Posts

Shawn Phillips

Use Smart AI to Reduce Churn in Three Steps

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Most customers don’t just suddenly disappear. When dissatisfied, they move over to an exit lane and chug along while waiting for an excuse to cut ties to your organization.

If, like many companies, you’re not paying attention when they turn on their blinkers to make that move, you’re making a costly mistake.

To avoid missing your chance to reduce customer churn and bring these customers back into the flow of traffic (where they can fulfill their lifetime value), look first to “customer math” – more specifically, tracking those customers who have already stopped their journey. Read more

Jim Tincher

Understand Your Employees’ Current-State Journey

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Any wishful thinking that this crisis might blow over in a couple of weeks is pretty much shot. It now seems likely that we are facing a prolonged period of home-bound isolation, and, most tragically, the deaths of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Americans. March brought with it cataclysmic changes to the way we live, work, learn, shop, and interact, and most of us are still trying to acclimate to this new normal, which carries varying levels of stress, disorientation, worry, and risk for each of us.  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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Heart of the Customer
Jim Tincher

When CX Is a Matter of Life or Death

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If you’re reading this, you probably already know that customer experience (CX) is important. But even the staunchest CX advocates might not realize that CX done right can save lives.

Earlier this week in this space you met Lee Becker, Chief of Staff of the Veterans Experience Office (VEO) of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). He discussed the challenges of integrating CX principles into governmental structures, and the four CX capabilities – Data, Tools, Technology, and Engagement – on which the VEO’s successful program is based.

Today we focus specifically on how the VEO is maturing its data capabilities to address trust, a fundamental component of customer loyalty and satisfaction.

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VA CX Framework
Jim Tincher

Creating a Customer-Centric Agency at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)

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I heard Lee Becker, Chief of Staff of the Veterans Experience Office (VEO) of the VA speak at a recent Medallia conference and was blown away by his remarks. I reached out for an interview because I wanted to share with a broader audience his thoughts on what it’s like to drive change within a massive organization, what’s at stake, and what success at the VA might mean for government services in broader terms.

A Navy Veteran with a background in medical care and case management, Lee is one of the architects behind a turnaround at the VA, and he believes the same solid customer experience (CX) principles they have implemented there can transform the way other federal agencies work, too.

“The fundamental challenge of government is figuring out how you make room for experience when financials and operations are the focus.” Read more

Jim Tincher

Turbocharge Your Journey Map

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Two-thirds of customer journey mapping initiatives fail to drive action, as we revealed in our book How Hard Is It to Be Your Customer? Using Journey Mapping to Drive Customer-Focused Change.

That’s not really surprising, is it? It’s easier to reveal where customers are having problems than it is to do something about it. Taking effective action requires getting your silos aligned to improve the customer experience. A new class of software can help. Read more

Jim Tincher

Video Interviews=CX Impact

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I’m returning from a two-day Action Workshop, wrapping up a four-month journey mapping project. In the first day, we shared the literal voice of the customer, collected through 46 video interviews with customers. These video interviews shared the power of when the customer experience goes right, as well as the ramifications of when it goes wrong. At one point, there were audible gasps from the attendees after one former customer shared his experience with our client. Read more

Jim Tincher

What Makes a Great Customer Experience Leader

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Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to interview dozens of CX leaders, and still more as we wrote our book. Combining that knowledge with some of the industry research, such as CustomerThink’s report on winning CX programs, we’ve identified three traits that separate the best customer experience leaders from the rest.

For too many, CX has fallen into a rhythm:

  1. Conduct an NPS survey
  2. Analyze the results
  3. Share the results with anybody who will listen
  4. Implement some quick wins
  5. Repeat the NPS survey
  6. Wonder why things haven’t changed

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Learn Customer Journey Mapping
Jim Tincher

What You “Know” About Your Customers Probably Isn’t True

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Learn Customer Journey MappingI 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 Voice of the Customer (VoC) she had, and she referenced how her executives regularly talk with customers. But nobody else does. So, they “know” what customers want.

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Jim Tincher

What are the World’s CX Leaders Doing? Lessons from Medallia’s Exchange ‘19

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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:

  1. There is no one “right” metric. Despite having NPS inventor Fred Reichheld speak the first day, participants used a variety of measurements to track their CX program. While there were certainly NPS fans, I was intrigued by other measurement systems. Bank of America didn’t share their question but did share that they only report on the % of 9s and 10s. Scotia Bank uses a multi-tiered sentiment system, while the VA uses Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Emotion (from Forrester’s model), but also adds “Trust,” which is their most important metric.
  2. Measurement isn’t restricted to metrics. Volvo Trucking discussed how they incorporate warnings from their trucks’ sensors into their programs; Bank of America incorporates product additions and subtractions, and others included calls to the call center and other business metrics that provided color to the measurement. As one breakout leader shared, “A 3 [in a 5-point scale] can mean everything’s fine, or that there’s high risk. So we bring in behavioral data to provide more meaning.”
  3. ROI can be tracked. We’ve found many CX programs shy away from tying to business metrics. Which is a huge mistake, because that’s what your cross-functional partners care about. The leaders find business problems that they can solve through CX, whether that’s client attrition, dropping of products, calls to the call center or even stock price, it is possible (and should be mandatory) to tie your work to what the business cares about.
  4. Frontline employees are starting to be incorporated. I’ve been wondering about this. CX fans have seen Bruce Temkin move from talking about CX to EX. In talks with attendees at the CXPA Insight Exchange, very few had a mandate to focus on the employee experience. But the leading brands who presented (and were likely hand-selected by Medallia) spoke elegantly about how they are engaging their front lines in the customer experience, sharing customer scores with them, as well as expanding the measurement tool to include employee engagement.

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