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Create Your CX Vision Through Journey Mapping

December 11, 2018/in Customer Experience Vision, CX Program Strategy /by Jim Tincher

“If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” – Yogi Berra

Yogi’s quote applies to much more than baseball – it gets to the heart of what limits so many customer experience (CX) programs. When I ask most CX leaders what they’re trying to accomplish, I get a general statement like, “We’re working cross-functionally to create a better customer experience, in order to create more loyal customers.”

That’s an awful statement because it doesn’t actually say anything. Read more

An Interview with Devin Anuzis of Benchmark Senior Living

July 10, 2018/in Customer Experience Vision, CX Program Strategy, Driving CX Culture Change /by Jim Tincher

Devin Anuzis is Corporate Manager, Customer Experience at Benchmark, the leading provider of senior living services in the Northeast. Serving as the “voice” of the customer program, Devin manages multiple feedback channels and deciphers the feedback for company stakeholders to ensure the customer’s voice is clearly heard and considered in all decisions. In her role, she combines her experience in marketing and communication with her strong, empathic nature to respond to every form of customer input.

Devin joined Benchmark in 2013 as Coordinator of Customer Experience after receiving a master’s degree in business administration from Lynn University with a focus on mass communication and media management. She earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing from the University of Tampa.

A former Division 1, intercollegiate soccer player, Devin is an eager traveler and animal-lover living in Norwood, Massachusetts, with her husband, George, and their toy poodle, Summer, and cockapoo, Wesley.

Contact Devin at Danuzis@benchmarkquality.com.

Tell me a little about your organization and your role within it.

Benchmark Senior Living was founded in 1997, and we now have 56 properties throughout the northeast, from Vermont to Pennsylvania. Our goal is to provide exceptional care, but our mission focuses on the whole experience of our residents and family members. We provide assisted living, memory care, independent living, and we also have 4 continuing care retirement communities with skilled nursing capabilities.

I oversee the customer experience—more specifically relating to the family members or influencers, but I also support our teams that oversee the experience of our residents. I’m also fortunate enough to be involved in a lot of the more strategic discussions that happen throughout the company—anything that would involve our residents and family members.

We recently did a complete rebrand of the company—a new mission statement, new vision, new values. Our focus is on transforming lives through human connection, and in turn that’s all about the experience we provide to our residents and family members and anyone who interacts with our organization. Our CX is really at the heart now of who we are as an organization. Read more

Designing Customer Journey Maps: An Interview with Kris LaFavor

February 7, 2018/in Customer Journey Mapping, CX Program Strategy, Interviews with CX Experts /by Jim Tincher

We sat down recently to chat with Kris LaFavor, Heart of the Customer’s Data Visualization Designer, about her work designing journey maps.

What do you do when you start the process of designing a customer experience journey map?

It’s important for me to have context before I start. I make sure I understand the background material and information in regards to what the client wants to map and what they’re trying to achieve with the map. This understanding ensures that I’m not mapping extraneous information. The high-level information is plotted out first and hierarchy flows from there. Read more

Use Commitment Science to Drive CX Change

November 9, 2017/in CX Program Strategy, Driving CX Culture Change /by Jim Tincher

At Heart of the Customer, our team is reading Influence, the classic book by Robert Cialdini. While it’s an older book, it has a ton to offer to anybody looking to build action, including in the area of customer experience (CX).

This week we’re up to Chapter 3, Commitment. Cialdini uses a ton of examples, including Chinese prison camps in Korea, fraternities, and small kids playing with toys. Through these examples, Cialdini shows how by convincing others to publicly claim their support for a specific philosophy, you are leading people to subsequently act in a manner consistent with that philosophy – even if they previously did not strongly support such a position. Read more

What’s Worse Than No CX Vision? Multiple CX Visions

September 12, 2017/in Customer Experience Vision, CX Program Strategy /by Jim Tincher

Creating a compelling vision is one of the trickiest aspects of an effective customer experience (CX) program. A solid CX vision aligns teams, allowing your front-line employees to decide how best to serve the customer without needing to escalate. Read more

Don’t Forget to Map the Employee Journey

February 7, 2017/in Customer Journey Mapping, CX Program Strategy, Employee Experience /by Jim Tincher

A while ago I led a journey mapping workshop at the ICMI conference. It was a ton of fun, as we mapped out how Amanda chooses her new health insurance plan. We looked at how and when to use journey mapping (answers: frequently, and in partnership with customers).

During a break, one call center director asked me whether journey mapping can be used to map out employee journeys. That’s when I realized my mistake. I’m so passionate about mapping the customer journeys that I completely forgot to talk about how journey mapping is also a great tool to use for employee journeys.

Connecting with Employees

Employee journeys are critically important to your customer experience. As Bruce Temkin says, you can’t create an engaged customer with disengaged employees. Journey mapping is a great tool to understand the friction your employees face as they serve your customers.
Read more

Four steps to build an improved B2C customer experience

August 16, 2016/in Customer Experience Vision, CX Program Strategy /by Jim Tincher

Serving consumers is different than serving businesses.  It’s not harder or easier – just different.  I’ve seen real challenges in the past when leaders move from B2B to B2C (or vice-versa). Here are four steps to help you get started creating a better B2C customer experience.

1. Know your customer experience (CX) goal.

I was talking with a CX leader, and asked about her customer experience vision. She responded, “We want to be the simplest, and the most flexible. Oh, and we need to keep costs low.”

That’s a pretty hard combination to hit. In fact, I’d argue it’s pretty impossible to hit all three.

Your goal should flow from your vision. Are you trying to be the easiest company to work with, the one with the closest relationships, the most flexible?  Understanding your company’s goals is the first step to creating your approach. If you don’t know where you’re going, you don’t know what steps to take next.  Read more

CX Vision lessons from the Glen Canyon Dam (and Isaac Asimov)

June 7, 2016/2 Comments/in Customer Experience Vision, CX Program Strategy, Driving CX Culture Change /by Jim Tincher

I visited Antelope Canyon a few weeks ago. It’s a terrific trip, and I highly recommend it.

As a part of the trip we visited the Glen Canyon Dam. Upriver of the Hoover Dam, it creates Lake Powell, the second largest man-made lake. The tour guide shared the three priorities for the dam:

Water management
Power generation
Water recreation

Three steps to start your customer experience program

July 2, 2014/in Customer Experience Vision, CX Program Strategy /by Jim Tincher

I love getting together with my fellow customer advocates. Change-makers who want to make both their company and the entire world more customer-centric. I really enjoy sharing a cup of coffee with my fellow CX advocates, and do it at every chance I get.

A popular topic is how to start a customer experience program company, as many are stranded evangelists and are unsure how to make a change. I tell them that a successful customer experience program relies on three pillars: a leader, a team and a vision. I’ve never seen a successful program without all three.

Photo by Tom Hamster, courtesy of Creative Commons

Let’s start with the leader.

That should be you. But first you need a sponsor to give you this role, ideally the CEO. Getting the attention and the support of your CEO is typically the hardest step. To do this you need to build a case for a focus on customer experience, and you need to prove why you’re the best person for this role. I have met dozens of potential customer experience leaders who are unable to start because they have not effectively made the case. Read more