CX Framework series #5: Organizational Adoption and Accountability

The foundation of your customer experience success

Moving your organization towards customer centricity, which values the happiness of your customers as a top priority, could be a tough change. This change needs to be supported by a majority in the organization and colleagues need to be held accountable for their responsibilities in making it happen. Sure, such a change might bring a lot of uncertainties and insecurities across all disciplines, but it will pay off in the end.

Driving customer experience change

Of course models are just a simplified representation of the real world, but they do provide a good insight in how complex processes, such as organizational change, could be carried out. So, the road map to make your organization a customer centric one should roughly look like this:

  • Determine where you want to have impact
  • Determine the key stakeholders
  • Find out what their most important KPI’s are
  • Know who makes the decisions; what is the governance structure
  • Know what other projects are in place that may impact on your success
  • Make a proposal/project plan/business plan
  • Get agreement on your plans
  • And continue to work on improving the customer experience, tirelessly.

It may sound easy enough, but anyone who tried to make any change within a large organization knows that this process is a very tedious one. Especially when the essential elements of CX organizations are not yet in place.

The essential elements of Customer Experience in organizations

Every organization that has a customer centric focus needs to have 5 essential elements, to let customer experience play a central role in everyone’s day-to-day life:

 

  1. CX Core team. These are the men and women who are dedicated Customer Experience professionals. They define a CX strategy and roll it out throughout the rest of the organization.
  2. Reporting executive. This person builds the bridge between the CX core team and the C-level suite. They report the results from team to management and give input to the team based on their comments.
  3. Steering committee. These are the senior leaders from the different silos in your organization. They review metrics and methodologies and give their advice to the core team.
  4. Working groups. Although they may be a level lower in the hierarchy than the steering committee, these people really drive the customer experience change in their respective silos.
  5. CX ambassadors. These are the people that work on project teams to drive customer centricity forwards. They can be from any level, but are mostly mid-level and/or frontline.

However, as said before, the maturity of your organization has a huge impact on how these roles should be set up. If customer experience and a customer centric mind set have just been introduced in your organization, setting up these elements won’t do you any good. Being customer centric is not a decision you make overnight and certainly not one that is implemented quickly. By continuous improvement and a strong focus on customer happiness, you can make any organization customer centric.

What works very well when it comes to driving Customer Experience change?

Customer Experience is a business principle. So working with metrics and proving growth and success always works. Finding buy in with important stakeholders and aligning Customer Experience metrics; like NPS, CSAT, CES. Make sure your most important metric is in the top 5 of your company. An easy check could be the balance score card or the year report. How is customer centricity represented? Find your way to the C-suite or the leaders of your company and find alignment on metrics. Create accountability at the top with metrics. But not only metrics are of importance.

Try to find a way to the heart, the believe that customer centricity is a very effective way to go. Because loving your customers, is the start in customer experience success.  To reach the hearts of leaders within companies, evangelizing and storytelling come in.

Customer Experience Managers and their teams are often small and have to influence entire organizations. Find smart alignment strategies, use shared co-ed accountability for metrics, a broader range of groups and steering committees and change will be your result. But know, this 5th strategy of the CX Framework is your fundament to success. Think and work hard on your governance and organizational alignment. If you want to learn more?

Want to grow your Customer Experience competences?

These are only some of the highlights Milou took away from attending the Customer Experience Masterclass. Would you like to know more? Join our next CX Masterclass in February or June 2018, click here for more information or here for reserving your place

Customer Experience Framework and complete list of blog posts in this series

This post is part of a wider series about all the 6 CX disciplines that represent the CXPA Framework around which the CCXP exam is structured and that we cover in the CX Masterclass.

Find here the complete list of the other posts in this series:

  1. CX Strategy
  2. Customer Understanding
  3. Design, Improvement and Innovation
  4. Measurement
  5. Governance (this one)
  6. Culture

About this series

The foundations for these blogposts are written by Milou van Kerkhof following the June 2017 CX Masterclass given by Nienke Bloem and Rosaria Cirillo. Milou attended this as a newcomer in Customer Experience. These blogposts have been slightly edited and reflect only the highlights of the content of each module.

 

*****

Nienke Bloem is often called the Customer Experience speaker in the blue dress. 

She’s a global CX thought leader, educator and a global keynote speaker who inspires audiences with best practices and proven methodologies. She leads a speaking practice, a CX game company and a training business; she breathes Customer Experiences and is author of two CX books.

Her two-day Customer Experience Masterclass is known as the best program to prepare for your CCXP and she is the go-to person voor CX leaders who want to advance their leadership and bring direct results from their Customer Experience transformation programs. Since 2020, she hosts a CX Leadership Masterminds program and helps leaders spice up their leadership and deliver an engaging CX Story including a solid CX Strategy. Besides, she is a modern-day pilgrim and found the parallel with leading customer centric transformations. 

With her over 20 years corporate experience, she speaks the business language. Her keynotes and education programs in Customer Experience are inspiring and hands-on. She is one of the few Recognized Training Partners of the CXPA and it is her mission to Make Customer Experience Work and help you deliver business results. 

/door

CX Framework Series #4: Metrics, Measurement & ROI

Measurement is a mean to an end, not a goal itself

Have you ever heard the following while being asked to fill out a survey: “Please give us a 9 or 10 rating to let us know you are satisfied with us”? Or have you ever heard: “When we formulate the question differently, we can improve our score” inside your company? When these questions arise, you can easily perceive that the people designing these questions are not looking to gain better insights so they can enable the organization to provide a better customer experience, they just want to have a better survey outcome.

What is the best way to translate customer perception of the experience into measurable and actionable metrics, without focusing too much on the metric itself?

Define and use a proven measurement framework

There is a wide variety of metrics which you can use to gauge the customer experience as perceived by your customers and they can be observed or measured at different moments of the experience.

How can you easily set-up a measurement system which informs the entire organization about the experience you are delivering, and at the same time helps you in driving customer excellence?

Start by following these 5 easy steps:

1.    Define what you want to measure and when.

  • Relational surveys are about your company and/or brand as a whole. Once every month, quarter or year, you can ask your customers feedback about their perception of your organization or brand in general.
  • Transactional surveys focus on how the latest contact with the company was. Were the customers satisfied about the order process, the delivery times and the end product?

2.    Measure what you want to know.

Forrester identifies 3 types of metrics:

  • ‘Descriptive’ metrics tell you what really happened. How long did a customer have to wait until a call centre employee answered their call?
  • ‘Perception’ metrics measure how the customer thinks and feels about what happened. It may take you only 20 seconds to answer the phone but the absence of any message when waiting may make the customer perceive that they waited much longer. In contrast, it may take you 40 seconds to answer but great music whilst waiting may make the customer perceive the waiting time as much shorter. A customer feels more frustrated that a problem has still not been resolved following several promises that it would be.
  • ‘Outcome’ metrics describe what a customer does as a result of their perception of the experience you delivered. Will they purchase from your company again or will they recommend your service?

The key metrics that are most often used are NPS (Net Promoter Score), CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) and CES (Customer Effort Score). There are numerous other metrics to use (ACSI -American Customer Satisfaction Index -, Temkin Group CX Index, Forrester CXI, etc…), so pick one that’s suitable for what you want to measure and how you want it presented internally to drive change.

3.    Collect your data. Make sure you ask the right customers the right questions at the right time.

4.    Analyse your data. It depends on what metric you used, what you are measuring exactly and how you are analysing it. But make sure you interpret the data in the right way!

5.    Share your data with the people who need to know and make sure the data is applicable to the various groups.

  • Segment your NPS scores by different silos. Give the contact centre their specific NPS with a focus on coaching and process improvement and present your sales-specific NPS to the sales team. In their report, you focus on up- and cross selling.
  • Use methodologies such as storytelling and gamification to increase engagement and make the sharing fun and memorable, like in Nationale-Nederlanden best practice example. 
 

Keep your measurements alive

After you have taken all the above steps, you have set up your measurement system and identified your baseline. You can now work on this to improve in following the close loop system which was covered during the CX Masterclass during discipline #3 Customer Experience Design & Improvement and you can work towards building all the blocks and competencies areas of an NPS/VOC Program.

Always keep in mind that the numbers are not the key focus. You need to listen to and focus on the stories behind the numbers, which are usually provided in the free text spaces. What are the key insights customers are giving you as feedback in the comments? Which patterns do you see? Which concrete actions can you take to improve either the experience you are delivering or the perception your customers have of the experience? Continue to measure and always take the appropriate action to improve your processes to increase the happiness of the customer, not just the metrics.

Return on Investment (ROI) in Customer Experience

Whenever any change in an organization is proposed, the first question the C-suite will ask is “how much will it cost and what is the return on investment?”. This is a very legitimate question, especially in relation to something as abstract as Customer Experience. You need to make a steady business case that will win over any sceptical decision maker, starting by choosing what to focus on.

So how do you prove the ROI of CX?

  • Focus on one CX project/element at the time (i.e. ROI of VOC Program, ROI of Self-Service)
  • Focus on 3-5 elements within two big “returns” areas
  1. >> REVENUE GROWTH
  2. >> COSTS SAVINGS
  • Calculate ROI

Some examples of items you can take into account when calculating ROI of your CX projects are:

  1. Increase revenue
  • Repeat purchases
  • Better cross-sells
  • Reduced churn/ Increased retention

2. Decrease costs

  • Fewer complaints (which cost a lot of money to resolve)
  • Reduced staff turnover and sickness
  • Increased productivity

Once you have your business case, you need to present it to the board! How?

According to Forrester, effective business cases appeal to executives on 3 levels:

1.    LOGIC: The rational justification for investing

  • Calculate how collecting, analysing, and acting on customer feedback has demonstrated at least one type of financial benefit.
  • Get help of your CFO’s office for financial metrics and models

2.    AUTHORITY: Why they should believe you

  • Assemble a portfolio of past successes — even if they’ve been small.
  • Get stakeholders to help make the case.
  • Plug your results shamelessly.

3.    EMOTION: The “gut feel” factor

  • Assemble customer verbatim from unstructured survey questions, customer panels, or social media that demonstrate pain points in the experience today.
  • Analyse the feedback for common themes – and pull out the quotes that are the most colourful.
  • Support verbatim with employee feedback that captures the problem.

Depending on the composition of your board, you need to decide which mix of these levels is best: do you need a logical approach to win over the C-level by presenting the numbers, or an approach based on your authority to convince them why they should trust in your judgment, or an emotional approach to appeal to the gut feeling? When you’ve done your homework well, there will be no argument about the reason why customer satisfaction should be a key focus in everyone’s day-to-day business.

Join the conversation & let’s learn from each other

What about you? Do you have a measurement framework in place? Which of the 3 metrics type we present in this post do you use? What are your best tips and challenges when it comes to proving ROI of Customer Experience? Share it with us in the comments.

Want to grow your Customer Experience competences?

These are only some of the highlights Milou took away from attending the Customer Experience Masterclass. Would you like to know more? Click here for more information.

Customer Experience Framework and complete list of blog posts in this series

This post is part of a wider series about all the 6 CX disciplines that represent the CXPA Framework around which the CCXP exam is structured and that we cover in the CX Masterclass.

Find here the complete list of the other posts in this series:

1.    CX Strategy

2.    Customer Understanding

3.    Design, Improvement and Innovation

4.    Measurement (this one)

5.    Governance

6.    Culture

About this series

This post was originally posted on Wow Now and is part of the CX Framework series by Rosaria Cirillo and Nienke Bloem.

The foundations for these blogposts are written by Milou van Kerkhof following the June 2017 CX Masterclass given by Nienke Bloem and Rosaria Cirillo. Milou attended this as a newcomer in Customer Experience. These blogposts have been slightly edited and reflect only the highlights of the content of each module

 

*****

Nienke Bloem is often called the Customer Experience speaker in the blue dress. 

She’s a global CX thought leader, educator and a global keynote speaker who inspires audiences with best practices and proven methodologies. She leads a speaking practice, a CX game company and a training business; she breathes Customer Experiences and is author of two CX books.

Her two-day Customer Experience Masterclass is known as the best program to prepare for your CCXP and she is the go-to person voor CX leaders who want to advance their leadership and bring direct results from their Customer Experience transformation programs. Since 2020, she hosts a CX Leadership Masterminds program and helps leaders spice up their leadership and deliver an engaging CX Story including a solid CX Strategy. Besides, she is a modern-day pilgrim and found the parallel with leading customer centric transformations. 

With her over 20 years corporate experience, she speaks the business language. Her keynotes and education programs in Customer Experience are inspiring and hands-on. She is one of the few Recognized Training Partners of the CXPA and it is her mission to Make Customer Experience Work and help you deliver business results. 

/door

CX Framework series #3: Experience design, improvement & innovation

How to shape your CX design & change process

Once you have determined what your Customer Experience strategy should look like and you have good Customer Understanding you will need to need to shape your CX design: having clear repeatable processes and frameworks in place to design the customer experience you want to deliver or redesign the one you are currently offering. To do so, you can use at least three frameworks, not necessarily in this order.

1. Customer Journey Mapping and Customer Journey Thinking

To actively influence your customers’ decision process when buying a product or ordering a service, you need to know which path they are walking, at which moments they are making decisions and how you are interacting with them at each moment along the way. The most common tool used for this is “Customer Journey Mapping” and the most deep and effective way is to propel also a wider “Customer Journey Thinking”. To do so, the Temkin Group recommends that organizations teach employees to consistently think about the following five questions:

  • Who is the customer? For which persona is this map? This is a great place to use personas as a mechanism for describing the customer
  • What is the customer’s real goal? What is he/she trying to accomplish by reaching out to you?
  • What did the customer do just before reaching out? What did he/she do independently and which struggles did he/she encounter?
  • What will the customer do right after contacting you? What do you need the customer to do so he/she can accomplish his/her goal?
  • What will make the customer happy? Go above and beyond the initial question and deliver a customer experience that will exceed expectations.

And don’t forget to include partners and external suppliers in your map. Although they are not part of the core team in your company, they are in contact with your customers and have an impact on your company’s image. They represent your Customer Experience ecosystem (Forrester).

An example from our own life: An undertaker organised a very respectful and beautiful service for a beloved one, but the coffee that was served following the service was just awful. When the people attending the funeral service complained about the quality of the coffee, his response was: “It’s not my fault, my catering partner provides the beverages.” In terms of customer experience, this response is not acceptable because your customers are not interested in how you organised these things. They want a ‘good service’ at the funeral and it is the undertaker’s responsibility to organise this in cooperation with all his partners.

One simple way to get started with Customer Journey Mapping is to follow the 6 steps methodology by Conexperience involving into the workshop not only your employees, but also other key players of your ecosystem.

2. ‘Innovation through Design Thinking’ and ‘Service design thinking’

Design thinking is created because big corporations lack the ability to be creative and aren’t able to create new products and services that meet unfulfilled needs of their customers.

Design thinking is a methodology, but it’s also about a mindset and about a changing paradigm in management theory, moving from the traditional top‐down and quantitative approach to a more bottom‐up, qualitative approach in innovation processes.

It builds around 5 principles.

Service design is about making what you do more useful, usable & desirable for your users, and more efficient, effective & valuable for you ‐ everyone loves a great experience

Innovation is part of your organization at any time. So if you see that there are a lot of complaints about a feature, product or service, you can take the lead and innovate the bottleneck point of the process. When doing this, make sure you follow a “Double-Diamond Design” process:

  • Research the exact problem, both from the customer’s perspective as from that of your employees.
  • Then analyse these results and create artefacts (like a customer journey map) to make a visual representation of the problem.
  • When you have these insights, start a group session to generate ideas on how to resolve the problem.
  • Make a prototype and perform some testing.
  • Then you continue to receive feedback and continue to improve the prototype, until…
  • You have a final product or service you can fully implement.

3. Continuous Improvement based on customer insight

Temkin Group identifies four customer insight-driven action loops. These can be aggregated in two big areas of action, which have gained different naming in the field:

  • Fire-Fighting (also called small loop, inner loop, customer loop or case management): this is about ad-hoc immediate follow-up on each survey response and includes:
    • Immediate Response towards customers on a 121 basis or Collectively, via dedicated & targeted communication or as open communication on digital channels
    • Corrective/Celebration Action internally: i.e. providing immediate feedback towards employees or making quick adjustments.
  • Fire-Prevention (also called big loop, outer loop, business loop or action planning): this is about driving structural changes and improvements based on the insight gained from NPS responses over-time, and encompasses:
    • Continuous and/or Structural Improvement
      • to address root causes behind drivers of detraction
      • to identify ways to WOW customers based on their needs to move them from passives to promoters
      • to keep and intensify doing the identified drivers of promotion
    • Strategic Change: the new insight gained from customers’ voice about what really matters to them can be so substantial to fully influence small or big strategy changes.

You can read more details about these 4 loops and why they are so important to drive change in WHY NPS as Measurement and Methodology: which goals does it serve?

When it comes to change and innovation from the customer experience perspective it is all about Acting. It is about looking to your processes, products and service through the eyes of your customer and adjust, continuously.

Want to grow your Customer Experience competences?

These are only some of the highlights Milou took away from attending the Customer Experience Masterclass. Would you like to know more? Join our next CX Masterclass.

Customer Experience Framework and complete list of blog posts in this series

This post is part of a wider series about all the 6 CX disciplines that represent the CXPA Framework around which the CCXP exam is structured and that we cover in the CX Masterclass.

Find here the complete list of the other posts in this series:

  1. CX Strategy
  2. Customer Understanding
  3. Design, Improvement and Innovation
  4. Measurement
  5. Governance
  6. Culture

Extra: CXPA exam & Becoming CCXP (will be published on the 11th of December)

About this series

This post is part of the CX Framework series by Rosaria Cirillo and Nienke Bloem.

The foundations for these blogposts are written by Milou van Kerkhof following the June 2017 CX Masterclass given by Nienke Bloem and Rosaria Cirillo. Milou attended this as a newcomer in Customer Experience. These blogposts have been slightly edited and reflect only the highlights of the content of each module

 

*****

Nienke Bloem is often called the Customer Experience speaker in the blue dress. 

She’s a global CX thought leader, educator and a global keynote speaker who inspires audiences with best practices and proven methodologies. She leads a speaking practice, a CX game company and a training business; she breathes Customer Experiences and is author of two CX books.

Her two-day Customer Experience Masterclass is known as the best program to prepare for your CCXP and she is the go-to person voor CX leaders who want to advance their leadership and bring direct results from their Customer Experience transformation programs. Since 2020, she hosts a CX Leadership Masterminds program and helps leaders spice up their leadership and deliver an engaging CX Story including a solid CX Strategy. Besides, she is a modern-day pilgrim and found the parallel with leading customer centric transformations. 

With her over 20 years corporate experience, she speaks the business language. Her keynotes and education programs in Customer Experience are inspiring and hands-on. She is one of the few Recognized Training Partners of the CXPA and it is her mission to Make Customer Experience Work and help you deliver business results. 

/door

CX Framework series #2: Customer Understanding

Understanding your customers Rational and Emotional sides

Customer understanding is essential in determining how you can design and provide products/services and experiences that fulfil customer needs, so you can deliver top-class customer service, improve loyalty and get great recommendations.

It’s all about how your customers perceive you and all the interactions with your organisation. Perception being the key element.

Why are they reaching out to your company? How will they feel after being in touch with you? If the customer doesn’t have the feeling you want them to have, there’s a challenge for you as an organisation.

Foundations of customer understanding: archetypes, emotions & needs

Your customers are not just a number or a bunch of character traits. They are human beings with their own problems, hopes, fears and needs. When making their decisions to buy, customers have both rational and emotional reasons.

Understanding your customers’ (buying) behaviour is one of the elements that helps to be successful.

When customers have an emotional attachment to your brand, in addition to being loyal they also become promoters of your brand.

To simplify the understanding of your customers’ behaviours you need to consider: Archetypes, Emotions and Needs

A. Archetypes

The Bradford and Bingley Personality Framework identifies four different archetypes:

  • The feeler: they make decisions and take actions based on their emotions
  • The entertainer: they joke around to make their problems heard
  • The thinker: they are rational and process minded
  • The controller: they want everything to go exactly as planned and they get worked up when it doesn’t

Just imagine the different reaction each of these archetypes may have when entering a hotel room and they smell smoke. Understanding the attitudes of these personalities for example, is critical for your front-end employees (i.e. contact centres or hotel staff) who need to manage these customers’ reactions all the time.

While each of us has a dominant archetype, this can change or become extreme, depending on the situation or the stage in which we are in life, especially in case of life changing events like a divorce or the loss of a loved one.

B. Emotions

Many different models are trying to map emotions & make them understandable within companies.

Most of these models identify 4 main emotions: Happiness, Sadness, Anger and Fear.

Recent Temkin analysis of these 4 emotions at call centers proved the impact of these emotions on call duration!

This model is good and widely recognized, yet has limitations with regards to two essential elements:

  • Tends to perceive emotions as positive versus negative (on a ratio of 1-3)
  • Misses out completely on the fundamental human emotion: love

Rosaria Cirillo has applied her learning from Marshall Rosenberg NVC (Non Violent Communication) and showed us how we can instead distinguish emotions in two broad categories:

  • The ones we feel whenever our needs are met (i.e. happiness and love)
  • The ones we feel when our needs are not met (i.e. sadness and fear). When customers are expressing sadness and/or fear and their emotions are not acknowledged or understood, or when they feel judged, this can turn into anger.

C. Needs

To be able to understand and influence which emotions the customer is feeling we need to have a clear understanding of their needs.

 

The trainer Rosaria Cirillo shared how the analysis of thousands of survey responses she analysed – run since 2005 for different companies across multiple touch points and industry verticals –  shows that an adapted version of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs could be applied. There was a clear correlation between CSAT/NPS Score and at which level of needs the customer felt fulfilled during the interaction. In the most recent year she has added the emotions to the model as we can see in this figure.

Another way to look at needs is to consider the value you deliver to your customer like explained in the Elements of Value Pyramid from HBR’s The 30 Elements of Value.

Setting up a customer insight framework to systematically understand your customer

To have a proper understanding of who your customers are and how they want to be treated by your organization, you need to have a reliable customer insight program. You can achieve this using the following 4 steps:

  1. Collect data:
    1. Listen to the Voice of the Customers by asking feedback, performing voice analysis of incoming calls and making sure to ‘drink your own champagne’ i.e. being your own customer.
    2. Listen to the Voice of the Employees. What are they working on that isn’t giving them any satisfaction? How can you make their job more fulfilling?
    3. Listen to the Voice of the Process. How are your processes aligned and do they add value to the customer? Do you use Lean Six Sigma or another methodology?
    4. Look at the Value of the Customer. Quantify your customer by revenue, size or any other metric.
  2. Analyse your data. What do they mean and can you find any correlations or associations?
  3. Document the data and make it visible and understandable. Customer journey maps and personas are two key tools that can make your insights visible and easily understandable within your organization.
  4. Share your insights within your organization. Make sure everybody knows how the customer feels and how they can change their service or tone of voice accordingly.

Emotions drive loyalty and higher customer spending

When you’re reading this, you might be tricked into thinking that customer experience is only about making the customer happy and it doesn’t affect your revenue. Far from the truth! Numerous studies have concluded that a customer is more loyal to an organisation when they have a positive feeling about how they’ve been treated. For example: when a customer has a very positive feeling about an organisation, they are 7.8 times more likely to try new products and services. Think about the possible impact this could have on your P&L!

Getting in touch and staying in touch with your customer

The easiest way to get insights in the actions of thousands of customers is by analysing your website visit data or by looking at a chart of your contact centre volumes by contact reason (Check Tip: do you have such an overview in your company and, if so, who is looking at it regularly taking which actions?). Downside is that in doing so, you’re changing your customers into numbers or segments and you might forget that they are individuals. To compensate for this, numerous big companies make actual contact with customers mandatory for their employees, either by listening to calls, either by calling customers regularly either by acting as customers themselves.

The NS (Dutch Railway) asks their employees to travel by train regularly. That way they can sense the sentiments of passengers and get a stronger focus on ways to improve the journey for the customers. Likewise, the CEO of KPN (Dutch telecom provider) has a mobile phone subscription just like everybody else, so he can feel what it’s like to be a customer of his own company. Other organizations facilitate Customer Arenas where few employees listen and observe a group of customers while they discuss among themselves how they are treated and how the organization could improve. All these initiatives give great insights and should be incorporated in every organization that wants to deliver better customer experience.

Understanding your customer is crucial when it comes to customer experience. Listen, observe, get a deeper understanding of their emotions and their feedback, then you’ll make a good start!

Want to grow your Customer Experience competences?

These are only some of the highlights Milou took away from attending the Customer Experience Masterclass. Would you like to know more? Join a CX Masterclass.

Customer Experience Framework and complete list of blog posts in this series

This post is part of a wider series about all the 6 CX disciplines that represent the CXPA Framework around which the CCXP exam is structured and that we cover in the CX Masterclass.

Find here the complete list of the other posts in this series:

  1. CX Strategy
  2. Customer Understanding
  3. Design, Improvement and Innovation
  4. Measurement
  5. Governance
  6. Culture

Extra: CXPA exam & Becoming CCXP (will be published on the 11th of December)

About this series

This post was originally posted on Wow Now and is part of the CX Framework series by Rosaria Cirillo and Nienke Bloem.

The foundations for these blogposts are written by Milou van Kerkhof following the June 2017 CX Masterclass given by Nienke Bloem and Rosaria Cirillo. Milou attended this as a newcomer in Customer Experience. These blogposts have been slightly edited and reflect only the highlights of the content of each module

 

*****

Nienke Bloem is often called the Customer Experience speaker in the blue dress. 

She’s a global CX thought leader, educator and a global keynote speaker who inspires audiences with best practices and proven methodologies. She leads a speaking practice, a CX game company and a training business; she breathes Customer Experiences and is author of two CX books.

Her two-day Customer Experience Masterclass is known as the best program to prepare for your CCXP and she is the go-to person voor CX leaders who want to advance their leadership and bring direct results from their Customer Experience transformation programs. Since 2020, she hosts a CX Leadership Masterminds program and helps leaders spice up their leadership and deliver an engaging CX Story including a solid CX Strategy. Besides, she is a modern-day pilgrim and found the parallel with leading customer centric transformations. 

With her over 20 years corporate experience, she speaks the business language. Her keynotes and education programs in Customer Experience are inspiring and hands-on. She is one of the few Recognized Training Partners of the CXPA and it is her mission to Make Customer Experience Work and help you deliver business results. 

/door

CX Framework Series #1: How your CX Strategy is a fundamental when it comes to customer success

Delivering an excellent Customer Experience isn’t just about having friendly people in your customer care and instructing them to treat the customer as king. Creating great customer experiences is all about strategy. What is the identity of your organization? What experiences do you want your customers to have? How can you transform your organisation into a customer centric one? Through a very thoroughly defined Customer Experience Strategy, because great customer experiences don’t happen by accident.

Defining a CX strategy

As with all changes in your organisation, there should be a firm strategy as a starting point to deliver customer centric services. Start with the question, “I am a CEO/VP/Director/Manager at my company, what do we stand for when it comes to Customers? What is our Why? What do we promise, where do we make the difference?” Try and put it into words and you might experience difficulty. That is why customer experience strategy is needed.

When defining your strategy, it is imperative that you know what your company and its brand(s) stand for and how you can give exceptional service.

Your brand experience

Your organisation probably has some idea as to where to plot itself in relation to competitors. Maybe you deliver high end products, but your service is not aligned with that. Or you give your B2B customers a hassle-free service, but your products are not hassle-free. Plot your organisation in your field by asking the question: “How does my company differ from our competitors?” That is what your customers will remember, that is where you can make the difference.

When you know what makes your organisation unique, you will need to make that very explicit in what that means for your customer. Use a brand promise, or even stronger: create customer promises. Take this example from Easyjet. As a customer you know what to expect, now it is up to Easyjet to deliver on these promises.

 

Have a look at the actual experiences of your customers and what you want them to experience. Are they receiving the hassle-free service your company stands for? And how strong is your organisation’s brand in the mind of your customers?

Do they have memorable customer experiences, but in a negative way? That means your organisation is de-branded. People are not receiving the service they expect based on your Brand and Customer Promise and they will create a negative buzz around your organisation. When your customer doesn’t even remember your brand, they are also not inclined to do more business with you. They don’t even know who you are. So, when you are in this non-branded position, you need to make sure that customers link in with their positive feeling about doing business with your brand.

And of course, the best experience you can give your customers is a branded one. In that situation, people have a positive attitude to your brand and organisation and are very much inclined to return to you the next time they are in need of your service. Because delivering memorable experiences is what Customer Experience is all about. How can you organize these branded experiences?

You can read more about the best practise in branding by Yogi tea, including what a branded experience is, at how Yogi Tea stands out by branding.

Make your company branding stand out

Having a strong brand stems from the quintessential question: WHY? The Golden Circle of Simon Sinek is used very often and for a good reason. This methodology helps you to turn to broad brand promises like “we make phones” into “we provide products that make your life organised and pleasurable”. If you want to make a brand promise that inspires and entices your customers, you need to answer a specific set of questions:

  • Purpose: what do we stand for? What is our Why?
  • Strategy: what strategic choices will make this purpose reality?
  • Brand Promise: what can we promise our customers based on this purpose?
  • Customer Experience: what experience do we want to deliver on this promise?
  • Alignment: are the products and services distinctive enough? What skills do our employees need to develop to deliver this experience? And what technology is necessary to be able to deliver it?

Putting your strategy into motion

When you have determined what your company stands for, it is time to take the next steps. First you need to assess your maturity. How far along the road is your company in CX?  For example, you can plot your organization in the maturity path of Beyond Philosophy. In the MasterClass, more maturity models are shared.

Based on the outcome of your assessment, you plot which steps are needed right now and which need to be taken in the future to grow CX towards a higher level of CX maturity.

Defining your strategy and determining your brand promise is a very strenuous task and can easily become a too-diluted version of the powerful message you want to bring across. So take this process very seriously. It is often a process of co-creation with Marketing, Communication and Customer Experience departments to define and later share with colleagues to start the daily delivery on the promises.

Want to grow in Customer Experience?

These are only some of the highlights Milou took away from attending the Customer Experience Masterclass. Would you like to know more? Join a CX Masterclass.

Customer Experience Framework and complete list of blog posts in this series

This post is part of a wider series about all the 6 CX discipline we cover in the CX Masterclass and that represent the CXPA Framework around which the CCXP exam is structured.

Find here the complete list of the other posts in this series:

  1. CX Strategy (this one)
  2. CX Understanding
  3. CX Design, Improvement and Innovation
  4. CX Measurement
  5. CX Governance
  6. CX Culture

*The foundations for these blogposts are written by Milou van Kerkhof following the June 2017 CX Masterclass given by Nienke Bloem and Rosaria Cirillo. Milou attended this as a newcomer in Customer Experience. The blogposts are edited a little bit and reflect the highlights of the content of module 1*

 

*****

Nienke Bloem is often called the Customer Experience speaker in the blue dress. 

She’s a global CX thought leader, educator and a global keynote speaker who inspires audiences with best practices and proven methodologies. She leads a speaking practice, a CX game company and a training business; she breathes Customer Experiences and is author of two CX books.

Her two-day Customer Experience Masterclass is known as the best program to prepare for your CCXP and she is the go-to person voor CX leaders who want to advance their leadership and bring direct results from their Customer Experience transformation programs. Since 2020, she hosts a CX Leadership Masterminds program and helps leaders spice up their leadership and deliver an engaging CX Story including a solid CX Strategy. Besides, she is a modern-day pilgrim and found the parallel with leading customer centric transformations. 

With her over 20 years corporate experience, she speaks the business language. Her keynotes and education programs in Customer Experience are inspiring and hands-on. She is one of the few Recognized Training Partners of the CXPA and it is her mission to Make Customer Experience Work and help you deliver business results. 

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How Emirates made me smile the entire Customer Journey and Beyond

Over the last couple of months we continue to hear awful stories from the airline industry. Ryanair is canceling flights, affecting 300,000 to 400,000 customers, all because they have made errors when scheduling the holidays of their pilots. United Airlines who dragged a passenger off a flight because his seat was to be given to a crew member, an event followed by an email from the CEO that really missed the beat when it comes to customer centricity. Flying myself, I am not particularly pleased with the customer experiences I encounter, especially when dealing with uninterested staff and awful food (WHY?). But I must say, there is an airline that is really setting the standard. That made me smile during the entire customer journey and beyond.

Where to?

The destination of the trip I’m writing about was Adelaide, where I was going to speak at the 2017 conference of Golf Management Australia. They arranged for me to fly Business Class (THANK YOU); something that is really needed in order to feel as fresh as possible on arrival, especially with such distances and flying time. Or as “Fresh as a cucumber”, but I will get back to that later.

Traveling to the airport

When you fly business class, Emirates offers a complimentary limousine service that picks you up from home and takes you to the airport. Yes! That is where the journey begins, at home. This makes traveling easy and enjoyable.

This Thursday morning I was picked up by driver John in his shiny Mercedes and he explained the process towards Schiphol Airport. All with a touch of Emirates, but I know he is working with a local limousine company. He received good instructions from Emirates and executed them in the perfect way.

At the airport and boarding the plane

The Emirates desks are in Schiphol Airport’s Terminal 3 and easy to reach, especially with driver John dropping me of at the perfect spot. I checked in and headed for the Emirates lounge. Nothing really special here, but a nice selection of food and drinks. I had to walk all the way to Gate G-something, so I headed there early and found they did something smart there. They had a special seating area for frequent and Business Class travelers. A smart solution to get rid of the ridiculous lines before boarding a plane. When entering the plane, many air hostesses were offering drinks – yes, I liked a glass of Champagne – and helped me to take care of a fragile parcel I brought.

Stop Over at Dubai Airport

The flight was brilliant. I had a very comfortable seat, slept, worked, watched the movie “Alice in Wonderland” (this is important, hang on), and had a drink in the bar at the rear end of the A380. A fun way to get out of your seat and connect with other passengers, if you want to. We landed at Dubai Airport and I had to transfer to another gate. Perfect signs and a brilliant lounge, with fresh food. I ate some mango, pineapple, had a freshly squeezed smoothie and just felt happy. I made my way to the other gate where I was halted by an Emirates employee.

“Sorry Miss Bloem, we have a problem.” I was a little shocked and thought the flight was overbooked (United Airlines memory) or maybe canceled (Ryanair)?

“No, we upgraded you.” Me being a little sassy, answered: “That is not possible, I already fly Business Class”. But the flight attendant had a reply. She said: “You will now be flying First Class.” Yes, she got me silenced and very curious what that experience would be like!

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gF0s46shiM[/embedyt]

Flying first class

Okay, everything you ever imagined about flying First Class IS TRUE. It is just amazing. I had seat 2a. In first class, that is not seat 2a, that is Suite 2a. A large cabin within the cabin, 3 airplane windows long and a bar that could be pushed up and down, snacks in a basket and a fresh orchid to top it all off. I have taped a short YouTube video, to give you an impression. In the snacks basket was also a tube with tablets to keep you hydrated carrying the brilliant slogan “Arrive as fresh as a cucumber”, and that is exactly what happened to me this trip. I couldn’t stop smiling, being happy about receiving the royal treatment. I felt like “Nienke in Wonderland” with my perfect Wi-Fi, a la carte room service, Dom Perignon 2006, pajamas, caviar which I never tasted before and the bed they made for me so I could have a wonderful sleep.

Asking for feedback

The TV set was a touch screen, had all kinds of entertainment and for me as a CX professional a customer feedback questionnaire – something I always fill in. I rated everything with high numbers, feeling very special and perfectly looked after by Gigi and Miriam, the 2 flight attendants in First Class during this flight. I had a nice chat with Miriam and I shared my field of work (Customer Experience and being a speaker) and she told the purser, who at her turn also had a friendly chat.

What she did at that moment, I still find extraordinary and something more employees should do. She said: “Thank you for your customer feedback, but I am curious, what could we have done better?” A very good question, vulnerable and open for my comments. I couldn’t think of anything for me, since I felt like smiling all the way through, but I did find something they could have improved for Emirates. They never really mentioned the Duty Free. Yes, it was somewhere on my TV and in the magazine, but since they didn’t mention it, they lost that potential moment to cross-sell. She took notes and thanked me. Mentioning she would implement it on the next flight from Adelaide.

Fun with the crew

After that feedback moment, she asked if I would like a souvenir to remember my flight. I was very curious what she meant and of course I replied “Yes”! She brought me an instant camera, took a snap shot of me in my seat and had a folder to put the picture in. Isn’t that amazing! Emirates thought of the moment of WOW, got instant cameras out to the crew, instructed them and supplied them with cards to put the photo in. I wanted a selfie with Miriam, the lovely thoughtful flight attendant, who served me this flight. She asked if I wanted to be a colleague for a while and so I became an Emirates colleague for 5 minutes.

Four insights and learnings

At the airport my bags arrived in an instant and the limo service was there to pick me up to bring me to my hotel in Adelaide. I have never had a customer experience like this. Feeling important, mentioning my name (remembering my name), caring for me, with exceptional products and services. What are the learnings I want to share with you, to maybe copy or take into consideration?

  1. Ask for feedback. Just a simple question, from an employee to a customer, what could we have done better? So valuable, so full of insights. If you take that moment, listen well, implement and acknowledge me as a customer, you will stand out and make a difference with regards to your competitors.
  2. Have fun. The way Miriam had me dress up as an Emirates flight attendant, joking around. That was enjoyable. Too often services and employees are too serious, and life is too short. Have fun with your customers, they will like that!
  3. Create memories. The camera that and the instant photo that was made. I will put that photo in a frame and will never forget this flight. Where can you help your employees to create memories and make them everlasting for customers?
  4. Consistency. Emirates is a luxurious brand and has found a way to translate this luxurious high end branding in all phases of the customer journey. Not only with their own personnel, but think of John, the driver of the limousine service, they have their partners breathe the same experience. Find out how your partners and employees are delivering these branded experiences and improve where you are lacking.

It is more than 2 weeks after my first class experience and I am still smiling from this journey. Thank you Emirates, thank you Miriam. For the story, for the smile. I will never forget you making me feel special on this trip.

What are your current experiences while traveling? Consistent with the branding or just totally off? I am curious for your travel stories.

 

** Know that this blog is my own experience, it is not sponsored, but a very well planned and executed customer experience. There are many awful experience shared on social media where we can learn from, but this exceptional customer journey had to be shared from my professional and personal view. Copy paste and gain your customers loyalty **

 

*****

Nienke Bloem is often called the Customer Experience speaker in the blue dress. 

She’s a global CX thought leader, educator and a global keynote speaker who inspires audiences with best practices and proven methodologies. She leads a speaking practice, a CX game company and a training business; she breathes Customer Experiences and is author of two CX books.

Her two-day Customer Experience Masterclass is known as the best program to prepare for your CCXP and she is the go-to person voor CX leaders who want to advance their leadership and bring direct results from their Customer Experience transformation programs. Since 2020, she hosts a CX Leadership Masterminds program and helps leaders spice up their leadership and deliver an engaging CX Story including a solid CX Strategy. Besides, she is a modern-day pilgrim and found the parallel with leading customer centric transformations. 

With her over 20 years corporate experience, she speaks the business language. Her keynotes and education programs in Customer Experience are inspiring and hands-on. She is one of the few Recognized Training Partners of the CXPA and it is her mission to Make Customer Experience Work and help you deliver business results. 

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Podcast mania – 14 podcasts that are on my Listening-List

Last week I visited Influence17 in Orlando, the largest conference for speakers. To meet great speakers, network, learn and inspiration. Inspired by the session of Jeffrey Hayzlett about how to use podcasts for your business, I decided to ask the delegates and you on Linkedin, what podcast I should listen to.

From all suggestions I got, I created this list with 4 chapters on subjects that I am interested in. 1 Customer Experience, 2 Business & Entrepreneurship, 3 Online Marketing and 4 Speaking.

If you have a great podcast you listen to, that are not on this list. Please share in the comments below.

1. Customer Experience

2. Business Podcasts

3. Social media and Online marketing

4. Speaking

 

*****

Nienke Bloem is often called the Customer Experience speaker in the blue dress. 

She’s a global CX thought leader, educator and a global keynote speaker who inspires audiences with best practices and proven methodologies. She leads a speaking practice, a CX game company and a training business; she breathes Customer Experiences and is author of two CX books.

Her two-day Customer Experience Masterclass is known as the best program to prepare for your CCXP and she is the go-to person voor CX leaders who want to advance their leadership and bring direct results from their Customer Experience transformation programs. Since 2020, she hosts a CX Leadership Masterminds program and helps leaders spice up their leadership and deliver an engaging CX Story including a solid CX Strategy. Besides, she is a modern-day pilgrim and found the parallel with leading customer centric transformations. 

With her over 20 years corporate experience, she speaks the business language. Her keynotes and education programs in Customer Experience are inspiring and hands-on. She is one of the few Recognized Training Partners of the CXPA and it is her mission to Make Customer Experience Work and help you deliver business results. 

/door

Learn from YogiTea in Branding and Customer Experience

In the marketplace it is all about branding. About being distinctive. Like Seth Godin says in his book Purple Cow “The key to success is to find a way to stand out–to be the purple cow in a field of monochrome Holsteins”. So how to be a Purple Cow and deliver a Branded Experience? I love the example of YogiTea which is a Purple Cow in the land of tea brands.

Let’s dive into what a “Branded Experience” is. There are 3 types of Experiences (Rosaria Cirillo):

# De-branded: memorable but unpleasant; not delivering on brand promise, customer remembers them strongly and saves the experience in their emotional memory region.

# Non-branded: customers won’t remember them because they don’t pass our “Attention gateway” and don’t get saved in our memory, and if they do, they will not link it to the brand.

# Branded: memorable and pleasant, delivers on brand promise and satisfies critical needs. These experiences pass the attention gateway, they are stored in our emotional memory region and they make the company become the de facto reference in that product category.

From a customer experience opinion, organizations should focus on delivering Branded Experiences. So, make it all about being memorable, pleasant, delivering on the brand promise and satisfying critical needs.

What makes YogiTea a great Branded Experience? 3 elements stand out:

1. Niche

YogiTea is a special tea based on unique Ayurvedic tea recipes. They have 44 different teas, based on the three doshas. The tea I drink and like the most is Bright Mood. The essence of the tea is “Everything is Good”. Every specific tea has an appealing name and a meaning. These teas are drank by many Yoga practitioners in the world. This is a growth market. More and more people acknowledge the positive effects of practicing yoga and so this niche market is a great place to be.

2. Brand values

Their Brand Promise is not 100% clear but when looking at the YogiTea story, they promote individual wellbeing. “Feel good, be good and do good” is what they are about. I always feel good when drinking their teas. They are good with the ingredients and how they handle their business partners. They do well from a CSR perspective and provide support and funding for people in need across the globe. When reading their website they are very specific on Brand Values and they are distinctive! Impressive how they translate these in a practical manner in their business and products.

3. Packaging

YogiTea has great tea as their product, but what I love most is their packaging. This is where they make a BIG difference. Everything is about promoting my wellbeing. A real branded experience in this little box with 17 teabags. The packaging shows an easy Yoga Posture and have a look at the barcode: that is also a Yogi! To make the experience even better, every cup of tea delivers a branded experience! The tea label shares an inspirational quote; mine was “You are unlimited”. These quotes always show a smile on my face.

Focusing on a real niche market, being clear and straight about their Brand Values and being distinctive in packaging makes YogiTea one of the best practices in branded experiences. This doesn’t happen by accident, but every time I buy a box of YogiTea, they deliver. They wow me and make me happy.

 

*****

Nienke Bloem is often called the Customer Experience speaker in the blue dress. 

She’s a global CX thought leader, educator and a global keynote speaker who inspires audiences with best practices and proven methodologies. She leads a speaking practice, a CX game company and a training business; she breathes Customer Experiences and is author of two CX books.

Her two-day Customer Experience Masterclass is known as the best program to prepare for your CCXP and she is the go-to person voor CX leaders who want to advance their leadership and bring direct results from their Customer Experience transformation programs. Since 2020, she hosts a CX Leadership Masterminds program and helps leaders spice up their leadership and deliver an engaging CX Story including a solid CX Strategy. Besides, she is a modern-day pilgrim and found the parallel with leading customer centric transformations. 

With her over 20 years corporate experience, she speaks the business language. Her keynotes and education programs in Customer Experience are inspiring and hands-on. She is one of the few Recognized Training Partners of the CXPA and it is her mission to Make Customer Experience Work and help you deliver business results. 

/door

Top 5 best customer experiences in 2016

You might have read my Top 5 worst customer experiences. Now it is time for the Top 5 best customer experiences. The year is coming to an end, so it’s time to look back at 2016 through the CX lens. I must tell you, there were more bad experiences than good ones. There is a lot of Customer Experience work to be done! But now, sit back and I hope you read this list with a big smile. Since these businesses and their employees made me happy and will see me back as a loyal customer.

5. Budget Rent A Car (location Dublin airport)

When traveling I sometimes need a car. This time I had appointments in pretty Dublin and friends suggested to book the car in combination with my KLM ticket. I was surprised with the friendly fee, only €46 for 2 days, including insurance. I decided to go for a small car, since I didn’t have to drive far. The day of my travel, I arrived at Dublin airport and went to the Budget desk, where they directed me outside to wait for a shuttlebus that would take me to the right location. Within 3 minutes the shuttlebus arrived, a friendly driver put my luggage in the back (thank you for this gentleman’s act) and in a whizz we were at the car hire location.

Let me cut this short, I got a brand new Opel Corsa (nice spacey car, by the way), had a little shock because I had to drive on the other side of the road. But I managed perfectly and off I went. When I returned, I brought the car back at the right time and they inspected it briefly. They complimented me bringing the car back safe and sound and took me back to the correct terminal within 5 minutes. Wow. From a Customer Experience perspective, they made it easy for me. No hassle, just helping me on my way. Friendly gestures by the driver of the shuttlebus (both times) and deliver on their promise to consistently deliver value and quality. I think that is kind of vague, but in my case they succeeded. Thank you Budget, next time I’ll hire one of your cars again.

4. Yoox

This is my favorite app; now you know. Yoox is part of the Net-A-Porter group and they are my leading shoe supplier. Just have a look at their app or their website. Browsing is easy, I love how you can choose from the male or female perspective, but also from a product perspective. They have the best of quality products and brands that speak for themselves. I love Italian leather shoes and they have a wide variety.  They keep me well informed with good content via their newsletter. Also, when the sale starts, they make their promotions very interesting. They give me promotion codes that give me a 20% extra off and they keep track of my searches, since their offers are personalized and I feel recognized as a loyal customer.

Last year I think I bought about 6 times from Yoox and every time the delivery has been perfect. Nice boxes, well packaged and wrapped. In two instances, the shoes didn’t live up to the expectations and I had to return. Their return policy is also easy, I had to fill out the online return form and bring the package to a UPS Access point, or even had it picked up by UPS. Within a week the refunds were done! Chapeau Yoox, you’ll see me back as a regular in your online domain. I love your products, services and the way you present your pretty shoes (and dresses and other products) and it is easy to buy from you. Customer Experience looks easy done by Yoox.

3. De Rat (my local bar)

Why do you put such a small bar in this list, you might ask? Well because they do a lot of things right and everybody can learn from Erik, the owner of the bar. I just love going there, they give me a welcome feeling and not only because I spend money. Let me tell you about DeRat. It is a bar with a wide collection of beers and whiskeys. They always have 5 beers on draft and about 150 bottled beers. All bartenders have extensive knowledge of beer and can help you picking one that is right for you. They know which beer I like: I love a local beer named ‘Saens Zoentje’ – if you translate it, it reads ‘Saens Kiss’, which is really lovely for a name. They always have the bottled beer in stock, and once in a while Erik buys a barrel so it is available on draft. I know he has me on his mind when purchasing this beer and for a customer, that feels great!

The bar is located a little outside the city centre of Utrecht, but often travelers find their way to this small bar. Why? Because they score high in the RateBeer app. This app is used to review bars and beer breweries and in Utrecht, DeRat is the highest scoring bar. I have met people from South Africa, the Dominican Republic, the United States of America, France, China and the United Kingdom at the bar. All beer lovers are curious for Erik’s collection of beers. They often have something to eat on Friday evenings and serve bread and a variety of cheeses on Saturdays. Free of charge. What can you learn from DeRat from a customer experience point of view? Make your customer feel welcome, make sure you are known via the right channel (the RateBeer app being important for bars) and know your customer. Offer something extra, so they become thirsty for more :).

2. ING

A bank in my top 5 of 2016. Who would have thought? Not me, because I am rather picky when it comes to banks. But let me share my story. I have been a customer with ING for all my life. What is it they do right? Their app is perfect for me. Easy to use (just a 5 digit code) and it provides the functionalities I need for daily banking. No hassle, not too many extras. They had some troubles last year with their operations, but this year they have managed to be of service most of the time. What I know is that they use customer panels to decide which features should or shouldn’t be added to the app. Listen to your customer, that works brilliantly.

What really gets them in my top 5 is the following. At the start of the year, I wanted to pay a bus ticket with my credit card, but it bounced. I got a message in the app, that I should contact the Service Center, fraud management. I did this straightaway. A friendly lady told me that my credit card information had been stolen and a criminal had tried to buy products at Harrods and an online perfume store for more than 900 Pounds. They recognized that this could not have been me, since I don’t spend those amounts of money on these products and that I used my normal bankcard that day in the Netherlands. Fraud! They refunded the fraudulent payments, even got the chance to cancel the criminal purchases and protected me from worse. She offered to send me a new credit card within 4 days and wowed me. Proactivity and friendly service. Banks should make us feel safe and I know now that my money is safe with ING. Thank you very much and I’ll keep banking with you.

1. Worldhotel Cristoforo Colombo

This is the best experience of the year. It is recent, so maybe the Peak End rule applies, but read and I hope you are also wowed… I needed a hotel for a business trip to Milan, with a leisure element, because I also had some spare time. So, I went to Booking.com, my search engine when it comes to hotels and a perfect offer for the Cristoforo Colombo showed up. €90 for the night, including breakfast. Booked it and after landing safely with KLM on Milan Linate, I traveled to the city. First of all, the location of the hotel is perfect. Right in the city center, next to a metro stop.

The welcome was more than perfect. A well-dressed young gentleman welcomed me, smiled, asked for my passport, but didn’t need my credit card as most hotels do (we trust you madam). No bad feelings because I booked through Booking.com. He told me about the hotel, asked me whether I would like a free upgrade? Well yes please! So I got the key to an Executive room and he added “the mini bar is complementary”. Really? Let me tell you, there was not just water in there. I have never encountered that before. But, let’s get back to the reception area. He said “Just a moment Miss Bloem”, went away for ten seconds and returned with a rose. A real rose! “Especially for you.” My mouth fell open. Amazing. When I came to my beautiful Executive room (with a balcony), I found a little vase to put it in. When looking into the bathroom, I found all toiletries were from Roberto Cavalli, what a luxury! But topping the luxury off: the hotel has a spa (Hado), which is complementary, with a sauna and a steambath. I completely relaxed in the luxurious and serene setting.

I slept like a rose that night. In the morning I went to the breakfast room, fully decorated with paintings of ships and Christopher Columbus discovering the west. The breakfast provided a perfect service, newspapers (yes also the Financial Times) and a comprehensive selection of foods and fruits. When I checked out, both men behind the reception desk enquired how I had enjoyed my stay. I told them that everything was perfect and offered them a Tripadvisor review. They liked that and when I paid my bill, I got a pair of knitted gloves, ‘because it is getting cold outside madam Bloem’. Wow. What a service, what an extras, what a perfect stay I had in Milan. They did all they could to give me the best they had to offer, made me feel welcome, pampered me, made me feel like a real lady with the rose. Thank you for this perfect customer experience. They had everything down to a tee, the rose, the vase, the Cavalli toiletries, the breakfast room, the personal recognition. Everything was perfect and I would never have expected this. Congratulations to all staff at the Cristoforo Columbo in Milan: you are on top of the best Customer Experiences list in 2016.

 

*****

Nienke Bloem is often called the Customer Experience speaker in the blue dress. 

She’s a global CX thought leader, educator and a global keynote speaker who inspires audiences with best practices and proven methodologies. She leads a speaking practice, a CX game company and a training business; she breathes Customer Experiences and is author of two CX books.

Her two-day Customer Experience Masterclass is known as the best program to prepare for your CCXP and she is the go-to person voor CX leaders who want to advance their leadership and bring direct results from their Customer Experience transformation programs. Since 2020, she hosts a CX Leadership Masterminds program and helps leaders spice up their leadership and deliver an engaging CX Story including a solid CX Strategy. Besides, she is a modern-day pilgrim and found the parallel with leading customer centric transformations. 

With her over 20 years corporate experience, she speaks the business language. Her keynotes and education programs in Customer Experience are inspiring and hands-on. She is one of the few Recognized Training Partners of the CXPA and it is her mission to Make Customer Experience Work and help you deliver business results. 

/door

My 5 worst customer experiences of 2016

As the year is coming to an end, it’s time to look back at 2016 and see in which ways organizations can learn from mistakes in Customer Experience. I’ve collected my five worst customer experiences this year so we can do better in 2017! And then look out to my five best customer experiences, which I will publish shortly.

5. Reaal (Vivat) insurance

As an entrepreneur I have some risks I want to insure, disability being my biggest risk. It is a big difference to being an employee, where in the Netherlands this is often arranged by the employer. That is why I decided to invest in disability insurance which covers this risk of income loss. It is a high cost, my highest recurrent cost besides my mortgage. I had great help of Geijsel Kroon in selecting the right cover, which was a Reaal Insurance policy. Reaal is part of the huge Chinese insurer Vivat.

The onboarding went perfect, but then I started receiving these ridiculous letters. Impersonalized, with terminology that is insurance wording only and there were just too many of them. One would have been enough. Besides, I started receiving invitations to fill out their customer survey. As a CX expert, I always fill them out, but collect them and save them for a moment that is convenient for me. They decided I waited too long and started sending me reminders. Now we are at the end of the year and I am in doubt how to pay the annual fee. I have not received any information on that important matter and had to call and find out how this basic process is handled. For me Reaal are in my top 5 because they send a lot of information on non-issues in non-descript language and they forget the basics. Easy to solve from a customer experience perspective: just start working on customer journeys and find out how your customers are understanding and feel while receiving your information.

4. My local doctor and health centre

I had a mole I was insecure about. With friends and family having a history of skin cancers, I wanted to get this checked out. So I made an appointment at the health centre and this appointment just happened to be on my birthday. In the waiting area there is a monitor with waiting times and it indicated ‘no waiting’ this afternoon. My appointment was at 2 pm and at 2.25 pm, I started to become insecure. Did I have the wrong date in my calendar? So I asked the reception lady, who looked it up on her computer (maybe she could see it was my birthday and she would congratulate me?!?), but no she confirmed that I had the appointment this afternoon, and the doctor was busy. Okay, I knew that already…

I waited a little less patient and 45 minutes after the scheduled time, the doctor called out my name. She looked at the mole, said it looked okay, but I had to be aware at potential changes over the next months. I felt relieved, walked towards the door (maybe she would congratulate me with my birthday?! But no!) and when I pushed the door open, whilst thanking her for her expertise and making me feel relieved that my mole was okay, she said: “Oh no”, “I don’t know if it is okay, but it looks okay. I can give you no certainty about that”. And that was how I left her little doctor’s office. Even more uncertain, not feeling relieved or confident at all. That day I received their customer survey and filled it out immediately. It took me 20 minutes to fill out (what a long list of questions…), shared my experience and asked to call me. No call came, but instead I received an extra questionnaire because they needed more info. I filled it out and I told my story again in the Open Space. When trying to submit, I got error that the Open Space couldn’t contain more than 250 characters. I decided to cancel the survey, and stayed unhappy. Customer experience lessons to be learned: if you give information on waiting time, make sure it is up-to-date; when handling uncertainty, be careful in wording; when asking for customer feedback, make sure you’re really listening and act upon it and when your customer is having her birthday, congratulate her.

3. AVI automakelaardij

Last year I bought a car. An 8 year-old BMW at a car trader. Within a month I encountered engine failure and when I came to the official BMW service point, they saw that the mileage had been reversed. I reached out to this car trader and he said: “You bought the car without guarantee, so I can’t help you.” I had the car fixed, feeling a little stupid, since I didn’t check this out before I bought the car. But when I told this story to a befriended lawyer, he told me that reversed mileage is a reason to legally cancel the purchase agreement. I tried to solve this again in a friendly way with the car trader, but he refused to help me. He didn’t react to any of my phone calls anymore, so I had to follow the legal procedure. First I sent the cancelation. When I got no reaction from his part, I got the help of a bailiff and finally went to court.

Let me tell you that I still hate this experience. Court should be your last resort as a customer, but this car trader should have solved this beforehand. He just wanted to bully me so he hoped I might even drop the case. I didn’t and won this case in court a year later. As a customer, I have my rights and he should have helped me from the beginning. In this case he lost big time. Paying the money for the car and all legal costs. But let me be honest, I lost too. A lot of time and frustration. My lesson here: never buy at AVI Automakelaardij or at a car trader when you are not a car specialist yourself as consumer. And sometimes people are not to be trusted, listen to your intuition!

2. DHL

This year I needed the book ‘Must Win Battles’ for a last-minute workshop I hosted. So I ordered it from Amazon in combination with speedy delivery, for which I paid extra (a lot extra I must say). It would be delivered on Monday and I received a text message that delivery would be between 6 and 9 pm. I went out for yoga and received a text at 4 pm that they were at my office and found nobody there. Well… No book for me, which I really needed for the workshop on Wednesday. On Tuesday I spent 3 hours on the phone, on Twitter, waiting, hoping for my book to arrive.

The direct messages are of the worst I received this year. Explanation why their own processes failed, why I sometimes received wrong messages, because they shared the twitter account with another business line, a colleague having a day off (really, I don’t care). The book wasn’t there by Wednesday, so I wanted my Express Money back. Nobody from DHL could help me, I had to go back to Amazon, because that is what they agreed upon. DHL offered me flowers for all the hassle. But to top this story off, no flowers came to my house. So they got it wrong on all accounts: not delivering on their promises, wrong information from all channels, indifferent personnel and most of all, not solving the issue! Shame on you DHL.

1. US immigration services

Sheer horror. This year I travelled to America three times. Denver, Miami and Phoenix. All three times it was awful to enter the country at all airports. Long lines, rude immigration officers, unclear procedures and the worst: crying people who were missing connecting flights because of the waiting times. The uncertainty is driving all travellers crazy. The way in it is organized at the borders at airports needs some serious Lean Consulting. Get the waiting out of it, make us a little comfortable; it is not so difficult, REALLY!

Besides, why that rudeness from the officers in the vicinity? Are we all criminals, is that how you look at us? Is your job so awful? I don’t know, but US Immigration must be the worst employer of the year. I have seen no smile from any officer. I hope they shake this indifference and hostility off at home. I would love to have a peek in their employee engagement survey. In all areas there are lessons to be learned: process management, cultural, listening to customers, caring about the insecurity in time for travellers, emotions management. Sorry to say, but this is the absolute winner of the worst Customer Experiences of 2016.

 

*****

Nienke Bloem is often called the Customer Experience speaker in the blue dress. 

She’s a global CX thought leader, educator and a global keynote speaker who inspires audiences with best practices and proven methodologies. She leads a speaking practice, a CX game company and a training business; she breathes Customer Experiences and is author of two CX books.

Her two-day Customer Experience Masterclass is known as the best program to prepare for your CCXP and she is the go-to person voor CX leaders who want to advance their leadership and bring direct results from their Customer Experience transformation programs. Since 2020, she hosts a CX Leadership Masterminds program and helps leaders spice up their leadership and deliver an engaging CX Story including a solid CX Strategy. Besides, she is a modern-day pilgrim and found the parallel with leading customer centric transformations. 

With her over 20 years corporate experience, she speaks the business language. Her keynotes and education programs in Customer Experience are inspiring and hands-on. She is one of the few Recognized Training Partners of the CXPA and it is her mission to Make Customer Experience Work and help you deliver business results. 

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