How To Walk The CX Talk

by | Aug 19, 2018 | Company Culture & Employees | 0 comments

According to Forrester, “84% of companies aspire to be customer experience leaders, but only 1 out of 5 deliver good or great CX.” Do you ever wonder why that’s true? Well, I can explain having worked in the Customer Experience (CX) field for many years and a consumer of products and services. I’ve witnessed bad CX and brands who are Doing CX Right. I’m sharing both instances so you can truly be customer-centric, not just say it.

Observation #1:

Companies claim “delivering excellent customer experiences” is important. They even include CX in their mission statements. Yet, they do not provide CX training to employees. They also do not have an organizational structure to deliver on the “customer first” promise.

Recommendation 

Build a CX organization that partners with every department to implement best practices and proven CX methodologies. Educate your employees about how EVERYONE owns CX, not just a single person or department. I also suggest building employee skill sets by deploying a CX certification program. Personally, I like the classroom and online programs offered at few universities. Contact me for information and a 20% discount offer that I used and you can too.

Contact me for info & 20% discount offer that I used

Observation #2:

Companies track customer experiences based on a single CX metric. However, this does not reveal the full picture of customer satisfaction and sentiments.

Recommendation

Leverage Net Promoter Score but also DRIVERS OF NPS too. Check out my podcast on this topic. I highly recommend gathering multi-sources of Voice of Customer (VOC) Feedback. Leverage powerful tools and platforms in the marketplace including ForeSee, Medallia, OpinionLab, Qualtrics. Measure CX holistically. Then prioritize pain points and fix identified issues (close the loop). Contact me if you want to know more about what differentiates the vendors and platforms mentioned above.

Observation #3: 

Companies do not empower employees to do what is best for their customers. They have processes in place that don’t enable their staff to provide personalized help and remedies when customers are dissatisfied. Think about the last time you contacted a customer care rep. Was the agent able to fix your issue in a creative way? Or, Did you get a standard answer that sounded like he or she was reading from a script?

Recommendation

Train employees to humanize customer experiences. Then, trust them to do the right thing even when management isn’t looking. Empower employees to take care of customers especially when mistakes happen. Also, RECOGNIZE and REWARD employees for demonstrating customer empathy and turning dissatisfying experiences into pleasant ones. Read this restaurant example to demonstrate my point and this retail experience that turned me into a repeat buyer.

Observation #4:

Businesses compete on price, rather than delivering value.

Recommendation

Give customers something extra that serves as a brand differentiator. This doesn’t require a huge investment. Read my story on how Stacy’s Pita Chips created a MEMORABLE, UNEXPECTED customer experience. Years later, I am still buying the product and telling others about the brand. A Gartner study reveals that “By 2020, companies will compete on customer experience, over product and price, as a brand differentiator.” I believe this is 100% true and already happening! 

Observation #5:

Companies focus on delivering Wow Moments. Yet, they don’t focus on fixing actual issues that made the customer unhappy in the first place. They spend more on a “sorry” gift, which could have been avoided if they were Doing CX Right in the first place.

Recommendation

Get customer experience basics right. Learn and deploy best practices from CX strategists and practitioners (like me).

Sign up for my newsletter and get actionable tips about DoingCXRight. Upon registering, you will get my free whitepaper, which provides steps you can take to go from CX Novice to CX Expert. Contact me for more CX information and mentorship. Get daily updates on my Twitter and Instagram pages.

DoingCXRight by Stacy Sherman

*All views expressed are Stacy’s alone and do not reflect the opinions of or imply the endorsement of employers or other organizations.

Master Your Customer Experience and Service Skills with Stacy Sherman

*All views expressed are Stacys and do not reflect the opinions of or imply the endorsement of employers or other organizations.

0 Comments

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. Why The Best CEO's Invest In Customer Experience | DoingCXRight - […] new strategies and building a customer experience culture, read some of our past articles such as: How To Walk The…

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *