Assessing the shape of customer experiences

To assess customer experiences is to embark on a complex but profitable journey.  The desire to make improvements is compelling and yet the starting point and finish line are not always obvious.  The Customer Experience Triangle concept has been designed to help shape the thinking that makes planning easier and direction clearer.

 

Is your Customer Experience Triangle a perfect 10-10-10?

Whatever the customer experience, it can be deconstructed into three key, interdependent components:  functionality, accessibility and emotion.  Three simple dimensions to quickly assess how good – or not – an experience is.

As customers, we do this subconsciously when we do business with a company;  it’s important because the result affects whether we’ll do the same again.

As customer experience professionals, it’s a powerful way to understand how well we do the things that are most important to our customers and our business. It then becomes a structured and visual way of thinking about where the priorities, investment and resource should be focused next.

The three elements are inextricably linked.  In other words,

  • Functional: was the customer able to do what they needed to do?
  • Accessibility: how easy was it?
  • Emotion: how did it make them feel?

Fellow CCXP and Custerian colleague Ian Golding writes excellent customer experience reviews using this as the basis – do make time to check him out at ijgolding.com.  The premise is that the whole experience is a combination of the three elements.  It might look something like this, where the sweet spot is in the middle.

Customer experience evaluate

 

If we take the concept a stage further it becomes a very useful tool to assess how well we do the things that really matter – and therefore show where the focus for what to do next lies.  To assess each element in its own right and against the other two, we can use another simple visualistion of the same three dimensions.

 

Customer experience evaluate

 

By giving each element a score, the customer experience starts to take shape.  We, our colleagues, customers and stakeholders will all have a view.  Indeed, customers surveys are finding answers to these questions more useful than surveys that have metric-focused outputs.  The scale, radiating out from the centre, can be whatever works for your business, but may for example be

  • Functional:  1 (not as expected)  >  5 (as expected)  >  10 (better than expected)
  • Accessibility:  1 (huge effort)  >  5 (ok) >  10 (very easy)
  • Emotion:   1 (Angry)  >  5 (satisfied)  >  10 (elated)

The best result is when the shape is the largest, equilateral triangle possible:  10 out of 10 for each. That means that none of the critical dimensions can be improved upon.  If it’s anything smaller or skewed, we have a clear visualisation of where there is room for improvement.  Here are some examples, with what customers might say and what might be done:

Customer experience assessment

 

The Customer Experience Triangle TM concept can be overlaid with a metric to track the progress of improvement activity over time.  In reporting schedules, it holds people to account for change.  Rather than sharing one generic headline number around the organisation, a score of say 3-7-5 (for function – ease – emotion respectively), immediately points to areas that are in need of improvement.

However, the real value in this approach is in organising the thinking and in the visualisation of what to do next.  Without using it to drive change, it will be just a vanity project.  In the same way, a score is a nice-to-have but that’s not the ultimate goal – as I always say, get the experience right first and the score will take care of itself.

So as a new year looms over the horizon I hope this gives you some food for thought about how to get your customer experiences in shape for 2015.  The perfect 10-10-10?

 

(The Customer Experience Triangle is subject to Trademark and Copyright,  Jerry Angrave, UK, 2014)


 

 

 

Customer experience in the boardroom

Corporate change leads investors to rethink the potential for future income streams.  But, by putting customer experience in the boardroom, can it improve that decision-making process?

 

This week has seen some significant corporate activity in the UK.  BT is making a play for the mobile market by talking to O2 about a return to its fold;  Harriet Green made a surprise departure from Thomas Cook that sent its shares tumbling;  And the East Coast Mainline rail franchise is coming out of public hands and into a combined Stagecoach and Virgin operator.

To make sense of these moves, we generally look to the stockmarket to see whether it’s good news or not.  Fund managers crawl through a jigsaw of balance sheets, management profiles and annual reports to predict how this latest change will affect a company’s future cash flows, profitability and dividends.  Within seconds, the outcome of that opinion is reflected in the share prices of those directly – and indirectly – involved.

There is though, a missing piece in that jigsaw and a critical one at that.  I would say this wouldn’t I, but it’s the opinion of the customer. Why?  A couple of reasons jump out.

Firstly, it is the customer who is going to be handing over the money that creates the revenue that underpins the profit that delivers the dividend.  They can answer some very telling questions: How will these changes affect what they do? What else has it prompted them to share with others that will influence a wider audience?  Why do they have the perception (whether rational or not)  they do?

The answers to many of those questions arguably must provide a better forecast of a company’s future value.  At the very least, an indication of what is going on at that front-line of that company.  Or, early warning signs that having the strongest of capital ratios doesn’t necessarily mean that customers will come, come back, spend more and tell everyone they know to do the same.  Here’s some examples of reactions this week; they have been selected to illustrate the point about underlying issues but have all been in the public domain.

 

BT and O2

 

That last line about changing provider sums up the issue nicely.  Investors might be seeking the short-term profit but customers play the long-game, the implication being that investors will eventually lose as customers do have a choice.  Two interdependent but not always aligned views.

 

 

Stagecoach Vigin win east coast mainline

 

The EastCoast rail franchise focus has been on the winners, yet other operators who were unsuccessful also get caught up in the conversations.

 

 

Thomas Cook

 

Secondly, these key stakeholders can just as easily be shareholders either directly or by association. They are just as informed, just as quick to pass judgement and, at the end of the day, are the ones who will determine whether the stockmarket called it correctly.

 

Investors are in the business of forecasting the future.  So should they be better at listening to customers as if they were in the boardroom?  Should they seek greater reinforcement or challenge to their investment decisions from the very people who will deal in reality, not predictions?

 


 

 

Improving customer experiences: when WOW! stands for Waste Of Work

In seeking a point of differentiation, the creation of a Wow! moment in the customer experience is an admirable strategy.  But whatever makes us say “Wow!”, what is more likely to be the differentiator is all the basics being done well and consistently.

 

The reasons why we as consumers switch between companies is rarely because of the absence of anything that “delights and surprises” us.  It’s much more likely to be because of smaller things, the cumulative impact of niggles and gripes that we expect to be done right.10434205_s
It’s easy to see why organisations are seduced into the idea of creating powerful emotional connections;  ones that that drive memories to keep customers coming back, spending more and telling everyone they know to do the same.  However, Wow! moments are not an automatic ticket to differentiation.

 

For example, when travelling through an airport, my research shows that people simply want them to be clean, friendly, easy and calm.  Only then will we start to worry about self-drop baggage check-ins and architectural aesthestics.  Travelling by train, I just want somewhere to park my car, somewhere to park my backside and some wi-fi.  Pouring billions of pounds into taking 10 minutes off the journey can wait.

 

So one – or even several – Wow! moments doth not a customer experience make.  Especially, when focusing on the emotive aspects comes at the cost of being functional or easy.  Often it’s because companies use technology for technology’s sake; there are personal agendas at work or there is an obsession with process efficacy and metrics.  The telecoms company I’m with recently provided a perfect example.

 

I’ve been a customer of theirs for years.  I really like them and their people. They create “fans”, sponsor major events and have an edgy but professional brand. It works and so I rarely have anything contact with them.  Except in the last two days, where I had two different experiences, both of which made me say “Wow!” but for the wrong reasons, based on a lack of the basics.

 

Firstly, out of contract I wanted to see what my options were before I look around for a new handset and tariff.  On their website, in the phones and tariffs page there is – hidden, well down the page – a “How to buy” number. In the IVR I’m asked for my number and whether or not I’m an existing customer wanting to upgrade.  I am, so assume I’m through to the right place.  Nope.  When I’m connected the agent fumbles around and has to pass me to the “new sales” team.

effort

All I then hear is the noise of a busy office – people chatting loudly to customers and to each other.  Eventually, I hear a timid “Hello?”.  I make my presence known and the agent launches into the prepared script as if that was a perfectly normal way to start.  I go through the request again and ask what the tariffs are for a particular handset.  There’s a long pause, the sound of keyboards being tapped and then I get a confusing deluge of text, megabite and minute options.  I ask the difference between two different handsets.  More clicking and rambling answers.

 

I’m asked if my account with them really is out of contract.  I thought if anyone should know, they should.  To be certain, he gives me a number to text a keyword to.  We wait with baited breath for a message to come back.  “You ain’t got nuthin’ yet?  Oh, you need to write the keyword in capitals, sorry”.  I try again and again I get nothing back. We struggle on but when he asks if I can call back in 15 minutes my patience runs out.

 

I know this particular company can do better, a lot better.  We rate customer experiences on three dimensions;  how easy was it, did it do what I set out to achieve and how did it make me feel.  On none of those levels did the company score well at all, the effort amplified by the fact that it should have been so easy.

 

The next day, coincidentally or not, I received an invitation from them to become part of a customer panel. “Help define our future, we want your thoughts on how we can work better for you” and so on.  It’s nice to be asked, so I clicked the email link to join. I get taken to a pre-qualification web page.  Am I male/female? Date of birth? Which region/postcode do I live in?  All of which they know already, surely. Then I’m asked my household income and nature of my business.  Having gone through all that I then get a message pop up to say they already have too many people like me so they don’t need my views:
response
What a waste of everyone’s time, it didn’t make me feel particularly warm to the brand and I’m curious as to why they would push away someone who is happy to help them. Such is life.
 
I wish those in the board room who sign-off the high-cost Wow! investments that few are asking for could experience the customer journey of the low-cost, invaluable basics being done badly for so many.  These are basic expectations, the bar of which is rising faster than the bar of Wow! expectations.  The irony is that a customer experience with all the basics in place, done well time after time creates more differentiation, more loyalty and itself becomes the “Wow!”.

 

Jerry Angrave
Founder, Empathyce
+44 (0) 7917 718 072
@Empathyce

Will thinking like a retailer improve customer experiences?

“We need to think like a retailer”.   Really?

In listening to those who are looking to improve customer experiences, I’ve heard two very different opinions from the aviation industry this year on where the aspirations lie.   The airline: “We should think like a retailer who happens to run a fleet of aircraft”.   The airport:  “If you think like an airport you’ll never really understand your customers”.   As a passenger, I know which way of thinking I’d rather be on the receiving end of.024

To those organisations in any industry who aspire to think like a retailer (code for “sell more”), I have a suggestion.  Why stop there?  Why not have the aspiration to make your customer experiences so easy, consistent and cost-effective that it is the retailers who are the ones who look to you and say “We need to think like them”?

One of the biggest challenges we see in creating a truly customer-focused business is the lack of clarity among employees about the overall strategy.  Or, a brand that creates expectations but then has little robust structure to deliver what it promises.  Whatever market we operate in, an aspiration to improve is of course admirable.  But we need confidence in our own business model.  Surely, we don’t want to give our employees the impression that we don’t back ourselves so we’re going to act like someone else.  That message, intended or not, isn’t what will drive the right behaviours and engagement.

It’s a similar risk with searching for and emulating best practices carried out by competitors.  In reality, it’s never that straightforward but if we replicate what they are good at we will, by definition, only be the same as them.  And in today’s world, we need to be different and distinctive.  The bar of expectations is rising relentlessly so yesterday’s best practice quickly becomes today’s norm.  And it’s not always about the “Wow” moments – getting every basic element right every time is, for sure, a best practice that others will aspire too.

I hear a lot about the need to think like a retailer and I applaud the intent.  Retailers have some great experiences but they have a lot of very average ones too.  Yes, they sell stuff and most organisations are looking for ways to increase revenues.  But I’m still firmly of the view that while we can learn from others, it is critical to aspire to get the customer experience right for our own business first.  In doing so, we then become the one that everyone else looks to as the role model.

 

The regional airline challenge

Commercial pressure on margins despite a heavy reliance on price to retain passengers.

My response:
Understand how relatively important price is for returning customers;  analyse what passengers are saying and what they value. Generate usable insights and present the story.

The results:
Clear evidence shows that friendly staff attitude and clean cabins are reasons why advocates would use the airline again; not because they are cheap.  Also, proof that vocal detractors cite a repeated lack of information when they needed it most – flight delays etc – as reasons why they would choose an alternative next time;  not because they are too expensive.

The reaction:
The pricing model and communication activity are being reviewed.

The retail bank challenges

Cost-saving activities leave no room for differentiation;  functional divisions have disparate objectives.

My response:
Embed consistent customer-based outcomes in all scorecards. Win-over sceptical stakeholders with proof of concept.  Establish cross-functional, accountable forums.

The result:
Increased customer scores; reduced failure demand.  Less duplication of effort.  Better and more consistent cross-channel experiences.

The reaction:
They said:  “Jerry can mobilise people and lead improvements across a large corporate company by selling the vision, engaging the right people and working with all levels to deliver results”