On a recent podcast about these 5 rules, I shared a recent digital experience that was definitely on the “could use some work” side of the spectrum. It was Glasses Direct, which is where you order the frames you want with your prescription, and then they send you the glasses. The experience started to trigger some uneasy feelings when they asked me to put a credit card on my forehead and take a picture of it to send to them. They needed the photo since my prescription didn’t have my measurements on it. Ostensibly, they could figure out how to size the glasses based on the credit card’s image between my eyes.

The glasses were not cheap, so I was feeling uneasy about this credit-card directive. Moreover, the glasses were taking a long time; weeks it seemed to me. Meanwhile, while I was waiting, I had no email about my glasses’ progress but at least ten promotional emails from them hoping to sell me something else before I received my first order. (Later, I learned that they did send an email about my order, but I missed it.) To summarize my experience, Glasses Direct was a great idea for a business model, but the digital experience fell short of my expectations.

Since the pandemic, everyone’s doing a lot more of their customer business online, making digital transformation mission-critical these days. I used Glasses Direct for the first time during the pandemic, as I didn’t fancy contracting COVID-19 at the opticians. It is critical to remember that people are still people even when they’re interacting with a computer. These five new rules can help bring your digital experience in focus rather than ending up with a blurry vision.

The Five Rules for Designing a Great Digital Experience

1. Design in a digital “nudge.”
2. Analyze how customers really behave.
3. Design your experience to anticipate your customers’ needs.
4. Plan to evoke emotions and measure them.
5. Humanize technology.

Rule #1: Design a digital “nudge.”

Nobel-prize winning economist Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein wrote a book called “Nudge” a few years back. They suggested that small changes we make in choices shift people in one direction or another. However, you don’t force people in a direction; instead, the way you present the options with subtle clues affects what they choose. So, to take this idea into the digital space, consider how you can influence your customers to behave the way you want them to act with the way you present your online interaction choices.

There are a few different ways to do this. For example, scarcity works to get customers to act fast. If you make an offer, always put a time limit on it. Giving an “expiration date” to the deal makes it scarce, which helps customers prioritize their buying decision. Disney used to do this with their movies. They would bring classic Disney cartoons from the 60s and 70s, like The Jungle Book or Dumbo, “out of the vault” so you could buy them—but only for the next six months. Then, they go back in the vault! Parents felt compelled to snap up these old cartoons for their newborn children, who wouldn’t watch them yet, just so that in a few years, the movies would be in their collection.

Scarcity is just one of the principles of the behavioral sciences you could use. You could also employ the effects of Social Proofing, which uses the reviews and comments to attract attention to your product. You could utilize the impact of Extremeness Aversion, which means that people usually like the middle option. By presenting your desired purchase as the moderate choice between a more expensive and elaborate offer and a pared-down, more affordable one, you can nudge people to do what you want. Also, don’t forget the whole area of first impressions and the esthetics of your experience. The way your site looks and how the product is featured can also nudge people in the right direction.

Rule #2: Analyze how customers really behave.

One thing I love about the digital space is you can measure everything. You have a better capacity to analyze what people are doing. You can measure where people have come from, where people are going, and even the hotspots on the screen. Having all that data enables you to make predictions.

Also, I like to test the tactics I use in a safe environment. You can test if you use this icon in one position how customers behave and then move it somewhere else and see what happens. Moreover, you can do these types of tests quickly.

Customer Science uses this blend of data, which you get in abundance with a digital experience, to see what people are doing. As you might recall, there’s a significant difference between what customers say and what customers do. The great thing in the digital environment is you can see what they do. You can also make (and test) one of these digital nudges and see the effect.

Amazon uses Customer Science because they have a great deal of data. Moreover, they know a great deal about me. I buy virtually everything on Amazon, from food to books and everything else. They know what I read on my Kindle and when I wake up because I use the Amazon Echo. They even know who’s come to my front door. Some people think it’s Big Brother-ish, and it is, but I think how they use it is ingenious, which leads me to the next rule…

Rule #3: Design your experience to anticipate your customers’ needs.

Given all that data you acquire for rule #2, here, in working with rule #3, you can use it to anticipate what customers will do next. Then, you can design your experience to play into that behavior. You are, in effect, beating customers to the punch and offering them an easier way to do what you want in your experience while at the same time improving the process for them.

For example, time is a significant resource for all of us. To conserve it, we want things to be easy, so we spend the least amount of time (and cognitive resources) on something that we can. If you can make things easier on your customer by understanding how they navigate a website and what needs they have that accompany a purchase, you are more likely to get customers to behave the way you want.

Don’t make your customer anticipate. Figure out what they would want and give it to them. Whatever you do, please don’t make them burn up their precious attention, trying to find the necessary information to make a decision. Make it easy for them to see what they need.

Moreover, you can use that information from Rule #2 to segment customers by behavior, which allows you to get even more specific about what they need for the experience to be easy. If you know that this type of customer usually behaves in a particular way, you can provide the information they need to improve the experience and get them to do what you want. Everyone wins in this scenario.

Rule #4: Plan to evoke emotions and measure them.

Around 18 months ago, I had a podcast about analyzing customers’ facial expressions during experiences. To summarize how the technology works, there is a camera positioned to record customers’ facial expressions during experiences, which you can later analyze to understand how customers feel at the moment. The types of signals that reveal the customer’s emotional state include micro-expressions, like eyebrows raising, lip pursing, or pupil dilation. The advantage is that you get a real-time report on how your experience makes people feel. So, for example, if glasses direct had been recording my face when I read the email about putting the credit card between my eyes, they would have known by my microexpression that I was surprised they asked (by my raised eyebrow) and doubtful that this would work (by my pursed lips).

In a digital experience, however, you usually can’t see anyone. You can hear somebody yelling at you in a store or see them stamping their feet, but online, not so much. The best way you can determine if someone is unhappy is if they leave the page just before check out or something. Or, maybe they get on the chatbot next, so you have that data to consider. In other words, it isn’t easy with digital experiences to know at the moment how customers feel.

However, that is even more why I think it is vital to get on board with Rule #4. If you make a deliberate plan to evoke a specific emotion—which can be feeling cared for or prepared or surprised and delighted—in your digital experience, then you have a better chance that those moments will have positive feelings rather than negative, even if you can’t record the microexpressions as they occur…yet.

Rule #5: Humanize technology.

The best way to introduce this rule is to give you an example. So, as I mentioned, I buy everything on Amazon, including a chef’s knife recently. Unfortunately, we dropped it on the floor, and the blade broke. I went online and saw there was a manufacturer’s warranty, so I began a chat. It was clear that I was dealing with an automated chatbot, which isn’t bad in itself, but it was noticeable. Then, when I reached a real human, the human asked me the same questions in the chat, which annoyed me.

My advice here is two-fold. First, mind the experience enough that you don’t ask people the same bloody questions twice. Second, it would be best to make that interaction with technology feel more “human” if possible.

We know from a former guest on our podcast, Shiri Melumad, assistant professor of marketing at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania that she has data that shows people respond differently on mobile phones than they do on their computers, albeit subtle differences. For example, people are more emotional on their phones because mobiles are more difficult to type into, so people get to the point rather quickly. However, these subtle differences might also be present in how people react when they think they’re talking to another human being versus thinking that they’re talking to a robot. Those differences and reactions would be essential to anticipate and manage in your digital experience.

We are not saying that you should use a bot or that people don’t like communicating with a bot. However, it is different, and it would be wise to determine if it’s the right kind of difference for the interaction. In other words, you should ask yourself at various points in the digital experience, would this interaction have a better emotional outcome for the customer if a human handled it?

Humanizing technology also means that you should not make customers feel that you are trying to avoid the human touch. I had that lousy type of avoidance experience with my cable company last week. (What a surprise!) I couldn’t get a human to talk to me. It felt like a nightmare, which is not the digital experience anyone is trying to design for customers.

These five rules will help you build an excellent digital experience. Try putting a digital nudge in the design to take advantage of all the concepts we have discussed in the behavioral sciences, and then see what your customers do. Moreover, use this data about customer behavior to understand what customers want or what they are trying to get and test to see what happens if you change it. Once you know these needs, try and design a digital experience that anticipates customers’ needs to make it easier for them to get what they want when they want it. Doing so will help your plan evoke the emotions you want customers to feel during your digital experience to tie to results that you measure. Finally, consider how your digital interaction comes across to customers and whether the human touch is in all the right places. All of these rules can help govern your digital experience, which, as we all know in 2020, is one of the only places your customers can have an experience at all.

To hear more about this idea in more detail, listen to the complete podcast here.

Colin Shaw is the founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy, one of the world’s leading Customer experience consultancy & training organizations. Colin is an international author of six bestselling books and an engaging keynote speaker.

Follow Colin Shaw on Twitter @ColinShaw_CX

The post The 5 Rules for Designing a Great Digital Experience appeared first on Beyond Philosophy.

Baseball great Yogi Berra has been quoted as saying “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”  He also said “If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.”  Both quotes seem to apply to what is currently transpiring with retail branch banking, and where it seems to be trending.

Banks can’t quite make up their minds about what branches are supposed to be.  Are they technology centers, with increased reliance on self-service devices, speed, and with minimal customer interface? Are they central, and primary, points of contact and interaction, where well-trained branch staff can build relationships and long-term value?  Are they both?  Are they neither?

At a time when banks are closing branch locations at a record pace (over 1,400 in 2014, with Bank of America, alone, closing more than 140) that is likely to continue, the need for the services they offer remains pretty much the same.  The largest banks appear to be all about building branch relationships through technology.  And, we’re seeing a new term for the branch experience:  ‘shadow banking’.  One industry consultant said that the new, high-tech branches are aimed at three customer personas:  busy, gadget-centric millennials, Gen X soccer moms, and baby boomers who own small businesses.

Not many actual “bankers” are involved in this new concept; and, going forward, customers are more likely to be dealing with a self-service electronic avatar than with a teller or a financial service representative, and they’ll have ATMs with access through smart phones and palm scan or thumbprint identification. And, if the branch avatar isn’t functioning properly, sophisticated software will identify the issue and switch the customer to a live professional. Reflecting this sea change, another industry expert was quoted as saying:  “The majority of transactions are now processed electronically, reducing the need for physical branches.  This does not mean that bank branches will go the way of video stores or carriage shops, however.  Branches allow for direct contact with individuals and businesses important for the sales of financial services.  However, legacy branch networks are unlikely to be changing as quickly as their clients’ use of electronic versus paper financial transactions.”

The big banks are claiming that saving the money historically allocated to managing a chain of local retail financial units, and investing more in marketing through electronic media and high-tech service will offset the truncation of branch networks.  They are looking to improve their branch models as customer behaviors, and needs, change.

Smaller regional banks, like Umpqua, Republic, and Metro (in the United Kingdom) have increased the focus on generating relationships through memorable, emotional branch experiences: http://customerthink.com/bring-your-kids-bring-your-pets-how-metro-bank-u-k-and-republic-bank-u-s-win-hearts-and-minds-of-customers-and-their-families-and-friends/

Portland, Oregon-based Umpqua Bank has created a branch banking experience that is more like the local Starbucks. Or, like staying at a Ritz-Carlton, shopping at an Apple store, or flying Southwest Airlines.  It is a concept that they began several decades ago, and it is built on a successful recipe of community service and employee-empowered customer service.  The concept even has a name:  the Neighborhood Store.

Umpqua understands that the employee, knowledge, and technology go hand-in-hand in hand.  Branch staff are both well-trained and equipped with high tech devices (they have “mobile concierges”, with iPads and headsets) for making customer inquiries and transactions go smoothly and efficiently.  What really sets Umpqua apart, though, is that they really put ‘community’ in community banking.  Branches are purposely designed to serve as gathering and event spaces, hosting things like movie nights, yoga classes, small business expositions, and art exhibits.

As an Umpqua SVP was quoted stating in a recent magazine article:  “Finances are challenging enough  –  why are bank branches formal and intimidating? Why does banking have to be a chore?  Why can’t banking be an enjoyable experience?”  Umpqua has created that enjoyable experience, making customers comfortable in attractive spaces, and interacting with empowered staff looking to build a meaningful relationship. And, beyond design and comfort, relationship-building and being trusted advisors to their customers is mostly about culture. That’s where Umpqua excels.

Some of the larger institutions, like TD Bank for example, are not directly following the shadow banking, local branch-closing mantra seen with many of the other bigs: but they are also reframing the customer’s branch experience to be more like Umpqua Bank, that is they’re making visits about personal, individualized, “human” interactions:  http://customerthink.com/td-banks-human-initiatives-marketing-strategy-or-marketing-tactic-powerful-marketing-success-or-expensive-marketing-radar-blip/

Like Metro and Republic have recognized, another emerging branch banking trend is that they are also beginning to think about how the next generation of customers, who are even more tech-savvy and less institutionally-oriented than millennials, will use their branches.  Teens and pre-teens have grown up with digital, mobile social connections and apps.  They are, as a consequence, early adopters of new tech devices, and their life priorities are different from those of their parents, and unique to this age group. As quoted by Tyler Sherman, a 16 year-old high school student from Belair, MD (and newly minted driver): “The future is technology, and you can take that to the bank”

So, which vision of the branch will win out going forward?  Once again, Yogi Berra has the best predictions and perspectives to offer:  “The future ain’t what it used to be.” and “If you ask me anything I don’t know, I’m not going to answer.”

Republished with permission from CustomerThink.com

The post At A Fork In the Road: As a Customer Relationship Driver, Where Is Branch Banking Headed? appeared first on Beyond Philosophy.

I have recently been included in Brand Quarterly’s ‘Top 50 Marketing Thought Leaders over 50’ and they asked me an interesting question: “What do I think the next industry trends would be for the year?” I thought I would expand on my thoughts here and give a better explanation.

For those of you that do not know about this,  behavioral economics embraces the fact that often Customers make irrational decisions and as a consequence this affects what they buy. In short, you need to embrace the fact that Customers are irrational.

In our bland world everything is the same to many marketers who still only focus on the 4P’s (Price, Place, Product and Promotion)  and use this as a crutch. Marketers need to recognize that human decision making is far more complex than this. They need to elevate their thinking to a new level of  understanding and embrace behavioral economics to break through the glass ceiling that is engaging them.

Let us start with three simple questions:

1. What emotions are you trying to evoke in your Customers?
2. Do they drive value for your organization ($)?
3. Have you designed these emotions to be evoked in your marketing?

Not sure? Well you should be. To do your job effectively you should understand how emotions are evoked and design this into your Customer Experience or campaign. You therefore need to understand behavioral economics  and how to make the most of Customer’s irrationality. When you have mastered this I then suggest  you look into the whole area of predictive analytics and define how you can predict customer’s true behavior.

The last piece of the jigsaw is making this ‘live’ in an experience. Imagine that you have just designed a campaign that drives the customer into a store and they then have an interaction with  store personnel. How are you going to ensure that the emotion you want to be evoked is actually evoked during the ‘in store experience’? The answer is that the store personnel need to be trained on recognizing how the Customer is feeling when entering the experience. This is achieved through advanced soft skills training. This covers  recognizing Customer’s verbal and non-verbal cues (facial expression, body language, tone of voice ,etc.) in order to identify how the Customer is feeling. Then the store personnel can  implement their training to convert how that Customer feels,  maybe from ‘confused’ to one of the specific emotions that drive value for their organization.

Sounds far fetched? It’s not. This is what our more advanced clients are doing today with great success. One client moved their Customers from:

• ‘Feeling out of control’ to ‘in control’ by 25%.
• ‘Feeling Anxious’ to ‘feeling at ease’ by 10%.
• When Customers were asked, “Would you hire this person?” , a reply of ‘yes’ increased by 25%.

So, understanding that Customers are irrational, embracing behavioral economics, using this to predict their behavior and finally designing your experience and training people on how to convert customers emotions is the new world. Welcome to the new world of practical behavioral economics!

Colin Shaw is the founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy, one of the world’s leading Customer experience consultancy & training organizations. Colin is an international author of five bestselling books and an engaging keynote speaker.

Colin is proud to be recognized by Brand Quarterly’s as one of the ‘Top 50 Marketing Thought Leaders over 50’.

The post ‘Top 50 Marketing Thought Leader’ Reveals Latest Trend appeared first on Beyond Philosophy.

In my view, there is a great lack of training on soft skills with Customers and when there is training available it is too basic and not frequent enough. There are, however, three major things your training must address to be successful. Fail to do these three and your training will be incomplete, and your experience will be uneven at best.

When you ask any successful company how they train their employees they will undoubtedly tell you some variation of the following three items:

#1: You must understand what really makes up an experience.

To move your training to the next level you need to understand the conscious and subconscious and how the emotional reactions to the experience you provide influence most experiences.  We know that over 50% of a Customer experience is emotional so this is important. This concept is a key part of Apple’s training strategy. Witness their leaked training guide:

Apple Case Study
https://beyondphilosophy.com/secret-great-customer-experience-apple-case-study/

So there are things one notices and pays attention to (the rational and conscious elements of an experience, like the price or the shipping time, etc.) and then there are the things one notices but doesn’t know how to describe (the emotional and subconscious, e.g., feeling frustrated or hassled, surprised and delighted, or safe or unsafe.) You have to understand how these things work together to create an impression for the Customer on how they “feel” about your experience.

#2: You must provide the right elements to evoke the correct emotion.

When it comes to providing the right elements in your experience to create an emotional response that feels right for Customers, you must first understand what the moments in your experience are. To facilitate this understanding, we always recommend pretending you are a Customer and walking the experience with an Outside-In Perspective. Once you see it as a Customer sees it, you will know what you need to change to get where you want to go. Usually during an exercise like the one I just described, you will see where you are hassling people, frustrating them or possibly even how you are doing things right. Either way, identifying what you have now is the key to where to start fixing the experience to “feel right” to Customers.

#3: You must communicate these moments and train teams how to recognize the signs of how a Customer is feeling.

Theory, understanding, and design are great, foundational elements of any experience. However, if you fail to communicate what you discovered to the people who provide the experience, then you are wasting your time with the first three parts. Regardless of what your understanding and research reveal, it is of utmost importance you take the time to train the people interacting with Customers in your organization on what you have learned. Start by explaining how feelings influence how a Customer behaves, follow up with an example of how your present experience creates these feelings, then propose a way to change those parts of your experience to be better. Many times this means training in empathetic listening, better communication, and specific actions (and phrases) to apply in the most common Customer interaction experiences.

So there you have it, the three elements essential to the success of your training program. First, understanding how experiences work and influence how your Customers behave. Secondly, understand how your experience evokes emotions at present. Finally, help your team reach that same level of understanding so that when you give them the tools to create the right experience, they are willing and able to deliver. Fail to include these three elements and you might as well not have had training for Customer-facing employees at all.

What do you think? What do training programs miss for Customer-facing teams? I’d be interested to hear what you think in the comments below.

If you enjoyed this post, you might be interested in the following blogs:

• Training Employees on Nonverbal Clues

• Training Your Employees On Sympathy or Empathy? Apple Show the Way to Success

• Improving Your CX One Employee at a Time
  Colin Shaw is the founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy, one of the world’s first organizations devoted to customer experience. Colin is an international author of four bestselling books and an engaging keynote speaker.Follow Colin Shaw on Twitter @ColinShaw_CX

The post 3 Ways to Improve Your Training to the Next Level appeared first on Beyond Philosophy.

Frost and Sullivan, the growth consulting firm, predicted that by the year 2025, global traffic would be measured in 100 Zettabytes. After I had googled what a Zettabyte was (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000), I realized that ignoring the big impact of not having all the big data is a big problem for organizations—Zettabyte big!

I have written before about the big hole in big data, which is the lack of emotional data collected in all these bytes of information. We are getting a picture, but it isn’t complete. Because unlike the computers that collect this data, the people are humans. Therefore, they are irrationally driven to make a decision based on emotions. So yes, the data might show a pattern, but it doesn’t show the emotional state that created the pattern. In other words, it shows what they did, but not why they did it.

It is important to consider this information from a Behavioral Economics viewpoint. For those of you who have heard this phrase but do not really understand what this means, the Oxford Dictionary defines Behavioral Economics as:

A method of economic analysis that applies psychological insights into human behaviour to explain economic decision-making.

In my view this is fundamental. Despite this fact, Big Data continues to gain steam as the “next Internet-sized” evolution of business. In their Big Data roundup this past June, Cloud Tech’s blog showed the results of a study. In it, 89% of business leaders believe big data is the new Internet, meaning it will revolutionize business they way the Internet did. And they also believe it will revolutionize their operations (85% said), and the biggest way it would revolutionize them (37% said) is in Customer Relationships.

Blimey!

Don’t get me wrong; I think big data is helpful to Customer Relationships.  However, as it is now the data you get is like watching a bunch of people from a distance. You can see what they are doing, but you can’t hear what they are saying. Actions, I suppose, speak louder than words (or at least that’s what my mum told me), but frankly, hearing the words and experiencing the action is a faster route to understanding. Their words and actions can give you the insight that Big Data currently lacks.

For example, why do people bounce off a website? Big data will tell you that at some point, your Customer visited your website and then left x.x seconds later.  The reasons why this occurred are not addressed in the “data.” Instead, you have to guess. Was the page uninviting? Was the link they came in from misleading? Was the Call to Action on the page unclear? You don’t know. You just know they came and then they left x.x seconds later. Without the why, you can redesign the website, clean up who you link with, or fix the call to action, but you have no idea if what you fixed will work to fix the bounce rate.

Big Data is helpful. Before this “data,” you might not have known that your bounce rate was a problem. However, as my example explains, it doesn’t answer why this happens or provide a clear path for fixing the issue.

What organizations need to do is to track the emotional key moments in their experience and compare them with the Big Data they get back. We do this type of research all the time. We take an outside-in approach, walking the experience as if we were a Customer, noting how we felt in the experience at each moment based on the activities that take place then. These moments tell us what an actual Customer is likely to feel. Then we use this information to change that moment to evoke a different emotional response, one that we want the Customer to have. We call it an Emotional Signature, but you might also call it “The Why That Big Data Misses.”

So if you want to reap the benefits of Big Data’s Big Impact to revolutionize your Customer relationships, as the study we reference above indicates, then you need to do your emotional research, too. This research will explain what you see in the Big Data Charts, allowing you to understand what it means. Most importantly, this understanding will lead to better design to get different (and more pleasing) big data results in the future. No guesswork required.

Will you miss the big impact of big data?

If you enjoyed this post, you might be interested in the following blogs:

• The Big Hole in Big Data

• 4 Ways to Gain Customer’s Trust in Data Security

• The Moral Dilemma: Collecting Data on Customer Behavior

Colin Shaw is the founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy, one of the world’s leading Customer experience consultancy & training organizations. Colin is an international author of five bestselling books and an engaging keynote speaker.

Follow Colin Shaw on Twitter & Periscope @ColinShaw_CX

The post Big Data’s Big Problem appeared first on Beyond Philosophy.

Skechers lied to us that if we wore their (weird-looking) Shape-up shoes that we could get in shape without setting foot in a gym. BP lied about their compliance with safety regulations for their off shore Oil operations; a lie that resulted in 70 million gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. Banks lied to us, nearly crashing the world economy and causing the Great Recession.

I had thought the banking crisis was the pinnacle of organizational stupidity but then last week we hear Volkswagen (VW) lost 30% of their value. Why? Because they lied to their Customers.

According to CNN Money, Federal and state regulators found that VW (that also owns the brands Audi and Porsche) programmed some of their models to turn on the emission control feature only during tests. Experts posit that these vehicles would emit 10 to 40% more than what shows up on the test. Even worse, according to the BBC, a German newspaper reported that they were told by one of their engineers at a part supplier in 2011 that this emissions test was a problem.

As a result, VW faces a number of punitive actions today:

• The EPA says they could be fined up to $18 billion. With a b.
• A class action lawsuit has already been filed in California. Owners of the affected models will be seeking “unspecified punitive damages and legal fees, among other things,” according to the Chicago Tribune.
• The Wall Street Journal reported that the US is conducting a criminal probe as well.

But the biggest penalty is yet to come.

Breaking a Brand Promise Doesn’t Pay

A Brand Promise is at its most basic level a promise. VW marketed the CleanDiesel car models for Audi A3, Jetta, Beetle, Golf, and Passat models to be better for the environment. They charged more for these environmentally friendly cars, too. The hope was the Clean Diesel would boost sales in the U.S., which accounts for only about 6% of global sales for the brand.

When it comes to a brand promise, one of the most basic tenets of it is that you need to keep those promises. VW isn’t the first company to break their promises.

VW is a HUGE brand, and they have just lied to customers. A willful act.
Trust is a basic emotion. It is essential to building Customer loyalty. But like Albert Einstein once said about trust:

“Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.”

To put this quote in context for VW, one must ask if they have lied over the performance of their cars for emissions standards, then what else have they lied about?

When they were little, I used to tell my kids lying is the worse thing they can do.  If they lie, then people can’t trust them. Without that trust, no one will believe anything they say. What other things have VW lied about?

When will companies learn to stop lying to their Customers? Maybe they all need a “time out” to think about their actions (well, it worked with my kids).

So sure, VW might lose their stock value, and be fined billions of dollars, but I think their real loss is the trust of their Customers. And that has more value than the dollar, the yen, the rupee or the pound.

I am sure now the following pattern of behavior will occur with the resignation of their CEO, Martin Winterkorn:

• • The new guy, Matthias Mueller will come in he will say that everything was terrible.
  • And then he will promise to clear things up. In fact, he already did that.According to the BBC he said, “We will have even stricter governance, compliance, and standards, and I will vouch for that.”
  • Whenever this is referred back to he will say, “Oh yeah that was the last guy, not me, I am okay.“

I hate this pattern. It’s as if the company thinks that a change of personnel at the top exonerates them from blame. That setting new standards, vouched for by the new CEO, will excuse their blatant disregard for the truth in the past.

I for one am tired of the lying cheating and corruption that seems to be taking place in far too many of our well-known brands.

What do you think about this scandal? I’d be interested to hear your take in the comments below.

If you enjoyed this post, you might be interested in the following blogs:

• Is Trust Really an Emotion?
• Target and Snapchat: The Power of Customer Loyalty
• 4 Ways to Gain Customers’ Trust in Data Security

Colin Shaw is the founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy, one of the world’s leading Customer experience consultancy & training organizations. Colin is an international author of five bestselling books and an engaging keynote speaker.

Follow Colin Shaw on Twitter & Periscope @ColinShaw_CX

The post Losing Customers Trust is the Worst Penalty VW Will Face appeared first on Beyond Philosophy.

There are three things that great companies that have excellent Customer Experiences do in common to make Customers feel the love.  They are:

1. They always do more for Customers.
2. They know these two words: Customer Convenience
3. They know accessibility is an investment, not an expense.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these with specific examples from companies with great experiences:

Always Do More for Customers

A company that understands this is Amazon. They are always improving their services with the Customers in mind. Amazon never is content to keep their experience stagnate. In late May this year, they announced they will begin same-day delivery services for many of the Prime Customers for no additional charge.

But you don’t have to be as big as Amazon to do more for your Customers. The Airport Fast Park at the Baltimore Washington International Airport also thinks of ways to do things for Customers. From helpful advice on arrival regarding the best possible space at that moment to a shuttle picking you up at your car instead of a shelter, they look for ways to do more for the Customer. They even take your right back to your car when you get back—with a complimentary bottle of water. Now, they offer complimentary electric vehicle charging as well.

These companies know the value of doing more. They don’t ask more of their Customers, but they give more service all the time.

Know these two words: Customer Convenience

The words hassle and confusing are never good when associated with your Customer Experience. A famous story from a few years back tells the tale of a young woman concerned about her dad not having any food when he was snowed in during a Pennsylvania snowstorm around the holidays. After calling several stores, Trader Joe’s agreed to deliver the food to the man and refused payment from his daughter. The Trader Joe’s team told her to “Have a Merry Christmas!”

Convenience takes many forms, however, and lately that form is mobile.  In a recent article, “3 Ways to Use Mobile To Your Advantage,”  I discuss how Macy’s, Dick’s, and Taco Bell have embraced mobile Omni-channel approaches in unique ways to take their relationships with their Customers on-the-go to a new level. It is essential to consider convenience for your Customers and mobile technology and access is upping the ante in that game all the time.

Accessibility is not an expense; it’s an investment.

Chik Fil A staffs their incoming Customer calls in such a way that the average hold time is always better than five minutes. Anyone who has worked in call centers knows that this amount of time is exceptionally low. Why do they staff this way? They want accessibility to be part of their experience. This stat is just one part of their strategy to raise the standard for keeping Customers happy. They also created a survey on their website that allows Customers to submit feedback any time of day—without even the five-minute wait of the Call Center.

It isn’t just Chik Fil A that understands this concept. Hilton is a fan of accessibility and a multi-channel approach. In addition to the traditional email and toll-free number options for Customer Service, they added a “click to call” feature to their website that connects them to Customer Service (quickly). They also present the option to leave your number for a Customer Service agent to call you back.

From sufficient staffing to good training to creating new ways to communicate with Customers, accessibility is an investment that is sure to pay off in the long run with happy Customers. Why? It’s formulaic:  Happy Customer = Loyal Customers.

By always doing more, minding the Customer Convenience, and investing in accessibility, you make Customers feel valued and important, two key feelings associated with love. These days it’s important to make sure the Customers feel the love.

Are your Customers feeling the love from you?

If you enjoyed this post, you might be interested in the following blogs:

• Philosophies To Improve Your Customer Experience in 2015

• Why Most Customer Experience Programs Fail

• Examples of Great Customer Experience: American Girl Place

Colin Shaw is the founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy, one of the world’s first organizations devoted to customer experience. Colin is an international author of four bestselling books and an engaging keynote speaker.

The post 3 Things Great Companies Do for Customers appeared first on Beyond Philosophy.

I love Netflix. It is simple. You can start and stop it when you want. My recent experiences with my cable company have been the complete opposite. This poor Customer Experience is one reason I now use Netflix more than my cable company.

For those of you that don’t know, Net Promoter Score® (NPS®) represents the likelihood a Customer would recommend your product or service to other people (i.e., the higher the score, the greater the likelihood they will recommend).

The NPS® score has been around for years and has seeped its way into business vernacular. It has become a standard metric used to determine if your Customer Service and Experience improvements are effective. Harvard Business Review called it “The One Number You Need to Grow” way back in 2003. One of the frequent questions I get is, “Our NPS® is XX. How does that compare with the rest of the market?”

Well, there is a simple way of finding out the answer to that question: Speak to the man that knows!

Brendon Rocks is that man. He is the Head of Data Science (self-described as Chief Statistics Wonk) for Satmetrix, a company devoted to combining their software, data, and Customer Experience (CX) expertise to help organizations achieve Customer-Centricity. In their 15th annual Net Promoter® Benchmark Study, he gave a great presentation of some really interesting stats on NPS®.

So the question is, what can we learn about what works for Customer Experience by looking at trends in NPS®?  Quite a lot, it turns out. For example, Rocks has discovered that brands that have made providing a simpler Customer Experience their priority have performed “especially well” with regards to NPS®. So perhaps the most important thing we can learn is:

Simple experiences are king when it comes to NPS®.

Simplicity is part of the reason that Netflix has fared better in NPS® trends than cable companies. According to Rocks, the following brands do simple to success:

• Boost Mobile: They have the highest NPS® in the mobile service study, performing 33 points higher than Sprint, who own Boost and provides their infrastructure.
• Tesco Mobile: The UK-based mobile firm has a larger base of loyal Customers than O2, the telecommunications provider that Tesco rebrands for their Customers.
• First Direct, a phone and online retail bank in the UK, scored the highest in the UK study, 61 points higher than the HSBC, the bank that owns them.

Looking at the data, Rocks explains, “Technology companies have been superb at offering smooth customer experiences, and increasingly consumers want and expect to do business online. Comparing scores from Netflix and the cable companies’ in recent years has been interesting, especially in the context of cord cutting, and the PR war over Net Neutrality. It doesn’t look like the cable companies are winning.”

Simple is important to your Customers. Really Important.

What we can learn from this data is that Customers don’t want much hassle these days. They want it easy; they want it accessible; they want it smooth. There are many reasons for this, but perhaps the biggest is the concept of cognitive depletion.

Cognitive depletion refers to the amount of energy you have left to think about something, which, as the name implies, isn’t much. There is intuitive thinking, that doesn’t require a large amount of energy to do and rational thinking, which does require a lot of energy to do. complicated Customer Experiences do not appeal to the intuitive part of one’s thinking, and instead, require the less energy-efficient thinking of one’s rational mind. If a person is cognitively depleted (Read: tired), then they are far more likely not to participate and look for an easier path of resistance (read: your competition’s experience).

Who doesn’t feel cognitively depleted from time to time? And who hasn’t abandoned a purchase (online, via mail, in a store) because the next steps were just “too much?”  We all feel like this from time to time, and when we do, we appreciate easy. It’s why more and more people resort to ordering groceries online for delivery. It’s the reason people like setting up an Apple computer for the first time over a PC, and it’s why we prefer to bank online instead of going to a branch. We are a society of people who just want it simple. And the proof is in the NPS® data.

Rocks and I will be presenting more information from Satmetrix’s 15th Annual Net Promoter® Study in the upcoming webinar: “15 Years of Tracking Net Promoter®: What Have We Learned?” on September 24th at 12 p.m. EST. Rocks will share his insight on simple experiences, as well as other interesting trends and discoveries Satmetrix has made over the years.  Please CLICK HERE to join us for the Webinar.

If you enjoyed this post, you might be interested in the following blogs:

•   Case Study: Increase Your Sales by 47% By Doing This…
•   The One Question To Ask When Making Decisions
•   Have You Done These 3 Things to Improve Your CX?

Colin Shaw is the founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy, one of the world’s leading Customer experience consultancy & training organizations. Colin is an international author of five bestselling books and an engaging keynote speaker.

Follow Colin Shaw on Twitter & Periscope @ColinShaw_CX

The post Key Learning from 15 Years of Net Promoter® Stats appeared first on Beyond Philosophy.

For example, I recently purchased my new car. Having seen the adverts, undertaking the research online, and comparing various reviews, I narrowed my choices between a GMC Yukon or a Lincoln Navigator. Therefore, the next step was a visit to the local dealers.

Let’s take a look at my two experiences and see what we all can learn about fulfilling the brand promise for our Customers at the Customer Experience level.

First: The Yukon Experience
On visiting the Yukon dealer, my wife Lorraine and I were greeted warmly. We explained what we wanted and we were walked into the back area of the dealership to be shown the latest car, amongst all the puddles and dirt.

Brands and dealers are going to great expense to show the car off in the best environment.  However, this particular dealer was not.

The test drive was good as it enabled me to get a sense of what the car felt like. Therefore, we can learn that playing with the product is a key part of decision-making. Now that I had a better idea about this part of the puzzle, I needed to know the price.

When we returned from the test drive, I asked our sales rep, how much the car cost.  He said, “It’s clear that you are at the beginning of your buying process. I would prefer to give you a price when you have seen all of the other cars you intend to review.I want to be the last guy you talk to about the car you want.”  I told him that I understood that but from a practicality standpoint, that didn’t work for us. So I asked him again, how much?  He refused. I was amazed. I said, “If we walk out of the dealership without the price, we will not return.”  He said, “Okay.” So, we left–with a bad opinion of the representative, the dealership and the brand at GMC.

What we can all learn from this: I find this amazing I even have to say this next sentence. When a Customer asks you how much a product is, tell them. In this case, refusing to tell me a price showed me that the dealer representative was simply trying to coax as much money out of me as possible. This approach does not inspire trust for a major purchase.

On to the Lincoln Experience
Our next visit was to our local  Lincoln dealership. Our experience there was quite different.  The salesman informed us he was not paid a commission, which told us there would be no high-pressure sales techniques. When we asked for the price after the test drive, he gave it to us. However, he wrote it on the back of his business card, which I didn’t think was very professional.

What we can all learn from this: Paying salespeople on commission drives the wrong behaviors. But paying people on Customer satisfaction also doesn’t ensure success, as what followed was a catalog of errors.

What Happened Next?
After discussing the matter with Lorraine, we decided to buy the Lincoln. But the only “offer” we had received from our Lincoln dealer was written on the back of a business card. We asked for a more formal quote, details of what the warranty would cover, and the payments as we decided to lease the car. We expected this to be forthcoming, so we were surprised when we were informed that this wasn’t possible and he’d given us all the figures. I asked to read the contract as I am wary of car contracts and was looking for the loopholes. He said it was a standard contract, and he couldn’t email it to us. He did tell me that I could come “collect” it. Then he said a phrase that always means the opposite of what someone really thinks. He said, “With respect (which really means they don’t respect me), these contracts are signed hundreds of times per day.” To me that means he was saying I should just trust him and not ask such annoying questions! Lincoln is a premium brand; I expect a premium experience and this was now falling far short of my expectation.

Furthermore, all correspondence with the sales representative took place with his personal Yahoo email account, with neither the dealership’s name nor Lincoln as a domain name. This is a miss as it gives this premium brand an amateur feel, i.e., less-professional.

What we can learn from this: When a Customer asks you for detailed information regarding the transaction for a major purchase (read: expensive!), provide them a professional quote detailing what they are getting and what it covers.

Despite our frustration, we placed the order (reluctantly) as their price was the lowest by far of any other quote we received. However, we received no letter of confirmation or thanks for ordering the car–no sign of appreciation or documentation of any kind. We were quoted six to eight weeks for delivery. What followed next was missed dates and failure to contact us when promised regarding the delivery (We escalated the matter to Lincoln Navigator via Twitter, and that did the magic trick in applying pressure!).

When we picked up the car the salesman acknowledged we had issues but asked that we still gave him a high Customer satisfaction score as this is what he was bonused on it. He was clearly gaming the system. When the survey came through I marked it honestly. Some parts good, some parts very poor. What happened next was amazing. the salesman wrote to us complaining that we had given him a poor score! He protested that it wasn’t the dealer’s fault it was Lincoln. I explained they were one and the same.

Suffice it to say, we were not overly impressed with our experience at Lincoln either. Nor our subsequent treatment by their Finance arm in setting up the lease payments, another whole story in itself.

What we can learn from this: Do NOT game the system. When Customers give you a low score, do not write to them and complain! The finishing touches of an experience send us subconscious signals that let us know we just paid for a prestigious service from a prestigious brand. Without these touches (a formal quote, a contract delivery, a thank you note, or even a delivery date in writing), you lose some of the prestige promised by the brand which leaves Customer feeling disappointed with the Experience–and the brand.

Buying a car is just like buying any other commodity; it’s just more expensive than most! Therefore, the value lies in the experience that you have at the dealers. It is so sad to see how great brands can get it so wrong. The money  spent on advertising, promotion, product development, brand building, and infrastructure can be destroyed in the experience with the Customer.

What has been your best or worst car buying experience? What signals did it send to you? I’d be interested to hear your take on the industry in the comments below.

The post Destroying Brand Experience, One at a Time appeared first on Beyond Philosophy.

Many of the things that make personal relationships fail make your relationship with Customers one-sided. I wrote a blog a while back about some friends who only called me when they wanted something. Over time, I learned they aren’t really friends. If one side has to make all the effort, it’s not a productive, equal, or fruitful relationship. Many organizations are guilty of this behavior whether they realize it or not. The first step for change, however, requires awareness.

To that end, here are three ways you can identify how you are making your relationship with Customers one-sided:

#1:  You don’t take no for an answer.

If your technique is to keep trying to overcome objections until you get to “Yes,” you are not asking for the business; you are demanding it. This method is not the way to set up a relationship that is open and honest with your current and future customers. Instead, you encourage them to find a new relationship, a competitor who listens to what they have to say.

#2:  Your Customer retention plan includes penalties or fines if they want to end the relationship.

Locking someone in an agreement by threats of penalties is not a great way to start a relationship. Is this a relationship or an indentured servitude? It virtually guarantees they will want to get out of this arrangement once they become a “client.” But since you have the handy fine in place, they will have no choice but to bear it out until the contract ends. Fines and penalties are in place to protect you from losses. If you find that the Customer is always winning, and you are not, this is not good for business. From an operational standpoint you can’t always be the one that loses. Of course, Customers can’t always feel like they lose either. That’s terrible from a retention standpoint. A relationship is a two-way street. It should build on a win/win foundation.

#3:  Your policy is to renew this cycle, over and over again.

Maybe these two sound familiar, Maybe you think I am naïve or that my label of one-sided is code for “how it’s done.” However, Customer Centricity puts the Customer first, not the organization. Those that don’t put the Customer first are more likely to have these types of policies, creating relationships that exhibit classic signs of one-sidedness. If you support either of these concepts, maybe it’s time for you to take another look at the relationship you set up with your Customers.

Is Your Relationship with Your Customers All about You?

So how do you know you are in a One-Sided relationship, and on the wrong side of it? That’s easy: the relationship leaves you feeling emotionally spent instead of recharged. If you feel drained by it, threatened into it or afraid to find out what would happen if you were to change it, then you have a classic one-sided relationship.

Relationships are everywhere in your life, good and bad. Mostly we keep the good relationships close and find a way to kick the bad ones to the curb. It is easy to imagine this relationship playing out in a romantic sense. It can sometimes be harder to see in “other” relationships–especially if you are the one making it that way.

What are some other signs of a one-sided relationship? I would love to hear what you think some other signs show an organization is only thinking of themselves and not the Customer.

If you enjoyed this post, you might be interested in the following blogs:

• Are You Working for the Right Company?
• Hiring Customer Ready Employees
• Are You Making These Mistakes with Your Employees Today

Colin Shaw is the founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy, one of the world’s first organizations devoted to customer experience. Colin is an international author of four best-selling books and an engaging keynote speaker.

Follow Colin Shaw on Twitter @ColinShaw_CX

The post 3 Ways to Tell if Your Customer Relationship is All About You appeared first on Beyond Philosophy.