As part of Temkin Group’s celebration of Customer Experience Day on October 1st, I am publishing 50 CX Tips, starting 50 days before this exciting “CX holiday” that celebrates great customer experience and the professionals who make it happen. Here’s the (evolving) list of CX tips aligned with the four customer experience core competencies: Purposeful Leadership, Compelling Brand Values, Employee Engagement, and Customer Connectedness.
CX Tip #1: Help Customers Achieve Their Goals (Customer Connectedness)
Don’t push your products and agendas on customers. Instead, find out what they want and create experiences that fit your company into their journey. Wayne Peacock, Executive Vice President of Member Experience at USAA has said:
“We want to create experiences around what members are trying to accomplish, not just our products. If a member is buying a car, then we would historically see that as a change in auto insurance. We are changing that to an auto event – to help the member find the right car, buy it at a discount, get a loan, insurance, etc. and do that in any channel and across channels. There’s enormous value for members and for USAA if we can facilitate that entire experience.”
CX Tip #2: Make Employee Engagement a Key Metric (Employee Engagement)
Since 2007, Bombardier Aerospace’s annual employee engagement and enablement survey has given all employees a voice within the organization. In 2012, 93% of employees completed the survey. Managers are evaluated based on the engagement levels of their employees. To create an environment that ensures performance, every leader has an annual target for employee engagement.
CX Tip #3: Regularly Refresh Your Brand Promises (Compelling Brand Values)
Starbucks CEO Howard Shultz once said, “Customers must recognize that you stand for something.” While most organizations start with a clear brand promise, the focus on short term goals can easily push them away from delivering on it. Decisions across an organization may seem reasonable in their immediate context, but they can collectively push a company off its course.
Once the brand promise is lost, organizations will often spiral out of control without the brand as their True North guiding the way. That’s what happened to Starbucks in 2007. Shultz returned to the company in early 2008 to help restore the brand promise. His assessment of the situation: “We lost our way.” The company closed more than 7,000 stores on one day for a three-hour session to re-instill the brand promise with employees.
Rather than waiting for the painful recognition that your organization has lost its way, examine your brand promise at least every two years. Even if nothing changes, the process of reaffirming your brand can be powerful. Make sure that your brand promises are recognizable, believable, compelling, and well understood by both customers and employees.
CX Tip #4: Make Every Ending Count (Customer Connectedness)
People make decisions based on how they remember experiences, not on how they actually experience them. This distinction is important because people don’t remember experiences the way they actually occur. Memories are constructed as stories people create in their minds based on fragments of their actual experiences. Noble Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s research identified something called the “peak-end rule,” which states that people’s memories tend to be heavily influenced by the most severe (good/bad) parts of an experience and the way it ends. So improving the way you end experiences will have a disproportional effect on what customers remember. Keep this in mind when you’re developing an approach for how service reps end a call, designing the confirmation page after an online application, training technicians to close out a job in the field, or developing the discharge process for a hospital.
CX Tip #5: Lead with “Why” in Communications (Purposeful Leadership, Employee Engagement)
How does Herb Kelleher, Founder of Southwest Airlines, describe the company’s secret to success?
“If you create an environment where the people truly participate, you don’t need control. They know what needs to be done and they do it. And the more that people will devote themselves to your cause on a voluntary basis, a willing basis, the fewer hierarchies and control mechanisms you need.”
To elicit this type of connection with employees, leaders must focus their communications on answering a critical question, “why?” Most corporate communications focus on “what” and “how,” telling people what needs to be done and how they should accomplish it. This command and control pattern may elicit short-term compliance, but it’s efficacy decays quickly and it loses value completely when situations change and the “how” no longer applies. Leaders need to elicit buy-in from people by starting communications with “why,” explaining the reason that something is important to the company and to the people who are being asked to do something. To fully empower people, share “why” a goal is important and “what” success looks like and leave it up to the individuals to figure out “how” to make it happen.
CX Tip #6: Measure the Value of Key CX Metrics (Customer Connectedness)
If you know the value of improving a CX metric, then it’s easier to make the case for investments. JetBlue has previously measured that every promoter is worth $33 extra dollars ($27 from referrals and $6 from loyalty) to while a detractor is worth $104 less than average. One point change in JetBlue’s NPS is worth $5 to $8 million. Temkin Group research shows that a modest increase in the Temkin Experience Ratings can result in a gain over three years of up to $382 million for US companies and up to £263 million for UK firms, depending on the industry. It’s important for companies to develop this type of analysis for their business.
CX Tip #7: Motivate Employees with Intrinsic Rewards (Employee Engagement)
Companies often try and force employees into doing things by slapping on metrics and measurements. While these types of extrinsic rewards can change some behaviors, they can often cause conflicts and lead to unexpected consequences. When Staples put in place a goal for $200 of add-ons per computer sold, some store employees stopped selling computers to customers who didn’t want to purchase add-ons. Compare this outcome to inspirational coaching at Sprint, which leads to an environment where employees consistently excel and measure their performance against their best effort and compete with themselves to be their best. It turns out that people tend to be more motivated by intrinsic rewards. To build commitment from employees, stop relying so heavily on extrinsic rewards and focus on providing them with the four key intrinsic rewards: sense of meaningfulness, choice, competence, and progress. These types of rewards build an emotional, instead of a transactional, commitment from employees.
CX Tip #8: Start Your Brand Marketing Internally (Compelling Brand Values)
Brands need to be understood and “owned” by the entire organization. That’s why it’s critical for companies to invest heavily in communicating the brand value to everyone in the company. Before BMO Financial Group’s new brand went live, it launched an internal campaign, Brilliant at the Basics, which identified eight actions that every employee could demonstrate, including “Our heads are up, not down;” “Everyone pitches in…titles don’t matter;” and “Help in choosing, not choices.” Employees were given a brand book that covered the brand principles, including a breakdown of what’s different “tomorrow from today.” The launch kit for leaders and branch managers included a DVD and materials covering key messages and talking points, along with anticipated questions and answers to prepare them to lead discussions with their teams. Click for more info
CX Tip #9: Bring Customers to Life With Design Personas (Customer Connectedness)
Big Lots CEO David Campisi mentioned “Jennifer” 25 times on a single earnings call. She’s not a real customer or even a real person. Jennifer is a design persona, an archetype that is representative of a key customer segment. Here’s why Campisi believes in using a design persona:
“I am confident in developing a new mentality to focus on her and all facets of our business will pay off and begin to drive positive comps over time.”
One of our 10 CX Mistakes to Avoid is Treating All Customers the Same. Organizations need to identify key customer segments and design experiences to meet their specific needs. Design personas help an organization have a common understanding of the needs of those segments.
CX Tip #10: Tap Into Customer Insights from Unstructured Data (Customer Connectedness)
As more companies thirst for customer feedback, the number of surveys has escalated. But there is a limit to customers’ willingness to complete surveys. As completion rates get more difficult to maintain, companies will become more efficient with the questions they ask, target questions at specific customers in specific situations, and stop relying as much on multiple-choice questions. Tidbit: When we asked large companies with VoC programs about the changing importance of eight listening posts, multiple choice survey questions were at the bottom of the list. Companies must learn to integrate their customer feedback with other customer data and tap into rich sources of customer insights in unstructured data such as open-ended comments, call center conversations, emails from customers, and social media. This new, deeper foundation of customer intelligence will require strengthening capabilities in text and predictive analytics.
CX Tip #11: Predict and Preempt Obstacles to Customer Value (Customer Connectedness)
Thanks in part to sophisticated adoption measurement capabilities that allow Salesforce.com to monitor how customers are (or are not) using the product and individual features, account teams now have access to reporting and predictive analytics alerting them to which clients are on plan and which are struggling. The analysis provides a view into how the customer is doing relative to their individual deployment goals, industry peers, and ideal deployment paths based on Salesforce.com’s experience. Included with the analysis are suggested interventions for the account team to pursue with the client based on the current state. On a monthly basis, the company reviews at-risk customers to address anything that might contribute to attrition.
CX Tip #12: Map Your Customer’s Journey (Customer Connectedness)
BMO Financial’s approach to customer journey mapping includes both the customer view and the internal view. This ensures not only that customers’ reactions are represented for each touchpoint, but that the impact of internal policies, training, and measures and targets for each interaction are also factored in. Internal stakeholder interviews and employee focus groups provide the view of “what we think happens” and external research identifies customers’ needs and wants as part of mapping the ideal experience. A gap analysis is used to gain agreement on the opportunities, which are then incorporated into customer experience action plans. Check out Temkin Group’s Seven Steps for Developing Customer Journey Maps
CX Tip #13: Cultivate Experience Design Skills (Customer Connectedness)
Through its Design Matters initiative, Citrix helps its employees rethink core business processes with a focus on customer needs. They learn to collaborate on ideas to meet those needs, prototype and test with customers, and integrate feedback to deliver solutions such as an online customer “onboarding” experience to help new customers get up and running with their flagship product. A network of employee Design Catalysts, who are specially trained to help colleagues use design thinking on a daily basis, supports this work.
CX Tip #14: Continuously Test Your Value Proposition (Purposeful Leadership)
Samuel Palmisano revitalized IBM during his decade as CEO of the IT behemoth. He led the company using a framework based on four questions that he used to focus thinking and prod the company beyond its comfort zone:
- Why would someone spend their money with you — so what is unique about you?
- Why would somebody work for you?
- Why would society allow you to operate in their defined geography — their country?
- And why would somebody invest their money with you?
CX Tip #15: Close the Loop Immediately with Detractors (Customer Connectedness)
VMware has a dedicated Customer Advocacy Team, which is tasked to contact severe detractors within 48 hours of a survey response. This team pulls appropriate members of the account and support teams into the resolution process. The Customer Advocacy Team retains responsibility for ongoing customer communication, monitoring internal progress, and following up with the customer upon conclusion.
CX Tip #16: Analyze Promoters and Detractors Separately (Customer Connectedness)
Companies often focus their efforts obsessing about why customers are unhappy. While this is great for eliminating detractors, it may not actually increase customer loyalty. Why? Because loyalty is not the opposite of dissatisfaction. In addition to analyzing unhappiness, you should also analyze what makes customers really happy and loyal, which is often more than just eliminating problems. A focus on loyalty will also create a more positive vibe inside of an organization since it’s a good counter-balance with the overwhelming negative feelings that can be associated with discussions about problems.
CX Tip #17: Discuss Feedback with B2B Clients (Customer Connectedness)
A unique element to SanDisk’s VoC program is its external roadshow to meet with customers about their survey results. Following internal review and reporting, account managers work with the CX governance board to identify a subset of customers to meet face to face. Approximately 70% of the information reviewed with the customer is drawn from their specific survey responses, and account managers also review trends and insights from across all customer feedback and the actions being taken by SanDisk to address them.
CX Tip #18: Remove Jargon from Customer Communications (Purposeful Leadership)
Standing out from the BCBS of Michigan’s accomplishments is its Clear and Simple effort to help the business become easier to understand and do business with. BCBS of Michigan’s Customer Commitment guides the way the organization serves its members. It focuses the company on being easier to understand and do business with in everything from language to business practices. The related Clear and Simple effort generated over 50 requests from across the business to help different areas become more clear and simple, and involved 375 employees in those improvement projects.
CX Tip #19: Use Ambassadors to Build Links Across Organization (Employee Engagement)
Fidelity’s Voice of the Customer Ambassadors program is the cornerstone of Fidelity’s efforts to engage customer-facing associates across the organization around their customer experience vision. Ambassadors are associates from across Fidelity’s functions who apply to become part of a network of customer experience evangelists who (1) identify opportunities for improvement by amplifying the voice of the customer/associate; (2) inform new product and service development; and (3) inspire their peers with local dialogue and other activities. Ambassadors are supported by extensive executive sponsorship across multiple levels of management and are asked to dedicate 10% of their time influencing Fidelity’s shared customer experience vision.
CX Tip #20: Use Founders to Instill Values with New Employees (Purposeful Leadership, Employee Engagement)
The first day at work for new ZocDoc employees includes lunch with the company founders. During the course of the meal, employees hear about the early days of the company, what the executives are focused on now, and what they love about the organization. Employees hear about the 7 Core Values and see them in action. In particular, this lunch reinforces the “Speak Up” core value which is about leadership accessibility and that everyone in the company has a voice – that their questions and opinions matter.
CX Tip #21: Set Service Targets Based on Customer Expectations (Customer Connectedness)
Recognizing that it needed to establish targets for execution based on customer expectations, and not just on its operational ability to execute, EMC added customer experience focus questions around the customer’s expectations during a service event. For example, a question was added that asks the customer what timeframe between updates they would find acceptable. EMC uses a Van Westendorp Methodology to analyze the customer’s responses that helped determine the optimum timeframe for progress updates as it relates to the customers expectation. Knowing what the customer expected allowed EMC to add or improve processes and set customer quality targets within the support organization to better meet or beat the customer’s expectation.
CX Tip #22: Actively Solicit Insights from Employees (Employee Engagement, Customer Connectedness)
Adobe’s Intranet includes an online suggestion tool called “Tell Adobe.” Through this simple mechanism, employees can submit suggestions for improving the company, covering everything from current products and services to the processes used to engage and help customers. All submissions are reviewed by a member of the People Resources team, who then brings in internal subject matter experts or functional teams to evaluate the submitter’s suggestions, work with him or her to understand the idea better, and then decide if and how to proceed or pursue further. The process closes the loop with the employee so that he or she has visibility to the outcomes resulting from the initial submission.
CX Tip #23: Share Customer Verbatims Internally (Customer Connectedness)
Troy Stevenson, Vice President, Client Loyalty & Consumer Insight at Charles Schwab stressed the value of listening to client verbatims, saying that “There’s no substitute for employees reading through unadulterated client comments. They explain what needs to change and how they need to change.” Stevenson’s team analyzes cross-organization topics (like affluent consumers), but a critical goal is to put the information in the hands of the people that understand different parts of the business. Stevenson’s team organizes verbatims by themes and topics and then puts them in the hands of the appropriate people across the company. He estimates that thousands of people read the verbatims including every branch and call center team.
CX Tip #24: Define Competencies for Living the Brand (Compelling Brand Values)
Microsoft defined six values to support its corporate mission: To enable people and businesses throughout the world to realize their full potential Of the values created towards this mission, a Passion for Customers, Partners, and Technology. To foster its values, Microsoft has developed a set of key competencies (core, leadership & profession specific) that every employee is measured against in terms of their proficiency in demonstrated behaviors. The competencies help to plan careers, build necessary capabilities for success in a role, and inform performance reviews. “Customer Focus” is core competency for all employees, measured on a 5 point proficiency scale.
CX Tip #25: Use Online Advisory Boards of B2B Clients (Customer Connectedness)
Technology solutions provider CDW has engaged clients through a private online community for over seven years. Using open-ended questions or short surveys, the company can gather a significant amount of feedback on a variety of topics including new product offerings, marketing messages, and customer technology usage—in less than a week. Members also have the ability to pose questions to each other. For example, a member recently received numerous responses to his inquiry on other members’ Bring Your Own Device policies. Click for more info
CX Tip #26: Train Employees for Key Moments (Customer Connectedness, Employee Engagement)
This is from a New York Times article about Apple:
Training commences with what is known as a “warm welcome.” As new employees enter the room, Apple managers and trainers give them a standing ovation. The clapping often bewilders the trainees, at least at first, but when the applause goes on for several lengthy minutes they eventually join in. There is more role-playing at Core training, as it’s known, this time with pointers on the elaborate etiquette of interacting with customers. One rule: ask for permission before touching anyone’s iPhone. “And we told trainees that the first thing they needed to do was acknowledge the problem, though don’t promise you can fix the problem,” said Shane Garcia, the one-time Chicago manager. “If you can, let them know that you have felt some of the emotions they are feeling. But you have to be careful because you don’t want to lie about that.”
CX Tip #27: Continuously Re-Recruit Your Team (Purposeful Leadership)
Linda Heasley, CEO of Lane Bryant and former president and CEO of The Limited has said:
“I believe that my associates can work anywhere they want, and my job is to re-recruit them every day and give them a reason to choose to work for us and for me as opposed to anybody else.”
CX Tip #28: Share Comparative CX Metrics Across Locations (Customer Connectedness, Employee engagement)
Each of Sam’s Club’s 600+ stores gets a monthly score they call the “Member Experience Track” (MET) which covers three areas: In-club operations, Merchandising, and Membership. Underneath those three areas are more than 150 individual attributes that the company tracks. Each store has an overall rating of red (bad), yellow (“okay”), or green (“good”) based on surveys completed by members. At monthly meetings, the executive team reviews a dashboard that highlights the number of stores in each category (red, yellow, green), looks at key issues driving problems across stores, and also looks at the top 20 and bottom 20 stores. This is a powerful tool for motivating store managers, as Bala Subramanian, VP of Global Customer Insights points out: “You don’t want to be called out on the bottom as a member of the ‘Red Club.’”
CX Tip #29: Innovate Around Customer Lifecycle Events (Customer Connectedness)
Sovereign Assurance NZ’s research showed that many new parents don’t have the time to review their life insurance, but after having a new baby, it’s more important than ever to have some life insurance. The company developed a program “Choose Precious” that offers new parents $10,000 free life insurance up until their baby’s first birthday. New parents just need to register at chooseprecious.co.nz before their baby is six-months-old. The company also rolled out its ‘Breathing Space’ offering. Recognizing that buying a home is a big deal and it’s difficult to get the attention of homebuyers, can be difficult to attract, the company offered home buyers $25,000 free life cover for 90 days to provide interim protection until they have the time to consider their long term protection needs.
CX Tip #30: Encourage Employees to Thank Customers (Employee Engagement, Customer Connectedness)
Sprint’s Thank You Thursdays help keep customers top of mind. Employees at offices, call centers, and retail stores enjoy getting together monthly to collectively write personal thank you notes to customers. Supplies and sample notes are provided, but employees are free to express thanks in their own words. Even the CEO participates in this activity. Sprint sent more than 700,000 thank you notes in 2012. Click for more info
CX Tip #31: Develop Simple Service Standards (Customer Connectedness, Employee Engagement)
NBA’s Oklahoma Thunder has identified five CLICK!™ With Your Guests non-negotiable service principles:
- C – COMMUNICATE COURTEOUSLY (practice the golden rule)
- L – LISTEN TO LEARN (rather than listen to respond)
- I – INITIATE IMMEDIATELY (being proactive)
- C – CREATE CONNECTIONS (everyone is a VIP)
- K – KNOW YOUR STUFF (knowledge is power)
All front‐line team members, from parking to concessions, participate in the required CLICK! With Your Guests onboarding program, which provides training and tools to create memorable experiences.
CX Tip #32: Create a Mission that Inspires Employees (Purposeful Leadership, Employee Engagement)
Temkin Group research shows that employees who are inspired by their employer’s mission are significantly more committed and productive. Here are some examples of inspiring missions:
“To inspire hope and contribute to health and well-being by providing the best care to every patient through integrated clinical practice, education and research.” (Mayo Clinic) “In times of war or uncertainty there is a special breed of warrior ready to answer our Nation’s call. A common man with uncommon desire to succeed. Forged by adversity, he stands alongside America’s finest special operations forces to serve his country, the American people, and protect their way of life. I am that man.” (U.S. Navy SEALS) “The Ritz-Carlton Hotel is a place where the genuine care and comfort of our guests is our highest mission. We pledge to provide the finest personal service and facilities for our guests who will always enjoy a warm, relaxed, yet refined ambience. The Ritz-Carlton experience enlivens the senses, instills well-being, and fulfills even the unexpressed wishes and needs of our guests.” (Ritz-Carlton’s Credo)
Here are five questions to examine your organization’s mission: Is it written? Is it real? Is it simple? Does it connect with employees? Will it create value?
CX Tip #33: Adopt Coach K’s Five Fundamentals of Team Building (Purposeful Leadership, Employee Engagement)
Michael William “Mike” Krzyzewski known as “Coach K” owns the record for the most wins by an NCAA division 1 basketball coach. Coach K’s style is to empower, challenge, and inspire his players. He recognizes that wins are the byproduct of a team performing at its best. To understand his leadership style, here’s an overview of his philosophy on teams:
“There are five fundamental qualities that make every team great: communication, trust, collective responsibility, caring and pride. I like to think of each as a separate finger on the fist. Any one individually is important. But all of them together are unbeatable.”
CX Tip #34: Create Paths for Grassroots Communications (Purposeful Leadership, Compelling Brand Values, Employee Engagement)
Started in the early 1990s, PRIDE Teams—made up of a network of 700+ employees—are one of USAA’s ongoing listening efforts. Each of the 70+ teams is led by a director or executive director who facilitates grassroots communications across the organization. PRIDE Team members have their day jobs, but spend up to ten percent of their time on two-way communications between the team and their workplace colleagues. They reinforce key messages from senior leadership and connect with their peers, bringing key insights from their colleagues to USAA leaders.
CX Tip #35: Make Your Brand Values Explicit (Compelling Brand Values)
Based on customer research, Safelite AutoGlass has identified five brand values—Trustworthy, Reliable, Safe, Innovative, Helpful/approachable. These have been translated into how customers are treated in a variety of ways, including how phones are answered by contact center associates to the “5 Ts” that their field technicians use to highlight their helpfulness and approachability: 1) Time: Call customers in advance to notify them of arrival time. 2) Touch: Shake hands, make eye contact and engage the customer. 3) Technical excellence: Doing it right the first time, every time. 4) Talk: Tell the customer what we’re going to do and do it. 5) Thanks: Show appreciation for choosing Safelite.
CX Tip #36: Maintain List of Top 10 Customer Issues (Customer Connectedness)
Oracle drives consistent customer experience activities across all regions and lines of business through a structured framework and standardized approach to monitoring the customer experience: Listen, Respond, Collaborate for Customer Success. The portfolio of feedback tools includes transactional and product surveys, relationship surveys, customer advisory boards, user experience labs, and independent user groups. Feedback from across these sources is integrated and analyzed to identify the 10 customer feedback themes that have the greatest impact on customer experience and business results, and programs are established to improve each.
CX Tip #37: Test for Cultural Fit Before You Hire (Employee Engagement)
To test how well prospective employees will fit with its company culture, Disney Store’s interview is actually a “casting call” and includes role-playing in-store scenarios to demonstrate potential guest interactions and reading a portion of a Disney story, which is part of the job description.
CX Tip #38: Discuss CX Metrics and Initiatives at Company Meetings (Purposeful Leadership)
To keep employees aligned, leaders discuss customer experience in every quarterly employee meeting. Citrix executives share initiatives and progress against goals for key customer metrics. Through reporting and dashboards, customer metrics such as NPS and customer retention are shared broadly throughout the business. In addition, the company shares a deep-dive analysis of drivers and opportunities for improvement.
CX Tip #39: Use Workshops to Review Customer Feedback and Develop Local Action Plans (Customer Connectedness, Employee Engagement)
SimplexGrinnell (a Tyco Company) has what it calls NICE workshops, interactive sessions where local offices review customer verbatims and develop action plans. These are highly focused 5-hour interactive on-site sessions for key district personnel (managers, admin, and front-line) to develop an action plan for improving their customer experience with district service delivery. In small teams, workshop attendees are exposed to their district CSAT metrics and customer verbatim comments drawn from 80 to 100 of their customers that were surveyed over the past 12 months. Using that customer feedback, they identify and agree upon their most prevalent service delivery challenges. They brainstorm new and best service practices to implement within the next 30 days that will begin to make an impact on customer satisfaction within the next 90 days.
CX Tip #40: Measure Yourself Against Your Brand Promises (Compelling Brand Values)
Intersil, a semiconductor manufacturer, regularly surveys customers to measure its performance in meeting the company’s brand promise to be “Simply Smarter.” The organization has a formal process for reviewing the results and taking action if it finds that the company is not living up to its brand promise. In one survey, Intersil found that customers were having a hard time finding information on its website. The company identified this as a breaking of the promise to be “Simply Smarter” so it invested in updating the usability of its online experience.
CX Tip #41: Create Peer-to-Peer Executive Relationships with B2B Clients (Purposeful Leadership, Customer Connectedness)
Stream Global Service’s Executive Sponsorship Program charges Stream’s senior leaders with establishing peer-to-peer relationships with senior executives from one to three of its largest clients. The goals of this program are to extend the relationship beyond the sales team, to better understand the customer’s business direction and goals, and to ensure the customer is receiving the value it expects from Stream. On a quarterly basis, the two leaders meet with each other and discuss the customer’s big initiatives, functional area goals, and how Stream can support their efforts. Feedback from these meetings is integrated with other VoC captured from that customer relationship. Click for more info.
CX Tip #42: Make it Easy for Employees to Be Brand Advocates (Customer Connectedness, Employee Engagement)
Microsoft’s Quick Assistance program is used when employees encounter consumers in social situations (e.g., meeting someone on a flight). The program positions employees as ambassadors and allows them to provide no-charge technical support incident vouchers to customers. Employees are able to request and deliver vouchers directly from their mobile phones.
CX Tip #43: Randomly Call Out to B2B Clients (Customer Connectedness)
The law firm Becker and Poliakoff staffs a dedicated client care department and uses those same specially trained employees to proactively contact 2,500 randomly selected clients each year. This continuous feedback process gathers input on the attorney and other service providers involved with the account, along with an open dialogue on how the firm’s professionals are serving them and what the firm could be doing better. Surveys are timed to occur in advance of annual client renewal periods and feedback is provided to both the client relationship manager and practice group leader. These outbound calls have also resulted in the client care team more proactively addressing both minor and major issues. Click for more info.
CX Tip #44: Create a Help Line for Employees (Employee Engagement)
All Hilton Garden Inn employees – from management to the front line – have access to a dedicated Advice Line. This provides employees a toll-free number or monitored email address through which they can get an answer to any question that’s taken them more than five minutes to find the answer. It’s intended to make it easy for employees to get the knowledge or help they need quickly.
CX Tip #45: Use Blog to Connect CEO with Employees (Purposeful Leadership)
Safelite AutoGlass’s CEO, Tom Feeney, maintains his “Ask Tom” blog where any employee can ask any question with no fear of retribution. Mr. Feeney researches the answers and provides a personal response.
CX Tip #46: Translate Your Brand Into Employee Behaviors (Compelling Brand Values)
Companies need to make their brands more concrete and get the organization to interpret it into specific requirements. JetBlue, translated its “Jetitude” marketing campaign into five specific behaviors for its front line employees: 1) Be in Blue always, 2) Be personal, 3) Be the answer, 4) Be engaging, 5) Be thankful to every customer.
CX Tip #47: Use Job Shadowing to Improve Cross-Channel Cooperation (Employee Engagement)
Sprint uses a cross-channel program to create more engagement between call center and retail store employees. Each group visits the others’ locations for job shadowing in order to gain a greater appreciation of the customer experience and operations in each other’s settings and identify lessons to bring back to their own workplace.
CX Tip #48: Empower Employees to Create Memorable Moments (Employee Engagement)
Hampton has trained its team members on a set of Moment Makers rather than checklists and scripts to handle a variety of situations. Moment Makers are designed so that team members can choose approaches based on their personality, comfort level, and individual style to match the cues from guests. These approaches include being anticipatory, using empathy, using humor, providing unexpected delight, and giving a compliment. Moment Makers are taught from a team member’s first days on the job when he or she learns the brand story and continue to be reinforced on an ongoing basis through learning maps and e-learning modules.
CX Tip #49: Obsess About Customers, Not Competitors (Purposeful Leadership)
Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos has said: “Our energy at Amazon comes from the desire to impress customers rather than the zeal to best competitors… One advantage – perhaps a somewhat subtle one – of a customer-driven focus is that it aids a certain type of proactivity. When we’re at our best, we don’t wait for external pressures. We are internally driven to improve our services, adding benefits and features, before we have to.”
CX Tip #50: Don’t Overlook Low-Tech Opportunities for Customer Research (Customer Connectedness)
When using Intuit’s IVR (the menu of options customers hear when they call), customers were getting incorrectly routed 40% of the time. Since it took 10 days to reprogram the IVR, they couldn’t try a lot of things in the normal way. So one engineer said let’s do this the old fashioned way; and they did. People answered the phone and spoke the menus. By trial and error, they found a menu structure that worked before reprograming the IVR.
Stay tuned for additional CX Tips…
This blog post was originally published by Temkin Group prior to its acquisition by Qualtrics in October 2018.
