Last week we reviewed the 4th of the five main CX Challenges -Metrics Are Just Not Good Enough (link). This week, in the final segment, we asked the question “Are CX Communicatons working well?”
The BP Groups 30th Annual Survey focused specifically on developing challenges facing the adoption of Customer Experience and Customer Centric practices.
The Five CX Challenges (and Next Practices)
This week we ask the question “Are Your CX Communications working well?”
Here is the Video from the recent webinar:
Summary of Customer Experience Metrics Are Just Not Good Enough
Last week we reviewed the third of the five main CX Challenges -Mindsets Are Getting In Way (link).
The BP Groups 30th Annual Survey focuses specifically on developing challenges facing the adoption of Customer Experience and Customer Centric practices.
We have now reviewed 3 of the 5 challenges, let’s see how industrial era metrics prevent a customer-centric evolution
The Five CX Challenges (and Next Practices)
This week we ask the question “Is Your CX Measurement system working well?”
Here is the 12 minute Video from the recent webinar:
Summary of Customer Experience Metrics Are Just Not Good Enough
You may have seen the recent posts discussing the difference between inside-out (industrial era) and Outside-In (Customer Age) thinking and practice. At the heart of the difference is the contrast between Outputs and Outcomes.
In the Industrial Age Outputs were king in the form of cars made, factories built, pizzas delivered, and so on. It was simply good enough to improve efficiency and productivity to deliver success. Not so in the Customer Age where Outcomes delivered has become the thing.
It really has become a differentiator between those who are succeeding, despite the pandemic, and those who are struggling.
Since I wrote the book ‘Outside-In The Secret’ in 2010 I have had so many conversations at all levels in global companies describing the huge difference in this mindset of delivering successful business and customer outcomes in contrast to old industrial age outputs.
Unfortunately people who should know better are still confused. In this article we will:
Define the seismic difference between Outputs and Outcomes
Provide recent examples
Share useful resources
Let’s start with definitions:
An Output is what we produce, what we make. Say a completed car.
A Business Outcome is a result of what we make. In the car example, it would be Revenue.
But wait, in the Customer Age there’s more…
A Customer Outcome is what we deliver for the Customer. For the new purchase, it could be Joy at buying the nice bright shiny new car.
The problem and the confusion.
Most businesses have inherited a legacy of measurement systems focused on outputs. So say for instance in a customer contact center we would have metrics like calls handled, abandoned calls, average handle times, first-time response, customer satisfaction stats, net promoter scores, and so on. But these are all output measures.
Another example might be in the Program Management Office where measures may include things like the number of projects underway, the progress against budgets, and achievement of the deliverables.
Outputs should be explicitly connected to Business and Successful Customer Outcomes
Now here’s the rub. If you connect the achievement of these outputs with rewards systems you will potentially fail big time. And if in the contact center people aren’t caring about the outcomes (the results of the outputs) we might get really good at doing dumb things. In the Program Office if the deliverables aren’t aligned with Successful Customer Outcomes we may become really efficient at delivering the wrong things.
And another thing people familiar with outputs often argue the case that Outcomes are less quantifiable. Not so. Business Outcomes include things like Revenue, Cost Optimization, Service Delivery, Effective compliance, and so on. You can’t get any more quantifiable than that. Now with Successful Customer Outcomes, we may have a description of what that feels like – BMW’s ‘Joy’ for instance or Hallmark Cards ‘Expression’.
Connecting the Dots Over the last two decades, a model has emerged that literally links Outputs to Outcomes. There is a hierarchy that connects Tasks to Activities to Outputs to Business Outcomes and ultimately Successful Customer Outcomes.
We will review that model and thinking in the next article.
For now look at your metrics. Are your measures of success outputs or outcomes?
Do you want to embrace advanced Customer-Centric thinking and become Outside-In?
Last week we reviewed the second of the five main CX Challenges – Customers Have Changed Forever (link).
The BP Groups 30th Annual Survey focuses specifically on developing challenges facing the adoption of Customer Experience and Customer Centric practices.
Over the next few weeks, we will review each of the main challenges and the emergent Next Practices to overcome.
The Five CX Challenges (and Next Practices)
This week we ask the question “Is Your organization fully attuned to YOUR customer?”
Here is the 12 minute Video from the recent webinar:
Summary of Customers have Changed Forever Challenge 1 of 5
The BP Groups 30th Annual Survey focuses specifically on developing challenges facing the adoption of Customer Experience and Customer Centric practices.
Last week we reviewed the first of the five main CX Challenges – Customers Have Changed Forever (link).
Over the next six weeks, we will review each of the main challenges and the emergent Next Practices to overcome.
The Five CX Challenges (and Next Practices)
This week we ask the question “Does Your CX Measurement System Work Well?”
Here is the 10 minute Video from the recent webinar:
Summary of Customers have Changed Forever Challenge 1 of 5
Introduction and Background The BP Groups 30th Annual Survey focuses specifically on developing challenges facing the adoption of Customer Experience and Customer Centric practices.
The survey contributors are senior people Accredited in Customer Experience for a minimum of two year and the questions asked through 2020 and 2021 (during the pandemic).
Contributors identified 50+ challenges and from these, we distilled them down to five with subsequent deeper dives to explore how people were meeting and overcoming the challenges.
Over the next six weeks, we will review each of the main challenges and the emergent Next Practices to overcome.
The Five CX Challenges (and Next Practices)
This week we ask the question “Does Your Organisation Understand Its Customers?”
Here is the 10 minute Video from the recent webinar:
Segment from the recent CX5 Challenge sessionSummary of Customers have Changed Forever Challenge 1 of 5
I just wanted to reach out, so you don’t miss out on this limited time offer on my new book Outside-In The Secret of the 21st c. leading companies.
You might be thinking, what is Outside-In?
To sum it up, ‘Outside-In The Secret’ reveals the fundamental difference between the top-performing companies and the failing also-rans. It is a massive shift in perspective that revolutionizes work forever.
The insights shared are based on my work and research with companies like BMW, Emirates, Zara, Zappos, and Amazon over the last two decades.
But hey, don’t just hear it from me…
So, I have codified the learning and the ‘Secret’ approaches, tips, tricks, and hacks to make them accessible to all. Initially published in 2010 and it is now wholly updated as Edition 10!
My colleague and BP Group co-founder says this…
Why You Should Read Outside-In The Secret
You may be wondering why you should invest your precious time reading this book. With all the pressures of the current business climate, why will this investment be worthwhile?
I’d like you for a moment to think of ‘high jumping.’ This is a sport that has been pursued actively from the Ancient Greeks in the original Olympics to modern times. And for nearly 3,000 years, people jumped using similar techniques. Then an innovator, Dick Fosbery, thought of a new approach that was incredibly simple and yet at the same time delivered ‘breakthrough performance’ levels enabling him to win the gold medal in the 1968 Olympic high jump bar. He leaped over the bar backward, overturning thousands of years of ‘best practice.’
So I would like you to give yourself permission to consider that you, too, can achieve ‘breakthrough performance’ in your own business endeavors. In this book, ‘Outside-In,’ Steve Towers will introduce you to some remarkable concepts that at first seem simple and obvious, and yet when applied, will allow you to win the gold medal in your own field of business.
John Corr, Director, Alix Partners, London, England.
And Guess What? Do you want something special?
It is FREE for a short period of time…
This is what you need to do RIGHT NOW to get your copy:
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My previous book, Dare! Became an Amazon Number 1 Best Seller in February 2020. This book Outside-In The Secret will also be… get your FREE copy here: http://bit.ly/OI2021now
This last 12 months I have experimented with a marvellous little utility that boosts your social postings and articles. Watch the demo at the link below and you will be smitten too. https://lttr.ai/UPph
To give you some idea of its impact (and some cracking links) these were my results in the last 4 weeks.
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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 they missed the point. Progressive Outside-In companies (think Amazon, Zara, Zappos, Emirates) are not about retrospective subjective analysis of perceived performance.
Also it isn’t about overlaying processes with a new language when fundamentally the very systems and processes were never designed to deliver customer experiences. Those now creaking processes were designed with a factory mindset centred around production line thinking, throughput and waste. Hence the challenge for many 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.
