Tag Archive from: cx strategy

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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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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Post-it Ninja

"Improving the customer experience, that's what we're working on." I'm having an interview with a CX colleague at a government agency. In the case of a large brown paper, she explains to me what I see on this. A beautiful customer journey, full of ups and downs in emotions and many, many post-its. Unfortunately not of very good quality, because there are also a lot of them on the ground. But that's not what this blog is about.

Now I'm a big fan of the post-it myself. Super handy for all your customer journey sessions, workshops, improvement sessions and what not. But I've also wondered how others see me and my CX colleagues. Whether we have customer journey manager, service designer or customer experience expert as a job title.

Let's put ourselves in the shoes of our colleagues. What do they see and what will they think? Could it be something like, 'Hey, there she is again. Always busy with those brown papers and all kinds of colored self-adhesive small papers. Where does that post-it it ninja go next? And what happens to that brown paper? Will she take it off the wall and will something happen to it? Or will this customer journey soon hang on the wall as beautiful office art and is it a reminder of a wonderful session?'

Yes, that could just be the image. And if so, then we have caused it ourselves. It's up to us to show that something is really happening with it. Because what else are we doing? Of course, one of our roles is to increase the customer awareness of colleagues. But we are only successful if the customer notices something. I do know that sometimes we are seen as those post-it it ninjas. Like those guys with the biggest plans and most beautiful sessions, but with too little impact. And we are responsible for that. Also to change that, because we really need to get rid of that image.

We owe it to our CX booth that we have customer impact. That we are where the customer is. That we really know how to improve that customer journey. That we entice leaders to participate in the contact center. That we sometimes use brute force to draw attention to the major customer issues. That every now and then we very subtly let everyone realize that it really can't be like this. Sometimes with post-its and much more often with the 'voice of the customer'. But always with the honest customer story and a lot of do-power. As CX professionals, we are responsible for our own impact. Down with office art, hello customer success. From post-it ninja to customer hero; Let that be our aim.

 

This blog was written for CustomerFirst and published on March 11, 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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The need of a development plan (and what it has to do with tulips)

Last year around this time, I got to visit two of the greatest names when it comes to Customer Experience. Disney and Zappos. I traveled to California to learn all about CX magic at Disney Institute. In Las Vegas I got a tour at Zappos where I interviewed leaders at their fun property. Many of the learnings I shared in my blogs and I even published an e-zine on my insights at Zappos. But why did I do that? Why did I choose these two companies as my Go-To-Learning-Place for 2019? It's all about development. Let me share my vision with you in this blog.

Buy my flowers!

But first I want to share with you that tulips are my favorite flowers. Nice to know, right? Or not? But hang on, it has to do with the story? The picture you see is taken at the local flower market in Utrecht. Every Saturday you can buy all kinds of flowers and plants on this market. It is a very bright and happy place to visit, even when it rains. The colors, the smells, the people and especially the salesmen and women behind their flower stands make me smile. They get it when it comes to selling their goods. They look at you, recommend their flowers and try to lure you into their domain.

What could happen - and they understand sales really well, so it probably will happen - is that they seduce you to buy some flowers. Not just the flowers you planned to buy. But more and different ones. Which will cost you more money than you had planned to spend and they will take up more room in your house. Colorful, yes! But maybe not what you went out for.

Stick to the plan

The same might happen with development. You go out there, see all kinds of education and inspiration, but what to decide? When you go online you might get lost in a maze of development options. To learn new skills, get inspiration, be a better entrepreneur, learn all CX, be a better you. I know many people that get seduced to follow webinars, free events and buy education as a result. Sometimes for the good. Often maybe not for what they planned to do. Is that bad? No, but think of all the time and money that is wasted. So when I go out to get tulips, I get tulips. And maybe one extra bunch of flowers to give away. But I stick to my plan.

The big picture

That is where my big picture in development comes in. Every year I determine in what area I want to develop myself. Two examples to show you how I do it. In 2018 I wanted to learn more about comedy, about being funny on stage or when delivering my Masterclass. To learn what my trade was, when it came to this art. I went to a standup comedy weekend in Brighton with Jill Edwards, had a day course with Jeremy Nichols and watched tons of comedians. On stage as well as on Netflix. A big learning experience that resulted in finding out that I am more of an improv comedian, than a standup comedian. But it was such a good learning ride.

Personal and business development

2019 was all about learning more on CX. Really deep diving into my own profession and learning from the best. The reason I went to Disney and Zappos. And why I hosted the International CX awards and why I was a judge. Because we were also writing our book about CX, I needed to focus on my profession. An extra touch was that both Disney and Zappos focus on change from a cultural lens. Very handy with regard to our Employee Experience Game and the Masterclass CX Culture I am developing. This investment in me was not only an inspirational one, but also a business smart decision!

The plan for 2020

This year will be all about growing my facilitation and audience interaction skills. I want to find my own interaction games (I already have some fun ones, but I think I can be better). Not only in a small setting like our CX Masterclass with 16 participants, but also with audiences of thousands. I like people in my audience to be really involved. So, I have work to do. I will visit the Global Speaker Summit in Namibia in February to learn from the world's greatest speakers and I will join the annual PSA Australia event in Adelaide to get some Down Under magic. In April I have booked myself a seat in a two-day Masterclass to be a better Master of Ceremony. I don't fancy becoming an all-round MC, but at customer events, I love the role. Because I can add some Nienke Bloem and CX magic to the day.

Your theme for this year

So, what to learn from all this? The big picture. My question to you is, what is your theme for the year? Do you like my way of bringing focus to personal development? Or do you have other ways, that I can learn from? Please share, because there are far more ways when it comes to development, and there is no good or bad. Oh well, actually there is a bad one. That is doing nothing. Staying still. Not investing in yourself. So, when you are at the flower market, I hope you'll be seduced to buy some flowers. I will get myself some tulips.

 

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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 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. 

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter to stay inspired!

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The 4 elements of a brand promise

More and more, I come to the conclusion that this is the missing link in many businesses and a must have when it comes to customer experience. The need for clear promises to customers. To see if this is an issue in your company, please try to answer these questions:

  • How does your company or brand stand out in comparison with your competitors? What is really distinguishing your company when it comes to the offering to your customers?
  • What do you promise your customers when they do business with you? What can they really expect from the product?
  • What kind of service promises do you make to customers? What do you want your customers to experience in which channels?

To deliver great customer experiences, you have to begin with the end in mind

What do you want your customers to experience? Were you able to answer at least 2 of the questions above? No? Now it is time to pay attention. I like to use airlines and cruises as examples. Let's start with airlines.

Two complete opposites when it comes to flying. RyanAir and Emirates. When diving deeper into Ryanair, they have the brand promise "Low fares, made simple". Everything they do is translated from this branding principle. The blue and yellow returns everywhere, on their website, banners, even in their planes. As a customer, you know what to expect. The low cost airline in Europe.

When looking at Emirates, they have the brand promise "Comfort and attention to detail you can rely on whenever you travel." A whole different ball game from a branding perspective and you know what you can expect. Attention to detail, from the greeting in the plane, to the chauffeur service when you fly business class. They focus on a different customer, a different segment as does Ryanair.

Let's also look at the cruise examples

I have picked three. Carnival is the cruise company I traveled with in 2016. They promise you "Fun for all and all for fun". Knowing this, it makes it much easier to translate it into actions. Into moments in the customer journey where fun can be delivered. Also where there are possibilities for up and cross sell.

In the cruise business, there are more and another distinguishing brands. One of them is Disney Cruises. As soon as I write it down, you will know. This is all about Mickey and Minnie. As I have been browsing the web, it is still not crystal clear what their brand promise is, but it all comes down to "Creating happiness through magical experiences".Focusing on families, on entertaining people who love the character experience.

Taking it down a different road is the Monsters of Rock cruise. Yes, a cruise that travels only once a year, fully booked with hard rock fans. No family vacation, but a real niche in the cruising industry. Customers that love hard rock and heavy partying are taking this cruise. So a clear branding, which also easily translates in entertainment, food and beverages. Take a look at their website and browse the FAQ. Their brand identity, has been translated in the way the questions are asked. As would their customers. I love question #9. Not "What kind of food is on board?". No, it is all aligned with their Hard Rock image "Am I going to starve on board?".

The key in all these examples, is that it's about choosing. Who are we to our customers?

Brand promise, customer promises; what is the difference?

Some companies have a brand promise, like Carnival Cruises. Another example I like is KLM. They don't have a brand promise, but they have customer promises. When looking on their website, you'll find WHY to fly with KLM. They promise: 1. Direct flights around the globe, 2. Favorable flight schedules, 3. No charge, 4. Weather in your way? We got your back, 5. 24 hours to cancel, 6. Fly more, benefit more.

See the photo for a clip of the website. Where I especially like the promise "Typo? No charge". It's a very specific promise, where they explain, "Booked flights on klm.com and discovered a spelling mistake in the name on your ticket? We don't charge you for being human. Just contact us via social media to correct your name. Please make sure to have it corrected at least 24 hours before check-in of your first flight starts."

What I like about this customer promise, is that it addresses a fear that customers have. It reassures customers and takes care of them.

Now it comes back to you. What kind of promises do you make to your customers, or do you want to make to your customers? A promise on the highest level: a brand promise? Or rather customer promises that focus on elements in the customer journey?

What are crucial elements when it comes to choosing brand and/or customer promises?

There's no easy answer here. But let's try. When reading the blog of Bruce Jones (Disney Institute), I am attracted to the four elements he claims a brand promise must have from a customers perspective. The four things customers are looking for in a brand promise to be:

  • Important - Customers have expectations regarding the fair exchange of value. In exchange for their money and time, they rightfully expect something meaningful in return. The brand promise must convey what matters most to your customers.
  • Credible - Customers must believe that what you're promising is possible and deliverable. It has never been good policy to "over-promise" and "under-deliver."
  • Exclusive - No organization can be successful at trying to be everything for everybody. Find your niche, and carve out a unique space to "own" in the mind of your customer.
  • Differentiating - The brand promise must truly set you apart from your competitors and be based on legitimate differentiators.

I am curious. Do you dare to set yourself and your business apart from other businesses and stand out with an Important, Credible, Exclusive and Differentiating brand promise? Please let me know where you struggle in your company to stand out with your brand promise and maybe I can help you out. Let's help each other in creating these Great Customer Experiences.

 

*****

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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