Customer Experience Vision

CX Vision

Developing a customer experience vision is the first step in pursuing organizational change for the way your business provides services to its customers. Design and implement your future-state CX vision by developing ideas and prioritizing initiatives. A customer experience vision clarifies these aspirations and why they matter to your customers.

Jim Tincher

Interview: Kate Nightingale of Style Psychology

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Heart of the Customer’s Jim Tincher sat down with Style Psychology Founder and CEO Kate Nightingale recently, to discuss the role of emotions in the customer experience. (But it’s 2021, so of course “sat down with” means “met on Zoom.”) Below is a lightly edited transcript of that conversation. You can watch the complete video here.

Jim:
So we were on a panel together [The Art and Science of Creating Exceptional Customer Experiences, now available on demand] and we were talking about emotions in the experience. And one of the other panelists brought up the “effortless experience.” Both you and I had a visceral reaction to that book. I have my thoughts, but let’s start with you. Tell me more why you reacted to that. Read more

Jim Tincher

Interview: Creating a Clean Experience

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How would you respond if your deliberately behind-the-scenes customer experience efforts were suddenly thrust to the foreground?

That’s the challenge Office Pride Commercial Cleaning Services’ CEO Todd Hopkins faced when COVID changed the way we all think about cleaning.

I met Todd after customer service guru Shep Hyken recommended him in response to my call for customer-focused leaders I should interview. It was an awesome recommendation!

In addition to founding Office Pride, a faith-based cleaning service, Todd has also authored/co-authored four best-selling faith-based books: The Carrot Chaser, The Janitor, Five Wisdoms for Entrepreneur Survival, and most recently, The Stress Less Business Owner. Read more

bad cx data
Jim Tincher

2021: The Year of CX Data

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Given the year we’ve had, we need to talk hygiene. Because I suspect you’ve been neglecting it.

Not because of the sweatpants you wore in that Zoom meeting, or that you don’t always sing “Happy Birthday” twice when you wash your hands.

I mean digital hygiene, and the need to clean your data.

Each of the past five years have been hailed as the “The Year of Digital Transformation.” We thought we were working hard to digitize our experiences.

Then the pandemic hit. And we realized we weren’t doing nearly enough. New digital capabilities came up almost overnight, as agile teams worked to pivot toward emerging customer needs. E-commerce sites, digital notifications, ship from store – all capabilities that were just “in the works” a year ago were deployed quickly. Read more

Jim Tincher

An Effortless Experience Isn’t Enough

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In CX, we all focus on making the experience easier on our customers. (We even made it the title of our book.) But building loyalty isn’t as simple as removing friction.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s definitely worthwhile to simplify your customer experience. Friction is a key driver behind loyalty destruction, and your organization will benefit from streamlining processes and making it easier for customers to resolve issues.

But it won’t build fans who will go out of their way to order from you. That takes something bigger. Read more

Jim Tincher

For B2C, Cleanliness Is the New Black

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Let’s not beat around the bush: $#@&*%! coronavirus trashed your journeys.

Prior to the pandemic, organizations had clear strategies on how to serve their customers, working to deliver an ever-improving experience to earn loyalty.

A better experience is still required…but how we go about providing it – and what “it” even is – has completely changed, particularly for B2C companies, where among other things, face-to-face interactions now take place mask-to-mask.

When I hosted a fireside chat earlier this month with Alison Circle, the Chief Customer Experience Officer for the Columbus Library system, she told me how difficult new protocols necessitated by the pandemic have made it to forge personal connections between staff and customers. But safety just has to come first. Read more

Jim Tincher

Create a Compelling CX Vision

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Rallying your teams to move to a more customer-focused approach requires letting them know what needs to be done. And nothing is more effective at accomplishing that than having a compelling CX vision for what the future looks like.

A clear vision is the accelerator for customer experience (CX) change. Sure, you can improve the experience without a vision – but it will be much more difficult.

A compelling vision is Kotter’s third step in change management. (I’ve explored the first two steps here and here.) As the firm explains in 8 Steps to Accelerate Change in Your Organization, “You can’t appeal to people with data and facts alone. You must also account for how people feel. If you can provide greater meaning and purpose to their efforts, amazing things are possible.” Read more

Jim Tincher

CX Needs Change Management

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You probably moved into customer experience (CX) because of a passion for customers. You chose this space because you know that if you can improve customers’ experiences with your company, they will be happier, they’ll stay with you longer, and both the business and your customers will prosper.

But actually improving the experience is hard.

If you’re like most of the 85 CX professionals we’ve interviewed so far this year, the reality has hit you that it’s incredibly difficult to move your silos enough to substantially improve the customer experience. That’s where change management comes in. It’s the missing element in most CX programs. Read more

Diane McManman Schnitker

The Secret of CX Success

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Swing for the fences! Shoot for the Moon! You got this! 

During my many years as a high school and collegiate lacrosse player and coach, I heard (and said) encouraging platitudes like these more times than I can possibly count.  

But I think many CX professionals – myself included – could benefit from a reminder of just how much confidence can impact outcomes. 

Read more

CX for Skeptics
Jim Tincher

Three Ways to Show Business Impact for Your CX Program

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CX for SkepticsHere’s a story I’ve seen played out multiple times:

An executive believes in the power of customer experience (CX). Perhaps they read an article, or they heard about a CX program another company offered, or saw a competitor speak at a conference. For whatever reason, the executive saw the light, and wanted a CX program of their own. They hire someone to run it and tell them, “Just drive change. I’ll take care of making sure the other executives are on board.” Their employees implement surveys and work to engage the business, confident they’re making a difference. They present their survey results to whoever will listen, and lobby other silos to improve the experience in order to improve survey results. All is good.

Then that executive leaves. Sometimes by choice, sometimes not. Read more

Shawn Phillips

Is IT the ‘It Factor’ for CCOs?

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Chief Customer Officers (CCOs) are popping up in boardrooms across Fortune 500 companies in ever increasing numbers. Those chosen for the position often come from Marketing or Customer Support, as those disciplines are thought of as having the most interaction with customers, making them seem like a natural fit. But are those departments really the best pipeline for filling CCO roles? I don’t think so.
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