Stop trying to fix the Customer Experience!!

What significantly differentiates the top dogs in terms of business results? How can Amazon, Zara, Zappos and Emirates consistently outperform their competitors? 

Connecting better

You and I as consumers connect better with those companies who have a focus on delivering Successful Customer Outcomes, however, that doesn’t immediately come about through wishful thinking, re-engineering processes or investing in the latest bright shiny technologies. No, these successful organizations have a different strategy…. And that strategy understands a fundamental truth across every part of the enterprise. Without the employee ‘getting it’ you waste your time banging the drum about improving the Customer Experience and at best you will achieve a Hawthorne effect[1], where results are fleetingly better then reverting back to sometimes even worse than before.

And so, enter stage left the Employee Experience.

Great, got it! We invest in employee’s emotional well-being and we can then deliver great CX. Wrong again. Emotions are an effect created by the circumstances the employee finds themselves in. Imagine a draconian boss, poor lighting and awful colleagues.

Not too much of a surprise that employees will then have low morale, high absence rates, and short tenures before finding something better. Making them feel better by changing the boss, improving work conditions and encouraging teaminess may produce a short-term fleeting benefit however we are soon back to square one. Why is this?

Elegant simplicity

Amazingly the answer to this catch 22 has been there all along. It is so obvious calling it common sense way understates its importance. The elegant simplicity confuses those who believe we should just improve what we already do, or invest heavily in digital, or run team building motivational workshops.

And this isn’t a secret sauce – three simple steps will get you there…

  1. Understand what success looks like for the customer
  2. Create measures of those Needs and Expectations
  3. Align and Reward employees to deliver those Needs and Expectations – without exception

And as if by magic, morale improves, employees become adept at dealing with any situation (without the need to go ‘upstairs’), customers are delighted and results, measured through costs, service and revenue dramatically improve. Sure, you can go measure the emotional employee impact (we are all happier!) but also remember that is a consequence of doing the right things first. And if you have to measure the employee emotions to tell you things aren’t working you are not understanding your customers well enough.

>> Watch Richard Branson, CEO Virgin Group discuss this topic here.

>> Watch Zappos and Disney SVP’s discuss Employee Experience with James Dodkins. Also, access his new book “Put your customers second” – he is offering three free chapters!

>> Join us at an upcoming training to understand and make your own the approaches that work immediately.

 

[1] The Hawthorne Effect: Wikipedia

Excellent Hotel experiences

Now this is the hotel experience. Great advice for all hotel chains from the man himself – Sir Richard Branson.


Focus on those key moments of truth for guests and magic just happens.

What MOTs do you get especially peeved with when traveling?

You can join this excellent Virgin Hotel experience in Chicago – go see http://virginhotels.com/

They will be in New York and Nashville very soon.

Who should you read? Who should you follow?

Let’s be honest. There are only so many hours in the day and in between eating, loving, sleeping, and pooping there aint much left over. However we all know the stresses and strains of keeping current, being of the moment. Keeping up to-date. It’s a full time task. So when asked at the PEX conference in Sydney in August “how do you do it?”I decided to start a list of the folks I follow.

Usually when grabbing a moment to myself I delve into the minds of others for inspiration.

Here is my list of the dirty dozen (for sharing) from the last 4 weeks:

Colin Shaw http://www.beyondphilosophy.com/ 
Daniel Pink http://www.danpink.com/
Ed Stalling http://www.maritzresearch.com/
Ernan Roman http://ernanroman.blogspot.co.uk/
Gregory Yankelovich http://piplzchoice.com/
Ian Golding http://ijgolding.com/
Kathy Klotz-Guest http://keepingithuman.com/
Maz Iqbal http://thecustomerblog.co.uk/
Michael Harris http://insightdemand.com/ 
Nate Brown http://communicatebetterblog.com/
Richard Branson http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/
Seth Godin http://www.sethgodin.com/


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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.