Tag Archive of: customer experience management

Why and how to engage your leaders

As a CX leader, you're not the person in charge. In the end, that is someone from the management. So you have to take that into account in a CX program. You don't just manage and advise your team, you also do that with your managers. There is no one who is more important than the other, but you need to know exactly who the high-priority stakeholders are: those are the ones who matter most at that moment. As a CX leader, you need to figure out who that key stakeholder is and make sure you're working together. The better you understand your leader, the better you'll be able to empathize with and respond to the needs of all stakeholders.

I list the 3 best tips to properly involve your leader in your program here:

1. Provide good and relevant information

Communication is key. Without proper communication, it is impossible to build a good relationship. It's your job to provide your supervisor with the information that specifically meets his or her needs. This is information that helps him or her to perform the role of manager well and that supports the making of important decisions. Managers are busy and don't like surprises: the more you respond to them with adequate information, the better.

If you proactively provide relevant information, you build your own credibility and you help your managers to appear credible to their bosses. So it's important that you work on your business acumen. So that you understand what is important to them and how your CX program fits into the organization. That way, you'll build a solid working relationship with your manager.

2. Be helpful

Giving information is good, but think carefully about what you give them and why. You can't get away with 'I'll make a report out of it'. You don't convince people with that. The communication you give should be:

  • Goal-oriented: Think about why you're giving this report. Is it to raise awareness, to bring about a change, to get a decision or something else?
  • Targeted: make sure it's specific to your stakeholder.
  • Appropriate in terms of form and content: how does your manager want to receive the information? In a presentation, a spreadsheet, an action list? Don't make assumptions, just ask and you'll know.
  • Monitor for effectiveness: do you actually see a change in attitude? Has the communication had an effect? If not, change it. Adjust the way you communicate or report.

So make sure your communication style matches the way they like to receive their information.

Be helpful. Recognize that your CX program is just one of many programs and that sometimes you need to help them manage their time. This will help you build your credibility in case something goes wrong.

Don't confuse being helpful with being submissive. No manager expects their team members to blindly follow. Your manager does expect you to think along and take responsibility.

I know of at least one strategy that always works. The strategy of causing others to "stumble over the truth." This means that you're not going to say what customers say or what's hurtful to the organization. No, you let them discover it for themselves. Dan Heath himself explains how this works:

3. Be functionally disobedient

Managers are normal people. They may not have all the answers, but they too learn new things every day. Be sympathetic and realize that they also have work to do.

You don't have to do everything by the book. If your manager asks you to do something that you know isn't best for your manager, the organization, the team, and yourself, you should say so. Have the confidence to challenge decisions. Being able to say no to your manager helps you build your credibility.

Finally, some extra tips to increase engagement

  • Define the active role that top management has in your CX program and keep them engaged; shows that excellent leadership is important within CX and CX programs.
  • Have empathy for the top and realize that they have more limited information than you do and that they are constantly being pulled.
  • Support the board members: they may be new to their role and need extra (subtle) support to ensure they function well in their jobs.
  • Recognize that it takes time for people to change their mindset from a "doer" to a "leader."
  • Make it clear that the CX program or project is a means to achieve the organization's strategy and that the top managers are therefore the top project managers.
  • Know that they also have to advise, to the CEO and other stakeholders. So give an example of the business impact (preferably the ROI) of good individual and organizational competencies of your CX program.
  • Get rid of the idea that risk is bad news.
  • Focus on the business impact and strategic benefits of the CX program – the big picture – and reduce the level of detail in communication.
  • Build a sponsorship culture upwards and downwards: support each other.
  • If you know what drives your manager, you can better manage expectations.
  • Work on building credibility and trust.

 

*****

Nienke Bloem is often called the Customer Experience speaker in the blue dress. 

She's a global CX thought leader, educator and a global keynote speaker who inspires audiences with best practices and proven methodologies. She leads a speaking practice, a CX game company and a training business; she breathes Customer Experiences and is author of two CX books.

Her two-day Customer Experience Masterclass is known as the best program to prepare for your CCXP and she is the go-to person for CX leaders who want to advance their leadership and bring direct results from their Customer Experience transformation programs. Since 2020, she hosts a CX Leadership Masterminds program and helps leaders spice up their leadership and deliver an engaging CX Story including a solid CX Strategy. Besides, she is a modern-day pilgrim and found the parallel with leading customer centric transformations. 

With her over 20 years of corporate experience, she speaks the business language. Her keynotes and education programs in Customer Experience are inspiring and hands-on. She is one of the few Recognized Training Partners of the CXPA and it is her mission to Make Customer Experience Work and help you deliver business results. 

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Afleverexperience

I bought a new car. Really. My very first brand new car. Worked myself together. After much deliberation, I tied the knot. There was going to be an electric car. A beautiful Volvo XC40. I had been looking forward to its delivery on January 5 for weeks.

Unfortunately, because of corona, nothing nice in terms of delivery was possible, I was told by phone. I took the train and waited behind the station for the salesman. It was raining hard. There my car arrived. Everything shot through my mind: what a cool car, what a car, what a good decision I had made. The salesman got out, I walked up to him and he handed me the key. My heart did a little dance.

Whether I wanted to just sign the form for delivery. Was it okay if I did that in the car, given the pouring rain? Sure, only he wasn't allowed to sit next to it. Corona, right! Sure. I signed, handed him the form and he wanted to walk away.

Ho, ho, do you want to explain a few things to me? Because suddenly I was in some kind of cockpit with a big screen and had no idea. Yes, you could. But he had to stay outside. Corona, huh!

He pointed to the screen. Let me explore some functions on the touch screen and five minutes later he got into his colleague's car and drove out of the parking lot.

There I was. For the first time in an electric car. Totally overwhelmed by all the bells and whistles. So first I spent half an hour exploring functionalities via the on-board computer. Suddenly I realized: this is not how I had imagined this episode. Of course, I wasn't expecting an exciting reveal with a big sheet (through corona and rain), but just handing over a key and then getting out! Maybe there was a present in the trunk; I must have overlooked it.

First, looking for the button to open the trunk. Through the rain, I quickly ran to the back of the car to find ... a charging cord and warning triangle.

Everything functional. Nothing fun.

Sure: by corona, little was allowed. But there was nothing at all festive about this episode. I put the car in Drive and drove out of the drafty parking lot.

What you can do with this? I have heard the slogan "because of corona, of course x and y can't" a little too much. Don't let corona be an excuse to make nothing of it to your customers. Make a celebration of what can be done. Appeal to your creativity and believe me; THAT is what your customers remember.

From this blog, I distilled some CX lessons. Curious? Read them here!

 

*****

Nienke Bloem is often called the Customer Experience speaker in the blue dress. 

She's a global CX thought leader, educator and a global keynote speaker who inspires audiences with best practices and proven methodologies. She leads a speaking practice, a CX game company and a training business; she breathes Customer Experiences and is author of two CX books.

Her two-day Customer Experience Masterclass is known as the best program to prepare for your CCXP and she is the go-to person for CX leaders who want to advance their leadership and bring direct results from their Customer Experience transformation programs. Since 2020, she hosts a CX Leadership Masterminds program and helps leaders spice up their leadership and deliver an engaging CX Story including a solid CX Strategy. Besides, she is a modern-day pilgrim and found the parallel with leading customer centric transformations. 

With her over 20 years of corporate experience, she speaks the business language. Her keynotes and education programs in Customer Experience are inspiring and hands-on. She is one of the few Recognized Training Partners of the CXPA and it is her mission to Make Customer Experience Work and help you deliver business results. 

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12 non-CX ways to stay inspired as a CX leader

The last months I spoke to over twenty CX leaders and most of them were just...um, how to say it.... tired. They were tired of the back-to-back online team meetings. The lack of seeing team members in person.

So I asked them, "How do you stay inspired?" Most of them had no answer. They did not plan anything for inspiration in their agendas. Yes, they were longing for holidays, but that is not what holidays are for.

I think, staying inspired is part of your JOB! That's why I give you 12 non-CX ideas how to do that.

Books

Oh, The Places You'll Go - Dr. Seuss
A client gave me this book as a present. And I love it. It's packed with lots of insights and wit (and Dr. Seuss had plenty of both). With his lively illustrations, inimitable verse, and boundless optimism, Dr. Seuss reassures us that we're not alone in the maze of life - and that we'll reach where we need to be eventually! If you need a quick and wonderfully uplifting pick-me-up, this is your book!

Big Magic, Creative Living Beyond Fear - Elisabeth Gilbert
Everyone can unlock Big Magic. Big Magic is about drawing out your inner creative whenever you need. This book is a love letter to the artist inside everyone of us, written in Gilbert's conversational, no-frills, no-BS style. Whether your goal is to write a book, make a painting, or create music, Big Magic will help you accomplish it. Funny, honest, illuminating, and encouraging, it is a celebration of art on every level.

The 5 second rule - Mel Robbins
The 5 Second Rule promises to teach you how to become confident, break the habit of procrastination and self-doubt, beat fear and uncertainty, and be happier. As big of an ask as that might sound, Robbins more than delivers in this self-help book, which is built on the titular 5 second rule: the five seconds you should take every time you need to push yourself. You might enjoy her TEDx Talk on this subject as well!

Podcasts

Happier with Gretchen Rubin
She is the best-selling author of The Happiness Project and Better Than Before, wants you to embrace happiness-and she's got the tools and strategies to help you do it. This engaging podcast, which she cohosts with her younger sister, Elizabeth Craft, is full of practical advice on building habits for happiness into your daily life. Down-to-earth, insightful, and humorous, this podcast will have you on your way to a happier existence in no time: https://gretchenrubin.com/podcasts/

The Life School Podcast with Brooke Castillo
She is very American, but I love her way of thinking and speaking out loud. In this podcast she takes life's topics, opportunities and struggles and helps making sense of it all. For example, episode 375, where she challenges her listeners to do hard things. Just what Customer Experience Management is all about ... https://thelifecoachschool.com/podcast/

CX Travel Guide with Nienke Bloem
Yes, this podcast is a Dutch version and just before the summer vacations we recorded the 10th edition with Kees Klink. How is CX organized at PostNL? All episodes have something special, so listen up. You get a look behind the scenes in CX-land. https://kirkmancompany.com/podcasts/

Movies & documentaries

Forrest Gump
A golden oldie, but my all-time favorite movie. A story about a boy that would never succeed in life. But gets the support and belief by his surroundings and just goes out to life a full and big life. The theme song "Feather Theme song" composed by Alan Silvestri still gives me goose bumps. A feel-good movie, you just want to watch to stop having 'bad thoughts' and get out there and do what you have to do.

Inside Out
A 2015 American computer-animated film by Pixar. A great film to learn about emotions. The film is set in the mind of a young girl named Riley, where five personified emotions-Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust-try to lead her through life as she and her parents adjust to their new surroundings after moving from Minnesota to San Francisco.Maybe something to watch with your team or management colleagues. And to later ask "what emotions are our customers having at what moment in the customer journey?"

Seven days out
A documentary series on Netflix, where they film event seven days before they take place. From a Chanel fashion show to a dog show. Where I recommend you watch the episode Eleven Madison Park. As I always say "great customer experiences don't happen by accident," that is exactly what this business owner of the best restaurant of the world breathes. Watch is and be inspired, because it will question your vision on CX and will inspire you to spice it up.

Three things to go do

Museum
Yes. Go to a museum. Just as I did; you could see this in the video. Be inspired by great exhibitions, paintings, sculptures. By the way museums make you feel, the way they present stories. Buy artifacts in the museum shop and use these in your CX practice. Go with a leader or your team. Have a discussion later of what can be used in your CX practice or in your story telling. Don't forget to take pictures of what inspired you: always good to use in presentations later.

Library
Every city has a library. You know that great building full of books? In the city of Utrecht they just opened a new central library and it is just gorgeous. The atmosphere makes me feel calm instantly and I just like to take books out of shelves. Sometimes having a question in mind and having fate answer it. I once did a Random Book Club session with Marieke van Dam and was amazed what inspiration you can get out of ANY book. Yes, you can search for business, management or CX books. But also try soul searching, biology, or even children's books. So much fun to just spend an hour or two in your library. Or one in a different city ? I promise you, inspiration guaranteed!

Take a guided walking tour in any city
It is fabulous to go to a city and book a guided walking tour. I remember a walking tour I did in 2020 in Amsterdam. My tour guide was one of the best bakers of the Netherlands. He told me so much about the city, the buildings, but also his life. He even took me behind the scenes in the Waldorf Astoria and told me how to make the best croquets. What a fabulous experience! A guided tour always brings you new insights. And never forget to listen how guides share their stories. They know their facts, but the really good ones know how to deliver their stories and make them stick. They make sure you see the city through their eyes and you will remember elements of their stories, because they framed them. Just like a good CX Story should be. Like I can never pass the Vijzelgracht, without going for a croquet and saying hi! to Cees.

I went out on a 3-day inspiration adventure myself. I recorded a video in which I tell you about this inspiration adventure and in which I give you ideas how to stay inspired. My best suggestion is to plan inspiration time in your agenda. REALLY! Enjoy the ideas and let me know what worked for you.

 

*****

Nienke Bloem is often called the Customer Experience speaker in the blue dress. 

She's a global CX thought leader, educator and a global keynote speaker who inspires audiences with best practices and proven methodologies. She leads a speaking practice, a CX game company and a training business; she breathes Customer Experiences and is author of two CX books.

Her two-day Customer Experience Masterclass is known as the best program to prepare for your CCXP and she is the go-to person for CX leaders who want to advance their leadership and bring direct results from their Customer Experience transformation programs. Since 2020, she hosts a CX Leadership Masterminds program and helps leaders spice up their leadership and deliver an engaging CX Story including a solid CX Strategy. Besides, she is a modern-day pilgrim and found the parallel with leading customer centric transformations. 

With her over 20 years of corporate experience, she speaks the business language. Her keynotes and education programs in Customer Experience are inspiring and hands-on. She is one of the few Recognized Training Partners of the CXPA and it is her mission to Make Customer Experience Work and help you deliver business results. 

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Shifting gears when it comes to Speed in Customer Experience Management?

You might think, this is weird; what does speed have to do with CX?! Let me explain and start by sharing my personal story of last month in Italy. Most of you know that I am walking a pilgrimage. The Via Francigena is my path for the next year. 1,000 kilometers by foot. A challenge that I have to take bit by bit, day by day. It will take time, but as I continue walking, putting one foot in front of the other, believing I can, dealing with all kinds of hurdles; I will get there. I call this my Slow and at this moment Strategic fundamental track. To think of life's choices, find energy, challenge the fundamentals and grow stronger.

Besides my pilgrimage, I also had the chance to join the MilleMiglia in June. The 1,000 mile race from Brescia to Rome and back. Classic cars travel this journey in 4 days. They need a fast pace, a dedicated crew that helps if the cars break down and, of course, some encouragement along the way (that was me ?). Roads are blocked off and a whole group of Italian carabinieri guides the group of 350 exclusive cars towards the finish. I call this the Result Driven Innovation track.

Both tracks require travel and are 1,000 kilometers or miles. But both have a different purpose. Just like we should approach customer experience management!

Tracks with different purpose and speed

Most Customer Experience Managers struggle to deliver results. Which might even result in losing CX ground in reorganization plans, or a decrease in budgets. I am not talking of proving your ROI, but in showing the organization that CX is making THAT impact, that it is lined up for. For really improving the situation of the customer in a direct way.

That is also why these two speeds are needed. Because what I see is that many CX professionals are focusing on the What and the How, the strategic fundamentals. The What: customer promises, brand promises, guiding behavior, defining design principles. The How: the way design thinking is done, building an architecture of listening through insights, creating training and guiding the organization to a consistent customer centric way of working. Yes, these are both needed! But know that Walker also sees a disconnect when it comes to what organizations and the C-Suite expect of you and customer experience management.

CEO's want you to deliver competitive advantage and growth and profitability. Recognizing what CEOs value and what ultimately drives competitive advantage, CX professionals must do three things:

  1. Align efforts with the business outcomes CEOs want. CX professionals must connect the dots and show how CX initiatives result in concrete outcomes.
  2. Build an engaged customer-focused workforce by helping employees identify with the customer and have a voice in the customer experience.
  3. Lead innovation, coupling customary break fix activities with breakthrough initiatives.

Strategic Fundamental track

When I am looking at my theory on two speeds of Customer Experience Management, I suggest you build your CX practice around these two tracks:

  1. The Strategic Fundamental track
  2. The Result Driven innovation track

In the Strategic fundamental track, you are focusing on the long term. You define the What and the How and guide the organization towards the customer centric future. Guiding principles, storytelling, culture. Let me give you a couple of examples. In this track, you build your CX strategy (actually most of the elements out of the first discipline of the CX framework is in the strategic fundamental track). You define the future state of CX. You define the way you listen to customers and systematically engage the organization around the voice of the customer, also using metrics. You build business cases based on ROI and prove the value of CX. You define the principles of customer centric innovation, define how to prioritize best and build a customer centric culture program. You see? All elements in the What and the How, are guiding towards the customer centric transformation.

But this is not enough, you should also shift gear!

Result Driven innovation track

The Result Driven innovation track is where you show the organization that you really work on improving the lives of your customers and improve the customer experience. So, not just facilitating design thinking sprints, but also delivering prototypes, scaling up those experiments that have proven their worth. Working on closing the loops. Really calling back customers, fixing those customer issues that are broken and actually measuring the impact.

This my dear CX friend, is what most CX professionals are not doing (enough). We need to hammer on improving and delivering those results that are needed and once we do, we need to communicate our customer successes with the organization.

As Bruce Temkin so eloquently said "While CX teams need ongoing support from their executives, senior leaders are prone to doubt. CX leaders need to keep communicating the progress and success of CX efforts and demonstrate that resources are being well used and any risks are effectively managed". What I love about this quote, is that he brings two elements together. Communicating the progress and demonstrate that resources are well used.

By only focusing on the Strategic Fundamental track, chances are you don't have enough results to show. So, consider adding that second Result Driven innovation track to your CX portfolio. By adding specific CX projects, getting your hands dirty on these customer issues that need to be fixed.

Project #99

A great example is "Project #99" where Clint Payne CCXP won the title International Customer Experience Professional of the year in 2018. In Multichoice, a South African Telecom and Television provider, he identified 99 common customer complaints. Together with his team he created a bottom-up approach, where employees and leaders in the company were encouraged and helped to solve these often long time known issues. Feel free to read more on his approach and the campaign. What were the results? Escalated customer complaints dropped from 733 in November 2015 to 476 in Feb 2017, client churn dropped by 1.8% and self-service went up from 55% to 65%.

So, the three most important questions you have to ask yourself:

  1. Be honest to yourself, are you delivering enough direct customer results? (If no, or in doubt, continue with question number 2)
  2. What percentage of your activities is in the Strategic and what percentage is in the Result Driven track? (Are you happy with these numbers?)
  3. What can you do to improve your CX results that customers are facing and shift gear to the Result Driven track?

Enough food for the mind. In August 2021 I will continue my pilgrimage and the Strategic Fundamental track I am on. The MilleMiglia was this great adrenaline kick, and I will definitely be back in 2022 to support these fab cars and their drivers.

But for now: I am curious for your thoughts on my theory on the Two Speeds of Customer Experience Managent that are needed. Do you recognize the disconnect and the need for both speeds?

 

*****

Nienke Bloem is often called the Customer Experience speaker in the blue dress. 

She's a global CX thought leader, educator and a global keynote speaker who inspires audiences with best practices and proven methodologies. She leads a speaking practice, a CX game company and a training business; she breathes Customer Experiences and is author of two CX books.

Her two-day Customer Experience Masterclass is known as the best program to prepare for your CCXP and she is the go-to person for CX leaders who want to advance their leadership and bring direct results from their Customer Experience transformation programs. Since 2020, she hosts a CX Leadership Masterminds program and helps leaders spice up their leadership and deliver an engaging CX Story including a solid CX Strategy. Besides, she is a modern-day pilgrim and found the parallel with leading customer centric transformations. 

With her over 20 years of corporate experience, she speaks the business language. Her keynotes and education programs in Customer Experience are inspiring and hands-on. She is one of the few Recognized Training Partners of the CXPA and it is her mission to Make Customer Experience Work and help you deliver business results. 

 

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Professional Deformation

We are on a campsite, in a cottage. And that's not just any campsite, but one that is hip and therefore sells out quickly. The booking took place in November last year, with the idea that I would be abroad for the entire month of June for wonderful speaking assignments and CX masterclasses. But yes... Suddenly, there was corona. And just like everyone else, I have been permanently in our beautiful Netherlands since mid-March.

The good news was that we had found a great holiday address. This campsite was recommended by many: maybe a bit big, but super cool. Close to the beach, against the dunes. Lots of play options for children with sand and water. The reviews were almost too positive. I have to be honest: I get skeptical. I first want to see with my own eyes whether the promises are kept. And what about the customer experience? I want to experience that myself.

So. Off we went. The first week of the construction holiday. The busiest week of the high season in 2020. I first had to see how this campsite was going to live up to that great customer experience.

We were received perfectly. Fast, friendly and clear. We arrived at the cottage, so beautiful that it exceeded our expectations. With good beds and a perfect location: between the dunes, with a private veranda and such a beautiful tent canvas as a canopy. We were stunned.

The first bottle of wine opened, the little one left for a playground with lots of sand and we were royally in relax mode. First go through the booklet, with map and tips, including activity planning.

In the days that followed, we had the best conversations with staff members of the campsite. They regularly drove by in electric carts. We were greeted cheerfully, we knew their names were Luuk, Gerard or Daan and small wishes were fulfilled. For example, I had forgotten my yoga mat and within half a day I had one in our house. Every morning we received a newspaper, accompanied by a cheerful 'Good morning!'. In such a case, I am no longer able to be just a 'guest'. Immediately, my professional deformation rears its head. How is this arranged? What processes and agreements are made with the staff? I couldn't contain my curiosity and asked Daan. He immediately explained their concept. How they, together with all the staff, colour in the last page of the brochure. The page that you can't describe, but that you have to experience.

How wow is that? Not only coming up with it, but also making it happen in the middle of the high season. With processes, agreements and above all: in concrete behaviour. They packed me as a customer. Spoiled with a very nice holiday customer experience. Chapeau campsite. Chapeau staff. We have already booked for 2021.

 

This blog was written for CustomerFirst and published on September 22, 2020

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*****

Nienke Bloem is often called the Customer Experience speaker in the blue dress. 

She's a global CX thought leader, educator and a global keynote speaker who inspires audiences with best practices and proven methodologies. She leads a speaking practice, a CX game company and a training business; she breathes Customer Experiences and is author of two CX books.

Her two-day Customer Experience Masterclass is known as the best program to prepare for your CCXP and she is the go-to person for CX leaders who want to advance their leadership and bring direct results from their Customer Experience transformation programs. Since 2020, she hosts a CX Leadership Masterminds program and helps leaders spice up their leadership and deliver an engaging CX Story including a solid CX Strategy. Besides, she is a modern-day pilgrim and found the parallel with leading customer centric transformations. 

With her over 20 years of corporate experience, she speaks the business language. Her keynotes and education programs in Customer Experience are inspiring and hands-on. She is one of the few Recognized Training Partners of the CXPA and it is her mission to Make Customer Experience Work and help you deliver business results. 

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Crash course in human emotions

Emotions you really need to recognize when interacting with customers and employees. For all in customer experience, marketing, sales and operations.

The last couple of days my feelings are deeper than a month ago. I feel sad when I see awful images on ICU's and when I hear stories of loss. I feel disgust of companies that just keep sending their stupid sales newsletters through email, like nothing is going on. I experienced fear while my fiance had corona. I experienced anger seeing people that were just out in the streets, pretending the world was still normal and they could go to the beach or the park, putting lives in danger. But also, I experience joy while watching funny videos, that I receive through WhatsApp. I felt relieved my fiance recovered from corona. I felt surprised when receiving a thoughtful handwritten card with caring words in my mailbox.

Somehow, my emotions are deeper. Are more on the surface and are more intense. Which actually not only happens in my emotional world. It also happens also in yours, your family, community, actually in the world of most humans that are now affected by corona. This requires that we, Customer Experience Professionals, people working in marketing, sales and operations, need to be aware of the intensity of emotions of our employees and customers.

We definitely need to recognize and learn how to deal with emotions to help our customers and employees in the best way.

To help you out to understand emotions and the range of emotions, I share the knowledge by Professor Robert Plutchick and his wheel of emotions. If you understand this, please use it in scripts, customer journeys, emails, campaigns, conversations, and probably many more situations. So, here we go....

The basics:

Plutchik considers there are eight primary emotions; anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise, anticipaation, trust and joy. Plutchik argues for the primacy of these emotions by showing each to be the trigger of behaviour with high survival value, such as the way fear inspires the fight or flight response (info wikipedia).

How are the eight emotions related:

As you can see in the emotion wheel, each primary emotion has an opposite; joy is the opposite of sadness, trust is the opposite of distrust, fear the opposite of anger, surprise is the opposite of anticipation

The emotions in between the eight basic emotions, are the combined emotions. So disgust plus anger, gives the emotion contempt. Or fear plus surprise, gives awe. As emotions are complex, this way of looking at emotions helps to understand where these emotions come from.

The intensity of emotions:

The emotions I feel in these times of corona, feel deeper, like they are more intense. That is what Plutchik visualizes by the brightness of the colors in the wheel. The deeper the color, the more intense the motion is felt. When looking in the yellow column, the lightest emotion is serenity, more deeper is joy and the emotion in the most intense way is ecstasy.

Plutchik's wheel of emotions provides a perfect framework for understanding emotions

Now what?

It is important for all of us, to dive deeper in emotions of our customers and employees. To understand what the emotions are they are experiencing. Because these emotions need to be taken seriously. As I learned on a mindfulness course, you can compare not taking your emotions seriously, like pushing a cork underwater deeper and deeper. In the end it will pop out faster than ever before. Remember my example of the company that just keeps sending me sales-oriented newsletters, that are in my view, not appropriate right now. I canceled their newsletter. As I explained the reason for my un-subscription, they reacted; "Thank you so much. We value your opinion" Which I know for certain is a standardized email, so they are not listening at all. Now I am really done with them, since I will remember this for a long time.

Three suggestions how to apply the knowledge of emotions:

1. In customer contact – Acknowledge emotions when you have conversations with customers. Or train your staff to acknowledge emotions. It is proven, that the more you ignore the more red/purple emotions, the more they will intensify. This also means that in these uncertain times, customer contact with regards to health, money and other uncertain topics, will take more time. So take that into account in average handle times.

2. In customer / employee communication – Examine what your customer or employee is feeling and experiencing right know. Describe and acknowledge these situations and emotions, so people will read/watch on. Make sure that when you show videos, that the person in the video, is honest and also shows emotion. A best practice, is the video of Arne Sorenson CEO of Marriott, who explains the impact of covid-19 on Marriott for the associates.

3. In Customer journey mapping sessions – Too often I see that Happy, Neutral and Unhappy are used to map emotions. You just read there are many more emotions and it will help you to diversify the emotions of customers. What are they really feeling right now and also, how do you want them to feel in the To-Be journey. Use the wheel in your design thinking processes. This more detailed wheel with described emotions might come in handy. It shows the diversity of emotions. Praise given to Danny Peters that uses this wheel in his customer journey mapping teaching sessions.

I hope this knowledge helps you to understand your customers and employees emotions better. Maybe even the emotions of yourself and the people close to you. Our emotions have deepened, maybe we even feel different emotions. So it is now even more important to be aware and pay the right attention.

Let's get active; Share your thoughts in the comments.

Was this article useful? Please let me know. And even more important, how could you apply or have your applied this knowledge? Please share in the comments. Let's grow our understanding of emotions and the impact on our CX work even more. Thank you and since it is important for all of us, a little personal note; stay safe.

 

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*****

Nienke Bloem is often called the Customer Experience speaker in the blue dress. 

She's a global CX thought leader, educator and a global keynote speaker who inspires audiences with best practices and proven methodologies. She leads a speaking practice, a CX game company and a training business; she breathes Customer Experiences and is author of two CX books.

Her two-day Customer Experience Masterclass is known as the best program to prepare for your CCXP and she is the go-to person for CX leaders who want to advance their leadership and bring direct results from their Customer Experience transformation programs. Since 2020, she hosts a CX Leadership Masterminds program and helps leaders spice up their leadership and deliver an engaging CX Story including a solid CX Strategy. Besides, she is a modern-day pilgrim and found the parallel with leading customer centric transformations. 

With her over 20 years of corporate experience, she speaks the business language. Her keynotes and education programs in Customer Experience are inspiring and hands-on. She is one of the few Recognized Training Partners of the CXPA and it is her mission to Make Customer Experience Work and help you deliver business results. 

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Complain or complain?

It's 2012 and I've just become responsible for customer experience at KPN in the consumer market. We want to write a change strategy – one that is not only functional, but above all that appeals and involves real change.

We describe the change from the perspective of the customer and the employee. For the colleagues, we want them to tell enthusiastically and proudly at a birthday party that they work at this telecom company. But where to start? Because if you told them you worked at KPN, you had the guarantee that you would immediately be treated to a drama story at every party. That mechanic this, that call center employee that, or then in the store this... How nice would it be if you could solve the problem?

That's why, together with my team, we came up with the KPN Ambassador app. In it, the employee could immediately report the problem that came to his or her attention. So far, so good. The app was built, the processes connected to it and now it had to be tested with complaints from practice. As a true ambassador, I made a LinkedIn post, introduced the app and asked my network: what issues do you have that I can solve for you? The stories came in in no time. Then and then this and that had happened. I found no less than forty complaints in the comments.

I contacted everyone and while talking to these people I found out that in 39 out of 40 cases there was no complaint, but complaining. There was nothing left to solve. They just never listened carefully, never really paid attention, never once sincerely said sorry. What a lesson. There is an essential difference between a complaint and complaining. Because the one case where I was able to take action, that was a legitimate complaint. I was able to enter it into our Ambassador app and it was (of course) solved well.

What was also so cool about it was that colleagues conjured up their app for complaining partygoers. They kept asking questions, and just by listening and showing that they could solve complaints, the complaining disappeared like snow in the sun. Just take a look at it this week. We all have a habit of complaining. But take it from me: if you listen to a complaining customer and give them genuine attention, you can prevent the complaint.

 

This blog was written for CustomerFirst and published on December 18, 2019

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*****

Nienke Bloem is often called the Customer Experience speaker in the blue dress. 

She's a global CX thought leader, educator and a global keynote speaker who inspires audiences with best practices and proven methodologies. She leads a speaking practice, a CX game company and a training business; she breathes Customer Experiences and is author of two CX books.

Her two-day Customer Experience Masterclass is known as the best program to prepare for your CCXP and she is the go-to person for CX leaders who want to advance their leadership and bring direct results from their Customer Experience transformation programs. Since 2020, she hosts a CX Leadership Masterminds program and helps leaders spice up their leadership and deliver an engaging CX Story including a solid CX Strategy. Besides, she is a modern-day pilgrim and found the parallel with leading customer centric transformations. 

With her over 20 years of corporate experience, she speaks the business language. Her keynotes and education programs in Customer Experience are inspiring and hands-on. She is one of the few Recognized Training Partners of the CXPA and it is her mission to Make Customer Experience Work and help you deliver business results. 

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The Definition of Customer Experience

Customer Experience: you read and hear a lot about it. But what is it exactly? What is the definition? The definition of Customer Experience that I always use is:

The perception a customer has of all interactions with you as a company throughout the customer journey, across all customer channels.

I would like to explain this to you in more detail. Imagine, we're talking about your business. And the organization you work for is a hotel. But it could just as easily be an insurance company, a car dealership, or even a large B-to-B company. The type of business is not important: the customer experience and its basics remain the same. Let's take a look. For now, we'll focus on the hotel example and step into the customer's shoes.

Perception

In this example, I'm a customer, so I'm looking for a hotel. I want to book a room. So what I'm doing is checking out your website, maybe I'm reading some reviews on independent websites, or I might have received an email from your reservations department with answers to some questions I've sent out earlier. All my experiences together form my perception. And perception is important when it comes to customer experience: everything is perception. Customer Experience is not what you think as a company or how you would like to come across to your customers. No, it's about what the customer really thinks and experiences.

All Interactions

The second word that is really important in the definition of Customer Experience is interactions. All interactionsto be a bit more precise. And by all interactions, I mean – in our hotel case – all the interactions that this customer has during the booking process (website, reviews and an email). But maybe later – after the booking has been made – this customer will come into your hotel. She or he (but for now we'll make her a she) is greeted by the receptionist, or maybe she's talking to the lifeguard by the pool. Her experience is defined by all interactions in the entire customer journey and in all channels, both online and offline. That's what Customer Experience is all about.

All Channels

This may sound pretty simple, but it takes a lot of effort and dedication to be consistent across all interactions and channels. If you have a great website, but your reviews aren't: then you've got a problem. If the receptionist is really courteous and hospitable, but the lifeguard at the pool behaves like a jerk: then you have another problem. Can you easily book through your website, but are you sent from pillar to post when booking by phone? From a customer point of view, this is an unmitigated disaster.

Your entire organization needs to be consistent in its approach to customers, across all interactions and across all channels. Of course, you can also consistently perform poorly, but every organization wants to keep its promise. Or even better: wants to deliver something extra to become and stay top-of-mind with customers; wants to stand out from the competition.

Customer Experience is all about the customer. About his or her perception of interaction with you as an organization. I recorded this video where I use LEGO to easily show what Customer Experience is.

 

Would you like to know more about Customer Experience? My mission is to make the world a better place for customers. You can subscribe to my YouTube channel where I regularly upload informative and interesting videos about Customer Experience. Plus: you can sign up for my monthly CX Greetz where I provide inspiration and interesting facts on how to create these valuable customer experiences. Help me with my mission: to make Customer Experience WORK!

 

 

*****

Nienke Bloem is often called the Customer Experience speaker in the blue dress. 

She's a global CX thought leader, educator and a global keynote speaker who inspires audiences with best practices and proven methodologies. She leads a speaking practice, a CX game company and a training business; she breathes Customer Experiences and is author of two CX books.

Her two-day Customer Experience Masterclass is known as the best program to prepare for your CCXP and she is the go-to person for CX leaders who want to advance their leadership and bring direct results from their Customer Experience transformation programs. Since 2020, she hosts a CX Leadership Masterminds program and helps leaders spice up their leadership and deliver an engaging CX Story including a solid CX Strategy. Besides, she is a modern-day pilgrim and found the parallel with leading customer centric transformations. 

With her over 20 years of corporate experience, she speaks the business language. Her keynotes and education programs in Customer Experience are inspiring and hands-on. She is one of the few Recognized Training Partners of the CXPA and it is her mission to Make Customer Experience Work and help you deliver business results. 

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Reality check for marketers

... why you are getting it all wrong when it comes to the visual revolution

We are in the age of the visual revolution. Excuse me? What? Yes, visuals are the bomb. Not just a little bit, but all over the place. Where Instagram is growing like crazy, YouTube is the second largest search engine and even LinkedIn is growing when it comes to images and video.

A real big chance for everybody. Not only telling how good your products and services are, but also showing it with images. Because images speak louder than words; right?

Let's dive a little deeper where it tends to get ugly when it comes to visuals.

Let's go on a cruise

This April I went on a cruise. In 2016 we cruised with Carnival Cruises, which was a big eye opener and fun and brilliant customer experience(on which I blogged). So in 2019 we wanted to push it a little, go on a longer cruise and see more islands. We changed to Celebrity Cruises, because their ships were newer, the destinations fitted and the whole look and feel of the website, matched with what I was longing for.

This is where it all went wrong. Please take a look on their website: I am curious what you see and what impression you get? Well I got the impression of modern luxury (which is also what they promise, as one of the guest relations officers told me) and the website shows guests like me.

The Stereotype Exercise

Now, let's do a small exercise that I learned at Disney Institute. The Stereotype exercise. When you think of cruising and the typical customer. What things come to mind? Before I type any further, you could pick up pen and paper, but you can also keep reading. I will join you in your mind.

When I stereotype cruising and their guests, I think of an older population, a little grey-haired to be honest. Pensioners, who love jewelry and play bridge. They are grandparents, children moved out of the home. Who want to experience luxury and comfort and want to dine with captain Stubing (little joke).

Our experience in 2016 was really different. Carnival is known for their fun and they attract a young crowd. That is also what their website shows when it comes to visuals. Now let's switch back to Celebrity. When I glance at their visuals on the website or their Instagram, I see people like me. Young, okay, this is debatable ?, but between 40 and 55. Young, right! A young crowd who enjoys life, who likes to explore and have new adventures. This is what they market, this is what they sell on their website.

Different expectations

So imagine entering the boarding area in Fort Lauderdale, where the first impression was ... An old peoples home. The stereotype we just imagined. Yes, we saw canes, walking racks and wheelchairs. That is not any issue, but I booked this holiday with a different expectation. Praise the lord there were younger people aboard, but they were scarce. And that was a real pity for my daughter of twenty, whom I brought along. Yes, we had a great holiday, but thinking back of the Carnival Cruise and the fun we had with most of the guests; I wish we booked with them.

During the cruise, we shared tables with many people and for example had a chat with a couple (in their 70s) who were on their tenth cruise with Celebrity. Yes, they admitted Celebrity is known for a little older crowd. That is what they liked and why they came back. Again and again. And we had many more chats like that.

Disappointment

The fourth day of the cruise, I decided to have a conversation with guest relations. Because it somehow itched that the cruise was marketed in a way, which wasn't delivered. I explained my disappointment and the lady behind the desk spoke these words "Yes, we have an older population on board. If you would have liked a younger cruise, you should have booked Royal Caribbean." What?! Really!

While I am writing this, I feel the same emotions again. Those of frustration and disappointment. You sell me a cruise with a certain expectation, I book online, I have to let you know who I travel with (a twenty-year-old), you give no advice and then a little twat behind the desk tells me this. My oh my.

Where did it go wrong from an organizational customer experience point of view?

Honor your clients

I think the marketers of Celebrity Cruises are all pretty young and hip. Chances are they hire other hip website builders, travelers and influencers to create visuals and tell stories. Probably the board wants to rejuvenate their passengers. Marketing most certainly works with personas, but I don't think the older traveler is in there. They aim for young, as shows their website and Instagram.

Now comes the truth and nothing but the truth. Be happy with your clients. Give them the credits they deserve. Because these older guests are filling your pockets. Make sure you show reality in your visuals. Not just polishing it up with models and stock photos you use now. Show your real customers in your visuals. Give them the place they deserve on your website, Instagram and Facebook.

Because what happened with me, is not an N=1 (just one traveler) situation. We had a conversation with over ten other young guests, and they had the same experience as we had. They were also not coming back on Celebrity. At least not in the next twenty years ?, as at that age we fit their age group in a better way.

My dear marketers, when you show pictures that are too far from the truth, you are the reason why customers get disappointed. Guest relations can't fix it down the line. They can only fix it with some extras, but you are two steps behind.

Be real

Does this only happen in the travel industry? NO. This is the hard truth in many areas of visual marketing. For example, have a look at websites of golf courses. The pictures are beautiful. The sun is rising. Greens look so green. Bunkers are all raked meticulously. And the most surprising thing; almost never do you see any people golfing. It could be a very young and slim couple, but most often these golf courses are photographed at moments of total 'nobodyness'.

Reality is different. Most golf courses host many flights of golfers. There are PEOPLE on a golf course. Not models, but people like me, my mom and dad. Normal people.

Of course, you want to look your best on a website. You want to show things on a sunny day. Literally and metaphorically. But don't overdo it. Make sure it looks great, but also real. Because if you don't: reality will hit and create disappointment down the line.

So, my plea is: do the reality check. Take a look at your website and other social channels where you use visuals like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. Are you telling the truth, or should you take it down a notch? Me and my fellow customers would appreciate the real story. Thank you.

 

Don't want to miss any of my blogs? Then subscribe to my weekly CX Greetz!

 

*****

Nienke Bloem is often called the Customer Experience speaker in the blue dress. 

She's a global CX thought leader, educator and a global keynote speaker who inspires audiences with best practices and proven methodologies. She leads a speaking practice, a CX game company and a training business; she breathes Customer Experiences and is author of two CX books.

Her two-day Customer Experience Masterclass is known as the best program to prepare for your CCXP and she is the go-to person for CX leaders who want to advance their leadership and bring direct results from their Customer Experience transformation programs. Since 2020, she hosts a CX Leadership Masterminds program and helps leaders spice up their leadership and deliver an engaging CX Story including a solid CX Strategy. Besides, she is a modern-day pilgrim and found the parallel with leading customer centric transformations. 

With her over 20 years of corporate experience, she speaks the business language. Her keynotes and education programs in Customer Experience are inspiring and hands-on. She is one of the few Recognized Training Partners of the CXPA and it is her mission to Make Customer Experience Work and help you deliver business results. 

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The experience paradigm: Customer or Employee first?

When it comes to organizational transformation, this is an important and often raised question. What are the leading principles coming out of your strategy in order to transform your business model? Frank van den Brink, Chief Employee Experience Officer of ABN AMRO bank and I share our insights and opinions. We try to get our heads around this important leading question.

The "Why" of CEX

Nienke: Customer Experience is hip and happening. Sometimes people ask me if it is more a trend than a profession, but I can assure you; it isn't. Since prize is not the way to stand out in the market, organizations choose customer experience to be the strategic differentiator. With many more disruptors coming into the marketplace, having no legacy of systems and culture, they are leading the way in this battlefield. They have designed their customer journeys from the perspective of their ideal customers, they have really thought of the needs and wants. Take, for example, Bloomon. The way they offer their Flowers is so customer focused. They meet your needs (fresh and beautiful flowers), make it easy (deliver weeknights, send a text to refresh water) and make it enjoyable (always a surprise what the bouquet looks like, but always more than beautiful). To really stand out in customer experience, it is key to make strategic choices. Because from the strategic angle, elements can be translated into processes, propositions, products, services, customer journeys and then: all elements of the HR cycle. So yes, read this article to learn about CX and EX from the professional and practitioner angle!

Frank: To get Customer Experience right, organisations should also start beginning to think about their Employee Experience in a more strategic way. For me employee experience should be the cornerstone of your HR strategy and transformation. The overall purpose should be to design and engineer a high value, integrated and relevant experience for all your employees. I strongly believe that when we are able to increase the employee experience, we will create a more engaged and productive workforce that helps the business to achieve their client goals. In the end if you truly believe that happy people = happy customers and vice versa, you should act on this leading principle and HR could perfectly lead this journey together with CX.

Experience driven companies will outperform their budgets, will realize higher customer loyalty and show better bottom line results. So yes, there is a business case for investing in EX and subsequently a significant financial advantage for your organisation. If you have the opportunity to transition from a more "de" humanised, policy and process oriented and driven HR approach, towards a more consumarized HR function focusing on social platforms, technology and physical work space. Why not start tomorrow and let's make HR great again!

How to kick start your CX/EX Transformation?

Nienke: The transformation is having a much slower pace as I would have expected to. Some companies are really taking the leap forward, but when I look at the experience of customers on review sites, we still have a very long way to go. I often use the metaphors taking the Transformational route, the Steve Jobs or the Richard Branson way. Organizations that change in a Steve Jobs way, are really getting inside the customers wants and needs, learning about their feedback, organizing a structured voice of the customer and taking serious action on that. As Richard Branson says "Not customers come first, our employees come first" you understand that these companies focus much more on the Employee Experience. They enable their employees to service their customers in the best way, really hire for attitude and aim for high employee engagement.

Customer Experience Management is still maturing as a profession and the good thing is now results are proven and companies that have invested and chosen cx as a strategy are seeing the results. For example, KPN, where they started with an NPS of -14 in 2012 and leading the customer experience transformation resulting in an NPS of +13 in the consumer market in 2017. What is hopeful is that Marketing is looking more at Service as opportunity, I just heard a CMO at a conference stating "Service is the new Sales" The rise of Employee Experience instead of HR is also something that I find interesting and a big leap forward.

Frank: The traditional HR function can learn a lot from the Customer Experience Paradigm. Since the Customer Experience practices and professionals have had a head start of roughly a decade or so, I see huge learning potential for traditional HR departments to join forces, make internal handshakes, share CX capabilities and focus of combined digital platforms to optimize both the customer and the employee journey. If we start seeing and treating all our valued employees as consumers and clients, then we should change the rules of the game and give them a different experience working within our company. Furthermore, since traditional organizational boundaries are becoming more fluid, I foresee opportunities to expand the Employee Experience proposition to external stakeholders as well. I truly believe this is the new way forward for organizations to remain relevant and create hybrid opportunities between EX and CX for the benefit of both clients and employees and preferably both if you really believe in your own products and would like to create future brand ambassadors.

So now, where to start?

Insights and thoughts around 6 leading questions:

  1. Strategy: what kind of experience would you like to deliver?
  2. Understanding: How do you create a consistent way of understanding?
  3. Experience design: How to design and improve meaningful experiences?
  4. Measurement and metrics: How to measure and report on experience?
  5. Organizational adoption: How to develop cross company accountability?
  6. Culture: How to create a culture of employee ambassadors?

1. Strategy: What kind of Experience would you like to deliver? 

Nienke: This should the fundament of all Customer Experiences. What kind of experiences do you want your customers to have? Let me explain. Many companies do have mission and vision statements, but they often lack the customer perspective or lack a real distinction.

Questions you can ask yourself when it comes to strategy

  • How do we translate our mission/vision statement to an outside in perspective?
  • What is it that we as an organization, want to stand out in and why do customers have to buy our products and services ? 
  • What promises do we want to make to your customers? Think of brand promise or service promises?
  • How do these promises translate to brand values or even employee/leadership values?

Frank: If you would like to reinvent the employee journey from scratch, start with zooming out to understand your full employee journey and apply reverse thinking to redefine your HR role in this journey by:

  • Deep employee research and employee needs (continuous listening) discovery through employee personas;
  • Taking into account the entire employee and organization ecosystem; 
  • Identify moments that matter through your full employee journey
  • Start investing in Organizational, Digital and Data capabilities in order to build, reinvent and execute employee journeys

From my experience, Employee journey design is only 20% of the work – Excellent EX delivery creates the real experience and should be on the HR agenda more often.

2. Understanding: How do you create a consistent way of understanding?

Nienke: To make it really broad, I want to think of understanding as creating an architecture of listening. To have a structured and shared understanding of customer needs and wants. Because too often organizations assume what customers want and how they perceive their interactions. This leads to interpretive design and often failing business decisions. So to overcome business blindness, a good customer understanding is necessary.

Questions to ask:

  • What are the needs and wants of our customers?
  • Who are our customers?
  • Where do they leave their feedback? Think big, both solicited by surveys, but also unsolicited like reviews. Also ask customers that didn't have contact or maybe even left your company as a client.
  • How can we share these customer insights with our employees?

Frank: Start small and with practical used cases. Do not think too big from the start, make use of the wisdom of the crowd and include the employee perspective and input from day one. Strategy should lead to execution and execution could also go together with a new way of learning. Whether you apply agile, design thinking, lean start up methodologies is up to you, but a significant change investment in order to support the EX transformation is one of the key success factors.

3. Experience design: How to design and improve meaningful experiences? 

Frank: With an analytics team gathering and analyzing insights from all functions in the business, the EX team defined "moments that matter" in employee journeys, measuring areas of high and low impact on business performance and productivity. They used design thinking to observe and ideate opportunities to build a positive EX through various journeys, which were prototyped and tested in certain parts of the business that enabled quick feedback. We came up with the following journeys and translated those to a future EX Journey Canvas:

  • Best start – supporting candidate experience, recruiting, sourcing and onboarding
  • Let me help you – the way we are able to support and interact with our employees
  • Meaningful growth – how we enable employees to achieve a meaningful professional and personal growth through performance, learning, development
  • I owe you – the way we recognize talent and performance by also focusing on wellbeing, preparation for retirement, recognizing long time contributions, a so called total reward approach
  • Great ambassadors – building a strong alumni experience and long term oriented valuable networks

Nienke: The design is where actions really start. How to design your products and services from a customers perspective? There are many ways and journey mapping or service design are the most used at this moment. Both to design from scratch, but also to incrementally improve the sales or service journeys. Mapping the journey is the first step, but the next steps are about choosing where to improve and making the change happen. Benefit tracking, asking customers for feedback or using their insights in co-creating new moments of truth. It makes it easy to look at the phases of the customer journey from a meta perspective. Like the "I become a customer" and "I am a customer" perspective, or the acquisition and loyalty phase.

This is also the moment to act upon the customer insights you have gotten. So get back to customers who left their feedback on your surveys or react on reviews. Using these insights to make changes in your organization.

Questions to ask yourself:

  • What methodology do we use to design from a customer's perspective?
  • What phases of the customer journey do we have?
  • How to make change happen when we have mapped the journey?
  • What are the top 5 irritations of our customers and what are the top 5 compliments they give us in their feedback? And how to we continuously improve upon the feedback?\

4. Measurement and metrics: How to measure and report on experience?

Nienke: Measuring and using KPI's gives you the right steering wheel when it comes to results and decisions. You need to know where to improve and invest when it comes to customer experience. You want to know how you are performing when it comes to your customers. So choose your KPI's wisely. The most often used KPIs are NPS (Net Promotor Score) and CSAT (Customer Satisfaction). There is much debate about which KPI to choose. For me I suggest that you pick one and stick to it. To build your dataset, learn on the insights behind the KPI, the drivers and make sure your numbers improve. This is also where Data plays the key role. Data driven decision making, translated into the right KPI's.

Also take a look at your reporting on these metrics and how they change over time. Tell the story why it is important. Make sure all employees know how you perform not only on EBITDA, market share but also on CX. So find a distinctive way of reporting, stay disciplined in doing it clock speed (whether it is monthly, quarterly or yearly) and make sure it is visible and people feel the sense of urgency.

Questions to ask:

  • What metrics do we use when it comes to customer experience?
  • Do we understand the interdependencies and know what drives great customer experiences?
  • Where are these metrics discussed (steerco's, board meetings etc) and how do we take action upon them?
  • Are our reports visually attractive and tell the right story people understand?

Frank: In order to understand the needs and ambitions of our employees, we need to improve our ability and willingness to listen. In the previous years, we mainly listened to our employees by the use of an annual engagement survey. Where many organizations already moved away from an annual performance management approach to a more continuous dialogue between manager and employee, most organizations are still using an annual engagement survey to listen to the feedback of the employee once a year. This is slowly changing, largely due to the increasing importance of employee experience.

Having a technical ability to listen better and more continuously to our employees is one thing, using it on a daily or weekly basis is another. Basically it is about understanding and threatening your employees as you treat your customer. HR should position itself more as the employee marketer. We need to better understand the different groups of employees, their needs and the opportunities to increase their employee experience and their performance. This requires a different mindset. A mindset that is built on curiosity to understand our employee's needs, the ability to identify and act on employee leads, the ability to work with tools and data and the ability to turn the employee feedback into usage. Basically a willingness to understand and learn.

At the moment we are in the middle of defining our Employee Experience Index / Employee Net Promotor Score (eNPS) supported by continuous listening tooling, with a clear focus on creating the right employee data, putting in place the right technical capabilities and data quality & governance. If you would like to know more about this topic, please read my article together with Patrick Coolen on "How HR is hitting the second wall".

5. Organisational Adoption: How to develop cross company accountability?

Nienke: The question I often get is, how is customer experience organized? That is a fascinating question, because I see many different ways of how it is organized and placed. It could be as a staff team, one tier below the CEO. Or as a team in marketing, where the focus is often with a Sales lens. There is not one good or bad way of organizing, as long as the scope and budget are aligned. To have real impact, it is of importance, utmost importance, that it is in tier minus one or two and belief of the C-Suite. When looking at the impact of Customer Experience and the size of the teams, it is interesting to see the ways they find to influence. In agile organizations, customer experience is often introduced in epics or story points. Also leading principles find their way into the CX domain. Interesting developments where methodologies align. We also see steering committees where the most important customer decisions are taken or veto rights for the VP customer experience, maybe a little old fashioned, but it works.

Questions to ask:

  • How to make sure customers and their needs/wants are embedded in our change process?
  • Who is responsible for the KPI's we have defined for customer experience?
  • Where in our organization is Customer Experience organized?
  • Is the budget in fte and money, aligned with the scope of the CX team?

Frank: My biggest challenge of today is: How to offer our employees a great employee experience in a purpose-led and value-driven organization. In order, use this as a leading principle and shape our future of work, we need a definition of happiness.... whereas I pretty much fancy the definition on happiness = (equals) reality – expectations.

When an employee experiences a WOW, you are giving them a pleasant surprise. You are exceeding their expectations. You are addressing their needs thoughtfully and in unexpected ways. It is an expression of your authentic interest in the person who needs your services, not just in the transaction. It is about making enduring personal emotional connections with empathy, generosity, and gratitude. It is about awareness of common human concerns that make a difference to each customer. It is about truth, it is about meaning, it is about details that cannot only be measured by KPIs.

In today's ultra-competitive markets, enduring businesses call for enduring employee relationships and relations. How can you deliver products and services with a WOW Employee Experience built into them? You must make the WOW Employee Experience part of the product/service design, and that requires a continuous culture and happiness decision-making context, not only once for purposes of definition, but as a foundation for day to day operations and mind set of HR colleagues.

I defined "wow" experiences as "unique, emotionally engaging interactions that go beyond expectations and are readily recounted."

Key elements of What is WOW

  • A pleasant surprise, thoughtfully and in unexpected ways. 
  • Addressing their needs: basic product and service needs, transactional needs and emotional needs
  • Personal emotional connections awareness of common human concerns 
  • It is about truth and meaning
  • It is about details that cannot be measured by KPIs.

6. Culture: How to create a culture of employee ambassadors? 

Do all of the above and employees will value the employee journey and experiences more than ever!!

Culture eats strategy for breakfast, as Peter Drucker said. This is the same with customer experience. The employees deliver the customer experiences in the offline world and they are the ones who design and execute all inside the company and in the digital environment. To impact, I suggest this is where Employee Experience (HR) and CX colleagues should team up. To hire the right employees, onboard them with real customer focus and make sure the customer is present in the training and development calendar.

Where to start when it comes to culture. Make sure you have your customer promises (compass, manifesto) and translate them to the values of your company. So everybody knows what they have to live up to, what to and also what not to do. This is of course not only for employees, but even more evident for the leadership. Make sure they interact with customers and customer facing employees in a regular manner. Nienke: I just talked to a CFO of a B2B company and he admitted he had never spoken face to face with a customer in the 16 years he worked for the company.

Reward and celebrate target behaviour and make the customer visible in the business. Whether it is in the boardroom in reports or in the canteen where photo's and quotes are place on the wall. This where it comes to finding creative ways that work. That make customer experience come to life and cultures grow into customer centric ones.

The experience paradigm: Our conclusion?!

In the end it is a mirror. Happy people equals Happy Customers and vice versa Happy Clients equals Happy Employees. Both start from the same strategic perspective, the same methodologies but with a different audience.

Yes CX is ahead. So EX professionals contact your CX colleagues in your organizations to learn the tools and tricks and join hands to get a serious position on the strategic agenda. For CX professionals join hands with your HR or EX professionals, because they can be the leverage to stand out when it comes to the employee side of the experience. This is where all human interactions take place. We are very interested in your thoughts and insights on this paradigm. We invite you to share these with us! Share your thoughts and stories on this paradigm with us.

About some valuable sources:

During the last year we are inspired by many highly appreciated thought leaders whom we spoke to, worked with or followed on social media and blogs on the topic of Customer Experience and Employee Experience. Again with the risk of leaving out relevant influencers, in which case we apologize, we like to mention the following people; Bruce Temkin CCXP , Jaap Wilms CCXP, Blake Morgan, Ian Golding CCXP, Jeanne Bliss CCXP, Kathy van der Laar CCXP, Barbara van Duin CCXP, Eric Vercouteren (KPN), Jacob Morgan, Mark Levy, David Green, Elliot Nelson (KennedyFitch), Sanne Welzen (Deloitte), Roy Klaassen (Kirkman Company).

 

*****

Nienke Bloem is often called the Customer Experience speaker in the blue dress. 

She's a global CX thought leader, educator and a global keynote speaker who inspires audiences with best practices and proven methodologies. She leads a speaking practice, a CX game company and a training business; she breathes Customer Experiences and is author of two CX books.

Her two-day Customer Experience Masterclass is known as the best program to prepare for your CCXP and she is the go-to person for CX leaders who want to advance their leadership and bring direct results from their Customer Experience transformation programs. Since 2020, she hosts a CX Leadership Masterminds program and helps leaders spice up their leadership and deliver an engaging CX Story including a solid CX Strategy. Besides, she is a modern-day pilgrim and found the parallel with leading customer centric transformations. 

With her over 20 years of corporate experience, she speaks the business language. Her keynotes and education programs in Customer Experience are inspiring and hands-on. She is one of the few Recognized Training Partners of the CXPA and it is her mission to Make Customer Experience Work and help you deliver business results. 

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