We discussed this phenomenon in a recent podcast and how we all do this. For example, I think the Luton Town Football Club is the best team in the world. The team demonstrates how football (aka, soccer, for those unfamiliar with the British version of the word) should be played. Or they do in my mind anyway. 

However, my mind is at odds with itself. If I am honest, I also know Luton Town Football Club is not that great. While they are in the Championship tier, which is the second of the four levels of the English Football League, the team probably should play in the third tier, called League One. As bad as that assessment sounds for the team, Luton Town Football Club is doing well compared to their history. Not so long ago, my team dropped out of the professional tiers altogether and played semi-professional teams. The Semi-professional league means that somebody, who was a postman in the morning, turns up to play football in the afternoon. 

Many sports fans are familiar with this dichotomy. Your love for the team makes them the best, and your “hope springs eternal” that this year will be their year. However, at the same time, you know deep down that it probably isn’t. 

These contradictory beliefs cause discomfort for us. The two simultaneously-held and conflicting views create tension for us. If we could admit that one of our ideas is wrong, it would relieve that tension. Nonetheless, we still hold onto the contradictions despite feeling uncomfortable about it. 

One time, a gentleman who worked at an oil company picked me up for a speaking engagement in Austin, Texas. Our conversation from the airport led to him telling me how environmentally-friendly he was. However, we had this conversation in the most massive pickup truck I have ever seen that he owns, not to mention that he works for an oil company. 

It’s a funny story, and we can all laugh at his lack of self-awareness in this instance, but he isn’t alone. We all create Cognitive Dissonance. Conflicts abound all the time in all of us. 

We have several common ways we resolve these conflicts and relieve that tension. One way we reduce the conflict is to align our behavior with our beliefs. Another way is to do the opposite, meaning we update our ideas to be consistent with what we see out in the world. 

However, this type of resolution is less common than it probably should be. Moreover, resolving your conflict by changing either your thoughts or actions is a bit dull to study. Psychologists have instead focused on the dysfunctional ways that we address this conflict. The third way people resolve Cognitive Dissonance is to change their perception of the beliefs, which means rationalizing your actions. 

These contradictory beliefs cause discomfort for us. The two simultaneously-held and conflicting views create tension for us. If we could admit that one of our ideas is wrong, it would relieve that tension.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory and the Real World

The Cognitive Dissonance Theory is the work of psychologist Leon Festinger. His book, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, was published in 1957. Most psychologists run experiments and analyze results across conditions, and Festinger did that, too. However, he also did some anthropological work with a UFO cult in Chicago around that time called The Seekers to see how the cult resolved Cognitive Dissonance about an imminent apocalypse they forecasted but didn’t happen. 

Here’s who The Seekers were and what happened. The cult’s leader, Mrs. Keech, thought she was receiving messages from aliens. The messages told her that the aliens were coming to take them, the “true believers,” away in their spaceship on a specific date. Many of the cult members were all in, leaving their spouses, selling all their possessions, and eventually turning up in a field in rural Illinois to wait for the Rapture. They waited and waited, but the aliens never showed.

You can imagine that giving up your earthly existence for a ride on a spaceship you are sure is coming to get you and realizing that it didn’t create significant Cognitive Dissonance. As a result, Festinger and his team could observe what happened with the cult members next. 

There were different reactions to the situation. Some cult members resolved the dissonance by stopping their beliefs. They admitted they were wrong, left the cult, and attempted to restart their lives. However, other cult members resolved the dissonance by committing to it more intensely and changing their perception of their beliefs. These reinvigorated cult members started proselytizing, trying to attract new members. Perhaps the argument was that if this group could believe hard enough, it would make it so. 

I have been guilty of similar thinking—but not about spaceships coming to whisk me away to outer space. Some of you might remember that I love Apple products. But before it was all about Apple for me, it was all about Sony. There was a design that Sony used that held my fascination. I bought everything Sony made, computers, Walkman, TVs, and so on. However, I noticed that as my relationship went on with them, Sony could use some improvements in their usability. As the usability interface worsened, I started to make excuses for them as a loyal customer. Over time, however, I admitted that Sony was not that good anymore, and I moved on to greener pastures.

When we talk about Cognitive Dissonance objectively, it indicates a stickiness where we want to hold onto our beliefs. So, we will minimize by explaining away bad experiences if we’re loyal to the brand. By contrast, if we were all robots, our first disappointing experience with a brand that we were faithful to should then reduce our evaluation of the brand. A linear map could show where every good experience increased our evaluation and where negative experiences decreased it. However, we are not robots, and our maps look different. 

Another form of dissonance reduction takes place where we change the story. Then, once we flip our beliefs, we can then adjust our memories of our own opinions. We do it to get things to line up in our heads. For example, I could revise my account of my erstwhile relationship with Sony by changing my belief that Sony was a good brand and replacing it with the idea that it was not as good as I thought it was. Moreover, I could further amend that recollection to state that I was never overly enthusiastic about Sony in the first place. 

Cognitive Dissonance also happens internally at an organization. Marketing makes a brand promise in advertising, but then the organization doesn’t follow through with it in reality. It creates a conflict for customers, which is terrible for your customer-facing employees on the front lines. In turn, many employees will get fed up with the contradictions and leave in search of greener pastures. Therefore, resolving Cognitive Dissonance is imperative for those in leadership roles at an organization.

So, what should you do about Cognitive Dissonance?

As far as practical applications, I have a few suggestions:

1. Recognize that Cognitive Dissonance is uncomfortable for people. This psychological concept is at play in people’s thinking all the time. If you are customer-facing, understanding that your customers are often dealing with it and recognizing how it changes their behavior is essential. Leadership should look for ways of resolving it for customer-facing positions, whether that means changing policies or operational directives or something else in your organization. 
2. Find Cognitive Dissonance reductions strategies that you or your organization will use. Find ways to ease the discomfort for your customers in their buying decisions by appealing to what they say they need but delivering what they really want. For example, when someone like the oil-company employee wants to buy an environmentally-friendly car, but only looks interested in the enormous trucks, highlight the ways the giant vehicle is environmentally-friendly for its class. Using empathetic humor could be another way to alleviate the dissonance-induced tension that people feel.
3. Remember that customers can’t always tell you what they want. I have said it before, and I will say it again: people don’t always tell you what they want because they don’t know themselves. You have to dig a little deeper, under the surface, to discover what is motivating their behavior and possibly creating dissonance. Our Emotional Signature Research takes into account what people say and what emotions they feel to identify what drives an organization’s value. It can help you find out what customers really want and not just what they say they do.

So, What Next?

Cognitive Dissonance is everywhere. Many of the psychological concepts we regularly discuss in this newsletter are a form of it somehow or another. It is helpful to think of it as a broad umbrella theory with many more specific phenomena under it. Moreover, it’s everywhere because we all participate in activities that create it, and we all take action to resolve the discomfort Cognitive Dissonance causes. 

In situations with human thinking and recall, there’s also only one thing happening. There is also an element of Confirmation Bias, which, you might recall, is our tendency to turn new evidence into that which supports our previously-held beliefs. In other words, I have this view; therefore, I’m going to look out for the things that confirm it. Furthermore, our Intuitive System, which is the type of thinking we use that is fast and automatic, is looking for patterns. So, it notices one part of the experience was terrible, and so was this other part, and then that other thing was bad, too, so maybe that means the provider is not as good as they used to be. 

So, remember, as you’re trying to use this concept and apply it, the desire to reduce Cognitive Dissonance is universal. Moreover, there are many different ways to do it. However, it is essential to reduce the occurrences of it where you can. While there will be a hardcore group of hyper-enthusiastic people who will never change their behavior, most people will resolve the dissonance they feel in your experience. It will often be by abandoning the brand or, in some cases, even turning against the brand to go to your competition. 

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 Why We Think Things Are Good When They Are Bad 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.

September 1st, the high-end yoga-wear maker introduced their new Pant Wall. The new fits are arranged according to how they feel when worn, rather than the silhouette as it was in the past. The new pants range from Tight fit to Relaxed and include other fits such as Held in, Hugged or Naked.

I realize of course that I am not the target of Lululemon, since I would never wear yoga pants (you’re welcome!). They certainly wouldn’t have my size. And if they did, the sight of me wearing this is enough to put everyone off their food for a week! However, the last fit description sounds interesting, to say the least!

The new fit descriptions are designed to help Customers know which fit is appropriate for what activity. The new wall is in response to Customer Feedback that they were confused about how the pants should fit and sometimes bought them too big. The Pant Wall was designed to help Customers feel less confused in the store more satisfied with their purchase after they leave.

The Customer response to the change seems to be positive, according to analysts. They are upgrading the stock and forecasting a positive turning point the brand by the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley upgraded LULU, predicting that the stock will continue its success in earnings for 2016.

The VOC is the Key

So what does this story show us? It shows us two things. First, that listening to the Voice of the Customer (VOC) is an important part of your brand strategy. Second, that incorporating what you hear in the VOC to your Customer Experience pays off for your bottom line, a.k.a. stock price value rising.

An important part of your success (a.k.a. stock price value rising), is having a few ways to keep in touch with the VOC. Lululemon has a few channels in place to listen to the VOC:

• There is the Ambassador program, designed to give local athletes and brand ambassadors a way to weigh in on the product lines.
• Then there is the heylululemon.com site (also called their feedback page) where they invite their Customers to make suggestions and submit ideas.
• There is the Guest Education Centre, where they answer all questions and concerns via email, live chat, or call center.

They also do roundtable research at the store level. One of my work associates emailed me recently regarding a recent experience she had with Lululemon. When she was invited to an event at the store, she thought it was a party with drinks and snacks and would feature an exclusive preview for new products. However, it turned out to be something much more rewarding. Here’s what she described:

“…Don’t get me wrong, there were drinks and snacks. However, I, along with about 10 other people, had the opportunity to not only network a bit, but also sit at a round table where we were asked about our lives and what inspires us, as well as our thoughts, likes, and reasons for shopping with Lulu.  Then, they offered us a chance to give feedback on our concerns and what they could change and improve (whilst notes were taken by the store and Regional managers of the brand). They also had new products we were given the opportunity to try on and give feedback as well. At the end of the evening, it was also a nice surprise to be given a gift card to shop with them again.”

All of these listening channels are paying off—and according to stock pundits, by next year or even the fourth quarter this year, quite literally.

It’s nice to see a brand remember what makes Customer Loyalty and Retention work. Lululemon had begun to lose their balance with their Customers coming out of their pose as the top Yoga-wear brand.  But by realigning their strategy with a Customer focus and listening to the VOC, they are once again finding their Customer Center, and positioned to take the top spot once more.

How are you listening to the VOC with your brand?

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

5 Ways to Make a Great Impression on Your New Customer

When It Comes to Customer Experience, You Have to Keep Rolling the Dice

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly in Customer Experience Lately

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 Yoga Pants Can Realign Customer Experience 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.

Three dangers of employing smart people:

A recent article on the Big Think brought up some interesting points about why this is true for smart people, which include the following:

1. Intelligence breeds hubris: Smart people can make dumb decisions because they develop excessive pride or self-confidence  (hubris) in their decision-making as a result of their intelligence.
2. They tend to develop a superiority complex: Not only do they have a high opinion of their intelligence, but also they develop a low opinion of those around them. Because of these feelings of superiority, they assume they make better decisions than their fellow man and don’t check in from time to time to see if this is true.
3. They overlook how bias affects their thinking: We all have biases that affect our ability to interpret the world accurately. These biases are the result of our brains’ systems of thinking, which don’t always access the “intelligent” side of our experience.

What Matters the Most in Making Decisions

Our intelligence is an important part of how we make decisions, but it isn’t the only part contributing to our success. Other important factors include what kind of thinking we use to arrive at a conclusion, self-awareness of our natural biases, and a healthy dose of humility. Let’s take a quick look at each of these factors.

The Kind of Thinking You Use

What kind of thinking you use to arrive at a decision has a huge impact on its accuracy. Several years ago, Professor Daniel Kahneman, winner of the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, looked closely at the idea that our minds have two systems of thinking in his book, “Thinking Fast and Slow”. The first type of thinking that Kahneman called System One, was fast and intuitive, based on natural associations that you have with information that make decision-making quick and easy. The other, System Two was slow and methodical, based on rational use of information to draw a conclusion that took more time and concentration. He determined that the first system was one we accessed more often than the second because it was easier. One of the jobs of the slower System Two is to govern the conclusions of System One.  This short video illustrates (literally) the concept well:

https://youtu.be/KyM3d4gQGhM

All of us do this, smart, dumb or somewhere in between. If we use the System One thinking, and System Two doesn’t weigh in to validate these decisions, our conclusions are not as based in fact as we think they are.

Self-Awareness of Your Bias

Self-awareness is key to making a good decision. When you know that you have biases, you can spot them in some of your System One decisions. According to the Big Think article, a recent study from the University of Toronto found that unbiased decision-making is mostly separate from a person’s IQ.

The reason self-awareness is a problem for intelligent people has to do with their opinion of themselves. Intelligent people suffering from hubris might forget that their quicker decision doesn’t have all the information, believing instead it is their marked wit and intellect that arrived at such a conclusion so quickly. They forget they have biases at all.

Humility Helps

We have all heard the phrase, “We’re only human,” or “we all make mistakes.” Mistakes are important to all of us because they teach us a lesson. When we make a mistake, we usually suffer the unpleasant consequences resulting from them. It makes an impression.

When a person doesn’t believe they made a mistake or believes the mistake was not their fault, they don’t learn from it. They are doomed to repeat it. Highly intelligent people can overlook their bad decisions and how they were affected by their biases, which then keeps them from taking responsibility for their part in the decision, preventing them from learning from it.

Does that mean if you are highly intelligent you are doomed to make dumb decisions? Of course not! Usually, these other important elements of decision-making prevent (most) bad decisions. In some cases, however, they aren’t. The absence of these important qualities that go into a decision explains why being smart isn’t enough to prevent dumb decisions.

Having high intelligence is a great quality in a person. However, it is important also to temper that intelligence with rational, logic-based thinking, self-awareness of your bias, and a healthy dose of humility. Otherwise, you can end up with a smart person that repeatedly makes dumb decisions. And I’m sure we can all agree that no one wants to be that dumb!

I would be really interested to hear your comments of how to get the most out of smart people in the comments below.

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 3 Dangers of Employing Smart People 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.

What do I mean by irrational behavior? Well, here are 7 things that are irrational. If you have ever done these then I am sorry to say you need to join our club or irrational people. Have you ever done the following?

1. Pushed a button on an elevator several times when you really know it won’t make the elevator come any faster?
2. Have you ever clicked your mouse or trackpad several times when your computer hangs up even though you know it won’t make the hourglass or color wheel go away any faster and might make the situation worse?
3. Have you ever tried to fix an appliance by striking it with the side of your fist, like the character Fonzie in Happy Days?
4. Have you ever abandoned an online chat because it was taking too long so you could sit on hold for five minutes or more with a call center.
5. Have you ever gone to a store because it had many options, but then left without buying anything because you couldn’t choose between all the options that were available?
6. Have you ever yelled at an inanimate object because it was frustrating you?
7. Have you ever got three quotes for a service and thought. I don’t want the most expensive, I don’t want the cheapest, I’ll go for the one in the middle….

I can’t speak for you, but I have done all these things.

Observing human behavior is much more fascinating, endearing, and even alarming. What it isn’t is rational, at least not all the time.

Ze Frank has this to say about being human.

I am sure that you raised your hand a few times during this presentation. I know I did. Your Customers would raise their hands during this TED talk also. Much of what Frank is talking about are feelings and the irrational things we do as a result of them.

If We Know This, Why Do We Ignore it?

Humans are irrational. We do things that make absolutely no sense even when we know they aren’t going to work. Our feelings in these moments drive our actions and overrule the rational thinking that knows it won’t work.

What baffles me, then is why some organizations choose to ignore feelings and how they affect the behavior of their Customers. It happens, though, every day. Right now, I could say, “Raise your hand if you have ever ignored the emotional engagement your organization creates with your Customers” and most organizations would have their hand in the air.

So if Customers aren’t rational all the time, why would you only concentrate on the rational part of the experience? That’s an easy answer though. Most companies know how to fix a process, optimizing it for maximum efficiency and profitability. Looking at how something works and eliminating redundancies is part and parcel of good operations, after all. So fixing the Customer journey from a process level is a no-brainer and easy to sell to the C-Suite.

Emotions on the other hand are perceived as being far less predictable. Controlling how Customers feel in your process seems like an effort in futility and hard to assign value to at a corporate level. So instead of addressing emotions, Customer feelings are ignored with the hopes that an efficient and effective process will be good enough. When it comes to the emotional journey during this new and improved process, most organizations cross their fingers and hope for the best.

In my SlideShare presentation, “Customer Are Irrational, Stop Fighting it,” I define the customer experience as:

A Customer Experience is an interaction between and organization and a customer as perceived through a Customer’s conscious and subconscious mind. It is a blend of an organizations rational performance, the senses stimulated and emotions evoked and intuitively measured against Customer expectations across all moments of contact.

Then I show this:

More than 50% of a Customer Experience is reliant on feelings, both conscious and subconscious. That’s a lot of heart-shaped rock under the water, isn’t it?

It’s Time to Stop Agreeing and Start Acting

We know that designing a rational and conscious process for Customer Experience is only part of the job, and that we need to take it to the next level. We know how little of the actual experience we are addressing by doing this. The question is, will we all change our behavior and start addressing the emotional parts of the Customer Experience? Will we address the submerged portion depicted in this photo? When can we stop agreeing and start acting?

There are many things we do that are irrational. We all know that we are irrational beings. What we need now is more action to address irrationality in Customer Experience design to include how it makes our Customers feel.

I would love to read below in the comments of the irrational things that you do in your day-to-day life.

For more Customer Experience concepts, register for our Advanced Customer Experience Management (CEM) Certification Course beginning on April 20th.

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

• How to Design Human Centered Experiences

• Taking Journey Mapping to the Next Level

• Customers are Irrational: Stop Fighting It

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. To read more from Colin on LinkedIn, connect with him by clicking the follow button above or below. If you would like to follow Beyond Philosophy click here

Follow Colin Shaw on Twitter @ColinShaw_CX

The post Are you Irrational: 7 Questions to See If You Are Irrational? appeared first on Beyond Philosophy.

The Consequence of Choice

Choices have consequences both good and bad. All of us want to make the right choices for ourselves, but few of us believe that we have every time.

What about when you are choosing something more mundane, like bread or shaving foam? There are so many options that it can delay a decision. This delay is a consequence caused by the Paradox of Choice, first introduced to us by Barry Schwartz in his book of the same name in 2004, and then later in his TED talk. In summary, Schwartz tells us:

“Autonomy and Freedom of Choice are critical to our well-being, and choice is critical to freedom and autonomy. Nonetheless, though modern Americans have more choice than any group of people ever has before, and thus, presumably, more freedom and autonomy, we don’t seem to be benefiting from it psychologically.”

Zhecho Dobrev, one of our consultants published his musings on this concept. Dobrev asserts that most consumers say they want more choices, but they really want just enough choices. Like the famous discerning fictional heroine Goldilocks, consumers want an amount of choices that is just right.

How Subconscious Clues Improve Calls to Action in Websites

All channels for your Customers make up your Customer Experience, including websites. By paying attention to the subconscious ways you help your customers make a choice they are happy with, you create a win win for everyone involved.

Michael Aagaard on Contentverve.com points out all the statistical changes they were able to observe by tweaking the call to action buttons (CTA) on websites. He explains how success rate increase when you position the message and appearance of the button in terms that benefit the consumer.

One example that caught my attention was a 213% increase in conversion when the copy changed from “Get your membership” to “Find your gym & get membership.” As Aagaard points out, which gym a person joins is often driven by where the gym is. So, the company added the words “Find your gym.” When you frame the CTA in terms that let the Customer know what he or she is getting by pressing it, it is far more helpful at getting them to make a decision to move forward in the process.

There are ten other examples given in the article. Of course, these examples are about the subconscious experience as none of these things make sense. Regardless, the article statistically shows that they had an effect.

What about Call to Action in the Retail Experience?

Strategy for CTA buttons is all well and good for the online experience, but what about retail experience and the CTAs that help consumers make decisions there? Surely the manager of the aforementioned market won’t leave you facing umpteen brands of shaving foam to muddle through on your own.

They don’t. Engaging the subconscious shopper is a skill supermarkets are always perfecting. The idea is that most of us are on autopilot when we go to the store, going for the items we came for and walking by the items we didn’t.

So supermarkets work to get our attention by where they put products, signs and color they use to grab our attention, and positioning end cap items to feature a particular item. Some markets even use scents to get us to notice different foods in the store. In fact, the importance of where things are in the store and on what shelf is so important that some retailers are recording behavior of their customers to get a better idea of how to maximize their purchases.

Other retailers are using different methods to get us to act:

• Fry’s Electronics, a chain of discount electronics stores in the US, puts a plethora of small purchases like batteries, universal cables, photo cards, candy and drinks along their line corral to facilitate the impulse buy at the end of the shopping trip.
• The large flagship rides at Disney often empty into a store that is stocked with the merchandise from that particular film, capitalizing on the good feelings associated with the characters and the ride experience their guests have just had.
• Apple has an Apple Store app that allows you to buy merchandise with your Apple ID so you can get what you want without getting help or waiting for assistance, facilitating the convenience element some of their customers demand.

When you are designing your customer experience, finding a balance between “not enough choices to be happy with any of them” and “too many choices to choose any of them” can be a challenge. When you find that Goldilocks sweet spot, however, it is Customer Experience gold.

Finding this sweet spot can be easier, however if you design a deliberate subconscious experience that helps them decide. By helping position the choice for your customer, you can help them take action that drives them toward an experience outcome that leaves them happy and pleased.

What call to action techniques have you seen work for you? I would be interested in your comments below.

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

•      What Does Your Experience Smell Like?
•      Engaging the Subconscious Shopper
•      The Moral Dilemma: Collecting Data on Customer Behavior

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

Sources:

Aagaard, Michael. “10 Call-to-Action Case Studies with Takeaways & Examples from Real Button Tests.” Contentverve.com. 25 March 2013. Web. 4 September 2014. < http://contentverve.com/10-call-to-action-case-studies-examples-from-button-tests/>

The post Subconscious Clues That Call People to Action appeared first on Beyond Philosophy.

This week I rented a car with Budget. It was not a great customer experience. We were kept waiting for the shuttle service for 25 minutes at the Philly Airport. We tried to call them 3 times to see where the shuttle was but there was no answer. When they did arrive, there were no apologies for the delay. We went inside to get our car only to find ourselves waiting in a long line of people, the result of a limited number of agents available. No apologies for the delay again. The people treated us like robots and… well, honestly, the list of errors goes on and on.

Budget isn’t the only one with a poor experience, however. Let me say that Hertz and Alamo, who I have tried before, are also poor. When we recently rented from Enterprise, the car wasn’t cleaned and no fuel again causing a delay. When Enterprise called us after our experience and asked us what we would give them for their Net Promoter Score® (NPS®), we told the agent a 6.

He asked what he had to do so we would give him a 10 on NPS®. We said give us $X amount off the bill, which he did without hesitation. Clearly he was ‘gaming’ the system as his job performance is measured by the amount of high scores. But the fact is that the experience was still a 6, no matter how he got to a 10.

So you can see why I don’t think much of rental car companies. Then I learned something that made me like them even less…

Two Potential Fees That Could Cost You 1000’s

When you think you have coverage from your credit card for your rental car, your answer when the agent at the rental car desk asks if you want their additional coverage is usually a swift and resolute no. But new liabilities that the rental car company is charging might need to change your answer.

In recent years, the rental car agencies have maneuvered themselves into having the right to charge two new liabilities in the case of an accident. These include Diminution of Value and Loss of Use. Here is an overview of each:

• Diminution of Value is the difference between the value of the rental car before the accident and the value after the accident, once the car has been repaired.
• Loss of Use is the daily amount that the rental agency could have earned if the car was in service while it was getting repaired.

As you can imagine, the charges associated with either of these liabilities could literally be thousands of dollars. Worse than that, credit card companies cover neither of these fees. So guess who is on the hook for the liability? That’s right, you, the renter. If you wonder why, just think back to the densely printed contract that you signed but didn’t bother to read. Many courts have upheld that this contract and the fees that result from it are legal and binding.

Fortunately, I have not had this happen to me (knocking wood as I type this). But another woman from Texas was not as lucky.
According to an article on creditcards.com, cardholder Kimberly Esquivel called Discover to make sure she was covered since she already knew that her auto insurance did not. The call center agent for the credit card company assured her that she was. So naturally she refused the additional coverage at the rental car agency.

Esquivel had an accident in the parking lot at Sea World. Discover paid her $3000 in damages. But they didn’t cover the Loss of Use and other administrative fees that were not covered by the agreement. Needless to say, Esquivel was shocked to get a bill from the rental car company for nearly $1000.

She said of her experience in the story, “It was very, very frustrating. They say, ‘We’ve got you covered,’ but that’s not true. I’d been a customer with Discover for almost 20 years. That was the first time in 20 years that I really needed them, and they let me down.”

What Can We Learn from This Story

I find it difficult to find a good experience with rental cars. I sometimes wonder if the senior execs ever rent a car? One of our most popular services is a Customer Mirror. This is where we act as a Customer. We take videos, pictures, record conversations, copies of letters, etc., and then present back to Exec what their experience is like. Normally they are horrified. I think if we did this for any of the rental car companies they would also be horrified.

But in the Esquivel’s case, it wasn’t just the rental car that let her down, but also the credit card company. To the credit card companies I would say that Customers need to know that they can trust you to “have them covered” when you say you do. If you are not going to cover certain fees or liabilities, you need to let your customers know up front so they can take the necessary measures to protect themselves.

On another note, CreditCards.com has a handy PDF that helps consumers determine what is and isn’t covered.

Most of all, we all need to learn to read what we sign at the rental counter and make sure that we know whether we need the Loss Waiver Coverage they offer or not.
Based on what they could charge if there was an accident, you may find that the additional $25 per day is worth the additional peace of mind that you have if you have an accident.

It isn’t the best option, or really even a good option. But presently, it’s the only option we have as renters. I, for one, am hopeful that a company will come in and change all this with a better experience.

In the meantime if there is a good car rental place that any of you would suggest, please let me know. My search continues….

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

• Best Advice: What My Wife Taught Me About Selling
• The Customer Flight Experience
• Want Your Customer-Facing Employees to Get Engaged at Work?

The post Deceptive Policy: The Subconscious Effect of Rental Car Loss Waiver Coverage appeared first on Beyond Philosophy.

Subconsciously, we are judging our customers. But before you feel bad about it, remember that they are subconsciously judging you, too. The truth is all of us judge each other by the cues that we provide in order to project a message. We all judge a book by its cover, despite the fact that conventional wisdom says we shouldn’t.

When Randi Newton, reporter for the New York Observer went into Bergdorf Goodman the first time, she knew that she was playing a part. Before she went into the luxury retailer, she had gone to the gym so was dressed in her workout clothes. She was also wearing a stocking cap, packable down jacket, large frame sunglasses and carrying a venti Starbucks and a Trader Joes Reusable bag.

Slumming it? Not exactly. Newton was testing a study published by a Harvard Business School study that said, “Nonconforming behaviour signalled a higher social status.” She wanted to see if she entered Bergdorf’s dressed as she was how she would be treated in the store. Not surprisingly, Harvard was right. One of the clerks asked if she was an actress and compared her to a young Nicolette Sheridan. But on an interesting note, she didn’t get excellent service.

When Newton returned dressed much more in line with the typical Bergdorf customer’s profile, she was largely ignored. That time she had big hair, a Missoni wrap, Louis Vuitton bag and a toy poodle, meaning the breed not an actual toy. But no one asked if she was an actress or treated her like a celebrity. And despite several hints that she wanted to see the expensive frames at the sunglass counter, the clerk continued to direct her to the more economical frames. Overall, she describes the service as only so-so.

The Power of the Subconscious

I found a couple of thing interesting here. First of all, Newton didn’t get great service on either visit, which may be something that Bergdorf management should address. Secondly, I found most interesting in this piece is that when she had the more dishevelled look, the sales person said she looked like an actress.  I find this interesting because he made that judgement based on his subconscious.

The subconscious is a fascinating subject to me. When I do my training on subconscious clues, I often run over the allotted time because it’s a topic that has so many interesting aspects to it. The mind is a highly selective and can process multitudes of data in a second and we are scarcely aware of it when it is happening.

Newton’s sent a subconscious signal with her venti Starbucks and a general lack of respect for dress code to the clerk that she was perhaps a celebrity. Furthermore, she also suggested in the conversation that she had just had a “procedure” that she was unwilling to reveal, which is another classic subconscious signal that she may have been in show business. Using these cues as his guide, he was compelled to ask her if she was an actress.

Another Theory about Bergdorf’s Strategy

Harvard’s theory is not the only one that could have been at work during Newton’s experiment. Another study from the Sauder School of Business and Southern Methodist University indicates that nothing spikes sales like the signal that you don’t deserve to be here.

In an article published on the Wall Street Journal’s blog, professor Darren Dahl from the Sauder School of Business said, “When a retailer signals, ‘No, you don’t deserve to be here,’ it makes us want to be a member.” The research from the study called, “Should the Devil Sell Prada?  Retail Rejection Increases Aspiring Consumers’ Desire for the Brand”, researchers determined that as it pertains to high end brands, a snub from the sales clerk motivates people to plunk down their credit cards anyway.

The researchers said that while this strategy works in the short term for high-end brands, it would not work for mass-retailers. Treated this way at retailers like the Gap will not yield the same results, as customers are more likely to walk without purchasing anything. They also concluded that the high-end brands will likely get the sale that day, but the snub will leave a poor impression on the shopper who is unlikely to go back.

It could have been that the second clerk at the sunglasses where Newton was shopping dressed more appropriately for the store’s typical clientele, was simply trying this Snub strategy to motivate Newton into buying the expensive frames that he seemed unwilling to show her. By subconsciously sending the signal that she couldn’t afford them, he may have been trying to get her to prove that she could.

Nothing Beats Good Customer Experience

Both theories tell us a lot about how important the subconscious is for your customer experience. From how your employees interpret the background of the customer to how their behaviour is interpreted by the customer both at the moment and later on, the subconscious is a critical factor in how your organization will fare in the long term.

Your customer experience is creating a subconscious reaction for your customers. Whether you intend to or not, you send signals to your customer all the time that create an emotional response that they then associate with your organization. Most organizations don’t know this or consider this in their customer experience design and as a result, they don’t control this important association.

Controlling these associations is critical to your business strategy long-term. Designing a customer experience that evokes the emotions you intended will help you create the loyalty and retention you are hoping for with your brand. Just like the second study from the Sauder School of Business said, there is nothing that will help your bottom line more than a good customer experience.

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