CXM Best Practices Symposium

by | Oct 29, 2020 | Miscellaneous

Customer Experience Management (CXM) is not just a hot topic in small to big size companies but also at universities too. I had the opportunity to speak at Michigan State University CXM Best Practices Symposium. I shared practical customer experience takeaways and how to’s. If you missed the event, no worries as I have posted a recording below. I hope you’ll listen and apply the actionable lessons and best practices about humanizing your business and leading with a heart. It’s a sure way to win and keep employees and customers happy who also recommend your brand.

Watch & Learn About  Customer Experience Best Practices

I promise you’ll learn something new that you can apply to your workplace right away.  More details about my speaking engagement here.

About CXM Best Practices Event

Hosted by CXM@MSU, which is dedicated to advancing the field of customer experience management (CXM).  The Symposium is held twice each year to bring together members of the customer experience community in sharing practical best practices in customer experience management covering topics ranging from customer experience as a strategic imperative, understanding the customer, experience design, engaging employees, engaging customers, and customer feedback and continuous improvement.

I’m interested to hear your thoughts. 

Which CX tips and best practices resonate most, and why? I look forward to your comments.  

Customer Experience Quotes Of The Day

Customer Experience Quotes Of The Day

by | Oct 21, 2020 | Resources

Sometimes the best business and life lessons come from short simple quotes. You’ll often see me posting on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter to get my readers thinking in new ways and ultimately taking action.

As my website says, we need to be DOING CX RIGHT, not just TALKING! In case you’ve missed my social media customer experience quotes of the day, I’m adding them here too as they never get old. In fact, learning is an ongoing practice.

I encourage you to elevate your skills by reading my blog, listening to podcasts, getting CX certified, and talking to me about differentiating your brand based on proven tactics. There’s no need to guess. I’ll show you the way.

CX Quotes of the day:Actively listen and respond to customers. Don't sound like a robot or reading from a script.
CX Quotes of the day: The first step to exceeding you're customer's expectations is to know those expectations.
CX Quotes of the day: The most common way people give up power is thinking they don't have any.
cx quotes of the day: what you do today can impact your tomorrows
CX Quote of the day: Ask customers for feedback. Voice of customer can be your game changer when done right.
When employees feel engaged, brands come alive. They walk the talk & customers see & feel it!
CX Quote of the day by Stacy Sherman
Don't let fear of responses be a reason you don't ask employees and customers for feedback
Recruit & hire customer centric individuals to achieve your cx mission. It's all about people.
Stacy Sherman- DoingCXRight Quote of the day "Surround yourself around authentic people. Hire and retain them. Attitude Is Contagious"

How To Make “Voice of Customer” Your Game Changer

How To Make “Voice of Customer” Your Game Changer

by | Oct 20, 2020 | Voice of Customer & Insights

Who are your favorite companies, and what makes you brand loyal? People typically answer this question based on how well a business understands and meets their needs which come from Voice of Customer initiatives.. Buying decisions go way beyond price as we often pay a higher cost to shop at a particular place.

Consider coffee, for example. Customers, including me, spend triple the price at Starbucks compared to other local coffee shops. Why would we pay more money on purpose? The reason is that the most reputable brands, like Starbucks, proactively LISTEN to the voice of the customer (also referred to as VoC) and use feedback to deliver personalized experiences that exceed customer expectations. 

Research proves the value of doing CX right, such as a study conducted by PWC. People were asked: “How much would you pay for the following product  or service if the company provides a great customer experience?” As shown in the image below, the answer is a lot, and getting it right is real!

The price premium for great customer experience:

Price Premium for Customer Experiences and Customer ServiceSource: PWC Future of Customer Experience Survey

Best in class companies also care about employee views and empowers their staff to deliver customer excellence. Their competitive edge comes from humanizing business, and you can apply the same principles no matter where you work. 

 

THREE WAYS TO DIFFERENTIATE YOUR BRAND 

 

#1. Leverage Voice of Customer (VoC) In Everything You Do   

VoC is a valuable research method that enables you to understand the difference between customer expectations and how well you deliver what they need. Even if you believe there is no gap, your customer may think differently, and you must know that to adapt your strategies. Customer perception is YOUR reality. 

 Asking customers about their overall satisfaction level helps you gauge the likelihood of them continuing to purchase and recommend your products and services. Getting high-level feedback is good, but the magic happens when you dig deep into the customer journey. I highly recommend you ask customers to rate their experiences and provide comments about EVERY interaction point, commonly referred to as “moments of truth.” 

If you have not launched a business and do not have customers yet, then co-create a journey map with your target audiences (also referred to as personas). There are plenty of resources on the internet to guide you through the process, including my blog, DoingCXRight. My point is that getting Voice of Customer feedback in the right way and at the right time is essential for business success.   

 Most people rely on surveys as their Voice fo Customer source. While valuable, it must not be your only method of getting customer feedback. Additional useful data comes from: 

  • Website contact forms 
  • Interviews (online and in-person)
  • Social media
  • Ratings and Reviews (on your site & external rating pages)
  • Website visitor behavior analytics
  • Customer Care Call Data
  • Website Live Chat

I recommend aggregating and centralizing all VoC insights to understand your customers’ views from a holistic perspective. It’s a critical job function, so either assign the role in your organization to someone who has the right skill sets, or outsource the work. 

 

Step 2: Turn Voice of Customer Data Into Actionable Insights. 

 Obtaining customer feedback and analyzing the data takes time, but it is well worth it. You can’t possibly develop products, services, and market messages without understanding what your customers think and feel. 

 There are tools to help you compile, analyze, and prioritize data so that you know where to focus your improvement efforts. Some reputable time-saving platforms include Qualtrics. Medallia. Hubspot. Clarabridge, and more. They vary in capabilities and costs. If you have minimal or no budget, then start with manual methods of collecting customer feedback and using the data to inform your business decisions and changes.   

#3: Close The Loop With Customers 

If you ask customers what they think, then inform them what actions you took because of their feedback. For example, if you lead a focus group to design a new product, follow up with participants to show what you created because of their input. Even better, offer a discount that is not available to the public to express appreciation. If you have a centralized survey team, who calls customers share recordings and notes with your sales teams so they can contact customers, rectify issues, and thank them, too. 

 

THE GAME CHANGER 

Top performing companies combine Voice of Employee (VoE) and Voice of Customer (VoC) as part of their decision-making process. Asking employees for feedback makes them feel heard and valued. And, when that happens, their commitment and engagement to deliver customer satisfaction increases. Happy employees fuel happy customers. That is the formula for Customer Experience (CX) success. 

 

REMEMBER: 

Proactively ask for feedback and use the insights to improve customer and employee experiences. Let them know of what changes occurred because of their input, as that is how you gain loyal brand advocates. On the contrary, if you do not follow CX best practices, people will switch to a competitor. According to PWC,

“1 in 3 will leave a brand they love after just one bad experience. 92% would completely abandon a company after two or three negative interactions.” 

It costs a lot of time and resources to make up for one unhappy experience.  

It Takes 12 positive great experiences to make up for one bad. Are you DoingCXRight?

I can’t say it enough….

Customer Experience must be intentional and never an afterthought.  Make sure you are NOT just TALKING about it but actually DOING CX RIGHT! 

 

10 Leadership Strategies To ‘Crawl, Walk, Run’ Your Way To Success

10 Leadership Strategies To ‘Crawl, Walk, Run’ Your Way To Success

by | Sep 27, 2020 | Leadership & Personal Growth

Leadership article originally published in Forbes, Sept 2020

How can leaders create a customer-centric culture with engaged, motivated employees? The answer is through authentic leaders who apply a “crawl, walk, run” approach to elevate employee happiness which fuels customer satisfaction.  They go hand in hand. When employees feel INCLUDED, VALUED, CARED FOR, AND APPRECIATED for their uniqueness, they often go above and beyond to deliver excellence.

 

The Meaning Of ‘Crawl, Walk, Run’

Life is a journey. You cannot go from 0% to 100% goal attainment automatically or overnight. Leadership success comes from setting mini goals and appreciating each milestone conquered. This applies not only to elevating a company culture but also to starting a new business, switching careers, relocating homes, and other big shifts that take time to evolve. I’ve seen people fail because they run at full speed before learning and implementing the basics first.

My mentor, and someone I’m grateful to call my friend, Dan Lynn, is the one who taught me about the “crawl, walk, run” approach and to never give up — even when I’ve nearly reached my goal and had to take many steps back in order to move forward again.

So, here are some best practices I’ve learned to make this approach most effective and, through it, create an authentic, customer-centric culture for my team.

 

10 Leadership Best Practices To Follow

1. Strive for quality over speed. Set realistic timelines and establish small goals as they collectively have big impacts.

2. Expect the unexpected. Obstacles will occur and are unavoidable. Don’t let them stop you from being a change agent and moving mountains. When there’s a will, there’s a way.

3. Surround yourself with passionate, authentic people. Hire and retain them. Attitude is contagious.

4. Celebrate small wins. Don’t wait for the end results. Enjoy the journey, not just the destination.

5. Stay creative and open-minded as ideas come at unanticipated times and from unexpected places. Some of my best ideas were written on the back of napkins during meals at restaurants.

6. Prioritize and hold yourself accountable. Not every idea or project can be number one. Break down tasks and categorize each activity by “now,” “soon” and “later.” This can help you to stay focussed and minimize stress.

7. Be OK with starting over or with what feels like going backward. Sometimes you’ll start walking or running, but then you might have to revert to the crawling stage because of unpredictable circumstances. Trust the process. A setback often pivots us in a better direction. We just don’t understand why at the moment.

8. Focus on relationships and strengthen your network. Lean on your allies. It often takes a village for change to happen. Make every day count and show appreciation to everyone who helps deliver your mission.

9. Take the leap. “Just do it,” as Nike says. But do it in a methodical way. I’m a fan of testing concepts and implementing pilot programs. Once you’ve proven success, then continue at a faster rate and scale what works.

10. Ignore the naysayers and live your passion while remembering to pace yourself (crawl before walking, and walk before running). Don’t accelerate too fast, or you’ll miss important steps that are essential to achieving long-term goals.

Change is not easy, even when it is your own choice. It takes resilience, patience, endurance, and trust in the journey, and that journey can be a slow process. Remember not to get ahead of yourself and that small actions often have huge impacts.

Get more leadership tips in my other article about “The Four Agreements.” I write about a famous book explaining how being impeccable with your words, avoiding assumptions, not taking anything personally and doing your best ultimately contribute to better leadership, especially in CX. You will attract the right people and relationships, which may include profitable customers, too

How To Differentiate Brands By DoingCXRight®‬

How To Differentiate Brands By DoingCXRight®‬

by | Sep 27, 2020 | Podcasts

I had the opportunity to join Kesiena Aaron – Efe to discuss business success stories and ways to differentiate brands based on non-traditional proven CX methods.

 

During the business podcast, I answer questions including:

  • How do you get a Customer Experience job if you’ve never had one?
  • Why is CX a booming field, and is it a fad or here to stay?
  • What does Employee Experience have to do with mastering CX to gain a competitive edge?
  • What are good resources to elevate your CX skills to differentiate brands?

Listen To Podcast Below. 

I’m interested to hear your views about differentiating brands. What tactics work for you?

Listen to Stacy Sherman Speak on AskDPros about Doing CX Right