In the customer service and customer experience world, if you are not continuously getting better it means you are falling behind.
Remember, experiences are unique in that they are created, consumed and evaluated simultaneously.
That does not mean you can’t pre-stage or design a desired “experience” for your customer.
What I am saying, however, is that once you deliver a level of experience or service it then becomes the standard or expected.
I believe and I see evidence with the clients we work intimately with that the most powerful way to create continuous experience improvement or what many people call “innovation” is to create a culture of intense internal service cooperation first.
My experience, and CSI International’s research validates the multidimensional positive business impacts that are created and sustained first through internal service cooperation and then through continuous experience improvement with the external guest or customer.
I share our customer results at various customer experience and customer loyalty conferences The one thing I always find extremely funny is when I start my speech by asking the audience whom are all VP’s or Directors of Customer Experience the following question: “By a show of hands, how many of you have shopped your own organization in the past month?”
Typically, about 5-10% of the hands go up.
Then I ask, “How many of you have tried to do a warranty call, a service call or a return from a customer’s perspective with your organization?”
Typically, only one or two hands remain in the air.
Then I ask, “How many of you have shopped your work group, division or department that you are personally responsible for?”
Typically, not one hand remains in the air.
Then I ask, “How can you attend a conference and talk about net promoter scores (NPS) when you don’t even understand what the measurement is about for your business and your customers?”
I then say, “Running around trying to improve your NPS score without understanding what you experience is like is analogous to playing tennis with your eyes on the score board!”
You can see why I don’t get a lot of return invitations to speak at these type of conferences.
However, there is always a few select companies in the audience who understand the wisdom of layering in skills from the inside out and creating a competitive advantage through fast, flexible and hassle free service.
These are the types of organizations we are fortunate enough to partner with to create hundreds of millions of dollars worth bottom line business impact through these simple but yet grossly under utilized service and experience strategies.
My hope for you is that your experiences are exceptional. Inside first and outside for your guest or customer too.
Click here for an info graphic on the importance of experiencing your experience.
