Category: @jamesdodkins

The Metric So Beloved It Was Disowned by Its Own Creator

The NPS question was first published in 2003. In its original form, it was a simple: “On a scale of 0–10, how likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?” (Reichheld, 2003). The author, Fred Reichheld, boldly proclaimed that his metric, as featured in the Harvard Business Review, could predict growth better than any multitiered survey. Soon, NPS evangelists were stamping their favourite colour onto every dashboard in the office. It was the company truth serum. Customer-centric utopia.

By 2020, Reichheld had largely disavowed his namesake movement. “The score has become a bargaining chip or a daily quota to hit,” he said in an interview (Cassidy, 2020).

“When you chase a number for its own sake, you lose sight of the human connection that score is meant to measure.”
Fred Reichheld

Pros:

  • Clear, benchmarkable figure
  • Universally understood format
  • Easy to correlate with revenue trends

Cons:

  • Can be gamed by frontline staff
  • Ignores the “why” behind the number
  • Encourages superficial fixes over systemic change

Pro tip: Really turn your employees against your metric by mandating that they ask it in transactional ways. Think of in-store signage or when the customer is just leaving. In other words, every opportunity to make the ask seem arbitrary. Every organisation’s behaviour index is somewhere in that neighbourhood.

Despite Reichheld’s very public mea culpa, NPS endures. It is the one number plastered in every boardroom (Keiningham et al., 2014). A metric so beloved that its own father disowned it. And yet, here we are.

References

1. Reichheld, F. (2003). The One Number You Need to Grow. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2003/12/the-one-number-you-need-to-grow

2. Keiningham, T. L., et al. (2014). A Longitudinal Examination of Net Promoter and Firm Revenue Growth. Journal of Marketing Research. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1509/jmr.13.0108



Businesses must actively engineer and continuously innovate this experience to drive success. Further, we define success as winning the triple crown: simultaneously growing revenues, Reducing Costs, and Improving Service.

Steve Towers, International Keynote, Author and Coach, defines Customer Experience


Steve has also published many articles and conference keynotes (see the MOT primer below) reviewing the continued evolution of this fascinating concept.

Join us at a coaching session and become qualified in Customer Centric and Process Transformation https://www.bpgroup.org or visit https://www.stevetowers.com

Definitions


What is a Moment of Truth?

A Moment of Truth is any interaction with the customer within the Customer Experience, first discussed in my 1993 book ‘Business Process Reengineering – A Senior Executive’s Guide‘

Moments of Truth are the cause of all work.

This understanding underpins the CEMMethod, first launched in 2006 and now in version 15. It is the idea that all work an organisation undertakes is, at a fundamental level, caused by Moments of Truth. In principle, everything a company does can and should be linked to a Moment of Truth.

We harness and bring to life this design principle through the Customer Performance Landscape. Connecting the dots from everything to the Cause of all work – The Moment of Truth.

Managing Moments of Truth

Enlightened ‘Outside-In’ organisations actively embrace Moment of Truth Management as an essential strategic and operational necessity to deliver engineered Customer Experiences. How so?

a. Designing for Moments of Truth – The Design-Implementation Gap

Early efforts were geared towards designing optimal Moments of Truth; however, simply mapping customer journeys has never been enough. It is one thing to agree on what a future state customer journey should be; it is entirely another to implement it. This Design-Implementation gap is precisely what kills the majority of Customer Experience initiatives.

b. Implementing optimised Moments of Truth

Successful deployment of innovated Moments of Truth is key to delivering optimal Customer Experiences. The most practical immediate results focus on a rapid rollout across a key experience, using the success of that rollout to validate the smooth rollout across the organisation. Establishing ownership, accountability, metrics, controls and improvement paths are part of this discipline.

c. Operationalising Moments of Truth

Once Moments of Truth have been designed, innovated and implemented into recrafted customer experiences, they need to be actively managed ‘in the moment’ and shared. Every Moment of Truth should feed to a corporate dashboard, with real-time data showing the performance of that MOT and its associated experiences. If things go wrong, the owner should be able to ‘course correct’ and real-time monitor the customer experience delivery.

Imagine a world without customer satisfaction surveys, no need for Net Promoter Scores, no focus groups, and no mystery shopping because you will know how 100% of interactions are performing 100% of the time.

Control and Action combined

The C-suite and leaders will now have a clear line of sight into every corner of the organisation and across the enterprise landscape, in real-time. One version of the data truth (and not all those departmental/divisional versions of reality).

The need for retrospective action evaporates. Immediate and laser-focused control can be maintained, delivering simultaneously enhanced service, lower costs, higher revenues, improved compliance and uber motivated employees.


MOT primer…

Steve Towers
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetowers/

Richard Normann – creator of the Moments of Truth concept:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Normann

Jan Carlzon – author of ‘Moments of Truth’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Carlzon

Moments of Truth 2025 (VIDEO)
https://youtu.be/3mzz_LdgmFY

That Kodak Moment of Truth
https://www.processexcellencenetwork.com/innovation/columns/4-lessons-from-the-kodak-moment-of-truth

Mitch Belsley – Get Scientific about Managing Moments of Truth
http://customerthink.com/get-scientific-about-managing-moments-of-truth/

Accreditation & Certification in CX and Process
https://www.bpgroup.org

Embedding Outside-In Thinking (and Practice) in Organizations

If you want to do more than just talk outside-in, you need to start re-wiring how your team or organisation defines success, measures progress and governs day-to-day activity. These are the three steps to build Outside-In practice into any organisation using the CEMMethod™ playbook.

1. Make the Successful Customer Outcome Your North Star

Every activity has to link back to and improve the outcome your customer is trying to get.

If you use the Successful Customer Outcome (SCO) as your North Star, you’ll have a lens through which to see which projects are valuable, which activities are counter-productive and what your priorities should be. Additionally, publishing a visible SCO on a board in your office serves as a constant reminder to keep the customer at the centre of everything you do.

–          At the leadership or executive level, define and socialise your SCO so it’s clear, measurable and emotionally meaningful.

–          Ask every project, process step and individual goal: “How does this make the SCO better?” If not, stop or redesign.

–          Publish SCO progress in an obvious way, like a published scorecard or a live whiteboard everyone can see to show how your work is improving it.

2. Map and Quantify the Experience With Outside-In Diagnostics

First you need to see the customer experience and quantify the gap to your ideal in order to know what to fix.

The CEMMethod™ diagnostic tools, such as Moments of Truth (MOT) mapping, Causal Flow diagrams, the Customer Performance Landscape, and the Disruption Factor metric, provide a comprehensive end-to-end view.

–          Run a CX diagnostic to map every MOT and handover your customer experiences and draw the Causal Flow diagram to show the root cause of the customer pain points.

–          Measure your Disruption Factor as a key metric that shows your average customer experience as a % away from perfect.

–          Create an Outside-In Dashboard (OID) to visualise your most essential metrics showing MOT performance against customer sentiment and business impact in real time.

3. Embed Outside-In Into Culture Through Governance and Alignment

Outside-In isn’t a project. It’s a new way of operating that has to become habitual to have an impact.

The key is to have North Star alignment tools (metrics that roll up to the SCO), regular governance forums for leaders to review MOT performance and to experiment with new ways of working such as innovation sprints.

–          Use the North Star Alignment Template (NSAT) to cascade the SCO down through every team and individual goal.

–          Build an Outside-In Strategic Control System (OISCS): put in place a regular cadence of reviews (e.g. monthly or quarterly) where leaders discuss MOT performance, Disruption Factor trends and concrete next steps to close gaps.

–          Coach, train and gamify. Make sure your new Outside-In practices are embedded into onboarding, leadership meetings and rituals, or peer-to-peer learning. Make it habit forming.

More steps as Outside-In momentum builds

As you get these basics in place and start to see traction, then there are a few more levers to accelerate your Outside-In journey:

–          Bring your Outside-In metrics into your digital backbone by integrating with your Experience Manager, BI tool or other platforms to make your data flow easily.

–          Ensure every leadership meeting includes a real customer story to make the data human.

–          Experiment with Six-Step Innovation to run rapid-cycle innovation sprints that co-create future-state experiences with customers in real time.

The additional gears of technology, story and rapid innovation give you more propulsion on your journey from good to great and will help turn customer centricity from aspiration to every day reality.

You can explore the CEMMethod here: https://www.cemmethod.com

Become professionally qualified in the use of the approach: https://www.bpgroup.org
(Live, online, or in the room – London – Dubai – Denver – Johannesburg)

Do connect here on LinkedIn or visit https://stevetowers.com

Definitions

What is a Moment of Truth?

A Moment of Truth is any interaction with the customer within the Customer Experience, first discussed in my 1993 book ‘Business Process Reengineering – A Senior Executive’s Guide‘

Moments of Truth are the cause of all work.

This understanding underpins the CEMMethod, first launched in 2006 and now in version 15. It is the idea that all work an organization undertakes is, at a fundamental level, caused by Moments of Truth. In principle, everything a company does can and should be linked to a Moment of Truth.

We harness and bring to life this design principle through the Customer Performance Landscape. Connecting the dots from everything to the Cause of all work – The Moment of Truth.

Managing Moments of Truth

Enlightened ‘Outside-In’ organizations actively embrace Moment of Truth Management as an essential strategic and operational necessity to deliver engineered Customer Experiences. How so?

a. Designing for Moments of Truth – The Design-Implementation Gap

Early efforts were geared around designing optimal Moments of Truth, however, simply mapping customer journeys has never been enough. It is one thing agreeing on what a future state customer journey should be, it is entirely another implementing it. This Design-Implementation gap is precisely what kills the majority of Customer Experience initiatives.

b. Implementing optimized Moments of Truth

Successful deployment of innovated Moments of Truth is key to delivering optimal Customer Experiences. The most practical immediate results are focused on rapid roll out across a key experience and using the success of that to validate rolling out smoothly across the organization. Establishing ownership, accountability, metrics, controls and improvement paths are part of this discipline.

c. Operationalizing Moments of Truth

Once Moments of Truth have been designed, innovated and implemented into recrafted customer experiences they need to be actively managed ‘in the moment’ and shared. Every Moment of Truth should feed to a corporate dashboard, with real-time data showing the performance of that MOT and its associated experiences. If things go wrong, the owner should be able to ‘course correct’ and real-time monitor the customer experience delivery.

Imagine a world without customer satisfaction surveys, no need for Net Promoter Scores, no focus groups, and no mystery shopping because you will know how 100% of interactions are performing 100% of the time.

Control and Action combined

The C suite and leaders will now have a clear line of sight into every corner of the organization and across the enterprise landscape REAL TIME. One version of the data truth (and not all those departmental/divisional versions of reality).

The need for retrospective action evaporates. Immediate and laser-focused control can be maintained delivering simultaneously enhanced service, lower costs, higher revenues, improved compliance and uber motivated employees.

What’s next?

In my next piece, I will demonstrate how this can be done immediately. If you can’t wait for that, ping me and let’s talk the how, now


MOT primer…

Steve Towers
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetowers/

Richard Normann – creator of the Moments of Truth concept:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Normann

Jan Carlzon – author of ‘Moments of Truth’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Carlzon

Moments of Truth 2025 (VIDEO)
https://youtu.be/3mzz_LdgmFY

That Kodak Moment of Truth
https://www.processexcellencenetwork.com/innovation/columns/4-lessons-from-the-kodak-moment-of-truth

Mitch Belsley – Get Scientific about Managing Moments of Truth
http://customerthink.com/get-scientific-about-managing-moments-of-truth/

Accreditation & Certification in CX and Process
https://www.bpgroup.org

The 2025 Working Backwards/Outside-In definition of Customer Experience

Customer experience is the total impact of a customer’s thoughts, emotions, and interactions with products and services, all shaping their journey toward a specific goal or Outcome.


Every interaction matters—it defines perceptions, influences decisions, and determines satisfaction.

Businesses must actively engineer and continuously innovate this experience to drive success. Further, we define success as winning the triple crown: simultaneously growing revenues, Reducing Costs, and Improving Service.

Steve Towers, International Keynote, Author and Coach, defines Customer Experience


Steve has also published many articles and conference keynotes (see the MOT primer below) reviewing the continued evolution of this fascinating concept.

Join us at a coaching session and become qualified in Customer Centric and Process Transformation https://www.bpgroup.org or visit https://www.stevetowers.com

Definitions

What is a Moment of Truth?

A Moment of Truth is any interaction with the customer within the Customer Experience, first discussed in my 1993 book ‘Business Process Reengineering – A Senior Executive’s Guide‘

Moments of Truth are the cause of all work.

This understanding underpins the CEMMethod, first launched in 2006 and now in version 15. It is the idea that all work an organisation undertakes is, at a fundamental level, caused by Moments of Truth. In principle, everything a company does can and should be linked to a Moment of Truth.

We harness and bring to life this design principle through the Customer Performance Landscape. Connecting the dots from everything to the Cause of all work – The Moment of Truth.

Managing Moments of Truth

Enlightened ‘Outside-In’ organisations actively embrace Moment of Truth Management as an essential strategic and operational necessity to deliver engineered Customer Experiences. How so?

a. Designing for Moments of Truth – The Design-Implementation Gap

Early efforts were geared towards designing optimal Moments of Truth; however, simply mapping customer journeys has never been enough. It is one thing to agree on what a future state customer journey should be; it is entirely another to implement it. This Design-Implementation gap is precisely what kills the majority of Customer Experience initiatives.

b. Implementing optimised Moments of Truth

Successful deployment of innovated Moments of Truth is key to delivering optimal Customer Experiences. The most practical immediate results focus on a rapid rollout across a key experience, using the success of that rollout to validate the smooth rollout across the organisation. Establishing ownership, accountability, metrics, controls and improvement paths are part of this discipline.

c. Operationalising Moments of Truth

Once Moments of Truth have been designed, innovated and implemented into recrafted customer experiences, they need to be actively managed ‘in the moment’ and shared. Every Moment of Truth should feed to a corporate dashboard, with real-time data showing the performance of that MOT and its associated experiences. If things go wrong, the owner should be able to ‘course correct’ and real-time monitor the customer experience delivery.

Imagine a world without customer satisfaction surveys, no need for Net Promoter Scores, no focus groups, and no mystery shopping because you will know how 100% of interactions are performing 100% of the time.

Control and Action combined

The C-suite and leaders will now have a clear line of sight into every corner of the organisation and across the enterprise landscape, in real-time. One version of the data truth (and not all those departmental/divisional versions of reality).

The need for retrospective action evaporates. Immediate and laser-focused control can be maintained, delivering simultaneously enhanced service, lower costs, higher revenues, improved compliance and uber motivated employees.

What’s next?

In my next piece, I will demonstrate how this can be done immediately. If you can’t wait for that, ping me and let’s talk the how, now


MOT primer…

Steve Towers
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetowers/

Richard Normann – creator of the Moments of Truth concept:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Normann

Jan Carlzon – author of ‘Moments of Truth’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Carlzon

Moments of Truth 2025 (VIDEO)
https://youtu.be/3mzz_LdgmFY

That Kodak Moment of Truth
https://www.processexcellencenetwork.com/innovation/columns/4-lessons-from-the-kodak-moment-of-truth

Mitch Belsley – Get Scientific about Managing Moments of Truth
http://customerthink.com/get-scientific-about-managing-moments-of-truth/

Accreditation & Certification in CX and Process
https://www.bpgroup.org

What are Moments of Truth?

Since the days of Richard Normann, the guy who invented the business term ‘Moments of Truth’ and Jan Carlzon’s book in 1989, the business world has interpreted Moments of Truth in several ways.

Jan Carlzon’s 1989 book ‘Moments of Truth’ socialised Richard Normann’s concept.

I have also published many articles and conference keynotes (see the MOT primer below) reviewing the continued evolution of this fascinating concept.

Definitions

What is a Moment of Truth?

A Moment of Truth is any interaction with the customer within the Customer Experience, first discussed in my 1993 book ‘Business Process Reengineering – A Senior Executive’s Guide‘

Moments of Truth are the cause of all work.

This understanding underpins the CEMMethod, first launched in 2006 and now in version 15. It is the idea that all work an organization undertakes is, at a fundamental level, caused by Moments of Truth. In principle, everything a company does can and should be linked to a Moment of Truth.

We harness and bring to life this design principle through the Customer Performance Landscape. Connecting the dots from everything to the Cause of all work – The Moment of Truth.

Managing Moments of Truth

Enlightened ‘Outside-In’ organizations actively embrace Moment of Truth Management as an essential strategic and operational necessity to deliver engineered Customer Experiences. How so?

a. Designing for Moments of Truth – The Design-Implementation Gap

Early efforts were geared around designing optimal Moments of Truth, however, simply mapping customer journeys has never been enough. It is one thing agreeing on what a future state customer journey should be, it is entirely another implementing it. This Design-Implementation gap is precisely what kills the majority of Customer Experience initiatives.

b. Implementing optimized Moments of Truth

Successful deployment of innovated Moments of Truth is key to delivering optimal Customer Experiences. The most practical immediate results are focused on rapid roll out across a key experience and using the success of that to validate rolling out smoothly across the organization. Establishing ownership, accountability, metrics, controls and improvement paths are part of this discipline.

c. Operationalizing Moments of Truth

Once Moments of Truth have been designed, innovated and implemented into recrafted customer experiences they need to be actively managed ‘in the moment’ and shared. Every Moment of Truth should feed to a corporate dashboard, with real-time data showing the performance of that MOT and its associated experiences. If things go wrong, the owner should be able to ‘course correct’ and real-time monitor the customer experience delivery.

Imagine a world without customer satisfaction surveys, no need for Net Promoter Scores, no focus groups, and no mystery shopping because you will know how 100% of interactions are performing 100% of the time.

Control and Action combined

The C suite and leaders will now have a clear line of sight into every corner of the organization and across the enterprise landscape REAL TIME. One version of the data truth (and not all those departmental/divisional versions of reality).

The need for retrospective action evaporates. Immediate and laser-focused control can be maintained delivering simultaneously enhanced service, lower costs, higher revenues, improved compliance and uber motivated employees.

What’s next?

In my next piece, I will demonstrate how this can be done immediately. If you can’t wait for that, ping me and let’s talk the how, now


MOT primer…

Steve Towers
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetowers/

Richard Normann – creator of the Moments of Truth concept:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Normann

Jan Carlzon – author of ‘Moments of Truth’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Carlzon

Moments of Truth 2025 (VIDEO)
https://youtu.be/3mzz_LdgmFY

That Kodak Moment of Truth
https://www.processexcellencenetwork.com/innovation/columns/4-lessons-from-the-kodak-moment-of-truth

Mitch Belsley – Get Scientific about Managing Moments of Truth
http://customerthink.com/get-scientific-about-managing-moments-of-truth/

Accreditation & Certification in CX and Process
https://www.bpgroup.org

Discover 23 Must-Attend Top-Notch Customer Experience Conferences in 2023!

Overview of customer experience featuring 23 must attend conference in 2023

As a business leader, you know the importance of customer experience (CX) and its impact on your success. But do you know about the must-attend customer experience conferences for 2023?

Must-Attend Customer Experience Conferences in 2023

Now that you know the importance of customer experience, let’s take a look at the must-attend customer experience conferences in 2023:

January 2023

February 2023

March 2023

May 2023

June 2023

July 2023

August 2023

September 2023

October 2023

These conferences are great opportunities to learn the latest strategies in customer experience, network with other industry professionals, and gain invaluable insight into the customer experience industry.

Conclusion

Customer experience is an essential part of any business’s success. It involves understanding customer needs and developing strategies to meet those needs. It also involves creating customer-centric strategies, setting customer goals, and measuring customer satisfaction.

Attending customer experience conferences is a great way to learn the latest strategies in customer experience, network with other industry professionals, and gain invaluable insight into the customer experience industry.

Review these 23 top-rated CX Conferences for 2023 to start your journey to become a customer experience expert!

Connect with me: https://linktr.ee/stevetowers

Busting That Silo Working Mentality

This time we feature a nice short video from the CX Rockstar James Dodkins.

A quick google search on ‘Silo working’ reveals 37.1 Million finds and this is not a new topic. Hammer and Champy were not the first to raise the issue in 1993, but they were early advocates of sweeping away that silo thinking in ‘Reengineering the Corporation’ with their cry of ‘Don’t Automate, Obliterate!’

The Silo Mentality as defined by the Business Dictionary is a mindset present when certain departments or sectors do not wish to share information with others in the same company. This type of mentality will reduce efficiency in the overall operation, reduce morale, and may contribute to the demise of a productive company culture.

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)

TipTop Influencers

Yesterday someone asked me why was I publishing all the FREE material?

Well, in my line of work I am so often asked ‘who is the best person to watch on youtube about y?’ and of course each of us has our go-to person or people that we always mention. Terrific speakers and storytellers alike but I wanted to go one step further and collate some favourites. But then can it just be my opinion (as good as that could be?). No.

So I have scoured the web for the organisations who take time to run Awards programs and pass on that information for broader consumption. You could of course just go on Youtube and search for hours (and days) but these Tiptop Influencer lists make short work of that.

James Dodkins Online Tour Rocks Customer Experience!

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT! The ACXS™ training and certification program is now available online.
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You will learn how to connect with your customers at a deeper level, understand their expectations, where they came from and how to change them, uncover hidden needs, articulate ‘Successful Customer Outcome’ statements and build ideal experiences that deliver on these things.

Measure the CX6, calculate Return on Experience Investment, implement Proactive Experience Recovery, learn how to redefine CX in your company…and much, much more.

Things are a bit crazy right now, we’re all stuck at home, we’re all looking for ways to make the most of our time, we’re all trying to be as productive as possible – Why not become an Accredited Customer Experience Specialist Online, On-Demand, On Your Terms?

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Rockin in the real CX World

Coming to London in March and will blow your #cx and #ux socks off!!

The reason why you will not become Customer-Centric

Business failures are all around us, nothing new there then. If we go back a decade or so we saw the demise of Nokia, we’ve seen companies like Blockbuster crash and burn, and other companies in the High Street whether it’s in Europe or in the US disappear and never to be seen again.

Why is this so? When you look at the investment those companies were making there was no lack of intent to spend in understanding how the customer was changing. In the year that Apple introduced the iPhone Nokia was investing heavily in voice of the customer (VOC) surveys, customer satisfaction and NPS.

But this misses the point. Progressive Outside-In companies (think Amazon, Zara, Zappos, Emirates) are not about retrospective subjective analysis of performance. It isn’t about overlaying processes with a new language when fundamentally the very systems and processes were never designed to deliver customer experiences. They were designed with a factory mindset centred around production line thinking, throughput and waste. Hence the challenge is more fundamental as it’s not about rejigging what you’re doing – it is about a complete rethink to move outside in the way that you do business.

Remarkably even in the third decade of the 21st century there are still those companies that think they can just tweak and change the language inside their organisations. As if doing better advertising and marketing to customers and talking about ‘new’ services on top of their existing infrastructures and IT systems hacks it. The actual reality is somewhat different.

Senior Executive commentary

Top teams and senior executives need to grasp this challenge. Roland Naidoo, a senior executive at African based entertainments company Multichoice puts the choice starkly:

“Would you measure how fast a 1600cc car performed around an F1 circuit. No? Then why would you try to measure customer experience AND improve it on processes and products there were never designed with experience in mind. Go on enter your 1600 into the next F1. Wonder how it would perform?”

Roland Naidoo, Multichoice Africa

Lipstick on a Pig? Surely not…

Those companies who understand that ‘outside-in’ thinking calls for a complete realignment and new appraisal of what the customer experience consists of.

Rather than, to coin a phrase, putting lipstick on a pig. You have actually got to think about what is it you’re trying to achieve; what does success look like for our customer? And then align across all functions, all systems and ways of working towards successful customer outcomes. Disney refers to this alignment as getting everybody to understand where true north is and not to do anything unless it contributes to that alignment. Imagine all new initiatives being assessed by a similar approach?

Are you working in a Rubik cube?

Another aspect which comes into play is this idea that traditional measurement* is predominantly subjective and retrospective. Progressive outside in companies are not reactive – they get scientific about the customer experience.

Measuring each interaction as it happens and if necessary course-correcting in real-time. They develop the ability to see around corners to understand what’s coming next. They don’t have to wait for analysis 2 weeks after an event to decide that some remedial action is required.

This knowledge in the instance of what is happening requires us to create this idea of ‘action in the moment’ for all our employees. Zappos**, for instance, give their employees the tools and the capability to be able to make decisions in the moment (without the need to escalate to supervisors).

Industrial Age thinking will kill you

And there is another challenge companies face if they are still organised around functional specialist silos. If you’ve recruited low paid people and given them a script to follow, manage them to average handle times and throughputs you’re going to fail.

Once more the outside-in companies have an edge here as they understand that to give your most precious resource (the customer) to the employees then you need the right people in the right place able to do the right things at that moment of truth.

So what is your organization doing? is it trying to put lipstick on the pig? is it just trying to overlay the existing process is an infrastructure with this new customer-centric way of talking and doing?

It is very simple. You need to get down to brass tacks of rethinking what customer experience is all about its implication for the organisation going forward. Those organisations that are taking this outside-in approach find the world becomes simpler, faster and much more directly oriented towards delivering successful customer outcomes and winning for the bottom line.


* Why does traditional measurement fail?
from the CX Rockstar aka James Dodkins at https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6566333517070954496/

** Zappos – Wow customer service: https://www.forbes.com/sites/micahsolomon/2018/09/15/the-secret-of-wow-customer-service-is-breathing-space-just-ask-zappos/#7da91ff01b2c

Roland Naidoo can be reached at:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/roland-d-naidoo-b403a029/

Join our upcoming Coaching and Accreditation sessions online, LIVE & Interactive

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