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.

Do You Need a CX Vision?

April 7, 2022/in Customer Experience Vision, CX Program Strategy/by Jim Tincher

“One of the first things you do when you stand up a CX program is to create a CX vision.”

It’s said so often that it’s pretty much a cliché.

It just seems to make sense. It also aligns with John Kotter’s 8-step change management program. I wrote about this a few years ago, and I’ve repeated this message myself more than a few times.

But late last month, while talking with a new client about all that you want to do when establishing a CX program, I heard myself say it again and paused. Read more

Easy Listening…and CX Learning

March 10, 2022/in Customer Experience Vision, Interviews with CX Experts, Metrics & ROI, Voice of the Customer/by Jim Tincher

I love to break up my day by getting outside for a nice, long walk. And with a hint of spring in the air, those of us in northern climes will soon be able to do that more comfortably, more often.

In addition to warmer weather, this spring may also usher in a host of workplace reopenings, as pandemic restrictions ease across the country. For many, that means the return of the office commute.

In other words, it’s a great time to cue up some podcasts!

CX Needs Change Management

August 27, 2021/in Customer Experience Vision, Driving CX Culture Change/by Jim Tincher

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 CX professionals we interviewed last 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, the missing element in most CX programs, comes in. Read more

Do the CX Buttons You Push Matter?

July 3, 2021/in Customer Experience Vision, CX Program Strategy/by Jim Tincher

Research from CustomerThink, Forrester, Pointillist, and the XM Institute agree: Few CX programs can prove that their work matters to business outcomes.

This reminds me of a story from my college days.

I was visiting my buddy Rick, and we went down to the rec room in the basement of his dorm to shoot some pool. Tucked in the corner was a video game.

A little background you should know: When I was in high school, I had a paper route that included a vending machine. That meant I always had pocketsful of quarters. Which, given the era, meant lots of afternoons at an arcade, happily feeding those quarters into video games. Read more

Revealing Change Makers’ Secrets

June 13, 2021/in Customer Experience Vision, CX Program Strategy, Driving CX Culture Change/by Jim Tincher

As regular readers have probably noticed, I’ve been referencing the massive research project we undertook last year often in recent blog posts, especially while sharing learnings.

Today I want to take you behind the curtain and describe the impetus for the project, explain some of the methodology, and tell you about my motivation and goals. To do that, I need to start at the beginning.

Once upon a time, I was a customer experience failure.

Back in the olden days (olden in CX terms, anyway, as it was more than a decade ago), I led a customer experience program in a division of a large health insurance organization.

Lessons From a Change Maker

May 21, 2021/in CX Program Strategy, Interviews with CX Experts, Metrics & ROI/by Jim Tincher

It’s hard to overstate how much building an emotional connection with customers matters.

According to the XM Institute, when the emotional experience is rated highly, 76% of customers are promoters. When it’s rated low, only 6% are. More importantly, when the emotional experience is rated highly, 63% will forgive you when problems arise.

But if you haven’t created that strong emotional experience? Only 11% will. Read more

Backorder Issues: The High Cost of Reduced Inventory

May 8, 2021/in Customer Experience Vision, Customer Journey Mapping, Voice of the Customer/by Jim Tincher

Heart of the Customer maps customer journeys for a wide range of B2B organizations, from healthcare to manufacturing to distribution and more. We’ve found one area of friction common across industries: backorder issues.

Whether mom and pop retail storefronts or global manufacturers, customers with products on backorder face similar situations. Here’s how it generally plays out:

They take an order from their customer and promise a delivery. Then they find out that the product is on backorder. That puts them in an difficult position. Do they scramble to find a new supplier? Look for an alternate product? Disappoint their customer?

Interview: Kate Nightingale of Style Psychology

April 17, 2021/in Customer Experience Vision, CX Program Strategy, Interviews with CX Experts/by Jim Tincher

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

Interview: Creating a Clean Experience

March 9, 2021/in Customer Experience Vision, CX Program Strategy, Interviews with CX Experts/by Jim Tincher

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

2021: The Year of CX Data

December 21, 2020/in Customer Experience Vision, CX Program Strategy, Metrics & ROI/by Jim Tincher

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