When Customer support is the problem
Nothing is 100%. Things fail, products break, even very important services go dark from time to time. A Customer who expects and demands perfection is certain to be disappointed pretty often, and in fact is being somewhat unreasonable, if you ask me.
With this understood and its obvious importance, then, why is Customer Support so often the place where CX takes the hardest hit? Surely some Customers are emotional or freaking out when something doesn’t go right. But for the most part, people understand that accidents happen and we live in an imperfect world. As upset as a Customer may be, when they call in needing support, they’re likely entering with a good degree of generosity and goodwill, even if tinged a bit by anxiety. So why do so many brands squander that? […]
For CX success, re-evaluate your purpose
May I offer a modest suggestion about CX? Here it is:
The purpose of Customer Experience as an endeavor (a department, a practice, a field of study, etc.) is to improve the alignment between what your company says it’s all about (call it mission/vision, corporate values/principles, or simply Brand Promise) and the experience your Customers have when they interact with your brand. […]
Better than NPS? Brand Alignment Score
I’ve written previously about how silly things like Net Promotor Score’s ‘Likelihood to Recommend’ question can seem. I think, generally, that comes more from a place of complacency than downright lunacy. It’s more likely people are asking questions like that less because they’re off their rocker than simply because, well, that’s what everybody is asking.
So the solution to such groupthink, I think, is to start…thinking.
The Book is Here! The Book is Here!
I can’t believe I’m finally here… You can order the book on Amazon at this link.
Let’s ask better questions
With text analytics and artificial intelligence and sentiment analysis, technology has really moved us into a new world of possibilities when it comes to understanding our Customers’ feedback in a variety of formats. I’ve seen some pretty amazing uses of this new world of business analytics and high-level number-crunching. The way some software out there is able to analyze and synthesize even unstructured data is pretty mind-blowing.
So why are we still doing VoC the same way? […]
Rethinking the ROI of CX
Articulating the return on investment (ROI) of Customer Experience efforts is a recurring theme among CX professionals. As I moderate panels on webinars and sit as a guest on podcasts, listen to my peers talk, and read articles, I hear the questions all the time: How do you define the ROI? How do you sell CX to leadership? I’ve even written about it myself on several occasions.
I know some of my fellow CX consultants go so far as to use the ROI of CX as their calling cards…not only engaging in the discussion but also leveraging it as the heart of their pitches to clients. Some make bold promises and predictions, and some are simply advocates of the idea that you’ll boost your business results in some undefined (and sometimes not so undefined), yet unambiguously wonderful way with a dose of CX. Now, of course, some are more circumspect than others, but there certainly seems to be a trend toward using things like revenues, sales, and market share as the driving reason for engaging in CX endeavors. […]
