Are you looking for a way to enhance your customer experience? Do you want to become a qualified Accredited Customer Experience Master?
Look no further than our 4-day online live program! Our program introduces and coaches you with ‘state of the art’ tools and techniques from the CEMMethod, a proven, tried and tested approach to enhancing customer experiences.
You will complete offline exercises, ideally based on your work, and on successful completion of ten exercises, you will become a qualified Accredited Customer Experience Master®.
Through your work you will then immediately be able to deliver the Triple Crown of benefits – lowering costs, growing revenues, improving service and increasing customer loyalty.
Imagine having the ability to deliver exceptional customer experiences through your organization’s processes, people, and systems. Our program connects you with the means to do just that. You’ll have access to the latest insights and strategies to take your customer experiences to the next level.
Join over 140,000+ professionals who have already taken the first step towards becoming Accredited Customer Experience Masters. Sign up for our 4-day online live program today and start transforming your customer experience success!
Review the Twelve Frequently Asked Questions associated with Customer Experience Management are discussed with supporting videos and decks at www.bpgroup.org/cxfaq.html
Even though Customer Journey Mapping (CJM) has become a popular tool among customer experience (CX) professionals, many organizations are still not utilizing it to its fullest. Oftentimes, the cause of this is a lack of knowledge about how internal operations and data are related to the customer journey. To gain a better comprehension of the customer experience, CX experts need to comprehend the entire process customers navigate when interacting with an organization. This includes not only their dealings with the organization’s products and services, but also the processes and systems that underpin those connections.
Overview
Earlier this week, I released a short video about Customer Journey Management and its benefits for organizations, with examples from Amazon, Starbucks, Uber, Netflix, Apple, and the Financial Sector. (see the 4 minutes on YT: https://youtu.be/an5tNYXXzHo)
Wow, what a response. I didn’t expect that. Many folks have tried and failed to deploy Customer Journey Map approaches effectively.
Here’s a summary of some of the five most significant challenges. In another article, we will discuss how to avoid them based on the best practices of those who have delivered success.
Some significant drawbacks can affect a company’s ability to provide a great experience to its customers.
🤝Customer Needs
One of these issues is a need for insight into the customer’s needs and desires. This can create an inconsistency between their services and products and the customer’s expectations, leading to disappointment and exasperation.
💖Personalization
Furthermore, not offering a personalized experience make customers feel disregarded and unappreciated.
🎸Co-ordination
Additionally, a failure to properly coordinate and integrate different channels and touchpoints can lead to an incoherent journey for the customer, making it difficult for them to get the assistance or data they require.
🏢Structural challenges
A hindrance is silo-based thinking; when a business has several separate systems and processes, it can take time to get a comprehensive outlook on the customer’s experience and to determine their path.
This can make it challenging to find and address any issues or areas that need to be improved.
✍️Connecting the dots
Understanding the link between internal operations, data, and customer experience is essential. By being aware of the overall process customers go through when interacting with an organization, and the systems and processes that back them, CX professionals can pinpoint pain points and chances for optimization within the customer journey.
Additionally, it is essential to remember that CJM is not a single-time task but rather an ongoing effort to be evaluated and updated routinely. It calls for the participation and collaboration of all levels of the organization. It serves to align initiatives from various departments to upgrade the customer experience and positively affect the business.
Conclusion:
Several specific actions will reduce the risk of poor CJM implementation. We will discuss those shortly by reviewing the best practices of companies that have delivered success.
If you want the inside track on that, subscribe and share this blog.
RECOMMENDED QUALIFICATION: The Accredited Customer Experience Professional® (ACXP): https://bit.ly/GCCACXP
If you want to check if your colleagues are already qualified do a search with #ACXP on Linkedin.
It is good to have a guide in life. Many of us share political creeds, religious beliefs and codes of honor to guide our decision making. Wouldn’t it be crazy good to have the same for the doctrine of Customer Experience? When I co-authored the best selling book “CEM Success without Exception” back in 2006 Customer Experience Management was in its infancy.
Now thirteen years later we have the accumulated wisdom of the giants of Customer Experience Management, proof that focus on Successful Customer Outcomes, Outside-In and working backwards are fundamental to becoming a winning organization.
It is with these thoughts in mind and the worthy experience of many that I set pen to paper to craft these tenets as guidelines for all of us seeking to maximise our deployment of Customer Experience Management.
1. Customers are first, front and center for everything.
Understanding that all the work an organization undertakes ultimately stems from a customer interaction is key. Work to engineer every experience to the optimum.
2. Listen to the questions customers ask you.
Resist the subjective ‘voice of customer’ surveys (they are biased and unrepresentative) and focus on understanding and articulating needs – the Needs of the Customer.
3. Stop selling and let people buy.
Customers are now prosumers and most know what they want and how to get it. You will not win them if you force sell; in fact, you will make enemies of them.
4. Map the Complete Experience.
Connecting the dots across every interaction, inside and out, to ensure everything is aligned
This is both the stuff the customer sees (the customer journey and the brand promise) and the work that takes place across the rest of the organization to support all interactions. Combine those the Employee Experience and the Customer Experience you are nearing the Complete Experience; these are not separate things but should be viewed through the same lens.
The CEMMethod.com can help you in seeing the Complete Experience.
Customers develop trust when you say what’ll you do, and then do what you say. Conversely, do not project yourself as something you are not.
6. Be consistent and truthful across all your channels.
Customers will interact in ways and times that suit them, so ensure you keep a coherent message across all experiences.
7. Act on People liking people.
Do not hide behind automation, whether that is voice systems, web interactions or even text messaging. The most intimate relationships are formed with people, not computers.
Keep in front of the song.
8. Creating memorable experiences requires anticipation and coordination.
Fix problems before they happen, and when problems do arise (they will) pull out the stops to put things right.
9. Design every customer experience for the category of customer.
You should never ever treat all customers in the same way. Personalization and direct communication are proven winners in an era of standardization.
10. Employees are your first customers.
Happy Employees Create Happy Customers who come back for more, thus pleasing shareholders
If they ain’t happy your paying customers won’t be either. Treat your people well and let them know they are the most critical part of the brand and the complete customer experience.
”Let’s not beat around the bush… Customer experience is the new battleground. At The Experience Manager, BP Group, and Rockstar.cx we know the art of this new war. We have the tools, the technology and the strategies to remorselessly create victories for our clients as we build a more customer-centric world, one experience and one enterprise at a time”.
Steve Towers
Join us for Complete Experience Management with coaching, training, consultancy and Certification at www.bpgroup.org
Dr W. Edwards Deming’s famous quote “If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing” is truer today than ever in an increasingly customer-centric Outside-In world.
Perhaps we should upgrade the quote to encompass the focus on the customer?
“If you can’t describe what you are doing as relevant to a Successful Customer Outcome, you shouldn’t ought to be doing it”
Progressive Outside-In businesses understand this truth (think Amazon, Starbucks, BMW and Emirates) who are connecting everything they do to delivering these Successful Customer Outcomes. If activities and systems do not explicitly contribute to customer success they scrap them, and in doing so costs fall away, service improves and naturally, revenues grow.
Think about that for a moment from the customers perspective. It is certainly more pleasurable if interactions are simple and smoother. And if these experiences involve buying stuff, customers come back again and again for more. Even in public service, it stands to reason that reducing complexity will release more resources to do more meaningful work that delivers greater value to citizens.
So how would you approach your existing Customer Experiences and associated processes to move in this direction? Is there a formula that can be applied that is easy to use and produces immediate results?
Indeed, there is! We refer to this formula within the CEMMethod™, an approach developed originally in association with companies like Virgin and Southwest Airlines. The method, originally released in 2006, is now in version 11 and includes 50+ techniques that significantly improve business performance and customer success.
One of these techniques within the CEMMethod™ is referred to as the ‘Disruption Factor’ and quite simply allows you to calculate the potential for improvement in any Customer Experience. Additionally, it helps you pinpoint the areas that would benefit from immediate attention, and in doing so win the triple crown (lower costs, improved service, higher revenues).
If you want to know more about applying the Disruption Factor in your organization join us at the upcoming webinar register your interest here.
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We hope to see you soon!
The ‘open’ program for the next six months operates in Johannesburg, Melbourne, Washington DC, Denver, London, Dubai, Orlando, Los Angeles, and more…
During my encounters with global business leaders, I am frequently asked the question of what is the difference between Lean Six Sigma (LSS) and Outside-In thinking and practice?
Often the question is prompted as a consequence of the huge investment many large corporations have made into up-skilling their people and processes to LSS. Many times those same executives are querying the return on those investments and hence now looking at more progressive alternative approaches to evolve their business performance.
For those familiar with Outside-In thinking and practice the difference is fundamental however if you haven’t been exposed to such training or working in one of the worlds leading Outside-In companies it would be good to have a short comparison of the key thematic differences.
In the interests of full disclosure, I was an Industrial Engineer qualified as a Lean Master and Six Sigma Master black belt and I see and witness the significant differences every day. Does the implication of the difference mean we should abandon LSS? No, far from it. In fact, integrating the Outside-In perspectives into existing programs is a proven tried and tested way of advancing LSS to the centre stage of winning performance.
Case in point is a North American plastics extrusion company. They had previously been a powerhouse of Six Sigma, grown into and become a Lean ‘Toyota way’ dynamo only to run into the problem of diminishing returns.
Plastic extrusion starts with pallets
Investing just as much in getting better the decreasing returns and eroding margins made it an issue at the top table. In true pragmatic Texan style (their CEO is from Dallas) they embraced Outside-In big time. Over 6-9 months people were upskilled for the Customer Age and then let loose to transform the organization. Not only did they save their bacon they are now a world-leading company. And what do they call their program? OIL – Outside-In Lean. Nice eh?
So be pragmatic. Look for the bridges from here to there and you can have the best of both worlds.
Table 1: Comparison of some differences between Lean Six Sigma and the CEMMethod™.
Element
Lean Six Sigma
Customer Experience Management/Outside-In
Mindset
Industrial Age
Customer Digital Age
Focus
Improve current work
Align to achieve SCO’s
Intent
Process will exist at the end of a review
Processes may be removed
Results
Focused on improving outputs
Focused on delivering Outcomes
Cost reduction
Triple Crown achievement (Cost/Service/Revenue)
Structure
Accepts the functional hierarchy
Proposes the appropriate structure to deliver SCO’s
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…
Understand what success looks like for the customer
Create measures of those Needs and Expectations
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.
