#1: Allocate quality time for contemplation and concentration.

I don’t consider myself a creative type. So when I need to be creative, I have to focus on it. So, I lock myself away to think. Bill Gates talks about having a “think week.” I am like that. It’s how I come up with ideas, it’s how I write, and it’s how I decide what to speak about at my next conference. When writing a book I need to have a sustained period where I am not thinking of anything else, free from distractions and removed from the hustle and bustle of my regular life and ideally in a place with an inspiring view. The final trick is turn off email and social media and don’t get distracted. Focus, focus, focus.

#2: Create the backbone of the book.

I often don’t have a clue what I am going to write until I start. I know my publisher would cringe to read that, but it’s true. However, once I start, it is cathartic. I come up with ideas and then more ideas. The problem can be, however, that I get too many ideas! Because of this fact, it becomes essential to create a backbone for the book. In my first book, Building Great Customer Experiences, it was the seven philosophies; the next one I used our Naïve to Natural model for establishing Customer Centricity of organizations, and so on. These “backbones” help you organize your ideas and drill down to the main message you want to deliver in your pages.

#3: Get lots of input and feedback along the way.

When you have a new idea, it’s like coming out of a fog. Everything becomes clear and you realize that you have made a significant breakthrough. This happened with our book, DNA of Customer Experience: How emotions drive value  in discovering the hierarchy of emotions. However, you have to test things along the way. I have had many great ideas that end up not being great ideas! When you explain your idea to people and find yourself struggling, it’s not great. I have a team I have cultivated to challenge me, to say, “Colin, that isn’t a good idea because of XYZ.” I place great value on their input. I always say, “None of us is as clever as all of us.” I am also a proponent of the group brainstorm where there are no silly ideas. We all know some of them are silly, but all of us can also admit some of the ridiculous ideas either become our best or inspire the best idea. In this way, nearly all of my books end up becoming collaborations.

#4: Challenge yourself to dig deeper and think again.

By my self-described style of starting with no end in mind, I’m sure you can imagine that not everything I produce is good literature or, frankly, even coherent. As such, I have a practice of looking at an idea from every angle. I advise all writers not to accept the first thing that comes to mind; challenge your ideas and dig deeper to make sure you are communicating something worthy of your reader’s time. I do this so much that it carries over into my real life—and drives my wife Lorraine around the bend!

#5: Keep it conversational.

When I write, I imagine I am having a conversation with someone. I like to keep my books simple and use everyday examples to demonstrate a principle I want to impart. By keeping it real and grounded in the everyday, you communicate better with a wider audience. And isn’t that the point of writing at all, to communicate?

So there you have it. Five books and thirteen years of writing summed up in fewer than 800 words. May it serve you well and help you harness your creativity to communicate your latest ideas to your wider audience.

What do you do when you write? I’d love to hear (and learn) from your examples, too.

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

• Science Proves What Really Makes People Happy
• Discovering What Customers Don’t Know Themselves
• Is Your Customer Experience Accidental

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.

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

Follow Colin Shaw on Twitter @ColinShaw_CX

The post 5 Points: What it Takes to Write a Book 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.

What I have done to good effect is to get different people from across the organization to interview the person as well. This method also helps the candidate, as they can speak to a cross-section of people and make sure the job is right for them.

We have a few traits we look for in candidates, traits we all agree are essential to success on our team here at Beyond Philosophy. The following five traits have served the members of my team well:

1. Emotional Intelligence. People with high emotional intelligence (EQ) can control their emotions and the emotions of others. Research indicates they are also good at getting people to do what they want. I hire candidates with high EQs knowing full well their ability to get people to do what they want includes me. However, I am okay with that because they are also the most likely to develop Employee Engagement, an essential ingredient to delivering on the Beyond Philosophy brand promise.
2. Positive Attitude. Do they have that positive, Can-do attitude? You can train a lot of things, but an attitude isn’t one of them.
3. Initiative. Initiative is critical to us when hiring. We like to see how the person uses their initiative to prepare for the interview—or doesn’t. I’ll be honest; too many people turn up for interviews without doing the preparation! The candidates that impress me most are the ones who are proactive, not reactive.
4. Sound Reasoning. I ask people to come in with a 100-day plan, which, as the name implies, is the plan of what they would do in their first hundred days. I judge the plan by how they present it and the thought behind it. I have people turn up with no thought put behind this plan and wing it. I also have those who spend a great deal of time and present a professional presentation. Guess which candidate I hire?
5. Independent Working Skills. In this virtual world, you must be able to delegate a task and trust the person to do it. I once had an assistant who used to work well in the office. However, when we converted to working from home, she couldn’t handle it. Whenever I spoke to her, she was always doing the washing or ironing or something else—she was an independent worker, just not on my stuff! If you’re going to run a virtual team based around the globe, you need to trust they will work. I say to my team, “I don’t care where you work in the world as long as you work.” Some people are going to do this some aren’t. The ones I hire, however, are the former not the latter.

Putting someone in a position for which they are not suited results in challenges for everyone from managers to clients to the employee him or herself. My job is to select the candidates with these skills and natural talents and then match them to appropriate job that allows them to thrive here (the rest of the team’s job is to make sure I didn’t get duped in the interview!). If I don’t do this, then they will fail. But also I will have failed them, too.

What do you think are important qualities in your team? I’d be interested to hear your desired talents and strengths for candidates in the comments below.

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

• If I Were 22: Being Qualified Doesn’t Entitle You to Success
• Want Your Customer Facing Employees to Get Engaged at Work?
• Are You Working for the Right Company?

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 five bestselling books and an engaging keynote speaker.

Follow Colin Shaw on Twitter @ColinShaw_CX

The post Looking for These 5 Traits Served Me Well in Hiring appeared first on Beyond Philosophy.

I was a senior executive with 3,500 people reporting to me globally. I had worked my way up and found my place in corporate life. I had it all: a big expense account, a big budget, and a big salary. So with all of these big things happening for me what did I do? I quit, of course!

No, I didn’t break down. No, I wasn’t sacked. It was simply because I had reached my goal, and I was now bored. I had just finished a big project on improving our Customer Experience (in the year 2000), before the words Customer Experience were even a term. I had the idea of a second career. A second journey to establish a consulting company based on Customer Experience. My new goal was to become the world’s foremost authority on the subject.

Five books later, many keynote speeches, and many radio and TV interviews behind me, I am on my way to that goal.

I have never looked back.

Since 2002, I have learned some truths about starting my own business. Truths every entrepreneur should consider before they strike out on their own, leaving those comfortable, secure positions behind them and being the boss once in for all.

Truth #1:

Fear Should Motivate You, Not Stop You

When I made the decision to leave corporate life. I was scared. I had three kids
just approaching college age and an expensive lifestyle. Was I really prepared to lose all of that?

I had a reputation. I was a success. Would I be in this new role?

There is one thing most people who are considering starting their own business worry about: What if I fail? Or a more specific version: What if I crash and burn, and we lose everything?

It’s a fair concern. It could happen. But it couldn’t happen, too.

For anyone considering leaving a job to start their own business, I would offer one important piece of advice: Being afraid is never the reason not to try. Fear could have stopped me from changing my career and my life for the better. If I had listened to my fears, I might still be in my former position — or even worse, NOT in my former position! But fear is also good. It motivates you to work hard and plan. It drives you.

When it comes to risk, there are sometimes legitimate reasons not to take one. However, fear of failure isn’t one of those reasons. It should motivate you to do your best and take it seriously, but it should never stop you.

Truth #2:

Negative Reinforcement Positively Won’t Work

One of your jobs leading a team is to inspire people to do what you want. Inexperienced bosses think you do this by being firm (and furious) with your
team. That’s one way to go, but in my experience, positive reinforcement works loads better. We all know that old saying, “you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.” It’s both old and well-known because it’s true. When you are talking about inspiring behavior you like, there is no faster path to it than emotional rewards and positive feelings.

Does that mean your whole team has to hold hands and skip through the meadow? Of course not!  Negative reinforcement has its uses. However, the most consistent inspiration tends to be positive.

Truth #3:

You Have Faults That Didn’t Go Away When You Became “The Boss.”

Everyone has faults (except my wife of course! 🙂 A joke, darling, in case you are reading this). No matter where you go, there they are. If you get defensive when you are stressed about earnings, you will continue to do that even when the stress concerns your own earnings.

For example, I am not great at interviewing new hires. I never have been because I am easily swayed by people. I want to believe they are as great for the job as they think they are. It’s a fault of mine that I recognize as a part of my entire career, and it didn’t go away like magic as soon as the people I was hiring were for my own company. So I work around it by having others in my organization interview people also. It helps. Fewer bad hires and also a chance for the candidate to get a few different people’s read on the company.

When you blow it, admit it. Honesty is the best policy (nearly always), and especially when you are to blame because of one of your faults. Acknowledge your mistake (or fault), apologize for the problem, and present a plan to fix the damage. This will not only fix the immediate problem, but it will also build a bridge of trust with your team and ironically makes you stronger as a leader.

Starting my own business has been great for me. It has opened doors and provided opportunities for my development and happiness that I might never have had in my corporate job.

When you are considering a big move like becoming your own boss, it’s important to consider these three truths — and crunch a lot of numbers! It’s normal to have the fear of failure, to have to find your stride as leader, and to manage your faults even as “the Boss.”

But another important truth is that I left my corporate job and never looked back in spite of them.

And the truth is you could, too.

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

• Are You Working for the Right Company?
• My First 90 Days: The Secrets You Must Know about Your New Job
• 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 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’.

Follow Colin Shaw on Twitter & Periscope @ColinShaw_CX

The post The Truths All Bosses Know About Being the Boss appeared first on Beyond Philosophy.

Consumers for the luxury brand can look forward to a change in their experience. According to Business Insider, the new experience is called a “guest journey” and the sales associate is now their “muse.”

However, the names are just the start of the changes. The associates (muses) are tasked with not just “making the sale,” but first and foremost to engage with the Customer. In other words, the muses must determine how the Customer wants the experience to go that day, and then deliver that version of it. Muses will now also greet the guest only, but they won’t show product unless asked specifically to do so.

I’ll be honest, today we are exploring the experience of an industry I know NOTHING about, women’s fashion. But I do know enough to see that there is a great benefit to making the Customer feel like they are on a journey—particularly when they are spending the kind of money they are at one of these shops.

Setting the Expectations As High As Possible

Luxury brands, more than most, have set an expectation in the minds of their Customers, and it’s as high as the prices on the merchandise. By revamping the Customer Experience to reflect the brand value of luxury, Kate Spade is joining the ranks of Apple and Lululemon.

One key for a luxury brand is called “aspiration.” When retailers of luxury brands talk about aspiration, they refer to the value the brand name implies in the mind of the consumer. Aspiration is what drives a woman that sees a Kate Spade bag in the window of the shop to figure out if she can stand to eat noodles for the next month to pay for it. Aspiration means that consumers pay a premium to be a part of the brand, and are thrilled about it.

However, to remain aspirational, a brand can’t be too popular—or too accessible. Michael Kors, an equivalent brand for women’s fashion (or so I’m told…) is suffering from too much of both, and it shows in their sales numbers. To maintain their aspirational status, Kate Spade is pulling back from discounting and flash sales this year, a gutsy move in an economy that is still in recovery mode for many.

They also want a younger vibe. Their millennial-focused Kate Spade Saturday Stores closed last winter, but the line will continue in the Kate Spade New York Stores. They have a great new campaign with actress Anna Kendrick, called #missadventure:

The Warm Glow of Meeting Expectations

All of these measures, from calling sales associates muses to hiring a spokeswoman that personifies their target Customer, Kate Spade New York is sending a subconscious signal to consumers. Eventually these manifest into a brand message that sets an expectation for the quality of the experience. And this brand promise will convince a young twenty-something woman to spend her rent money on a great bag. Buying it from her muse, who delivers the experience, I mean “guest journey” she went to the store to have will give her a warm glow—which is great, because she’ll need it when she has to sleep in the park next month!

All joking aside, the idea that your retail experience should reflect your brand values is a tenet essential to creating a great Customer Experience for a Luxury brand. And that’s something that Kate Spade New York is designing their experience to do—in spades.

What other luxury retail experiences deliver their brand promise in spades? I’d love to hear your opinions in the comments below.

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

Discounting a Luxury Brand: The Power of the Attention Cluster of Emotions

Bergdorf and the Subconscious

Apple: Imitation is the Highest Form of Flattery

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

Follow Colin Shaw on Twitter & Periscope @ColinShaw_CX

The post Kate Spade Revamps Retail Experiences to Deliver Brand Values appeared first on Beyond Philosophy.

Consistent productivity doesn’t happen by chance. Productive people have a secret to their productivity: Eliminate distractions.

Were you hoping for something more complicated?

It isn’t complicated. Being productive requires the elimination of things that keep you from getting things done. Distraction is the enemy of productivity.

Productivity is Not an Accident; It’s a Formula

The Formula for Productivity:

Productivity = Discipline = Completed Project

Completed project = (work time – connectivity – Toxic Influences) engaged team support

No one just happens to be productive and get everything important done on time and budget. It takes Discipline to eliminate distractions. And Discipline results in a Completed Project. In other words, productive people use discipline to complete projects by eliminating distractions.

Eliminating distractions requires each of the three Ds:

• Disconnect. They reduce interruptions to facilitate focus on the task at hand.

• Detox. They eradicate factors that create challenges or obstructions to progress.

• Develop. They invest in the right resources to facilitate a more productive environment.

Let me share a few examples in some different contexts to help illustrate what I mean.

Disconnecting Connects You to Your Work

When you need to focus, you need to disconnect from your “connectedness.” Several years ago, entrepreneur Sethi Maneesh hired people off Craigslist for $8 an hour to slap him whenever he got off task. It worked; he increased his productivity to 98%. He credits this having someone keep him on track during the dull bits and bounce ideas off while working. Harvard Business Review’s blog published a post comparing the effects of our global connectivity to the delayed gratification marshmallow test from the ’60s. In that famous test, researchers presented a marshmallow to kids and asked them to wait 15 minutes to eat it. If they waited, researchers told them they would get a second marshmallow. The author compared waiting for the second marshmallow to resisting the urge to take in “blips of information” during your work.

You and I know that these blips can take the form of calls, texts, emails, meetings, status updates, pics, or tweets. When I need to get work done, I disconnect doing the bare minimum of correspondence or browsing feeds to focus.

Detox or Derail

If distractions are the enemy of productivity, motivation is its best mate. When you feel motivated, you get projects done. Recently, I powered through the final stages of my next book, which has been lagging a bit over the past few months. Why all of sudden the productivity? Simple: I was motivated to get the bloody thing done!

However, motivation is a fragile thing at times. The slightest things can sometimes derail it, derailing productivity at the same time. Sometimes it is derailed by unavoidable problems, personal emergencies or health issues. Other times it is derailed by a toxic influence. I wrote a while ago about toxic employeesand how they poison the culture at work with their demotivating banter disguised as “being realistic” or “playing devil’s advocate.” While there is nothing you can do some derailing influences, ridding your work zone of toxicity isn’t one of them. So if you sense that there is a toxic influence derailing your productivity, create distance as soon as possible.

Develop Your Team

Another important factor for productivity is having the resources available you need. Having a team that helps pick up the ball and contribute to the project is a major part of success in productivity. My team provides support and insight that help keep us on track for our goals. I always say, none of us is as clever as all of us. We use the intelligence we have a group to make better decisions.

However, your team needs to be developed, invested in if you will.Aetna’s CEO Mark Bertolini invested in his team to help them be more focused at work by raising everyone’s pay to $16/hr. He did it to “make sure they brought their best selves to work every day.” The idea was if his lowest paid employees felt more financially secure, they would be able to handle their job better than if they were worried about money. For your team, it might not be money that you need to invest to develop them; it could be freedom to make decisions or own a part of the project.

When it comes to getting things done on a consistent basis, it’s safe to assume that this is no accident. The people that do this on a regular basis have a secret—and it’s time the rest of us knew it, too.

What would you add to the list? I’d love to hear your insight in the comments below.

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

The High Cost of Emotional Labor

Do You Have a Secretly Toxic Employee Problem?

Change Your Mindset for Greater Productivity

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 Distraction is the Enemy of Productivity appeared first on Beyond Philosophy.

Neil had a reputation of being a tough boss. He set high standards and expected people to achieve them. He didn’t suffer fools gladly. I was nervous. The meeting went well. I told Neil what I thought about the organization both good and bad. And it seemed to hit the right chord–Neil offered me the role of running Marketing then and there.

To say I felt surprised would be an understatement.

After working for him for a while, I realized Neil spotted hidden talent in people, talent they didn’t see themselves. I was no exception; he saw something in me I didn’t see myself. He gave me the confidence to express myself and encouraged me to take risks. It turned out to be the break and the environment I needed to find my stride as a leader.

Neil wasn’t an easy boss as he was demanding, and rightly so.  He was tough, but in a good way. He removed me from my comfort zone. He set high standards and expected me to deliver. He forced me to do my best work, and never accepted anything less than my best effort. His style of management was inclusive, but also you knew who was boss. He had an ethos of debate and then decision. His phrase (which I often use today) was, “Once we agree, we do.”

But let me be clear: to the outside world he was a tough businessman. To his team, on the other hand, he was protective, understanding, and loyal. He would put his neck on the line for you.

I remember on one occasion I had taken a risk and things had gone wrong. He didn’t chastise me but instead applauded me for trying. Then, he went out of his way to protect me, putting himself in harm’s way politically as he did so. As a result, I would have walked over hot coals for Neil.

He took great pleasure in seeing the people he spotted moved on to bigger and better things. He moved me from Marketing to Customer Service, which was quite a surprise for people. This position, incidentally, set me on the path to Customer Experience.

Despite his tough exterior, there was nothing he wouldn’t do for one of his team. He was exceptionally loyal and protective of everyone. These traits inspired loyalty from his team. In some ways, you could say he established a cult. Now I realize the word cult normally has a negative connotation, but it can be good. In other words, if you were a square peg, Neil made sure you were in a square hole.

Key things I learned from Neil:

• Take a risk on people; it can pay huge dividends.
• Be fanatically loyal to your team.
• Be approachable.
• Be demanding and push people to do their best work.
• Build a ‘cult’ in your team.
• Think outside the square.

To this day, I believe a great part of what success I have, is down to Neil for which I thank him. I hear him in the back of my head when I am managing my team or presenting to an audience or listening to a client. I ask myself what Neil would do when faced with a tough decision. I hear him questioning my reasoning when I argue a point with myself. His wisdom, fierce loyalty, and demanding demeanor shaped me into the leader I am today. I can only hope to live up to his estimations of my ability and be the leader he always believed I could be.

Who in your career has made the greatest impact? I’d love to hear your stories in the comments below.

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

• Cracking Employee Engagement Through Leadership
• Virgin Shows Links Between Employee Experience and Customer Experience
• Employee Culture: Why Amazon is on Top and Bank of America Isn’t

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 What My Boss Taught Me about Leadership 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.

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.