I received a call from a CX leader wanting to drive action in her program. I discussed how we use the voice of the customer to create an organizational drive to act, and she stopped me to say “We don’t need more voice of the customer. We know what customers want.” I asked her what […]
As CX leaders, fans and enthusiasts, we naturally believe that everybody should embed the voice of the customer in decision-making. Unfortunately, we know that isn’t always a reality. Sometimes, companies “follow their gut,” doing things that clearly don’t stem from customer needs.
So we’re reaching out to you in the CX community. What is the worst example of inside-out thinking you’ve seen? The top three examples will each receive a copy of our book, How Hard Is It to Be Your Customer?
Enter here.
As our book gains traction, readers tell us they appreciate our focus on starting journey mapping by targeting an identified business problem and using this to drive customer-focused change.
We interviewed dozens of CX leaders on how they did this, including Mark Smith, formerly of Element Fleet Management Corporation. Mark spoke on multiple topics, but my favorite was the need to develop a Killer Metric.
The Killer Metric isn’t NPS, Trust, or Customer Satisfaction. It’s one business KPI (Key Performance Indicator) that you use to rally the team to focus on meaningful change. He discussed how Amazon uses contacts per order – the more people call or chat, the worse the experience (in Amazon’s world – notice that Zappos, owned by Amazon, has a very different philosophy). Delta uses canceled flights, which has the biggest impacts on their customers. Read more
Both these speakers began their speech with a similar attempt at humor to grab the audience’s attention, referencing an event that happened in late 2016, but a small difference speaks volumes to their contrasting attitudes. This small difference shows why Samsung has fully recovered while Wells Fargo continues to falter.
Problems can happen in even the best-run company. Pixar, Amazon, GE – all have experienced problems. This post isn’t about preventing problems (although many of these – particularly Wells Fargo’s problems – should have been avoidable). Instead, it’s about what to do once it happens. Read more
I attended Medallia’s annual conference for the first time and was impressed with the quality of both the keynotes and the breakouts. While I captured many pages of notes, four findings really stuck out to me:
I was recently in a call, and an executive new to her company’s journey mapping initiative asked, “Exactly what does this $150k I’m spending on a journey map buy us?” Luckily, our client had a ready answer, but that’s not always the case.
We had a keynote from Geeta Wilson, a great sharing from Foot Locker, and said good-bye to the CXPA’s rock Lesley Lykins. HoC team members Ben London and Diane McManman and I posed with her as we said good-bye.
Jim checks in after Day 1 of the CXPA’s annual Insight Exchange, where he is this year’s host. It includes information about story-telling, Ian Golding, and AirBNB.
The Heart of the Customer blog is a place where we share our insights on journey mapping, offer best practices based on our experiences, and share CX practitioner interviews – and we don’t normally place promotional items here. We are making an exception this week; as Jim Tincher and I prepare to release our journey mapping book this month, we want to get the word out about a new Heart of the Customer offering: a two-day, hands-on journey mapping workshop that will provide all you need to map journeys that drive action in your own organization.
Read more
