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Blog2020-04-24T21:56:00+00:00

Who can?

I once had a great co-worker and mentor who, when teaching his Lean Six Sigma courses, would drop the quote:  “Never take ‘No’ as an answer from somebody who doesn’t have the authority to say ‘Yes.’”

Now, in his context, we were talking about internal politics and change management in general.  As he was putting it, while working on a project, if you’re getting push-back from someone you’re working with, think hard about whether that person is simply gate-keeping or actually even has the permissions to make a change to a process or system.

As my career has evolved into Customer Experience, that’s a sentiment (and catchphrase, for that matter) that I’ve carried along with me.  Guardians at the gate, whose job, it seems, is to keep Customers from satisfactorily solving their issues, is one of the most common frustrations Customers have when dealing with brands.  The philosophy, some companies seem to have, is that Customers will tire out if they’re told ‘no’ enough times as we escalate.

How’s that for being Customer-centric? […]

By |March 5th, 2024|Categories: Consulting, CX Culture, CX Strategy, CX Thoughts, Leadership|

Some Customers Never Learn

“Your feedback is important to us.”  Sometimes those are just words.  And some Customers are suckers and will fall for it.

A while back, I had some work done with a service provider and, to say the least, the experience was not up to snuff whatsoever.  This was a luxury brand and as such I’d expected some pretty fantastic attention to detail, and to me as the Customer.

Our service lead was gracious and helpful…well, as helpful as he could be:  The organization’s systems and processes were very much not conducive to this poor fellow being able to deliver the sort of experience even he’d have preferred.  He was trying mightily and even seemed a bit apologetic about how he’d prefer to do this or that for me, would like to help me out with this or the other, but simply wasn’t able to.  In some instances, what I wanted was available, but he didn’t have the authority to deliver it.  It was the classic lack of Enablement and Empowerment  that I see far too often with far too many brands.

But the feedback was the saddest part of the experience for me. […]

By |February 20th, 2024|Categories: Consulting, CX Culture, CX Strategy, CX Thoughts, VoC|

Representative for whom?

Folks who work in your Customer-facing organizations have a lot of different names.  Agents, technicians, associates (which always makes me chuckle a little bit), service providers, and others.

One that often makes me think is:  Representative.

It’s curious to me because it can go either way, can’t it?  Whenever I get a ‘representative’ on the phone, I wonder:  A representative for whom?  Does that ever cross your mind? […]

By |February 6th, 2024|Categories: Consulting, CX Culture, CX Strategy, CX Thoughts, Leadership|

When to survey

I know I rail on about VoC (truth be known, that’s not my strongest topic of expertise; I’m much more of a Process Engineer)…Sure, VoC and Customer Insights inform the work we do to improve and better align our Customers’ Experiences with our Brand Promise, but it’s really just the first step.

Nevertheless, I get a lot of inquiries from clients about the surveying process and techniques.  I get questions all the time about how to improve response rates, how to best formulate questions, and even whom to survey in the first place.

The timing of surveys is an interesting topic, and I’ve got a thought or two on that: […]

By |January 23rd, 2024|Categories: Consulting, CX Culture, CX Strategy, CX Thoughts, VoC|

Again, about how CS is NOT CX

It’d be a little melodramatic (not beyond me, mind you) to call it the bane of my existence, but yes it’s a bit of a task that complicates my days:  Explaining, when I say I’m “in CX” or that I “do CX” that, no, I’m not a ‘contact center guy.’  I don’t do Customer Support or Service.  I’m not in “Customer Care” or whatnot.  There’s always a bit of a word-shuffle differentiating that, well, yes, all those things are part of a Customer’s Experience, and yes, they do play a huge—and important—part within CX.  Often in fact, when I work with my clients on their CX, we spend time discussing their contact centers, their Customer Support and Service and Success teams and systems.  To that end, I often say that these teams have the best insight into what your Customers are experiencing (by way of the contacts they receive from your Customers), which is the first step in addressing your Brand Alignment gaps.  But these functions are not CX, per se, if we’re talking about a CX function or department.

This kind of came up when I wrote an article a while back that seemed to ruffle some feathers.  The point, generally, of that article was that needing more support resources (by way of, for example, adding headcount to your contact center) may be a sign that something’s wrong with your systems and processes (i.e., a failure of CX).

Wow, did that strike some people!  I got some positive feedback, but many contact center folks took exception to my premise:  That adding headcount to your Customer Care teams is a sign that things are going wrong.  To be sure (and I made this point in the article, lost to some), some scaling will likely be necessary as you gain new Customers.  But the point is that it needn’t be a linear relationship, and that if your processes are tight and effective, you may not even need any new folks, even with more Customers, because you’re giving them fewer reasons to have to call by way of making your systems more Customer-friendly. […]

By |January 9th, 2024|Categories: Consulting, CX Strategy, CX Thoughts|

If it’s a surprise, you’re in trouble

A while back, I wrote an article that kind of cheekily suggested that we simply stop doing VoC.

For that matter, I kind of went on a speaking circuit with my snarky little message.

(The punch-line is, well, don’t actually stop doing VoC things like surveying your Customer or walking in your Customers’ shoes, or simply taking a look at what’s coming into your Customer Support queue…rather, if you’re not acting on what you learn there, you’re wasting your time and effort collecting those insights anyway.  So save yourself the resources if you’re not going to improve anything as a result, and just keep your head buried in the sand.  /sarcasm)

That got me thinking about the Voice of the Customer generally, but surveys in particular.  There’s a lot of ink spilled on thought-pieces about VoC and how great these insights can be if you’re asking probing questions and listening with an ear to actually learn and grow from the feedback your Customers are willing to offer.  After all, they say, feedback is a gift!

And sure, if your surveys (and other VoC devices) are offering you specifics, details, validation and verification, that’s a great thing.  Hopefully they’re giving you a great vehicle for answering those “Why?” questions you have about how you’re doing.  Likely they’re offering deeper insights into where you can go within your organization to better align your Customers’ experiences with your Brand Promise.  Ideally they’re acting like a laser, directly precisely where you need to go to deliver on that Brand Promise.  Indeed:  Don’t stop doing VoC. […]

By |December 13th, 2023|Categories: Consulting, CX Strategy, CX Thoughts, VoC|
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