency and focuses directly on the actual customer experience.
  • Share
    In our always-on world how does Share happen? Is that understood and optimized? Recall the fantastic tale from Canada – Westjet Christmas story[1] with more than 35 million hits on youtube in 3 months. By the way that is more than the population of Canada! That’s good news, but what about capturing the bad news before it becomes a crisis – recall the United Breaks guitar[2] story?


6. Engage the entire organization to undertake the journey to Customer Experience Management.We use the structured CEMMethod™, derived from the work of companies such as Virgin, Disney, Southwest Airlines, Emirate, BMW, Bentley, Zara and many more truly Outside-In enterprises. Whoever and where-ever you are it is directly and immediately useful.

If you are serious about engineering the Customer Experience then let us know (below). We will provide immediate links to videos, resources and an expert community doing this stuff as a way of life.



[1] Westjet Christmas – a terrific example of sharing your values and ethos – http://bit.ly/1habsP2

[2] United Breaks Guitars – how a bad experience turns into a corporate crisis – http://bit.ly/1dmOKaW
 

BPM Resources from the BP Group (updated)

(note: save for ongoing reference)
http://bit.ly/joinbpgroup – 12,000+ members networking with ideas
http://www.twitter.com/stowers – Posts several times daily, new approaches, examples and case studies
http://www.twitter.com/jdodkins – items linking into the customer experience
http://www.bpgroup.org/ – Dozens of courses leading to the Certified Process Professional qualification (CPP) all over the globe

http://www.processmiracle.com/ – FREE course featuring the Secret Sauce

http://www.successfulcustomeroutcomes.net – 350+ articles on Advanced BPM

http://bpcommunity.blogspot.co.uk/ – 200+ articles on process improvement

https://www.youtube.com/user/snoozers69 – Over 60 videos on the theme

http://www.slideshare.net/stowers/ – More than 90 presentations (downloadable)

http://www.oibpm.com/ – for all things and links Outside In

http://www.certifiedprocessprofessional.com/ – Professional qualifications since 1992

http://www.bpgroup.org/their-opinion.html  – Testimonials about us

http://www.processexcellencenetwork.com/contributors/794-steve-towers/
PEXNetwork articles from Steve Towers, CEO at the BP Group
http://www.processexcellencenetwork.com/contributors/4586-james-dodkins/
PEXNetwork articles from James Dodkins, CCO at the BP Group
http://bit.ly/1jTSXWi Videos and case studies – many less than 5 mins for quick consumption 🙂
Enjoy!