Every year, Temkin Group identifies a theme that we believe deserves the attention of the entire CX community. We focused on Elevate Purpose in 2017, Intensify Emotion in 2016, Engage Employees in 2015, and Amplify Empathy in 2014.
We’ve decided to label 2018 as “The Year of Humanity.”
With all of the discord and tension throughout the world, it seems like a good time for all of us to refocus on what’s most important, our collective humanity. So Temkin Group will dedicate our energy in 2018 to promote the following mindset:
- Embrace diversity. Applaud our differences and find ways to treat people as individuals.
- Extend compassion. Tune into the condition of the people around us and care about their well-being
- Express appreciation. Proactively look for and acknowledge the positive aspects of the world around us.
How are we translating this focus into the world of customer experience? By creating a concept that we call Humanize CX.
It can be enticing to look at an organization’s efforts through the lens of its technologies or processes, but those are just conduits to the ultimate objective: people. Since organizational success is driven by engaged employees and loyal customers, it’s important to focus on the underlying needs and behaviors of these human beings.
That’s why Temkin Group created Humanize CX, which we define as:
Thinking about people first in every activity and endeavor
In order to Humanize CX, companies should adopt three principles:
- Act with Purpose. Although human beings respond to external stimuli like bonuses and coupons, they are truly motivated by the desire to find meaning in their lives. So we need to enlist people’s commitment and loyalty by sharing the purpose of our efforts, and understanding the purpose that motivates other people.
- Cultivate Deep Empathy. Dynamics within organizations tend to reinforce an internal and myopic perspective. So we need to break the status quo by proactively uncovering and satisfying the needs of other people.
- Create Positive Memories. What human beings experience is not what they remember and what they remember drives their loyalty. So we need to focus our energies on the moments that have the most emotionally significant impact on people.
This theme pulls together many of the areas that we’ve been focusing on for the past several years. Look for us to publish more research and highlight the theme throughout the year.
I hope that you will join Temkin Group in making 2018 The Year of Humanity, and finding ways to Humanize CX in your efforts.
The bottom line: The world needs more humanity.
This blog post was originally published by Temkin Group prior to its acquisition by Qualtrics in October 2018.
