Minneapolis CX

Minneapolis Customer Experience

Learn more about customer experience best practices from expert consultants around the Twin Cities area. These leaders in customer experience consulting have a lot to offer, and can help get you started on your own journey to improving your customer experience.

Create an Engaging Customer Experience Workshop

September 10, 2013/in CX Program Strategy, Minneapolis CX, Voice of the Customer /by Jim Tincher

Are you looking to improve your customer experience? I will be hosting a full-day course on Creating an Engaging Customer Experience in partnership with the Performance Excellence Network. You can learn more at http://performanceexcellencenetwork.org/events/minnesota-innovation-spark-2013/.

Creating an Engaging Customer Experience

October 2, 2013 | 8:30 am – 4:30 pm

A great customer experience begins with a solid understanding of your customers. But it also requires that your employees use those insights to build programs that your competitors cannot duplicate.

The Performance Excellence Network (formerly the Minnesota Council for Quality) is pleased to welcome Jim Tincher, Senior Business Advisor with Satisfaction Management Systems, to a special full-day workshop September 10: “Creating a Great Customer-Inspired Experience.”

Jim will build off of the PEN breakfast earlier this summer, sharing the three keys to build a great customer-inspired experience for your business, and you will pick up actionable steps you can implement literally tomorrow!

Learning objectives for the workshop include: Read more

Minneapolis CXPA Event: Starting a Customer Experience Capability

July 8, 2013/in CX Program Strategy, Minneapolis CX /by Jim Tincher

Join me at our CXPA Minneapolis Local Networking Event. We’ll have a great discussion on how different organizations have started their journey, with lots of time for Q&A!

Event Details: “I think we need to be more of a customer centric organization” said the CEO. “I am concerned about price pressure and wonder if service could be a differentiator for us. I have been hearing about customer experience. I would like you to figure out what this is and what it could mean for our organization. Let me know what we need to do.” While not a real conversation, many customer experience practitioners have been faced with a charge about that vague. What is customer experience? How do you start when your organization is just beginning to think about a more disciplined approach? How do you build a sustainable approach that will be embraced across the organization? Come participate in an interactive discussion as we talk about customer experience maturity models and how to begin the journey. We will introduce a model that moves from early thinking to fully embedded in the organization, with a very focused discussion on the first stages. Come with your experiences, stories and questions as we learn from each other.

Speaker: Ingrid Lindberg, Chief Customer Experience Officer for Prime Therapeutics

When: Wednesday, July 17, 2013, 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.

Where: 900 2nd Ave S
Ninth Floor, Room 9014
Minneapolis, MN

Cost: CXPA Members – FREE; Non-members – $20

Sponsored by: Oracle

Please join me at the next Minneapolis CXPA Event

June 19, 2013/in CX Program Strategy, Minneapolis CX /by Jim Tincher

Wednesday, July 17, 2013, from 5-7. Ingrid Lindberg, Chief Customer Experience Officer at Prime Therapeutics, will be speaking on how to get started on your customer experience journey.

More details are available at http://cxpa.org/events/event_details.asp?id=332434&group=. I hope to see you there!

Event: June 6 – “Create a Great Customer-Inspired Experience”

June 3, 2013/in CX Program Strategy, Minneapolis CX /by Jim Tincher

Join me at the upcoming Performance Excellence Network event. Details:

Knowledge Forum: Create a Great Customer-Inspired Experience (Minneapolis)

June 6, 2013 | 7:30 am – 9:00 am

Jim Tincher, Senior Business Advisor with Satisfaction Management Systems

Create a Great Customer-Inspired Experience

A great customer experience begins with a solid understanding of your customers. But it also requires that your employees use those insights to build programs that your competitors cannot duplicate.

The Performance Excellence Network (formerly the Minnesota Council for Quality) is pleased to welcome Jim Tincher, Senior Business Advisor with Satisfaction Management Systems, to our June 6 PEN: “Create a Great Customer-Inspired Experience.”

Jim will share the three keys to build a great customer-inspired experience for your business, and you will pick up actionable steps you can implement literally tomorrow! A great customer experience leads to enhanced loyalty and significantly higher financial returns. Join this discussion to learn more!

The discussion is from 8:00-9:00 a.m. on June 6 (networking and continental breakfast begin at 7:30 a.m.) at MCTC, 1501 Hennepin Avenue in downtown Minneapolis (near the Basilica). Admission to PEN is FREE for Network members; $15 for partner organizations; $30 for the public. Space is limited so register today by emailing brian.lassiter@performanceexcellencenetwork.org.

Does your satisfaction survey show disrespect for customers

November 26, 2012/12 Comments/in CX Program Strategy, Minneapolis CX, Voice of the Customer /by Jim Tincher

Note: This article was originally posted in 2012. Best Buy no longer uses this survey, but this poor design is still used by companies who insist on extra-long surveys.

How do you know when a company’s on the ropes? Some observers watch cash flow. Others look at turnover. Me? I look at how a company treats its customers. When a company’s customer experience starts to drop, it’s time to sell the stock. I’m afraid that may have happened at Best Buy, especially when I look at their new customer satisfaction survey.

Customer satisfaction surveys are critical for creating your customer experience. A great survey puts your customer at the center of your customer experience design, allowing you to learn and improve as you go. But this only works when you design the survey from a perspective of customer respect. When your customer satisfaction survey design assumes your customers aren’t paying attention to the survey, then why bother? In the past, Best Buy’s culture was centered on the customer experience. But their recent update to their customer satisfaction survey shows that at least one group thinks their customers are unworthy of respect. Read more

emplyoee

November 15, 2012/2 Comments/in CX Program Strategy, Employee Experience, Minneapolis CX /by Jim Tincher

Last month I had the opportunity to give the keynote speech at MindSurf, From People to Profits: The Business Case for Employee Engagement. This 4-minute video gives some of the highlights. Read below for more information.

httpv://youtu.be/f6i7ky0mWNM

The description: Employee Engagement is not just a feel-good program. Companies are seeing significant productivity and profitability gains through building a culture of engaged employees, as reported by Gallup, Towers-Perrin, Hay Group and others. The worst economic downturn in decades left many employees afraid to leave their jobs. Now that the economy is loosening up, experts warn we may see increasing turnover as employees leave for greener pastures. How will you keep your best people? This session will focus on best practices to engage employees, including the ROI of engagement and how you can get started at your company tomorrow.

The Three Keys to Great Employee Engagement:

Point to a clear direction
Develop your coaches
Let your employees find the way

Learn more in, “From People to Profits: The Business Case for Employee Engagement!” Contact Jim at Heart of the Customer to learn more about how he can help you improve your employee engagement. Or visit here to see another sample video and more speaker information.

Join Jim at Mindsurf!

September 4, 2012/in CX Program Strategy, Employee Experience, Minneapolis CX /by Jim Tincher

I’m pleased to announce that I will be the keynote speaker at this year’s Mindsurf conference. Join me as we discuss From People to Profits: The Business Case for Employee Engagement.

We will walk through not only the business case, but also three very concrete steps that you can take to improve employee engagement at your organization. The official description:

Employee Engagement is not just a feel-good program. Companies are seeing significant productivity and profitability gains through building a culture of engaged employees, as reported by Gallup, Towers-Perrin, Hay Group and others. The worst economic downturn in decades left many employees afraid to leave their jobs. Now that the economy is loosening up, experts warn we may see increasing turnover as employees leave for greener pastures. How will you keep your best people? This session will focus on best practices to engage employees, including the ROI of engagement and how you can get started at your company tomorrow.

I hope to see you there!

Best Buy’s New Store Format: Beautiful Design Limited by Store Execution Issues

July 2, 2012/17 Comments/in CX Program Strategy, Minneapolis CX /by Jim Tincher

Best Buy unveiled a new store format last week at its flagship location a few blocks from their corporate headquarters. I visited the store twice last week. You can find more general review at The Mama Report, including photos, as well as at the Star-Tribune. The store has opened to rave reviews, and understandably so. The new format is beautiful, and greatly increases the opportunity to play with and learn technology.

The company traditionally introduces new store concepts in 1-3 stores, evaluates them, and determines which parts (if any) to scale. There are too many changes to include in one post, including such additions as a “Solutions Central” to ask questions, educational “digital displays” teaching about products, and vignettes that allow you to see how appliances might fit into your home. I will focus on the overall look and feel, and three specific areas: Tablet Central, the 3DTV Experience, and the Magnolia Design Center. This post reviews the format, and gives advice as to which parts should be scaled.

Full Disclosure

I worked for Best Buy for six years through 2008, and still love the brand. My last three years I designed interactive experiences such as those featured in this store. Several are clearly descendants of projects I led. This makes me more familiar with the issues than most. Read more

Free Community Bookshelf spotted at Caribou

June 26, 2012/in CX Program Strategy, Minneapolis CX /by Jim Tincher

I was at a St. Louis Park Caribou Coffee last week when Read more

Are you a Linchpin?

February 21, 2012/in CX Program Strategy, Driving CX Culture Change, Minneapolis CX /by Jim Tincher

In 2009, Seth Godin wrote Linchpins, on the need to make a difference. A group of us, motivated by his call to action, led efforts to bring him to town, and have continued to meet afterwards. These monthly sessions focus on solving business problems – an organization brings in their challenges, and we break into groups and brainstorm suggestions. The team then comes back in a few months to share their results. In the past we’ve worked on such diverse offerings as helping an author promote her book, developing a lawn service, and working with America Public Media on new distribution options for Marketplace (the NPR radio show).

Our next effort is on February 29 at the 50th and France Lund’s Community Room. We will be focusing on HOBY (Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership) Minnesota. HOBY sponsors an annual leadership seminar where we expose high school sophomores to community and business leaders, then challenge them to commit to 100 community service hours in the following year. The graduates from the last four years have combined to serve over 19,000 hours! You can read more at HOBY overview for Linchpins.