customer experiences with soul

Customer Experiences with Soul

A White Paper from Holonomics Education

Simon Robinson

Page www.holonomics.co.uk2

Last Christmas we were back in the UK and I hired a car. According to a safety indicator, one of tyres seemed to be losing pressure occasionally, so I called the breakdown service, which happened to be the AA, and a mechanic came to the petrol station where we had parked to take a look. !After extensive checking he could not see any problems with the tyre, so he reset the indicator and said that we would be able to continue on our journey. At this stage he could have left, but in fact he said that he would drive behind us for the next 20 miles or so just to be sure. After satisfying himself that the tyre pressure was indeed fine, he bid us farewell. !We arrived in our hotel a couple of hours later, and not long after, around 10 pm, I received a text message. It was our mechanic just wanting to make sure we had arrived safely. !This was an absolutely exceptional customer experience, with out mechanic showing great care and humanity for us as customers. Here in Brazil though, customer experiences which really leave an emotional mark on us are difficult to find. In Joinville I asked my MBA students at recently to spend five minutes thinking about which customer experiences had really stood out for them, and this it seems was probably the most difficult question for them to answer.


In my MBA classes I love to show a famous sketch by Brazilian comedian Fábio Porchat “Judith - We Are Doing the Cancellation” in which Fábio is attempting to phone the customer services of his mobile phone network in order to cancel his contract. He is painted blue in parody of the TIM advertising campaign. !Fábio keeps trying to get through to a customer services agent simply to cancel his plan, and each time he speaks to an operator called Judith who keeps putting the phone down on him. He explains to her that all he wants to do is cancel the contract and no, he does not want to upgrade to a new service plan. !After many more attempts Fábio becomes angry as he is asked for the same info he has already entered many times. His angst increases as the line drops and he has to call again, and then he is put on hold. This turns to exasperation as he is asked to send a fax. “No, I'm not going to send you a fax. No one has fax any more, faxes don't exist any more!” he shouts back at Judith. !And as Fábio approaches boiling point and gets put through to Judith, and so he caves in and asks to be put on to just a basic plan, Judith having won this war of attrition. However, there is then the infamous Brazilian bureaucracy to contend with, as Fábio is asked for his "protocol" before he can continue. The sketch ends as it began, with Fábio asking one final time to cancel his plan, and being put through to Judith.


I am sure many of us can relate to this situation probably more than once in our lives. It is a terrible customer experience, an agonising experience, and yet many companies with customer service centres never manage to transcend this level of treatment of the customer. !Now here is the interesting thing I ask my MBA students. What exactly is causing Judith to act in this manner? !Have a think about this yourself for a few moments. Some of you who have experience of working in call centres, or managing call centres will certainly have a number of ideas. !Maybe she is having personal problems and wants to take it out on her customers, maybe she has a terrible manager, maybe all she has is sales incentives, or maybe targets based on call times - the list of possible explanations is endless. !What ever problems either Judith or this telecoms company are having, they clearly do not understand the power behind the concept of the Net Promoter Score. Since 2004 when it first began to be used, research has continually shown that customers’ answer to the question “How likely would you be to recommend this company or brand to a friend or colleague?” has the strongest correlation to financial growth.


With the growth in the scale and reach of social medial, recommendations are only becoming more important and potent. According to Satmetrix, a US company specialising in customer experience analytics tools: !• 91% of marketing leaders believe that in two years they will be

competing primarily on the basis of the customer experience • A 2% increase in customer retention has the same effect as decreasing

costs by 10% • Acquiring new customers can cost as much as 5 times more than

satisfying and retaining current customers • 41% of consumers say that majority of customer experiences are bland • 69% of consumers say that emotions count for over half their

experiences !There are many standard qualitative techniques to determine the quality of a current customer experience, but many businesses are failing to even undertake this basic level of analysis. !The major challenge of developing a great customer experience is to join up all the touch-points. As Dieter Ram, Chief Design Officer at Braun from 1961 to 1995 said, “good design is thorough down to the last detail. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the customer”.


Customer journey mapping helps document each and every interaction a customer has with a business, and tools as simple as grids and swim-lanes help break down the customer journey first into stages and then into more detailed steps. !For me, offering great customer experiences is not sufficient. My own work involves helping businesses to offer customer experiences with soul, and these can only be achieved with the active participation of each and every person in that business or organisation. !The essence of understanding soul is in understanding wholeness, the way in which in living systems the whole comes to presence through the parts. The whole is not some super-part which has some kind of existence separate from the parts and it is not primary to the parts. !When we have this deeper and more intuitive understanding of how the essence of our organisation is expressing itself through each and every part, and each and every part is able to express itself soulfully, with values, care, friendliness and empathy, that is a customer experience with soul.


For me, Hospital Sírio Libanês in São Paulo offers the definitive example of customer experience with soul. I interviewed Dr. Paulo Chapchap, one of the joint heads of the hospital, about the hospital’s approach to patient care, and for Hospital Sírio Libanês, one of their core values is ‘calor humano’, which Dr. Paulo describes as the ability to “look at one person who you don’t know, who you have never met, and still show them that you care. Being able to show it in the very first moment when you meet someone who is fragile, suffering and afraid, showing that you care, looking into their eyes, using your hands, that is calor humano.” At the hospital, patient care begins from the very first moment the patient is received at the hospital, especially those who may be seriously ill or injured, and sensing that they may not have long to live: !“If you are afraid you may die, and are suffering, you are in pain. Every look at you, you will value. If the person is distant, you may think you are in a bad way, you think you are going to die. You can’t stand over someone, you are showing a difference. You have to sit down and look into their eyes.”

Credit: HSM/ Google Images


While discussing leadership Dr. Paulo mentioned the 1970 world cup in which Brazil played against Italy. The final score was 4 - 1, and before the final goal was scored, eight Brazilians had a touch of the ball. “Everybody did something different. They didn’t just receive the ball and pass it. Everyone was planning at that moment they had the ball. That’s a very powerful metaphor. The leader is the one who has the ball.” !Dr. Paulo’s philosophy of leadership is therefore that anyone can be a leader at the hospital. “If someone goes into a room to clean the floor, and the patient sees that they are doing a good job, and talks to them, and they respond appropriately, then he is the leader of the healthcare at that time, because he is doing a good job in cleaning, he is interacting with the patient, he is being warm, and he knows what to say. And if the patient complains about something for example, if he goes out and tells the nurse to correct what is wrong, he is the leader of the process at that time.”


Last year I was asked to help Hospital Sírio Libanês create an event in which their strategic map was communicated to ever single collaborator at the hospital. This event was designed using the principles of Holonomic Thinking which are described in a previous HBR Brasil article. !During one of the one-hour sessions, one employee told everyone present that sometimes he wished that those who were at the most senior levels could sometimes wear the sandals of humility and recognise the contributions of his own peer group a little more. It was incredible listening to him. We asked Dr. Paulo what he thought when he saw the sandal of humility drawn and discussed: !“The Sandal of Humility comes from “em salto alto” an expression meaning ‘stuck up’ (on high heels). You are superior. The sandals do not have heels - they are flat. That is very strong, because everyone has to know that they do not know everything. !I would differentiate modesty from humility. Modesty in some senses can be a false thing. Real humility is when you know that you don’t know everything. You know that other people can teach you. You are still learning and will always be learning from your experiences and so you are open to other people and other knowledge.”


The key lesson for leaders who have the ambition to offer customer experiences with soul is by far and away the most difficult to learn. This lesson is that we are our own customer experience. !It is easy to tell paying customers and clients just how much we value them, and also it is very easy to put on a show when we are in front of people who we consider to be important for us in terms of gaining something from them. !But what about those people who are not our customers? It may be that we claim to have a well defined purpose for our companies, organisations and brands. But how is the essence of these experienced by those who are not our customers? !The essence of who you are fully comes to presence in the customer experience of those who are not your customers. !If we have values such as peace, truth, love, right-action and non-violence, then our customer experience will be the same, although expressed differently, regardless of who interacts with us.


One approach to the design of customer experiences is to break down the experience in a Cartesian manner, into discrete and separate chunks, and to then focus on the design of those experiences which deliver high value to customers. In this approach, we experience ourselves as separate from the customer and separate from the customer experience. This approach can help businesses improve critical points in the customer journey, but this alone is not sufficient to deliver outstanding experiences of the highest level. !But if we approach non-customers with arrogance, disdain, loftiness, rudeness, or any other manner which shows that we do not value them in that interaction, that meeting of souls, well our brand, purpose and values are counterfeit. !Great companies are the ones who design customer experiences with soul. When you can connect with the soul of your organisation and experience the way in which it is expressed through each and every part, then you will have created a living, authentic brand.

© Holonomics Education 2015, All Rights Reserved

Simon Robinson !

Simon Robinson is the founder of Holonomics Education, a consultancy which helps organisations to think and innovate differently, allowing the development of high value customer experiences, the development of powerful and effective strategies, and of meaningful and sustainable brands. !Simon is an international keynote speaker at innumerable conferences including Sustainable Brands, London and San Diego and TEDx Florianópolis. He was one of the co-founders of the world’s first mobile internet portal, Genie Internet, which received many media awards for innovation, and has been a developer of cutting-edge innovations in technology and new media at BT, O2 and Digital Bridges. He is the editor of the blog www.transitionconsciousness.org and is a Harvard Business Review Brasil author. !!

Maria Moraes Robinson !Maria Moraes Robinson is an internationally recognised expert and keynote speaker in strategy, change management, sustainability, human values and the Balanced Scorecard methodology. Recent conferences she has presented and run workshops at include Sustainable Brands, San Diego and London, and Harvard Business Review Brasil summits on both Corporate Education and Leadership, and she is a published author in Harvard Business Review Brasil. !As a business consultant Maria has helped to introduce Kaplan and Norton’s Balanced Scorecard methodology into Brazil across many sectors including telecoms, technology, petrochemicals, steel, energy, transportation and education. Her current work is focused on developing innovative new business courses which integrate insights from the Indian programme Human Values in Education and complexity science, with business strategy, change management, sustainability and organisational redesign.


Simon Robinson Holonomics Education

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!Contact Information!

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www.holonomics.co.uk (English) !

www.holonomics.com.br (Portuguese) !

www.transitionconsiousness.org (blog) !

@srerobinson (Twitter) !

https://br.linkedin.com/in/srerobinson (LinkedIn) !