Time to Upgrade your skills

It seems that the only consistent thing today is change. With that in mind, how are you keeping up with the seismic shifts in doing business?

We upgrade our homes, our cars and our lifestyles as a matter of course. When was the last time you upgraded YOU? No, I don’t mean a fancy new pair of shoes or those nice looking jeans what I am talking about is the way you think and do. At a fundamental level, we need to be able to lead change and enable those around us to embrace and welcome all aspects of this volatile world, which as I have already suggested isn’t going away anytime soon.

All things considered, that is what our coaching, mentoring and training programs are all about. Not only incorporating the latest innovations in business change but reframing the way you think.

The Experience Manager

In this last twelve months, the approaches we use have upgraded to include a new platform that redefines process and customer experience deployment and includes the capture, analysis, ideation and implementation of experiences from the front-line to the board room.

Now some may think they have done all the growth they need to do and rely on those traditional tools for the daily work. That is, however, the way of the dinosaur, almost waiting for the asteroid to strike and wishing they would survive its impact. We know what happened there.

So is time to refresh and retool?

If so there’s a series of courses from one-dayers to a week across the planet led by been there and done it mentors who spend the majority of their time helping organisations embrace this brave new world. Come and get the benefits of their latest learnings as we codify together, hands-on, the means for you to upgrade and retool.

Case studies are great, but…

I will be blunt (nothing new there then) I abhor the talking heads know it all theoretical claptrap courses where learning is stifled and it is a listen and do as I say dirge. Hence anyone who has experienced our programs will tell you how exciting, invigorating and enabling the hands-on learning is. Even to the extent of using your own challenges and working them through the sessions in association with teammates and colleagues. Yes, case studies help but how much better is fixing your own stuff and learning how to integrate the tools and techniques directly?

That underpins our programs, learning by doing.

Interactive workshops solving your challenges

In fact, the relationships you forge in the fires of embracing the CEMMethod will become a part of the new you on your return to the office.

Find out more…

We are running open courses across the planet in 116 countries with over 100,000 professionals now qualified. Our inhouse courses, where we customise the material to your industry and current dramas, are also popular and we are proud to talk of the thousands of companies who have embraced the learnings. Either way, open or inhouse, you will have a fantastic time so have a look, delve a bit, and sign-up soon.
Your upgrade is waiting!

CPP MasterJohannesburgOctober 7 – 10
ACX SpecialistManchesterOctober 14 – 16
CPP Master DetroitNovember 4 – 7
ACX Master JohannesburgNovember 11 – 14
ACX/CPP ChampionJohannesburgNovember 25 – 28
CPP MasterCape TownDecember 2 – 5
CPP ChampionWashington DCDecember 16 – 18
INHOUSE By RequestYour choice

Is your Customer Experience initiative working for you?
CX Obsessed or just playing at it?
Upskill you or your team find out more to learn how others have become successful with a Customer Obsession strategy


CX is a FAD

I think we should all pay attention to this. You know #CX is in trouble when you need to explain it over, and over again!

Customer Obsession v. Customer Focused

Jeff Bezos encourages us to become Customer Obsessed (see video snippet) however Netflix’s journey to CX Obsession is less well known.

Steve Towers Masterclass comes to Denver

Online pre and post Masterclass meets

I will be in the room for you every step of the way. Whether you signup for the one or two day option there is a preliminary video and optional signup Zoom meeting. Post-session we schedule an online meet to review progress and answer questions.  

How learning by doing with real case studies is central to the Masterclass

With genuine case studies you will apply your own challenges in the session to actually take away not just the HOW but the WHAT you do.

Calling wannabe CPP Masters™ in Detroit

Everyone needs to keep pace with the changes happening in and around business these days. Gone are the times when attending a talking heads training course was good enough when the need is to return to work with a proven and tested approach that simply works immediately.

That is what the Certified Process Professional Masters (CPP-Master™) program is all about. With over 100,000 qualified professionals across 118 countries and established across 90% of the fortune 400 companies this training has a great pedigree. Review the detail for the upcoming Detroit session: https://detroit_cppmasters_2019.eventbrite.com

Here’s a nice testimonial:

Recent comments on the CPP Masters program

Review the program detail for the upcoming session: https://detroit_cppmasters_2019.eventbrite.com

or go ahead and buy your tickets here…


CEMMethod™
 www.cemmethod.com

Connect with me on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetowers/

The Need for Experience Management

The rules today incent organizations to pay people for doing tasks and activities. We have to change that.

If we incent people to achieve Successful Outcomes then we win for the employees, customer, shareholders, in fact, everyone except the competitors! This is what The Experience Manager enables.


Access The Experience Manager:
The worlds first Outside-in platform.
https://www.theexperiencemanager.com


Join us at an upcoming workshop/session: https://www.bpgroup.org/training.html

Outside-In The Secret (book on this theme from 2010)
www.outsideinthesecret.com

CEMMethod™
 www.cemmethod.com

Connect with me on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetowers/

The pioneer of all things Outside-In?

Who started #customerexperience ? Well, there has always been a customer experience, however, it is only in the last 20 years that companies have realized the need to get scientific about shaping and innovating #CX. Who was the pioneer that did that first? And in doing so shifted the emphasis from Industrial Age thinking to Outside-In practice. Let’s jump into the time machine and rediscover Steve Jobs back in 1997.

Moving from Product to Customer-Centric

Back then it wasn’t understood that designing Customer Experiences and delivering Successful Customer Outcomes went way beyond being product-centric. Steve Jobs anticipated this shift towards customer-centricity, and evolved Apples approach to rapidly shift to Outside-In strategy and operations.

Many of the concepts we accept, such as defining the customer experience from the customers perspective, and not the organizations, were developed in the cauldrons of Apple mountain. In fact, one of the key techniques within the CEMMethod™ was initially referred to as the ‘Apple Innovation Approach’.

Why so many still get it wrong

Here’s a great mini video explaining the difference in viewpoint Inside-Out v. Outside-In.

The CX Rockstar tells us why many get the definition of CX wrong.

James Dodkins aka CX Rockstar has many similar takes over at rockstar.cx

We saw that at work in Outside-In design of products like the original iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. Now taken for granted the last century was a mish mesh of competing chunks of technology (think the early MP3 players) that often required an MSc to understand the menu system and driver updates.

It isn’t what they want, it is what they NEED

Nowadays the major consumer product companies understand the requirement to articulates the needs of customers, and only then design products that meet those needs. That is Outside-In in action.

You would be right in saying he was the pioneer of Outside-In.

If you would like to dig deeper I talked about the difference in approaches of Industrial Age v. Customer Age/Outside-In in this article.

This item has caused quite a stir over at LinkedIn, you can join that discussion here.

Other Outside-In resources to Explore


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

Certified Process Professional
Master (CPPM)		10th Aug4 days @ 5 hours per day
Accredited CX Master
(ACXM)		18th Aug4 days @ 5 hours per day
Accredited CX Mentor
(ACX-Mentor)		1st Sep4 weeks @ 3 hours per week
Accredited CX Champion
(ACXC)		8th Sep3 days @ 5 hours per day
Certified Process Professional
Champion (CPPC)		22nd Sep3 days @ 5 hours per day
Certified Outside In Master
(COIM)		8th Sep7 weeks @ 3 hours per week

CX POWER Hour webinar

In just 60 minutes we will evaluate the 4 elements of a Customer Experience Management Ecosystem and how they can provide your organization with a company-wide ecosystem of CX management that focuses all of your team’s efforts and resources on delivering amazing customer experiences.

We are doing a CX POWER Hour this coming Wednesday 1 PM EDT/ 10 AM PDT Expert hosts include James Dodkins aka CX Rockstar, Doug Bell, Mitch Belsley (The Experience Manager) and Steve Towers BP Group.

Register here: CX_POWERUP_2019

Why you should attend

In just 60 minutes we will evaluate the 4 elements of a Customer Experience Management Ecosystem. We will review how the 4 elements can provide your organization with a company-wide ecosystem of CX management. This then focuses all of your team’s efforts and resources on delivering amazing customer experiences.

What we will cover

1. Operationalizing Experience Designs

(How do you create and socialize simple experience designs that everyone in the organization will be able to understand?)

2. Measuring successful customer outcomes instead of business outputs

(Are you still relying on subjective NPS and VOC data to drive your CX analytics program?)

3. Focus every employee in the company every single day on CX innovation and improvement

(Are you harnessing the power of feedback and ideation from your employees?)

4. Evolve and improve your experiences in days not months.

(How long is it taking you to go from idea to implementation?)

Register Now: The CX Power Hour 2019

James Dodkins, one of the hosts, has keynoted in the USA, Argentina, Mexico, UK, Australia and Germany in the last six months.

You will Win the Triple Crown

When you align your business around an understanding of your customer, you can increase your ability to grow revenue, significantly reduce cost, radically boost customer loyalty and engagement, tighten controls – and increase your competitive strength.

The Panel of Global Experts

Meet and discuss with our world-renowned team of Customer Experience Management innovators including… Doug Bell, James Dodkins, Mitch Belsley and Steve Towers will share proven strategies, tactics and tips to help position your customer ‘front and center’ – while addressing your real-world challenges of limited resources and competing priorities.

I very much hope you can join me and my colleagues!
Here is the registration link

All the Very Best!
Steve

Your team in Colorado

  • Doug Bell, CEO The Experience Manager
  • Steve Towers, Chief Evangelist, BPG
  • Mitch Belsley, CEO The Experience Manager

P.S. I suggest you follow The Experience Manager on LinkedIn and stay up-to-date on how to radically improve your customer and employee experiences. We focus the ‘next practices’ of the world’s leading CX companies that will help your organization do a better job designing, developing and delivering great customer and employee experiences.