3 ways to improve your customers' experience

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Three Ways to Improve Your Customers’ Experience 1. Focus on the ideal customer experience. When we say focus, we mean that everyone in the organization is aware of and is working toward a common goal: the ultimate customer experience. Most organizations today start by mapping their ideal customer experience. This is done through professional researchers, detailed analytics, statistical analysis, and/or customer surveys. This strategy is not only effective; it can literally turn a business around. Once the ultimate customer experience is defined, the real work can begin. With everyone in your organization on the same page, working toward the same goal, you will not only see happier customers, your teams will work more efficiently and your communication between management and employees as well as between customers and employees will flourish. Mapping your current state of business first tells you where you are. Mapping the ultimate customer experience tells you where you are going. 2. Tackle the customer experience moments that have a disproportionate impact on the customer experience. What this means is that some aspects of your customers’ experiences carry more weight than other aspects. Making changes to the larger issues means more work for you and your team, but it also means bigger payoff, i.e., more satisfied customers. Within every customer experience there are a few moments or activities that mean more to the customer than others. We call these tipping points. As the well-known management speaker Niccoló Machiavelli says about change, “There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the

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Page 1: 3 Ways to Improve Your Customers' Experience

Three Ways to Improve Your Customers’ Experience

1. Focus on the ideal customer experience. When we say focus, we mean that everyone in the organization is aware of and is working toward a common goal: the ultimate customer experience.

Most organizations today start by mapping their ideal customer experience. This is done through professional researchers, detailed analytics, statistical analysis, and/or customer surveys. This strategy is not only effective; it can literally turn a business around. Once the ultimate customer experience is defined, the real work can begin. With everyone in your organization on the same page, working toward the same goal, you will not only see happier customers, your teams will work more efficiently and your communication between management and employees as well as between customers and employees will flourish. Mapping your current state of business first tells you where you are. Mapping the ultimate customer experience tells you where you are going.

2. Tackle the customer experience moments that have a disproportionate impact on the customer experience.

What this means is that some aspects of your customers’ experiences carry more weight than other aspects. Making changes to the larger issues means more work for you and your team, but it also means bigger payoff, i.e., more satisfied customers. Within every customer experience there are a few moments or activities that mean more to the customer than others. We call these tipping points. As the well-known management speaker Niccoló Machiavelli says about change, “There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.” In Malcom Gladwell’s popular book “The Tipping Point,” Gladwell likens change to an epidemic; one that once it reaches its tipping point, boiling point, critical mass, whatever you want to call it, the epidemic of change spreads like a virus. On the topic of change, Gladwell is noted saying, “The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire.” So what does this mean for your business? Simply put, it means that making even a small change, as long as it is the correct one, takes very little coaxing to gain enough momentum to spread company wide. This is precisely the path you want your choices to take you.

These “tipping points” are typically found with qualitative and/or quantitative measures of your current business model. This is how you find out what parts of the customers’ experience is disproportionate to their overall experience. These you tackle first. Focus on these and forget the rest. These changes will have a halo effect on the other parts of the experience. Besides, you’ve got to prioritize what to tackle; otherwise you’re trying to do everything at once and that’s tough to execute.

Page 2: 3 Ways to Improve Your Customers' Experience

3. Go after the big, easy projects firstOn an X/Y axis, place your projects by level of impact from large to small on the Y axis and the amount of effort for each on the X axis, from maximum to minimum. Plot these points. You can see very clearly which ones are the big, easy projects. Start there. Your plot may look something like this: Click Here.

Execute the projects that are high impact, low effort first. How do you calculate impact? “Impact” is the equivalent to the added value your project offers to the customer. You measure effort by estimating man power, costs and time needed to complete this phase of the project. Executing the higher impact, lower effort projects first provides your team with some quick and easy wins at the beginning of the mission. Making changes that are large on impact will be noticeable immediately to customers, thereby enhancing their customer experience right away with minimal effort on your part.

In summary, there is one last tip: tackle a maximum of two major projects at a time; no more! Major changes take resources and time, and you want the job done properly. With this strategy in mind, you are now armed and ready to lead your business onto the path of change, with the rewards of success awaiting you at the finish line. Your customers will not only notice; they will thank you!