The One Customer Experience Management Tool That Every CX Leader Must Use

 Denise Lee Yohn

Customer experience (CX) doesn’t just happen. CX is a multi-disciplinary business venture that requires the systematic and deliberate development, alignment, and integration of capabilities throughout the organization. To unleash its value creation power, CX leaders must reach for and achieve increasing and evolving levels of CX maturity. That’s why the one customer experience management (CEM) tool that every CX leader must use is a CX Maturity Model.

A CX Maturity Model is a framework that identifies the different areas of development that CX requires, along with key milestones in each area. CX leaders can use a CX Maturity Model to assess the current state of CX in their organization, diagnose where improvements should be focused, and guide the evolution and optimization of CX. 

From Emerging to Excelling

The following CX Maturity Model is an example. It incorporates learnings from CX approaches at a range of companies as well as the transformation and competency models developed by CX software company MaritzCX, CX research firm Temkin, and Altimeter, a digital transformation research and consulting firm. 

CX Maturity Model by Denise Lee Yohn

DENISE LEE YOHN, INC.

1.     Emerging – In this first stage of CX maturity, key players within an organization have discovered that its product-, operations-, or finance-led approach has diminished in effectiveness and they realize their company needs to become customer-centric. These CX drivers lead conversations about the necessary transformation, assess existing CX capabilities, and/or initiate early efforts to improve specific touchpoints or processes.    

2.     Learning – Next, experimentation with CX process and improvements grows as does customer research on needs and pain points and trial of basic CX tools such as journey mapping. CX leaders start reporting on CX and customer metrics at the touchpoint level. More people in the organization become engaged in CX projects, but most efforts remain isolated in functional groups.

3.     Committing – Support for CX is secured among several key executives in this stage, so the organization formalizes CX: It defines strategies, allocates resources, establishes teams, adopts new technologies, teaches new skills, engages CX programs, and sets specific targets for CX.  Cross-functional collaboration is cultivated as CX developments involve greater integration, and therefore, impact.

4.     Accelerating – Quantified ROI on CX is achieved and the need for integration of CX with business strategy is understood, so an ecosystem of CX touchpoints, teams, tools, processes, and partnerships is established. The organization increases its proficiency with the data and digital technology instrumental to identifying and implementing CX solutions. It also ensures employee experience (EX)/CX alignment and employee brand engagement. 

5.     Excelling – For organizations at the most mature CX stage, CX becomes a way of business as all executives embrace and empower the transformation. An organization-wide CX skill set and mindset is established and CX gets embedded into organizational structures and practices. The CX ecosystem continues to scale and evolve as the organization proactively identifies new customer opportunities and seeks to innovate breakthrough experiences.

Each organization is different and begins its journey at different points, so CX leaders may find the progression differs at their organization. These five stages indicate general milestones on the journey to CX maturity.

Three CX Development Tracks

As organizations progress through the five stages of CX maturity, leaders must develop three building blocks of CX:

A.    Vision and Strategy –- the desired future and the path to get there. 

This building block addresses the problem that if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.  As an organization matures in CX, it achieves greater levels of clarity about its intentions, alignment of CX with business and brand strategy, measurement methods and rigor, and implementation of the overarching vision and strategy.  

B.     Leadership and Alignment – engagement of organizational leaders. 

CX excellence depends on leadership from the top of the organization and alignment throughout it.  With increasing levels of CX maturity, companies place greater priority on CX, more top-level executives become CX drivers, and collaboration across departments/functions develops.  

C.   Organizational Readiness – the state of competencies and resources.

CX leaders must cultivate the preparedness of the organization to get to subsequent stages of maturity. Customer intimacy is the most important dimension of this building block, but employee engagement, skills, and systems and processes must also grow and evolve.

Development of all three building blocks is necessary and the descriptions of the building blocks at each stage in the CX maturity model indicate the typical ways in which they develop. These building blocks are interdependent and, when developed effectively, can be mutually reinforcing.   

Destination: CX Excellence

Whether CX leaders use this particular CX Maturity Model or if they choose any others that exist is less important than simply using one. Without a model, CX efforts can become a bunch of difficult-to-manage, direction-less, disparate initiatives with no definitive outcome. And if companies approach CX in a disjointed way, their customers will experience CX in a disjointed way. But with a CX Maturity Model, CX leaders have the compass, map, and engine needed to get the destination – CX excellence.

https://www.forbes.com/

What Makes Customer Service Experiences Great or Terrible?

 Which factors contribute most to great and terrible experiences when customers contact businesses?

To find out, Oracle and Ascend2 surveyed 5,053 people around the world between the ages of 18 and 80 with an annual household income of $40,000 or more.

Respondents say the factors that contribute most to a positive customer service experience are helpful service agents (65% cite), having the ability to easily find the information needed (62%), and receiving proactive service to address potential issues (42%).

Respondents say the factors that contribute most to a negative customer service experience are having to repeat themselves to multiple agents (56% cite), having to contact customer service multiple times (52%), and being unable to reach a live agent (47%).

Respondents say the things that matter most to them when trying to contact a business for customer service are the speed of getting connected to an agent (64% cite) and having to expend limited effort to achieve a resolution (46%).

The researchers found the customer service method of contact that has seen the greatest increase in usage over the past two years is webchat with a live agent (35% of respondents report using more).

About the research: The report was based on data from a survey of 5,053 people around the world between the ages of 18 and 80 with an annual household income of $40,000 or more.

https://www.marketingprofs.com/

Experience Matrix™

 

Experience Design is widely recognized to be critical to the customer development process. Not just in our digital age, but even long before bits-and-bytes driven firms grabbed control of the helm from their brick-and-mortar predecessors.

Global research by Avaya (2014/2015) indicated that “Eighty-one percent of those who have seen a significant increase in profits have a CEM (Customer Experience Management) program in place, compared to those who have seen profits remain static (46%) or suffered a decrease in profits (35%).” and “Companies see the biggest improvements in customer satisfaction, loyalty, retention and repeat purchasing, which the survey finds is largely attributed to the fact that 88% of customers would rather spend their money with companies that make it easy for them to buy.”

In contrast “a staggering, 81%/82% (2014/2015) of organizations have seen their CEM initiatives fail in the last three years.” According to business decision-makers, “the top reason for CEM failure is project-misalignment with customer preferences, indicating communication barriers within organizations themselves.”

If anything, the ROUNDMAP™ is designed to increase the effectiveness of cross-silo collaboration. However, it is also important to mention that the scope of the third sector, Delivery, is much wider than offering customer support and customer service.

As indicated by the Avaya-research, “companies do not typically associate functions like finance, R&D, IT and operations as dealing with customers. This could be a blind spot in the way they approach and plan CEM initiatives given that people across all departments within the company have direct or indirect contact with customers and prospects and not just the roles typically seen as customer-facing.”

This made us create the ROUNDMAP’s Experience Matrix™:

The Experience Matrix™ contains four elementary experiences:

1. Brand Experience or BX (product-driven)
2. Customer Experience or CX (lifetime-driven)
3. User Experience or UX (service-driven)
4. Shared Experience or SX (meaning-driven)

Similar to how we’ve mapped four value disciplines to four elementary business models in the Business Model Matrix™, we have also mapped experience design to the business model.

For instance, a product-centric business model should focus on BX-design, while a resource-centric business model profits most from UX-design. Coca-Cola is a product-centric business, with a product-leadership value position, driven by brand experiences. Greenwheels, on the other hand, is a resource-centric business, driven by user experiences.

In fact, the choices regarding business model, strategic advantage, value position, and experience design together are what sets the firm’s value proposition apart: from similar offerings or experiences.

Similar to how value disciplines are to be perceived, experience designers should keep a threshold, indicating that while experience design requires a certain priority in line with the business model and value position, it should not neglect the basics of the other experience design functions.

ROUNDMAP™ Full Stack

The Experience Matrix™ and the Value Position Matrix™ are both part of the ROUNDMAP™ Full Stack:

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Cover Image by Daria Nepriakhina from Pixabay

https://cutt.ly/x7G1qT7

Why Customer Complaints Are a Gift

 

by Nick Hague

In a crisis, delivering exceptional customer experience is exceptionally hard. Chaos can lead to slip-ups, creating unhappy customers.

But the truth is, even amidst uncertainty, customer complaints are a gift.

Why? A customer has taken the trouble to tell you their story!

Customer experience is a round-the-clock endeavour. When mistakes happen, it’s more crucial than ever to jump on it; acknowledge it and look to rectify.

After all, a bad customer experience left ignored could become a scathing review.

But let’s look at the opportunity.

Receiving a thoughtful complaint gives you a second chance to make things right.

Our response should be three things: swift, precise and professional. Addressing situations quickly can turn frustrated customers into happy advocates.

The next step is turning that feedback into improvements. A complaint that becomes a better product or process leaves customers feeling recognized, appreciated, and connected to your brand.

Building a loyal customer base comes with bumps along the way. Yet even during this uncertain period, consistently handling issues with quality and grace is what separates a good business from a thriving one.

https://bit.ly/3A9TkaH

Six Steps To B2B Customer Experience Excellence

 The last few years have seen an appreciable increase in the attention paid to the discipline of customer experience – However, much of this focus has been in b2c markets. Unfortunately, the same cannot yet be claimed consistently for business-to-business firms: B2B customer experience performance still lags other markets and can often struggle for attention against myriad other corporate priorities. In this white paper, we examine the drivers of b2b customer experience success, based on our analysis and research of hundreds of top b2b brands.

The business value of taking b2b customer experience seriously

High satisfaction scores do not equate to high loyalty. A customer could be highly satisfied with a company’s products and services, but that doesn’t mean they are also loyal. A competitor could lure them away with a more attractive customer value proposition. Conversely, a customer may not be satisfied with a company’s offering but could display loyalty simply due to the barriers of inertia or the difficulties in switching brands.

Integral to both satisfaction and loyalty is the customer experience. We have entered the age of the experience economy where customers expect more than ever before. Brands are at battle to outperform on experience such as making the customer journey easier and delivering faster. The more powerful brands connect more on an emotional level with their customers by invoking feelings such as pride and accomplishment, thus challenging the value paradigm in that customers are often seeking more than functional and rational benefits.

A positive customer experience encourages customers to spend more. By way of example, Amazon – a leader in experience innovation with the likes of Amazon Prime and Amazon Dash – enjoys an industry-leading position on its Net Promoter Score (NPS), and attributes more than one third of its revenue to cross-selling.

However, many companies fail in delivering an excellent customer experience as customers are four times more likely to leave a service interaction disloyal than loyal. Poor customer experience drives brand switching and the majority of customers who suffer a bad customer experience spread negative word of mouth. Research by McKinsey showed that improving a customer experience from average to exceptional (where the customer is “wowed” in some way) can lead to a 30 to 50 percent increase in KPIs such as likelihood to renew or to purchase another product.

How customer-centric are b2b brands?

According to research by B2B International, only 14% of large b2b companies are truly customer centric: That is to say, where the customer experience is deeply ingrained in the company culture. This indicates that b2b organizations have significant work to do to become more customer-focused, but it also highlights an opportunity for b2b firms to differentiate their brands and improve profitability by delivering a superior customer experience.

More positively, 31% of b2b firms are engaged with customer centricity in that the customer experience is a core component of their organization’s strategy. This suggests that almost a third of b2b brands have a structured vision for the execution of strong customer experience, although it is not yet ingrained in the company culture.

What are the secrets of b2b customer experience excellence?

With this in mind, how can b2b brands become more customer-centric to the point that the customer experience is embedded into the company culture? In examining the customer experience of over 500 b2b brands, we identified a step-by-step process to achieving b2b customer experience excellence that applies to virtually all b2b brands, as shown in the graphic below. We then tested how well large b2b brands perform on each of these factors of customer experience excellence, on a 10 point scale where 1 means poor and 10 means excellent. The far right column of the table indicates the top 3 box score, i.e. those rating their organization an 8, 9 or 10 out of 10.

At least a quarter of b2b firms perform well on each step of the process towards customer experience excellence. The highest performance is on the first step, commitment, yet only around a half of b2b firms are committed, i.e. enthusiastic about satisfying customers and making them feel valued. This is alarming given that commitment is the foundation to success. In other words, without being committed to delighting customers, it is very difficult to deliver an excellent customer experience.

Knowledge-based companies (such as those in IT, financial and professional services, healthcare and education) rate their customer experience performance higher than companies in trade and services (such as wholesale, telecoms and utilities) and companies in manufacturing and construction. Knowledge-based companies typically entail more customer interaction with people and so there is arguably more opportunity to build strong customer relationships.

How can b2b brands improve the customer experience?

1. Commitment: Being enthusiastic about satisfying customers and making them feel valued

The first step in customer experience excellence is to be committed to satisfying – and where feasible, delighting – customers. Employees have to share a common goal of customer centricity for 100% commitment to the customer experience across the organization. Cintas, the facilities management company, refers to its employees as “Partners” as a means of engaging their cooperation towards the shared purpose. Southwest Airlines takes this a step further by capitalizing all those who engage with its brand in some way. Southwest’s purpose includes “Connecting People” and its mission includes “dedication to the highest quality of Customer Service”.

Companies committed to customer experience excellence should be passionate about their customers to the point that customers recognize the brand’s efforts in going the extra mile. These extras drive differentiation yet are usually small actions and have a low cost to implement. The founder of the Ritz-Carlton hotel said recession isn’t an excuse to eliminate distinguishing features such as bouquets of fresh flowers, as this would bleach the customer experience clean of what makes the hotel distinct. Ritz-Carlton guests are not after a bed and four walls for the night; they are seeking an exceptional experience where every touchpoint with the brand makes the customer feel special.

The more sophisticated companies boast customer experience-dedicated teams. These typically comprise a head of customer experience who is supported by someone in a research role (to collect and analyze the voice of the customer), someone in a process implementation role (to ensure the customer experience is ingrained across all processes), and someone in a culture role (typically part of the HR function). The most successful companies are those with cross-functional teams, i.e. various integrated functions across the organization focused not only on improving the customer experience but on reinventing it. McKinsey claims that less than 30% of companies have a highly collaborative culture, indicating that most have work to do in achieving a shared commitment to customer centricity.

According to the Service Profit chain, customer service improvements are linked to employee satisfaction. The more successful companies at delivering an excellent customer experience are those who also understand what satisfies and motivates employees. And they are companies that typically reward employees for exceptional contributions to customer experiences.

Case study: Safelite AutoGlass has a “Wall of Fame” displaying employees. Up to 75 employees (typically spanning numerous roles across the company) are recognized annually at Safelite, all of whom were nominated by their leader or peers. Such displays of employee accomplishments towards the shared goal of delivering exceptional customer experiences ensure that customer centricity is always a focus across the whole company.

2. Fulfilment: Understanding and delivering on customer needs

Understanding and delivering on customer needs is vital to customer loyalty, but is easier said than done. Customer demands are frequently diverse and increasingly demanding – more customized, cost effective, quicker, etc. In spite of this, up to half of b2b suppliers believe that quality and price are all that matter. This oversimplification is perpetuated by sales teams driven by short-term sales targets and obsessed with selling on price (as opposed to on value). Sales teams are often poor listeners fixated on selling products and services they have to sell, which can be very different from what the customer really wants and values.

The requirements of customers transcend functional needs like quality and value for money. Customers are individuals and have emotions and attitudes. It is therefore important that companies not only understand their customers’ needs and behaviors, but display empathy, especially when customers report issues. This is where segmentation can help.

Case study: A UK mortgage company trains its representatives to identify and allocate a customer into one of its personality segments. This enables the rep to quickly determine whether they are interacting with a “controller,” a “thinker,” a “feeler,” or an “entertainer,” and to tailor their responses accordingly. The segmentation strategy improved the customer experience and decreased costs by reducing repeat calls by an impressive 40%.

Successful fulfilment also requires an understanding of unmet needs and what keeps customers awake at night. This enables suppliers to differentiate their offering and in some cases, exceed customer expectations. For example, an insurer serving livestock farmers challenged by climate change developed a digital solution specifically tailored to farmers’ needs. This offering provides time-stretched farmers with valuable information such as historical and predicted weather data, in addition to the ability to buy policies online at times when the farmers aren’t occupied by their job (such as late evenings).

B2b audiences increasingly value suppliers that help them differentiate and better serve their customers. Innovation and partnership are key to delivering against the needs of customers’ customers, but these requirements are often insufficiently met. Most b2b companies have a parochial view of the customer being the direct consumer of their product or service, and so the best-in-class b2b companies are those who understand the full value chain and positively impact their customers’ customers.

3. Seamlessness: Making life easier for the customer

Across virtually all b2b markets, a top driver of overall loyalty is ease of doing business with the supplier. Regardless of whom the customer is buying from – be it a manufacturing company, a reseller, a SaaS provider, a consultant – seamlessness is central to a smooth customer experience. In most cases, seamlessness is synonymous with simple, convenient and hassle-free.

Case study: HP identified a gap in the market for a more seamless ink replenishment solution and launched its Instant Ink offering. This consumables replacement service automatically delivers ink to the customer just before the ink cartridge runs out. It also provides attractive cost savings of up to 70% through the subscription program with its high yield cartridges. The subscription model makes the customer experience simple, the delivery to the door makes it convenient, and the proactive automatic replenishment makes it hassle-free.

Customer surveys often assess the amount of effort the customer has to put into the relationship with the provider through the Customer Effort Score. Feedback on poor performance on this metric indicates how improvements to seamlessness can be made. By way of example, customers resent providers that consume more time than they deem necessary as their time is precious and bears a cost. Complaints on this issue include time spent on hold on a phone call, wasted time repeating the same information, and lost time in having to deal with incompetent systems, people and processes. It is clear that reducing customer effort is pivotal to delivering a more seamless and therefore more superior customer experience.

4. Responsiveness: Timely response, delivery and resolution

As consumers in the digital era, we are accustomed to intelligence at our fingertips and receiving answers in a matter of seconds. Business professionals are also consumers and have the same expectations in the workplace. Timely response, speedy delivery and fast problem resolution have become the standard. Companies that excel on providing responsiveness that is quicker than competitors and in a timeframe that exceeds customer expectations are likely to deliver a superior and memorable customer experience. For example, financial-technology start-up Kabbage requires just 7 minutes to approve a small-business loan – nearly 5,000 times faster than the 20 days it takes a typical bank.

Responsiveness spans numerous touchpoints across the customer journey including communications, deliveries and issue resolution. Failing on this important requirement can increase customer defection.

B2b customer experience research programs can assist companies in becoming more responsive, not just in identifying where improvements need to be made, but also by providing a platform through which remedial actions can be taken shortly after a problem has occurred. For example, real time detractor alerts enable problem resolution to be taken quickly.

5. Proactivity: Resolving issues before the customer feels the pain

Proactive companies are those capable of anticipating customer needs and desires and that strive to resolve issues before the customer feels pain. It is easier for companies to be proactive if they are good at fulfilling customer needs and can foresee potential customer needs and pain points – such as in the case of Amazon Dash and HP Instant Ink which prevent the problem of “running out” before it happens, while making life easier for the customer.

Proactivity needn’t require new product or service offerings. For example, the lighting company Osram Sylvania identified that a simple change in language could make a big difference to the customer. Words like “can’t,” “won’t,” and “don’t” naturally invoke feelings of disappointment and dissatisfaction as they imply an inability to deliver against customer needs. The company therefore trained its reps on alternative phrasing with a positive spin, such as indicating when an item would be in stock, as opposed to the disappointing alternative of stating that the item is currently unavailable. Examining root cause can provide insights on where proactive measures need taking:

Case study: Bell Canada recognized that a high percentage of customers were calling back requesting usage instructions relating to a particular feature. As a forward resolution to the issue, reps now provide a quick tutorial on the feature over the phone, resulting in fewer call-backs and a drop in customer churn by 6%. For more complex issues, the company sends follow-up e-mails which are easier than lengthy instructions via telephone. This proactive approach means less effort for the customer and a more seamless and hassle-free customer journey.

Fidelity uses a similar proactive support process on its website by providing “suggested next steps” to customers completing certain transactions. For instance, customers who change their address online are also asked about their interest in ordering new checks and taking out new insurance. Such proactive measures have resulted in a reduction of customer calls by 5%.

6. Evolution: Continually seeking to improve the b2b customer experience

Customer needs, behaviors and attitudes can change any time, as can competitive threats and influences such as technology and legislation. Thus companies that already perform well on delivering an excellent customer experience cannot be complacent. The totally customer centric firm acknowledges that improvements must be made on an ongoing basis.

The more receptive companies to evolution are those that are agile and open to applying design thinking to the customer experience. This entails reinventing how customers interact with the company to reengineer and transform the customer journey.

Case study: The Netherlands-based bank ING created a solution for its retail and corporate clients that enables them to access real-time account overviews and customized reporting, along with the ability to process various transactions from any location. This required the bank to conduct a major overhaul of its systems and processes involving omnichannel automatic integration of customer data. After just one year, ING had grown profits by 23% and increased its share price by 15%.

So what does this all mean?

Business-to-business audiences look for solutions to problems, or offerings that better meet their needs, such as more customized products, better integrated systems, increased responsiveness, lower cost-in-use, or higher productivity. Influenced by the consumer world, many b2b audiences are also seeking an improved experience in using a b2b product or service – a customer journey that is seamless, more convenient, and hassle-free. Savvy b2b suppliers sell an experience and outcomes, not products. We operate in an experience economy where brands embody more meaning through experience.

Customer surveys and loyalty research tends to assess company performance in silos. B2B customer experience research, however, assesses the whole customer journey in terms of interconnected touchpoints, and current and anticipated pain points. Even in value chains with numerous channel partners and routes to market, it is possible to identify opportunities for enhancing the customer experience, such as in the case of HP with its Instant Ink offering.

Customer journeys are more complex than ever before as the average b2b customer uses six different channels (such as in-person reps and ecommerce sites) over the course of their decision-making journey. This can make it challenging to deliver a seamless experience, yet b2b buyers who interact with multiple channels spend more than those who only purchase from a single channel. The more profitable customer experiences, therefore, are those that comprise omnichannel marketing and sales strategies. They are also typically delivered by companies that are more agile.

Customer experience excellence recognizes that the customer isn’t a mere transaction. In b2b markets, the customer often comprises numerous decision-makers and influencers within the same company, often with different needs. The more sophisticated suppliers know how to sell on value to these different audiences. They also understand the broader impact of their offering in terms of the benefit to their customers’ customers.

The foundation of b2b customer experience excellence is a commitment to putting the customer at the core of what the company does, how it does it, and ultimately why it does it. Less than a half of b2b firms are enthusiastic about satisfying customers and making them feel valued, and without a commitment to delighting customers, it is impossible to deliver an excellent customer experience. The starting point, therefore, is to obtain board-level buy-in on ingraining customer centricity into the fabric of the company. Although cultural alignment doesn’t happen overnight and customer experience management needs to continually evolve, the financial returns of customer experience excellence can be immediate and deliver a sustainable competitive advantage.

Written by Julia Doheny

https://bit.ly/3E2idrq

Are You Really Ready for Customer Experience?

 

Ginger Conlon, Editor-in-Chief

Marketers can talk a good game about customer centricity, but actions speak louder than words.

“Putting customers at the center of your business is what it takes to create a competitive advantage.” This simple, yet bold, statement by Lars Birkholm Petersen launched a discussion around where most businesses are in terms of their customer experience maturity level.

During a presentation at Sitecore Symposium 2014, Petersen reviewed the marketing automation company's Customer Experience Maturity Model (see above). Its stages are initiate, radiate, align (the “attract” phase of the customer lifecycle); optimze, nurture (the “convert” phase); engage, lifetime customers (the “advocate” phase). “We've found that 85.4% of companies are in first two stages,” said Petersen, global director, business optimization services, at Sitecore. “Strategic value increases as you move further along the model. If you're in those first two stages, how do you get started?”

Ron Person, senior consultant, business optimization, for Sitecore, took the stage to answer Petersen's question. To move ahead to stage three, “align,” connect corporate objectives to marketing objectives, Person advised. There are six steps to doing so: determining strategic themes (e.g., customer intimacy, top quality), setting strategic objectives (what's needed to make the theme become a reality), defining marketing objectives (specifically to support the strategic objectives), setting digital goals, creating an engagement value scale, and then selecting key performance indicators. This process will help show the link between business objectives and customer actions.

“All marketing tactics, down to A/B testing, need to contribute toward reaching strategic objectives,” Person stated emphatically.

The fourth stage is “optimize,” which includes such activities as rules-based personalization, A/B and multivariate testing, and campaign attribution. Chris Nash, who joined the stage with Person, explained that optimization, such as in-the-moment personalization, is exceptionally powerful. “Use it in all phases of the customer lifecycle,” said Nash, senior consultant, business optimization, for Sitecore. “Use customer data [in real time] as it becomes available; use the data that makes the most sense to use for that personalization. Use different types of data in different combinations.” Doing so can be complex, he said, but its effectiveness is worth the effort.”

“Optimization is the low-hanging fruit of experience marketing,” Nash said. “Focus on the buyer journey.”

Get connected

After the presentation Petersen, Person, and Nash met with several anaylists and journalists (myself included), to dive deeper into the topic of customer experience maturity, which is a central theme of their new book Connect: How to use data and experience marketing to create lifetime customers.

Considering the complexity of the customer experience, and of marketing, I asked: Are companies at multiple stages of customer experience maturity with different aspects of their marketing? For example, is the email customer experience more mature than in other channels? If so, how can they better connect those stages?

“Companies are being forced by customers to create a connected experience,” Nash said. “It puts pressure on organizations to think about the quality of the overall customer experience. Email, for example, is an ‘advanced' silo, but it's often a disconnected experience from other channels.” Nash explained that this type of disparity creates “moments of disconnected frustration” for customers.

Eliminating the disconnect and creating a consistent customer experience is all about people, process, and technology, Peterson noted. Marketers need to focus on the customer across channels in a connected way; they should collect and use data create relevant, contextualize experiences. “This goes back to marketers needing to ensure that they align the customer experience with strategic objectives to get business value,” he said, referring to the Customer Experience Maturity Model. “Once they're doing that, they can optimize and nurture. Then can moved to engage and lifetime customers.” But tread purposefully: “It takes time, maybe years to move up the maturity model, espcially in a big organization,” Petersen said. 

The journey, however, is more necessary than ever before.

“Businesses that excel at customer experience,” Nash said, “make it so other companies need to do the same.”

How to Deal with Difficult Customers: 5 Tips

 

Good customer service is what differentiates a company from its rivals.

Anyone working in customer service would understand that no matter how much time you spend in delivering good customer service, you can’t please everyone every time. Sooner or later, support agents will have to deal with difficult customers. Whether it’s a customer with some outlandish demand or an otherwise rational customer who happens to be having a bad day, your skills are put to test. And it’s time to pass the test with flying colors.

We suggest powerful yet simple tips for dealing with difficult customers and effectively helping them solve their issues. Before we get started, here’s the thumb rule: learn to make the best of troublesome customer interaction and tackle the situation in a manner that satisfies everyone. It’s important to realize that your difficult customers represent a source of learning and an opportunity to make things right.

Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business." ~ Zig Ziglar

 

Inside the Mind of a Difficult Customer

Understanding is the first step in dealing with any problem. So let’s take a closer look inside the mind of a difficult customer, psychologically. Why do they get angry at all?

There may be multiple reasons for a customer’s anger; however, most often, it’s just a few factors. Understanding these factors will help you gain a keener insight into what could have gone wrong. You get an opportunity to transform the customer’s mindset about your brand from negative to positive through your way of handling their concerns. Ideally, customers are frantic when they feel they’re:

Treated Unjustly:
Whenever customers feel that the promises made weren't kept, they think it's unfair on your part. It makes them feel disconnected, invalidated, and angry. Leaving a customer request open for too long or not fulfilling their expectations is sometimes inferred as mistreatment.

Threatened:
Service silos like no data privacy or security, hidden motives, loss of essential information, etc. make customers feel that they are always under threat. What's more, it's because of your service processes they have to face this situation.

Ineffective or Frustrated:
Situations where things are not working as expected, customers don't get to have a proper onboarding, features, engagement, value from your product, or service, they get frustrated. When their queries are not resolved quickly, they feel ineffective, and the customer service delivered to them was inefficient.

"Almost 9 in 10 customers have abandoned a business because of a poor experience."

 

Disregarded for their feedback:
Customers usually are very vocal about their feedback. At times you may notice a pattern where the likability towards your product keeps decreasing over a period of time. In a situation like this, when you do not take action or try to discuss their concerns about the product, it shows that you do not respect their feedback. It makes them disappointed, and they may resort to using some other product.

5 Tips: How to Blow Off Steam

#1. Play by ear and reassure:

Before you begin with the panacea for their problems, LISTEN. Take a while to hear them out carefully and thoroughly understand their concerns. You could even put your end at mute and let them vent. It’s not really a pleasure to be subjected to the frustration, but interrupting them will only aggravate the situation, making it more difficult for you. You can begin by reassuring them that their problem will be solved by saying :
“ I’m glad you called and I could be of service.”
“ I’ll let you explain your issues, and then we’ll find you a solution.”

If you've understood their sentiments and issues, move on. If not say, "Could you please elaborate on the issue, it will help me better understand."

#2. Empathy - The Green Light:

Empathy is beneficial, so it can show that anyone would feel the same under these circumstances. The quickest way to anger somebody is to suggest that they are exaggerating. After the customer has finally taken a breath, the first thing you do is - empathize. Make them feel you’ve understood where they’ve come from. Use phrases like:
“I understand.”
“Don’t worry, let’s see what we can do to sort this.”
“Your issue is a cause of concern; let's find out why this happened?”
“Let’s work together to sort this.”

Always remember the customer isn’t angry with you, so placing yourself on the customer’s side will give them faith. Empathy and understanding go a long way toward smoothing things over.

#3. Move to the drawing board:

After diffusing the anger to a certain level and ascertaining the problem it's time to offer solutions. It is here that you bring the customer experience back on the right track, so make sure you work hard to resolve the issue. Use the tools in your arsenal to find a solution. But here’s a heads up, do not keep the customer on hold for too long; they might have already spent many minutes waiting to connect to a live person. You could say :
“ Please hold on.”
“ Thank you for being patient while I was looking into it.”

In case it takes longer, make sure you update the customer rather than keep him waiting.

#4. The Apology:

Sometimes it becomes important to de-escalate and apologize. It is necessary to apologize for what happened and avoid excuses.
You could say:
“I understand why you’re disturbed; I would be too. I am sorry that.”
“ I apologize for.. ”

It is essential to keep in mind that although you weren’t a part of the problem, however, at that time you’re the face of the company - its eyes, mouth, and ears.
As vital as it is to apologize, don’t take the blame when there’s no-fault. Just apologize for the situation in that case.

#5. Take a break:

While it's important not to take a negative call to heart or mind, that can be hard to do. Once an arduous situation has been resolved, take a mental break by stepping away from your desk or getting some fresh air. Demanding customers and their complaints are part of life, but so is excellent customer service. It is essential to de-stress from time to time and rejuvenate your sagging nerves. To maintain quality Customer service, take your time to relax and get back to another customer. Remember to treat every customer as new and tackle them with a zen mind.

Always shape up the conversation into a solution. Have confidence in your ability to deal with difficult customers confidently. And don’t forget to utilize the feedback as customer response demonstrates the problems and gives you a chance to troubleshoot. Put these customer service tips into practice and make a lasting impact on your business and customers.

Most importantly – stay calm and stay passionate!

https://bit.ly/3Uhw4Qj

4 Tips for Dealing with Difficult Customers

Lynn Hunsaker 

Are some customers just difficult people? Is there such a thing as a difficult person, anyway? Not really. The accurate viewpoint is it’s a difficult situation or a difficult interaction — not a difficult person per se.

Why do difficult situations or interactions occur? Quite simply, people get impatient because of a situation not meeting their expectations. The root causes of resistance to just about any issue are:
a) Concern that their needs will not be understood or met
b) Concern about loss of control or self-esteem

Knowing this can help you de-personalize uncomfortable situations and let go of your natural fight or flight reactions. Let go of your initial emotion to handle the situation from a neutral position.

A customer service rep who attended one of my recent classes said she’s feeling much happier in her job by conscientiously following the 4 steps to managing resistance:

1) Identify the issues causing the resistance
2) Understand the underlying factors of the issues
3) Provide solutions
4) Follow-up

Here’s how she applied the 4 steps:
1) A sample was requested by a channel partner in another country, emphasizing urgency to ship immediately, so the service rep booked the order free of charge and scheduled shipping, but the channel partner wouldn’t approve shipment.

·        The service rep, frustrated from these situations over the past year, immediately placed herself in a neutral position; this way she found it easier to open herself up for a conversation to start identifying the real issues.

·        The channel partner wanted a draft commercial invoice, but the service rep’s company has system-generated documents printed at time of shipping, so the approval process was a chicken-and-egg dilemma.

2) The service rep strove to understand the underlying issues behind the channel partner’s request for a draft commercial invoice: to satisfy the channel partner country’s customs requirements to present a legitimate document from the shipper.
3) To provide a solution, the service rep offered an alternative by sending the system-generated order acknowledgment in her company letterhead.

·        But the situation went back to step one, because the channel partner was upset that the order acknowledgment listed the sample free of charge.

·        The service rep went to step two by asking why a dollar amount was needed in the order acknowledgment: the customs bureau of the channel partner’s country requires a price declared to determine customs duties.

·        The service rep went to step three by suggesting the solution of entering a unit price under the part number and total price in the special instructions field – this would satisfy the channel partner’s need for price documentation and still accurately reflect that her company was shipping the sample free of charge.

·        Because of time zone differences, 3 days were consumed without approval – just as it seemed all was resolved, the channel partner requested the service rep to re-print the order acknowledgment with a lower price per unit.

·        The service rep felt very frustrated yet immediately placed herself in a neutral position, and went back to steps one and two: the channel partner wanted to save money by paying less customs duties.

·        Under-declaring price for customs purposes is against company policy and against federal customs laws, so the service rep escalated the situation to her immediate manager and the regional sales director; they were able to convince the channel partner to accept the current sample order and approve shipment.

4) To follow-up, the service rep reflected on the series of events and realized there was a lack of understanding by her channel partner of federal customs laws in her company’s headquarters country, so as a follow-up, she asked her company’s export manager to send a letter explaining the relevant customs laws.

·        My recommendation is to also ask her company’s operations department to set up an automated solution for future sample requests from international channel partners; generally, if one customer has a certain need or concern, there are also many others with the same need or concern.

These 4 steps can make your job much more fun as you become skilled in handling difficult situations. The customer depends on it! And so does your career and your company’s long-term success. Do these 4 steps work for you?