Leverage Customers as the Chief Customer Officer (CCO) While Increasing Customer Diversity and Inclusion

May 25, 2021 Leave a comment

How & why top companies are inverting their organization charts and putting their own customers in charge of customer operations while increasing Customer Diversity & Inclusion (D&I).

How and why this practice also leads to the following ratings:

1) Higher NPS,
2) Increased customer loyalty,
3) Increased customer satisfaction levels & CSAT,
4) Growth in customer zealots that virally promote your brands and company,
5) Increased customer diversity and inclusion (D&I).

The top 10 things you will learn by reading this blog:
1) The spectrum of customer first cultures – find out where you stand on this spectrum.
2) The trends in developing customer insights and customer feedback via customer inclusionary programs and customer onramps.
3) How customer onramps support customer diversity and inclusion (i.e., customer D&I programs).
4) Customer Experience metrics from real companies who have developed and deployed these customer onramps.
5) Creative win-wins to make your customer experience more fun, engaging, educational, rewarding, and inclusive.
6) Innovations in creating customer communities that increase brand loyalty, customer referrals.
7) Market leading companies and their case studies in leveraging customers as the Chief Customer Officer (CCO).
8) The customer organization Inversion and customer empowerment of the future.
9) Quick & easy wins in getting started in the customer inversion that will create customer zealots and a customer experience 2nd to none.
10) The top 10 things you should immediately consider implementing to increase Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) levels, NPS and customer loyalty rates by double digits.

A) The Customer Organizational Inversion-Revolution:

There is an organizational customer inversion-revolution going on and it will only accelerate in the future. What this revolution entails is a complete inversion of the customer decision making structure for companies, one where the customers (vs. the company) are in charge, leading the design of customer strategy and future customer programs. I call it the customer inversion revolution. This inversion looks something like the chart below. We will detail this customer organization inversion-revolution in following sections of this blog.

FROM:

Traditional Customer Service Organization

TO:

Customer Service Organization Inversion-Revolution

Key to implementing this customer organizational inversion-revolution is the development of customer inclusionary “on ramps” (shown in the green symbol above) that allows customers to participate and join the company team as brand partners, advocates, insights experts, advisors, etc. We will cover this more in depth in following sections but hence forward, customer on ramps will be designated by this symbol below:

Customer Inclusionary Onramp

These onramps detailed in the following blog increase customer inclusion by their very nature of creating an array of customer chosen methods for these customers to contribute to and participate in the company’s success. The enhanced diversity is derived from tapping into and leveraging the diverse set of perspectives and needs from existing customers that represent a cross-section of different cultures, races, genders, ages, political views, national origins and religions, etc. so that the best product and/or services are engaged in the marketplace.

Many companies have omitted these onramps in the vetting of new products, services, marketing campaigns, etc. and have ended up offending and alienating their own customers and potential prospects. A great web article points to how companies have fielded expensive and disastrous marketing campaigns and ads in the past only to have to quickly pull them from the market. These campaigns/ads are often a result of corporate myopathy and not taking into account a multitude of diverse perspectives enabled by an array of customer D&I onramps: “7 of the most controversial ads of our time” https://www.thedrum.com/news/2019/04/08/7-the-most-controversial-ads-our-time. A major West Coast bank vets all of it marketing concepts through a customer insights group (covered below) before ever releasing the ad and/or campaign into the market. Only after the CIG group (onramp) has weighed in and provided their approval and feedback will this bank to go market with their marketing concepts.

Bottom line, these onramps enable your customers to become brand and company partners/advocates who, through time and continued onramp participation, develop an ever increasing vested interest in the brand(s) and company success.

To be receptive to this change and to get onboard with customer leaders who are in the process of putting customers in charge and implementing the customer organizational inversion-revolution, you must first have a foundational customer centric culture. Companies that are implementing this customer centric change and building customer brand partners include Apple, Southwest Airlines, Ritz Carlton, Amazon, Marriott, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, etc. Let us first explore what a customer centric culture is and the spectrum of companies on the customer centric continuum.

B) The Customer First, Customer Centric Culture

To begin with, almost every company claims to be customer centric, that their customers are their most important asset, customer satisfaction is a priority, etc. In practice I have found that there is a spectrum of truth to these public statements ranging from treating customers as a necessary commodity to the other end of the spectrum and treating customers as equal and respected partners and treating customers as a true extension of the company-employee team.

Referring to the chart below, we can see that spectrum of company cultures and their treatment of customers based on these different company customer cultures. To simplify this illustration, I have only included 3 types of companies as follows (along top of chart):

Customer Centric Company Spectrum

“Customers are our most valuable asset”: Companies that truly value their customers and view them as an integral part of their team and company’s success. This type of company also maintains a true customer first culture, policies, standards, etc. (right side of chart, spectrum).
“We Value our Best Customers”: Companies that only strive to cater to their most valuable customers since these customers benefit the company the most (middle of chart, spectrum).
“Customers are a Necessary Commodity”: Companies that interact and ‘deal with’ customers when it benefits them (they pay lip service to slogan ‘customers are their most important asset’), left side of chart, spectrum.

On the left side of the above chart, we have a number of customer facing dimensions including the following:

1) “Customer Input”: How the company views and approaches soliciting customers for insights, input on new programs, detailed feedback (i.e., focus groups, crowdsourcing, etc.), etc.
2) “Customer Complaints”: How the company views and approaches the handling of customers complaints.
3) “Customer Inclusion, Partnership”: How the company approaches being customer inclusive by offering customers ways to partner with the company including online communities, customer co-blogging, customer spotlights, etc.
4) “Customer Engagement”: How the company approaches customer communication and creates a rewarding and engaging customer experience.

Companies located on the far-right side of the chart have the following belief that is not only a slogan, but embodied in the company culture, operations, practices, standards, rewards systems, etc.:

“Customers are our Most Valuable Asset”.

For the first customer dimension on the left side of the chart, “Customer Input”, a comment that I heard from a CEO with this type of culture is as follows:

“We make no (major) decisions (that will impact the customer) without the customer’s direct input”.

For the first customer dimension of “Customer Complaints”, a company CEO said the following,

“Customer complaints are a valuable insight and gift to help us improve, beat our competition”.

You can read the comments for each type of company aligned to each customer dimension. Bottom line, without a foundational customer first mindset, rewards and incentive system and culture, you will be impeded on implementing the effective customer inclusion program with many possible customer onramps detailed in the remainder of this blog.

C) Mainstream Customer Inclusionary Programs & Onramps:

As I mentioned before, once you have established a totally customer centric culture, the 2nd step is to build customer incremental onramps for the customer to become a brand partner and an integral part of the customer team. These onramps invite the customer to participate in a number of activities that will increase customer satisfaction (CSAT), loyalty, NPS, viral referrals, etc. Based on my experience, building these customer inclusionary onramps can net your company huge increases in key customer measures as follows:

1) NPS: +14 to 49
2) Customer Loyalty: + 4% to 36%
3) Customer Positive Sentiment: +12% to 71%
4) Customer Viral Referrals: +11% to 26%

Customer On-Ramp: Customer Advisory Board Program

1) Customer Advisory Board Program:

A Customer Advisory Board (CAB) is the composition of a group of trusted, and generally top customers, who meet on a regular basis (i.e., Quarterly) to advise the company on strategic direction such as the product and/or service roadmap and on upcoming major new programs. Customer advisory boards (a.k.a. trusted customer advisors) can also be a conduit to award top customers for their input, loyalty, spend, referrals, etc.

At a top US automotive company, we invited our top and most open/honest customers to these focus group and advisory events, paid their travel expenses, hosted a nice dinner reception and, at the end of the session, gave them an appreciation gift for their continued participation and loyalty. We also had Platinum private customer events for our top 1% spend customers which were meetings with the EVP and above for open-ended candid feedback & insights gathering discussions.

Customer On-Ramp: Customer Insights Group Program

2) Customer Insights Group Program:

A Customer Insights Group (CIG) is the composition of a wider cross-section of customers or specific customer segment(s) who meet on a regular basis (i.e., weekly, quarterly) to advise the company on new tactical programs, proposed sales campaigns, and marketing concepts, provide feedback on existing program effectiveness, provide customer experience insights based on their own actual experience, etc. Customer insights groups are usually on a voluntary enrollment basis and typically come with some sort of incentive to participate (i.e., participate and be entered in a drawing for a gift certificate).

A top 5 US bank uses these extensively and there is a directive from the CMO that no new marketing programs/materials/etc. will be fielded without first getting the input of this insights group. After implementing this program, marketing effectiveness increased by an overall 27% and the loyalty of the group increased by a whopping 38% as compared to non-CIG participants. When surveyed, 92% of CIG members indicated that they told 26+ about their positive perception of this bank CIG program (survey choices were 0-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-25 or 26+).

Amazingly enough, 5,000 participants volunteer up to 8 hours of their time per week to participate with another 5,000 eagerly waiting in the wings for their term to participate (participation is limited to a 2-year term).

In addition, by tapping into a diverse customer set, the bank was able to avoid potential marketing disasters by stopping the fielding of proposed marketing materials that were deemed offensive and culturally insensitive by members of the customer insights group.

Customer On-Ramp: Customer Co-blogging & Co-Authoring Program

3) Customer Co-Blogging & Co-Author Program:

Customers telling their story (the voice of the customer) about their success in using your product/service and their customer experiences are 5-7x more credible than coming from the company. In addition, customer authors bring with them an entirely new audience sphere (their friends, connection, relatives, etc.) which will result in a dramatically increasing your website traffic, SEO, referrals, etc. Customers love the opportunity to be spotlighted and write their own story (with helpful company editing of course) when it comes to their experience interacting with the company. Co-blogging can also be about customer stories with a human-interest side to it vs. always being business oriented. Customer co-authored articles can be about topics such as how to gain the most value from the product/service, tips/tricks they have learned, the value they have gained from using same, etc.

We recently used this for a struggling newsletter program that had only penetrated 27% of our customer base. Six months after I implemented the co-blogging program, the newsletter distribution grew to 56% of our customer base and we experienced a simultaneous increase of 17% in new visitor web traffic.

Customer On-Ramp: Top Customer Appreciation & Recognition Program

4) Top Customer Appreciation & Recognition Program:

Remember the movie “Up in the Air” with George Clooney? He was a top traveler who strived to be in the 1% club in terms of air miles flown per year on a particular airline whereby, if he achieved this distinction, he would then be invited to an awards dinner with the CEO of the airline and be showered with a whole host of flying perks after achieving that level of spend/loyalty. Banks, hotels, brokerage firms, etc. all have an array of top customer loyalty rewards programs.

For the very top customers, there are more hands-on personal perks like a dedicated/private concierge assigned to customers like for the American Express Black credit card which can only be obtained by direct invite by American Express (i.e. not via request). A top US air conditioning company I used to work for had top distributorship recognition events for the distributors who sold the highest revenue generating air conditioning units. While focused internally for a company, many salespersons have benefitted from such top achievement loyalty programs by achieving the distinction as top salespersons for their companies and being rewarded with trips, cash, luxury items, cars, etc. as a thank you for their contributions.

Customer On-Ramp: Customer Product/Service Beta Group Program

5) Customer Product/Service Beta Group Program:

Before top companies like Microsoft and Apple ever release a new product into the market, they first try these new products with limited volunteer beta groups. They gather feedback from these beta test groups and then continuously improve the beta product before releasing the product to mitigate potentially disastrous consequences of releasing products with potential flaws that internal testing failed to consider via their test cases.

Customer On-Ramp: Customer Success Program

6) Customer Success (Spotlight) Program:

Does your company have successful customers using your product and/or service? Why not showcase or spotlight this success by detailing what they did, how they did it and the value they were able to derive from doing so? Challenge customers to submit their success stories for selection to spotlight in the newsletter, website, articles, FAQs, consideration for prizes for the top stories, etc. The more customers witness real customer successes, the more other customers will want to figure out how to acquire your product/service to emulate the success of other customers.

Customer On-Ramp: Ambassador Program

7) Customer Ambassador Program:

The Syracuse University (SU) admissions and student success programs received a big boost with the adoption of its Alumni ambassador program whereby successful alumni would volunteer to host regional recruiting events, student college send-off events, and answer questions from interested students in their area. Alumni ambassador groups increased the level of excitement and enthusiasm for new students and families while simultaneously decreasing the levels of anxiety and confusion among students and families.

The entire ecosystem of a customer first, customer inclusive company that has inverted the customer organizational structure and has built a comprehensive set of customer onramps to be able to put customers in charge of customer operations would look something like the following chart:

Customer Inclusionary & Participatory Programs, Onramps

D) Other Customer Inclusionary Programs & Onramps:

In addition to the more popular and mainstream customer inclusionary programs above, there are several other programs that I have encountered that were effective by increasing the levels or customer loyalty and creating many customer-brand zealots (those who actively and aggressively advocate for the brand/company).

Customer On-Ramp: Creative Council Program

1) Customer Creative Council Program:

Many customers have a wide range of creative talents outside of simply being a customer. A company with a large customer base tends to have customers who are very creative such as artists, craftspeople, etc. A large SaaS software firm I consulted for would solicit creative ideas for new campaign concepts from the creative group among their customer base (and sometimes from their employees) to get the best creative concepts as possible. Many times, customers would develop far more appealing creative concepts than their own dedicated creative talent working within the company. Why not source from the best of the best, including creative customers?! This would allow the company to harness this creativity while allowing creative customers to be spotlighted for their hidden talents and feel valued by the company.

Customer On-Ramp: Talent Showcase
Program

2) Customer Talent Showcase Program:

Beyond just being creative, a company with a large customer base typically includes customers who are also poets, book authors, those with interesting and varied professions such as paramedics, volunteer firefighters, food bank volunteers, world travelers, iron men or women, triathletes, extreme cyclists, paragliders, scuba divers, treasure hunters, etc. Many companies I have worked with have conducted customer showcases that highlight the interesting lives of their customer base beyond merely being a customer. These personal story showcases add a human-interest side to the customer base and tend to make customers feel more connected to and understood-appreciated by the company.

Customer Journey Customer Co-Mapping

3) Customer Involved Customer Journey Mapping & Continuous Improvement Program:

Are you planning on creating a customer journey map and want to know what the important steps and metrics are in that journey? Why not invite the customer to join in on these development sessions to provide the team with some insights, feedback, important items to consider? I have used this approach quite effectively and have developed far more qualitative customer journeys as a result. I used this approach to develop a brand new and innovative customer journey map I have labeled “The Quantifiable Customer Journey Map”. Refer to my previous blog article for insights here: https://bit.ly/3bvPRal

The Quantifiable Customer Journey Map

Bottom line, without the customer’s input, the high quality achieved in the final customer journey map would have been much more difficult and time consuming to achieve.

Customer Diversity & Inclusion Council

4) Customer Diversity & Inclusion Council:

A few companies I have worked with in the past have managed and conducted employee diversity councils whereby employees would provide their perspective on how the company can be more diverse, culturally sensitive, and overall inclusive.

A few companies have taken this further and included their own customers into the diversity council along with their employees. In this manner, the company ensures that it is considering the widest possible perspective on D&I and not falling victim to company group think.

Regardless of whether you include a formal customer diversity council, what all the above illustrated customer onramps do in essence is help build a company culture that supports customer diversity and inclusion (D&I) as follows:

1) Enables the assembling of a diverse set of perspectives, based on unique and diverse set of customer experiences, needs, etc.
2) Provides diverse feedback on potential new customer programs, marketing, etc. that might be perceived as offensive and discriminatory to certain customer groups.
3) Enables customers to showcase their diverse backgrounds, talents, interests, viewpoints.
4) Enables a voice of the customer cultivation that represents the full cross section of diverse customers.
5) Enables the delivery of the best of the best solutions by allowing feedback on proposed programs from a wide and diverse set of customers.

If your organization is seeking experienced assistance in creating these customer onramps and a more diverse and inclusive and customer first organization where customers are leveraged to assist the insights Chief Customer Officer (CCO) and are transitioned to full brand-partners/advocates/participants/etc., then give me a call or e-mail me at 518-339-5857 or stevenjeffes@gmail.com. I am also a Certified CultureTalk (https://culturetalk.com/) consultant that can help you develop and/or improve a customer-oriented, customer first culture.

Steven Jeffes, Certified CultureTalk Consultant

Lastly, this is just one article of over 50 articles I have written on customer strategy, customer experience, CRM, sales excellence, marketing, product management, competitive intelligence, corporate innovation, change management – all of which I have significant experience in delivering for numerous Fortune 500 companies. In fact, my blog is now followed by nearly 107,000 world-wide and was just named one of the top 100 CRM blogs on the planet by Feedspot, alongside Salesforce.com, Infor, Microsoft, SAS, etc. – Reference this informative site here: https://blog.feedspot.com/crm_blogs/ .

Filed under Change Management, Company Culture, CRM, Customer Profitability, customer service, customer strategy Tagged with Amazon, American Express, American Express black card, Apple, Bank of America, best culture improvement consulting firms, best customer experience improvement consulting firms, brand partners, brand partnership, brand zealots, CAB, Carrier Air Conditioning, CCEO, CCO, Chief Customer Experience Officer, Chief Customer Officer, CIG, Cox Automotive, CSAT, culture improvement consultants, culture improvement consulting firms, CultureTalk, customer advice, customer advice bureau, customer advisors, customer advisors free, customer advisory board, customer advisory charter, customer advisory council, customer advisory events, customer advisory template, customer advocacy, customer advocacy board, customer advocacy council, customer advocacy definition, customer advocacy group, customer advocate, customer advocate job description, customer advocates, customer ambassador program samples, customer ambassador programs, customer appreciation programs, customer art programs, customer beta groups, customer brand advocates, customer brand partner, customer brand partners, customer brand partnership, customer centric, customer centric companies, customer centric culture, customer centricity, customer co-authoring, customer co-authors, customer co-blogging, customer communities, customer community engagement, customer complaint feedback, customer complaint handling, customer contest examples, customer contest ideas, customer creative councils, customer critical race theory, customer culture consultants, customer D&I programs, customer discrimination, customer diversification, customer diversity & inclusion, customer diversity & inclusion bureau, customer diversity and inclusion, customer diversity council, customer diversity examples, customer diversity excellence, customer diversity feedback group, customer diversity improvement, customer diversity programs, customer diversity training, customer empowerment, customer engagement examples, customer engagement programs, customer engagement samples, customer equity programs, customer excellence programs, customer experience improvement consulting firms, customer experience programs, customer feedback, customer feedback examples, customer feedback group, customer feedback questions, customer feedback sessions, customer first culture, customer focus examples, Customer focus groups, customer focus questions, customer inclusion, customer inclusion program chart, customer inclusion programs, customer inclusive companies, customer innovation, customer insight group, customer insights, customer insights group, customer journey map example, customer journey map samples, customer journey mapping, customer leadership, Customer Loyalty Best Practices, customer loyalty programs, customer newsletter spotlights, customer onramps, customer oriented cultures, customer participation, customer participation definition, customer participation examples, customer participation in services, customer participation index, customer participation programs, customer participation rates, customer participation samples, customer partner program, customer partner system, customer partners, customer partnership, customer pilot groups, customer recognition programs, customer referrals, customer revolution, customer reward program examples, customer rewards programs, customer sentiment, customer SEO, customer service org chart, Customer service organization, customer service organization chart sample, customer service organization examples, Customer service organization organizational chart, customer service trends, customer spotlighting, customer stickiness, customer success programs, customer success showcase, customer success stories, customer talent showcase, customer top trends, customer trends of the future, customer valued asset, customer viral referrals, customer win-win, diversity and inclusion customer experience, diversity and inclusion customers, diversity and inclusion in customer service, elite customer programs, employee diversity council, Feedspot.com, free customer journey map samples, free customer rewards programs, fun customer content, fun customer contests, fun customer programs, increase customer sentiment, luxury customer programs, Marriott, Microsoft, most valuable customer programs, NPS, partnering with your customers, private customer events, Ritz-Carlton, Southwest Airlines, Steven Jeffes, Syracuse University 100 program, Syracuse University alumni ambassador program, Syracuse University student satisfaction, the quantifiable customer journey map, top 100 CRM blogs, top culture improvement consulting firms, top customer cultures, top customer experience improvement consulting firms, top customer programs, top customer rewards, top customer service programs, top salesperson programs, top seller programs, trusted customer advisors, value of customer participation, voice of customer, voice of the customer cultivation, voice of the customer insights, voice of the customer programs, voice of the customer samples

Introducing: The Quantifiable Customer Journey Map

March 9, 2021 Leave a comment

The top 10 things you will learn by reading this blog article:
1) What a customer journey map is and what it is used for.
2) What a customer service map is and what it used for.
3) The business benefits of developing a best practice customer journey.
4) How a customer journey map and a customer service map relate and map to each other.
5) Best practices in the development of customer journey maps and customer service maps.
6) How to build a hierarchy of customer journey map levels such that a customer service map is a natural outcome of the customer journey mapping process.
7) What completed examples of customer journey maps and service maps look like.
8) What critical components are missing from many customer journey maps.
9) How the invention, development and rollout of the quantifiable customer journey map is the wave of the future adding tremendous new business and customer value to its usage.
10) How this new quantifiable customer journey map is the most comprehensive and quantifiable method to come along.

One of the relatively newer tools for larger companies and enterprises in the customer experience professional’s toolbox is the practice of customer journey mapping as well as customer service mapping. First, a complete and simple definition of both of these tools is as follows:

1) Customer journey map definition:

A customer journey map is the pictorial representation, from the customer’s viewpoint, of their experience of interacting with a company for various customer service needs.

2) Customer service map definition:

A customer service map is the pictorial representation, from the company’s (internal) viewpoint, of the capabilities and processes used to fulfill various customer service needs.

Difference Between the Two Definitions Above: The major difference between the two techniques above is the perspective as follows:

Journey mapping is from the customer’s external viewpoint (interacting with the company for various customer service needs), while the service map is an internal viewpoint (company provision of services for various customer needs).

One key point is that service mapping is much less valuable if constructed prior to building the customer journey map. A best practice customer journey map documents the major paths the customer uses to obtain service from the company, the various reasons customers interact with the company, gaps in the current delivery of customer service, best practices that should be kept and strengthened and most importantly, it should map and track customer health metrics that customers indicate are most important to them. Once this journey is documented and mapped, then the current state and future state service maps can be constructed to determine how and how well the company is serving the customer including any service gaps that need to be filled.

It is worthy to note that there are now a number of emerging tools that automate the development of a customer journey map. While these accelerate the timeline of the development of the customer journey map, the automation of this process can shortchange the most valuable parts of the team map development exercise which include the following (sample):

Team discussion & agreement on the overall current state of customer service and experience.
Team customer journey point of view discussion, socialization and consensus building.
Team prioritization of the top future state customer service programs and processes.
Developing team concurrence on the matrix of cost to serve vs. service quality delivery levels.

I have used these customer experience tools extensively in the past during numerous client consulting engagements and found them very useful. Some of the business benefits for utilizing these tools are as follows:

1) Provides a comprehensive pictorial of the various paths the customer transits through to obtain service from the company.
2) Provides a great assessment of the current state of customer practices and customer health.
3) Provides a great assessment of the future (needed) state of the optimal way to provide customer service that would enhance the service quality level vs. current state.
4) Provides a gateway to be able to map out internal service pathways as well as to document existing gaps and opportunities in those pathways.
5) (New) The “Quantifiable Customer Journey Map” now provides the best assessment of the current state of customer health across all major customer journey phases.
6) (New) The “Quantifiable Customer Journey Map” now provides the best snapshot of both the current state of customer health as well as needed future state program capabilities based directly on customer input and feedback.

One of the major historical gaps in producing customer journey maps was that many times the journey map merely documented the customer journey and experience without regard to the measurement of customer relevant metrics that can be leveraged to increase customer loyalty, spend, share of wallet, CSAT, NPS, etc. The exercise to measure customer health was often performed separately or in parallel to the customer journey mapping process. In order to bridge this gap in many existing customer journey maps, I have developed a new and innovative way to map a customer journey while simultaneous accomplishing the following:
1) Cultivating and documenting the customer metrics that matter most to the customer.
2) Delivering current state quantification of those top customer metrics.
3) Delivering feedback from the customer on what capabilities future state customer programs should contain.

Introducing: The NEW Quantifiable Customer Journey Map

The following graphic is the final version of a new quantifiable customer journey map I have developed which now includes the discrete measurement of customer health as part of the customer journey map development process. I will break down and detail each best practice component of this new customer journey map in later sections of this article.

The Quantifiable Customer Journey Map

Best Practice Customer Journey Detailed Components
Next we will detail each component of this new “quantifiable customer journey map”.

First let’s detail how the components of a customer journey map are determined. The structural framework components of a customer journey map exist along the x and y axis of the map. The components you will find in both the x-axis and y-axis of a customer journey map are actually highly variable based on the type of customer journey map being constructed. Below is a sample list of the most common types of customer journey maps.

Existing Types of Customer Journey Maps:

1) Current state map
2) Future state map
3) Macro map (strategic),
4) Micro-level map (tactical)
5) User experience maps
6) Customer emotion map
7) Day in the life map

This new and more effective quantifiable customer journey map I will cover takes into account many of the following from above (1-4) plus something new & innovative:

1) Current state map
2) Future state map
3) Macro-map (strategic)
4) Micro-level map (tactical)
5) New & Innovative: Quantifiable current state of customer health across all journey phases.

This last customer journey map component (5) is missing from many other customer journey maps but has been incorporated into this new quantifiable customer journey map. This new method in my opinion is by far the most comprehensive snapshot you can take of current customer health as well as simultaneously taking into account both macro and micro customer journey map components. This new method also integrates customer service mapping in a single synergistic exercise.

Quantifiable Customer Journey Map Detail Components (x-axis)

The first component of the quantifiable customer journey map exists along the top (horizontal) portion of the map, representing the major stages the customer transits through in a common customer journey. Customer journey phases exist along the x-axis commonly for many, but not all, customer journey maps. Typically several major top-level (level 1.0) customer journeys exist to document critical and common customer paths such as new customer, renewing customer, customer obtaining customer service, etc. Depicted below are the major phases (level 1.0) for a new customer journey for a client who sells SaaS market analytics/AI software. Remember, a customer journey map is a structural framework that, no matter the type variation, should always be constructed from the customer’s (vs. the company’s) viewpoint.

Quantifiable Customer Map Journey Customer Stages (x-axis)

Quantifiable Customer Journey Map Detail Components (y-axis)
The y-axis of the quantifiable customer journey map contains the following components (developed from the customer’s perspective and via customer direct input):
1) Sub Level Customer Journeys – The level 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc. sub-journeys that the customer experiences as they typically transit each phase of the top 1.0 level customer journey.
2) New! Top 2-3 Customer Needs and Drivers – Driven by direct customer input and feedback, the top 2-3 needs and drivers (i.e. what is most important) for each phase of the customer journey
3) New! Customer Ratings and Metrics (rating scale of 1.0 to 5.0) – Driven by direct customer input and feedback, the current (snapshot) quantification of the top 2-3 customer needs and drivers for each phase of the customer journey.
4) Current State Best Practices – Driven by direct customer input and feedback, the top best practices that are operating well within each phase of the customer journey. These best practices should be retained and continuously improved to maintain a competitive edge.
5) Suggested Future State Programs – A comprehensive review of the current state gaps for each customer journey phase such that future state customer experience programs can be implemented to improve customer satisfaction levels.

Quantifiable Customer Journey Map Framework Components (y-axis)

Sub-Micro Customer Journeys
The first detail in the y-axis customer journey is the documentation of which customer sub-journeys can be broken down to the 1.1, 1.2, etc. level for each major (level 1.0) customer journey phase. For example, under the first customer journey stage of “Customer Purchases”, there exists the sub-phases (level 1.1) of the following:
1.1 Customer Discovery (we will show an example of this sublevel drill-down later in this article)
1.2 Customer Deep Dive Q&A
1.3 Customer Trial/Evaluation
1.4 Customer Explores Purchase Options
1.5 Customer Contract Evaluation, negotiation, closure
1.6 Customer On-Boarding Preparation
We detail how to drill down and further detail these customer journey sub-phases later in this article.

Quantifiable Customer Journey Map, Level 1.0,
Customer Stage Sub-Journeys (y-axis, row 1)

The next two intricately tied y-axis components (rows 2 & 3) are the key components in this quantifiable customer journey:

1) The Top 2-3 Customer Needs and Drivers (Row 2) (for each 1.0 level customer journey phase):
These are determined by querying a cross segment of customers (via customer feedback-focus groups) about what is most important to them during that particular customer journey phase. These key customer needs and drivers then formulate the current state metrics that need to be, not only collected in an as-is current state assessment, but also collected systemically moving forward via automated customer health dashboards to determine ongoing and longitudinal customer health.
Continuing the drill down on the 1st phase, “Customer Purchases”, we find that customers are most concerned with, in order of importance:
a) How well the software covers their business requirements and business use cases (vs. price when against business requirements coverage %)
b) The Quality Perception of the Product/Brand/Company they are buying into for enterprise level software
c) Ease of Doing Business with the Company/Brand they are doing business with. Described another way in focus groups “we want to buy software from a company that values and respects our time and is easy (and a pleasure) to do business with”

Quantifiable Customer Journey Map, Level 1.0,
Top 2-3 Customer Needs and Drivers (y-axis, row 2)

2) The Current State Customer Ratings and Metrics (Row 3) (for each of the top customer phases needs and drivers):
This component is the current state quantification of the top 2-3 customer relevant measures from above as determined via direct customer measurement. In continuing with the previous example we find that the quantification of the top 3 measures for this particular client were as follows:
a) Price vs. functional fit index rating of 3.8 which indicates the company is meeting most of the needs of their customer’s use cases and needs. This client thought it important to gauge price along with functional fit rather than succumb to the ‘build it at any price’ product management quagmire.
b) Quality Perception index rating by customers of 1.9 is a low and concerning score that needs to be rectified
c) The ease of doing business CSAT score of 3.3 which, while slightly above average, still warrants some focus for improvement.

Quantifiable Customer Journey Map, Level 1.0,
Customer Ratings and Metrics (y-axis, row 3)

As previously mentioned, once the current state snapshot is taken via the customer journey mapping process, the top 2-3 customer needs and drivers need to be incorporated into an overall automated “customer health metrics dashboard” that systemically and automatically tracks and monitors these metrics across all level 1.0 customer journey phases.

The quantification of customer health across all customer journey stages can quickly point to areas needing major improvements like the 2nd stage (“Customer On-boards”) highlighted in red below. Of particular concern is the very low metric of “Brand Support Education” at a rating of 1.7.

Next up are the yellow highlighted areas of 1 – “Customer Purchases” and 3 – “Customer Uses” and are the 2nd area where customer average phase ratings are less than superior (3.0 and 3.4 respectively). Of particular concern under the 1 -“Customer Purchases” stage is the low customer rating for the intra-phase detailed metric of “Quality Perception” with a score of 1.9.

Best Practice: Many companies often use the customer journey phase total metric as a measure of customer health (i.e. 1 -“Customer Purchases” and 3- “Customer Uses” ratings of 3.0 and 3.4 respectively), but a best practice is to also measure customer journey intra-phase sub-metrics like “Quality Perception” (rating of 1.9) under “Customer Purchases”. In this manner major specific and critically important customer service sub-processes can be measured and adjusted to ensure their continued effective operation.

Lastly, stages highlighted in green are 4 – “Customer Engages Brand”, 5 – “Customer Engages Support” and 6 – “Customer Renews “might be subject to ongoing continuous improvement since they are approaching superior ratings (3.8 averages for all 3 phases).

The sum totals of all level 1.0 ratings are as follows:
1 – Customer Purchases – 3.0
2 – Customer On-Boards – 1.7
3 – Customer Uses – 3.4
4 – Customer Engages Brand – 3.8
5 – Customer Engages Support – 3.8
6 – Customer Renews – 3.8
For an executive summary dashboard metric of 3.25 ((3.0+1.7+3.4+3.8+3.8+3.8)/6) for all level 1.0 customer journeys.

Quantifiable Customer Journey Map, Level 1.0,
Highlighted Customer Ratings and Metrics (y-axis, row 3)

Full view of Customer Needs & Drivers with Ratings and Metrics (y-axis, row 3 & 4)

While the next two sections might appear to be constructed from the company’s point of view, these were carefully constructed via direct customer feedback and inquiry. By asking a cross section of customers a series of multi-dimensional questions (sample questions* below) these highly valuable insights were cultivated.

*Sample questions: “what is working well?”, “what were the top factors in your purchase (or renewal) decision?”, “what were the detractors in your decision to purchase (or renew)?”, “what else could we do to improve our functionality, processes, capabilities”, “what is missing vs. what you consider our competitor’s best practice?”, “what did you like most about the renewal process?”, etc..

While this inquiry results in additional cost and extends the timeline in the development of a customer journey map, the value of the insights generated are worth 2x-20x the investment.

Existing Best Practices (Row 4)
The next row (4) in the quantifiable customer journey map is the top best practices that are operating effectively and efficiently within each phase of the customer journey. These best practices should be maintained and continuously improved in order to maintain a competitive edge. Continuing with the drill-down on the 1st, “Customer Purchases” customer journey phase, we find the following best practices being employed that should be maintained and continuously improved:
1) Maintaining functionality considered within the top 5% of all competitors as rated by (name of rating company purposely omitted, client confidential).
2) Maintaining and continuously improving the flexible and highly optioned payment purchase plans.
3) Maintaining and strengthening the Gartner relationship such that we remain on their radar in a favorable way, get top recommendations for adoptions, market ratings.

Quantifiable Customer Journey Map, Level 1.0,
Existing Best Practices to Maintain, Strengthen (y-axis, row 4)

Suggested Future Changes (Row 5)
The next row (5) in the quantifiable customer journey map is the top “Suggested Future Programs” that need to be implemented within each phase of the Level 1.0 customer journey map. Continuing with the drill-down on the 1st, “Customer Purchases” phase, we find the following improvement programs should be implemented:
1) In addition to the strong relationship we have with Gartner, maintaining and strengthening the relationship with several other top respected & independent software reviewer companies (names client confidential) such that we remain on their radars in a favorable way, get top recommendations for adoptions, market ratings.
2) Perform a multi-dimensional performance and “solution comprehensiveness” benchmark study vs. other top competitors and publish in a white paper and publish to 3rd party reviewers.
3) Continue to build out our product road map with the top rated desired customer functionality, taking into account the PY business case for the build-out of these functions.

Quantifiable Customer Journey Map, Level 1.0,
Suggested Future Improvement Programs (y-axis, row 5)

Customer Journey Micro Stage Drill-Down (1.0 –> 1.1)
In order to fully document the customer journey process, it is important to drill down and document all major customer journey sub-levels where the customer receives a major different customer experience based on path chosen to fulfill their needs. The sections following demonstrate this technique and components but does not fully show all of the quantification components (y-axis) as shown in the above examples.

Below is the depiction of the mapping of the 1st customer journey phase of “Customer Purchases” under level 1.0 into the journey map that covers these sub-phases in customer journey map level 1.1

The sub-phases under this 1.1 level consist of the following:
1.1.1 Customer Discovery
1.1.2 Customer Deep Dive Q&A
1.1.3 Customer Trial/Evaluation
1.1.4 Customer Discusses Purchase Options
1.1.5 Customer Contract Evaluation, Negotiation, Closure
1.1.6 Customer On-boarding Preparation

Quantifiable Customer Journey Map, Level 1.0,”Customer Purchases”
Drill-Down to Level 1.1 Customer Journeys

Customer Journey Micro Sub-Stage Drill-Down (1.0 –> 1.1–> 1.2.1)
Here is the depiction of the drill down to the level 1.1 “Customer Discover” sub-phase under level 1.0 “Customer Purchases” that further details these sub-phases as follows:
Customer:
1.2.1 Visits Website
1.2.2 Calls Sales Team
1.2.3 Calls Account Team
1.2.4 Completes Web Query Form to Learn More
1.2.5 Requests 3rd party attestation information
1.2.6 Requests software demonstration (variants: scripted or unscripted)
These sublevels then can be further detailed and documented down to the 1.2.1.1 levels if necessary.

Quantifiable Customer Journey Map, Level 1.1,”Customer Discovery”
Drill-Down to Level 1.2.x Customer Sub-Journeys

Hierarchy of Strategic Customer Journey Map to Tactical Map to Customer Service Map
Here is the full depiction of the hierarchy of the top level customer journey map major phases down to the sub-levels as well as to the service map we developed to document and diagnose how well the company was delivering upon their service level commitments and requirements (SLAs). Again, note that the customer journey map is typically and mostly from the customer’s viewpoint while the service map is constructed from an internal standpoint of HOW that service is provided to the customer.

One key take-away from this is that the service map documentation should align to the lowest logical level of customer journey map as to document all service map path permutations in order to ensure adequate customer service coverage as well as to document any gaps in the variants of service that are provided to the customer.

Quantifiable Customer Journey Map, Relationship & Hierarchy from Level 1.0 to Level 1.1 to Level 1.2 to the Customer Service Map Detail

Best Practice Customer Service Map
Here is a depiction of a portion of the customer service map that aligns to the 1.2.x level of the customer journey map. While this graphic is not the full service map for “Customer Discovery”, it illustrates the major components of a service map. The service map is constructed from an internal standpoint of HOW that service is provided to the customer via the various methods and channels.

A future blog topic will cover more in-depth the best practices associated with the development of a customer service map, following on from this specific client example.

Best Practice Customer Service Map Example

Summary:

In summary, measuring your customer experience quality/effectiveness must be guided by a set of effective best practice tools, diagnostic techniques as well as a solid methodology. The use of customer service maps and customer journeys with embedded customer experience journey analytics is an emerging best practice to accomplish this goal. The new tool of a “Quantifiable Customer Journey Map” is being introduced as the latest tool in the toolkit for customer experience architects and professionals to address gaps in previous customer journey map’s framework designs (measurement of customer health). In the practice of developing a customer journey map, the customer’s viewpoint, input and feedback is critical to developing any credibility and value.

By utilizing this new quantifiable customer journey tool and methodology there are vast improvements to be uncovered and implemented that will enable your company to leapfrog the competition and to become the market leader in customer service delivery. Market leading companies like Apple, American Express, Costco, Zappos, Intuit, Southwest Airlines, Wegmans have all adopted this customer first viewpoint and company culture and have benefitted tremendously by doing so. With all of the benefit to be achieved by your company, there is no excuse to not actively work on creating a better customer experience and adopting this new & innovative tool and associated methodology by assessing your customer health via the quantifiable customer journey map.

If your organization is seeking experienced assistance in assessing the state of your customer health including best practices, gaps, top & relevant customer measures and future state program design then give me a call or e-mail me at 518-339-5857 or stevenjeffes@gmail.com.

Lastly, this is just one article of over 50 articles I have written on customer strategy, customer experience, CRM, marketing, product management, competitive intelligence, corporate innovation, change management – all of which I have significant experience in delivering for numerous Fortune 500 companies. In fact, my blog is now followed by nearly 107,000 world-wide and was just named one of the top 100 CRM blogs on the planet by Feedspot, alongside Salesforce.com, Infor, Microsoft, SAS, etc. – Reference this informative site here: https://blog.feedspot.com/crm_blogs/.

Create Elated Customers for Life by Delivering Surprise & Delight Customer Service

June 10, 2020 Leave a comment

Surprise & Delight Customer Service

The following is what you will learn by reading this blog:

The main business capabilities for a company to possess to deliver superb and legendary customer service
The most critical capabilities to develop in order to enable your front-line employees to be able to deliver excellent customer service
The introduction of the concept and definition of Surprise & Delight Customer Service and how the world’s top customer service companies deliver this consistently
Examples of the best Surprise & Delight Customer Service that I have personally encountered and how they are linked to the critical components listed in #2 above
Top customer service companies considered to be world-class in delivering Surprise & Delight Customer Service
The programs you need to implement so that your company can deliver consistent Surprise & Delight Customer Service to your customers

___

SECTION 1: Benefits of having elated, “surprised and delighted”, customers:

The research I have conducted indicates that truly elated customers, who are consistently surprised by the level of service they receive from your company, go on to tell multiple friends, relatives, acquaintances, co-workers about your company, products/services and stories of their great experiences interacting with your company. This grass roots customer advocacy transforms your customers from just your customers into infectious and 24×7 adjunct company sales and marketing agents, convincing people they interact with to buy from your company.

Additional research also shows that this customer transformation does not come when they rate your company and service as merely “Satisfied” but rather only when a customer is elated and rates your customer service with a 7 , or “Extremely satisfied”, rating as shown here:

Sample Customer Service Ratings

____

The following graph illustrates the correlation between the rating provided by a customer on their customer service and the strength of their company advocacy and likeliness to recommend a company.

Correlation between Customer Satisfaction Ratings and the Likeliness to Recommend/Advocate for a Company

____

SECTION 2: Capabilities required to deliver exceptional “surprise and delight” customer service:

There are more than 10 dimensions in developing and delivering customer service excellence including the following:

Development of a customer-oriented vision and strategy.
Development of service excellence standards that are institutionalized across the enterprise.
Development and maintenance of a company culture that drives team unity and focus as well as customer service excellence and a mindset of customers first.
Implementation of a customer errors, omissions and anomaly recovery processes.
Implementation of a customer experience and customer service excellence measurement system.
Inclusion of customers in helping define and develop the final customer management capabilities, content, methods, etc.
Implementation of a customer bill of rights and non-negotiable customer standards.
Development of customer emotional connection points based on customer journeys.
Development of a set of hiring criteria and standards to be able to identify and source employees who have a predisposition for delivering exceptional customer service (friendly, outgoing, personable, believes in helping others, rates high on empathy, etc.)
Deployment of training that ensures front-line employees are customer service excellence certified so that they can deliver world-class customer first service.
Delivery of surprise and delight (S&D) customer service & experience through the development of S&D customer processes.

While all of the above are important I feel that the last three are of critical importance in making customers consistently extremely satisfied. In the next section we will cover the definition of surprise and delight customer service and share real examples of its delivery across many service-related industries.

____

SECTION 3 – Surprise & Delight definition, examples:

Surprise and delight customer service is consistently going well above and beyond customer expectations such that customers feel both surprised and delighted by their treatment & level of service by your company.

Surprise & Delight Customer Service

Here are some examples of where I have personally encountered surprise & delight customer service:

___

1) Hotels:

A) High Peaks Resort, Lake Placid, NY: I recently checked into the High Peaks Resort in the Adirondack Mountains during the time of my birthday. The front desk has a champagne reception for all incoming guests. When we were offered champagne, my wife told them that we were celebrating my birthday. The attendant responded by saying, “we will take care of it” and took the glasses away. I said to my wife, “that was confusing as they said we will take care of it” and then promptly took our glasses from us. We got to our room shortly thereafter and heard a knock on the door. It was a service attendant with a bottle of champagne and a personalized birthday card signed by the front desk staff. Talk about surprise and delight customer service!! We were so impressed! Obviously, this resort embraces and understands the importance of S&DCS as described in #11 below.

Delivery of surprise and delight (S&D) customer service & experience through the development of S&D customer processes

Here are the thoughts and emotions I recorded just after this superb treatment by the High Peaks Resort:

They really care about their customers.
This hotel really goes out of their way to make their customer’s stay memorable.
They know how to make a customer smile.
That just made my day.

Bottom line, I felt emotionally connected to the hotel and its employees following this treatment and felt like it was in business to make their customers happy vs. merely making $$$.

High Peaks Resort, Lake Placid NY

____

As a global consultant I have had my share of extended stays at Marriott hotels. Here are a couple of surprise and delight stories that I have always remembered:

B) Marriott Shelton, CT. I stayed at the Shelton, CT Marriott for nearly 8 months, typically staying from Sunday to Friday. When the hotel wasn’t busy for the weekend, they blocked out my room for reservations and let me keep many of my belongings in my room so I didn’t have to pack & unpack each week and could feel at home upon returning. While away, they would gather all my dirty clothes for dry cleaning and have them hanging in my room closet upon my return. On my last evening at the hotel the hotel staff threw me a surprise farewell party! They paid for everything – dinner, drinks, etc. Talk about taking care of the customer with true surprise and delight service! I am willing to bet this instance of the delivery of S&DCS came as a result of both 9 & 10 on our list of needed customer service excellence capabilities:

Development of a set of hiring criteria and standards to be able to identify and source employees who have a predisposition for delivering exceptional customer service (friendly, outgoing, personable, believes in helping others, rates high on empathy, etc.)
Deployment of training that ensures front-line employees are customer service excellence certified so that they can deliver world-class customer first service.

Here are the thoughts and emotions I recorded just after this superb treatment by the Shelton Marriott:

I’d recommend this hotel to anybody.
They really appreciate a customer’s business.
I have never been treated so well by a hotel.
What a welcoming place to stay – they made me feel at home!

C) Marriott Princeton, Princeton NJ: Another extended stay required me to stay at the Princeton, NJ Marriott for 7 months. One evening I was entertaining clients at the bar after a day of numerous long meetings. One client was fond of Remy Martin King Louis XIII cognac which sold for about $145 per shot at the time. A tradition of Marriott was, that if you had the last shot from the bottle, they give you the bottle, made from Baccarat crystal. My client ordered three shots over the course of several hours which emptied the bottle. The bartender, being new, said he never heard of giving such an expensive bottle away and refused to provide the bottle to my client. I complained to no avail as the bartender refused to budge. The next morning while dressing, I heard a knock at the door, and it was the hotel GM with the empty bottle of King Louis XIII as well an additional half full bottle. He asked me to accept his sincere apology for a relatively new and untrained bartender who was filling in the previous evening and promptly gave me the two bottles. Needless to say, my client was thrilled by this surprise and delight turn of customer service events!! I am willing to bet this instance of the delivery of S&DCS also came as a result of both 9 & 10 on our list of needed customer service excellence capabilities:

Development of a set of hiring criteria and standards to be able to identify and source employees who have a predisposition for delivering exceptional customer service (friendly, outgoing, personable, believes in helping others, rates high on empathy, etc.)
Deployment of training that ensures front-line employees are customer service excellence certified so that they can deliver world-class customer first service

Here are the thoughts and emotions I recorded just after this superb treatment by the Princeton Marriott at Forrestal Village:

That general manager is a class act and knows how to run a hotel.
I was shocked that my disappointment wasn’t the end of the story and it turned into a positive event I will talk about for years.
It was refreshing that they admitted a mistake and then went above and beyond to make it right.
Wow! Talk about doing a 360 and turning a disgruntled customer into a surprised and delighted one!

Marriott Hotel, Princeton, NJ

___

C) Marriott Philadelphia West, Conshohocken, PA (Philadelphia suburb): I was a senior executive at a consulting company in Conshohocken and traveled into the area frequently. The first several times in the area I stayed in several different hotels trying to find one that I liked. Since I was previously a Marriott top tier rewards member, I decided to give the Marriott Philadelphia West in Conshohocken, PA a try. The first time I stayed, I didn’t use the concierge lounge. On my second visit, I did use the lounge in the evening and I fell in love with the place because of one incredible (a 1 in 1,000,000 person) great human being and Marriott employee.

The person’s name is Luigi and he not only manages the concierge lounge, he IS the concierge lounge and is the epitome of what a customer should experience at every concierge lounge across the globe. Luigi has been the manager of the lounge for many years and when possible, I go out of my way to stay at this hotel due because of his level of exceptional service. Luigi always remembers my name, my wife’s name (even though he never met her), my favorite drink, food likes, dislikes, etc. I could be away from the hotel for many months and yet he always provides a warm friendly welcome” “Hello Mr. Jeffes – so nice to see you again!!” as he gives me a hug. He will tell you about all the appetizers and desserts being served that evening and then suggests some favorites. He entertains his guests by playing movies during movie night in the lounge. When he first introduced movie nights, he used his own money to provide the DVDs. Luigi clearly goes above and beyond and I can recall many surprise and delight moments where Luigi delivered superb customer service to me and many other guests. When you’re a road warrior like I was at the time, it’s the little things that make all the difference. Seeing Luigi who makes a Marriott feel like your home and provides a relaxing haven when traveling, always puts a smile on my face. Luigi has surprise and delight customer service ingrained in his DNA and I have lost count of the number of times I have encountered this from him. One occasion stands out more than others in that I had an unusually dreadful day with many things not going as planned. I started early this day and worked unusually longer into the evening. I hadn’t slept much the night before and I was tired, hungry and feeling the pressure of the awful day I just had. When I went into Luigi’s concierge lounge, Luigi immediately picked up on my unusually sour mood as I must not have greeted him in the usual upbeat manner. He immediately sprung into gear, taking the following actions:

Unsolicited, inquired of the front desk if there were any upgrades to a suite for me that evening.
Asked if he could order my dinner to have it sent right to the lounge or my room.
Handed me my favorite drink without asking.
Since the lounge was very empty that night, asked me what I wanted on the television so I could unwind.
Got me a hot towel to wipe my face and relax.

As a result, I started to immediately forget about the crappy day I had just had and started to feel myself relax. After about 30-45 minutes I was back to my old happy self with the experience of a bad day a distant memory.

What would happen to your service-oriented business if you had a Luigi? Your business volume and customer following would explode! Your customer loyalty would increase and customer service would become a distinct and immeasurable competitive advantage.

____

Luigi is a natural at delivering exceptional customer service and this 1 in 1,000,000 person and service comes as a result of Marriott getting lucky enough to hire someone so exceptional. How do I know? I have stayed at Marriott properties and other hotels across the US and have not met anyone that even comes close to delivering the level of service that Luigi does.

By implementing #9 on our customer service excellence capability list, you will have much better odds of hiring someone comparable to Luigi:

Development of a set of hiring criteria and standards to be able to identify and source employees who have a predisposition for delivering exceptional customer service (friendly, outgoing, personable, believes in helping others, rates high on empathy, etc.)

Here are the thoughts and emotions I recorded when it comes to Luigi and his level of service:

I’d drive a long distance out of my way to spend a relaxing evening with Luigi.
Luigi is a 1 in a 1,000,000 in terms of delivering exceptional customer service.
Marriott is so lucky to have Luigi working for them.
If Luigi were to become the head of training for all Marriott service employees, Marriott would blow away their competition in terms of delivering exceptional S&D customer service.

I won’t list the thoughts and emotions for the remainder of my S&D examples, but the point is that delivering exceptional customer service delivers a lasting and positive emotional connection between the brand, product/service and with the customer.

Luigi, Concierge Manager at the Marriott Philadelphia West Hotel

____

Ritz-Carlton, Battery Park, NYC. Ritz-Carlton is one of the top models for superior customer service world-wide and was a client in the past. Ritz-Carlton trains all of its employees to spot a customer opportunity in that they are trained to listen to and record each customer’s individual needs, issues, preferences, wants, wishes, etc. Employees are then empowered to deliver the type of service the customer wants without having to ask.

A great example is upon arriving at the Ritz-Carlton Battery Park, NYC a number of years ago, I remember casually saying to the bellman, among other topics, that I loved the view of lower Manhattan and that I didn’t eat on the plane. I had just flown in from San Francisco. Upon checking in, the woman at the front desk smiled and called me by name before I mentioned it, told me that she arranged a high room with a beautiful view of lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty and said she arranged for a snack to be waiting for me free of charge when I arrived at my room. She said, “I heard that you didn’t have a chance to eat on your way here”. All of this was noted by the bellman and passed onto the front desk without my knowledge to deliver Surprise and Delight Customer Service upon check-in, something Ritz-Carlton is legendary at providing. I would consider Ritz-Carlton the platinum standard for delivering S&DCS as they possess and effectively deploy all 11 of the customer service excellence capabilities listed above. Their excellent service is not by luck or chance; it is ingrained in their culture and at the center of Ritz-Carton’s core values, policies and processes.

2) Restaurants:

A) Water’ s Edge Lighthouse, Schenectady, NY:

Water’s Edge Light House on the Mohawk River, Schenectady NY

There are two local restaurants that my wife and I have frequented that have world-class professionals working at them. The first is the Water’s Edge Lighthouse in Schenectady, NY who employs a gentleman named Greg. We had originally met Greg at another restaurant that sadly closed. Greg is the type of individual that remembers your name when you arrive, makes you feel at home when he is serving you, makes conversation about you and your family and takes every chance to ensure you are having a great experience. He gets to know his all of his many 100’s of customers by name and goes out of his way to anticipate and suggest my next need as I am in the process of thinking about it. My wife and I now call this level of customer service “the Greg standard”. One time, we arrived on a Saturday night, having made a reservation earlier in the week. Somehow the reservation had been misplaced and the restaurant was full. When Greg learned of the situation, he said to me, “don’t worry we have you covered” and then made room for us in very short order when the place was absolutely packed. Talk about surprise and delight customer service. There was zero questioning of me about whether I had forgotten to make a reservation, which I hadn’t since I recorded the name of the person who confirmed and the time of day when I called). Greg and the team just made it right.

Like Luigi, you would be lucky to hire someone like Greg, but you’ll need a lot of luck as he too, is one in a million. By implementing #9 on our customer service excellence capability list, you will have much better odds of hiring someone comparable to Greg:

Development of a set of hiring criteria and standards to be able to identify and source employees who have a predisposition for delivering exceptional customer service (friendly, outgoing, personable, believes in helping others, rates high on empathy, etc.)

Greg with the Manager of Waters Edge Lighthouse, Joey

Greg (left) with the Manager of Waters Edge Lighthouse, Joey

___

B) Mario’s New Lebanon, NY:

Mario’s Restaurant, New Lebanon, NY

Sarah from Mario’s in New Lebanon, NY is another person who stands out as meeting “the Greg Standard” with her warmth, professionalism and exceptional service. Sarah gets to know each of her customer’s names, likes, food and drink preferences. She remembers the new wine that you tasted the last time you were in and makes everyone feel special. We sometimes don’t even have to look at the menu as she will recommend a special that she thinks we will like or asks if we are ordering one of our known favorites. At peak hours, Sarah handles customer requests with a sense of calm and professionalism. When she is serving numerous drinks, dinners and taking orders in person and via phone, she always finds time to smile and accommodate requests, chat, ask questions, etc.

My surprise and delight example from Sarah came when I atypically came in without a reservation due to a change in schedule. Sarah looked at me and said they were full and then said, if you can wait a minute, I’ll see what I can do. Sarah did her magic and creatively asked the customers if they could move down to accommodate another guest which they all surprisingly and enthusiastically did. Sarah has a “following” that enjoy dining at the bar when she is working. Due to her pleasant demeanor and professionalism, I was able to get a spot for dinner, and even though the bar had squeezed in one more person, Sarah handled everything without a hitch and made me feel welcome. Over the years, customers have shared with me that one of the main reasons they go to Mario’s is because of Sarah and the great food. Just like Luigi does for the Marriott Philadelphia West and Greg does for the Water’s Edge Lighthouse, Sarah’s presence adds to the overall experience of enjoying a delicious meal in a great atmosphere at Mario’s. Luigi, Greg and Sarah are all 1 in a 1,000,000 service professionals who are naturals at surprise and delight customer service and you’d be extremely lucky to hire someone like them.

Sarah from Mario’s Restaurant

3)

3) Retail:

A) Amazon:

: Amazon

There is a now famous story brought to light by the New York Times titled “Put Buyers First? What a Concept”. It details how a customer, by no fault of their own, didn’t receive a shipment of a PlayStation for his son just before the holidays. Here is an excerpt from this article and a potentially disastrous situation was turned into a surprise and delight customer service moment: “It was early in the morning, and I had awoken with the sudden, sinking realization that a present I had bought for one of my sons hadn’t yet arrived. It wasn’t just any present either; it was a PlayStation 3, a $500 item, and a gift, I happened to know from my sources, that he was hoping for. Like most things I buy online, the PlayStation had come from Amazon.com. So I went to the site and tracked the package– something, thankfully, that is a snap to do on Amazon. What I saw made my heart sink: the package had not only been shipped, it had been delivered to my apartment building days earlier and signed for by one of my neighbors. I knocked on my neighbor’s door, and asked if she still had the PlayStation. No, she said; after signing for it, she had put it downstairs in the hallway.

Nonetheless, I got on the phone with an Amazon customer service representative, and explained what had happened: the PlayStation had been shipped, delivered and signed for. It just didn’t wind up in my hands. Would Amazon send me a replacement? In my heart of hearts, I knew I didn’t have a leg to stand on. I was pleading for mercy.

I shudder to think how this entreaty would have gone over at, say, Apple, where customer service is an oxymoron. But the Amazon customer service guy didn’t blink. After assuring himself that I had never actually touched or seen the PlayStation, he had a replacement on the way before the day was out. It arrived on Christmas Eve. Amazon didn’t even charge me for the shipping. My son was very happy. So, of course, was I.” Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/05/technology/05nocera.html

____

B) Zappos:

Zappos

Right in-line with this blog article, Zappos is an e-commerce company whose #1 core value is to “Deliver WOW Through Service”. In addition, in keeping with a customer first mantra, CEO Tomy Hsich states that Zappos is “a service company that just happens to sell shoes.” Here is a story I read while researching this article that definitely applies to Surprise and Delight Customer Service. “Recently, a newly-married couple were packing up their belongings in preparation for moving. The husband packed his wife’s jewelry inside one of her purses, and packed the purse inside what he thought was a spare Zappos box. The wife, it turns out, was intending to return that purse to Zappos using that very box. Which she then does, having no idea that inside the purse now were several thousand dollars of her jewelry!

When the couple arrives at their new home and starts to unpack, bedlam breaks out as the wife figures out what has happened and why her jewelry is missing. The rep she reaches at Zappos decides to reroute the box directly to his desk, but once it arrives, the rep fears for the safety of the valuables if he were to ship them, and purchases a plane ticket to hand-deliver the package himself. When he arrives, the incredibly grateful couple invite him in for dinner. Now they’re customers for life, as you can imagine.” Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/micahsolomon/2017/08/01/three-wow-customer-service-stories-from-zappos-southwest-airlines-and-nordstrom/#77ad6ace2aba

____

Section 4: Top Surprise & Delight Delivery Companies:

Here is a list of several larger companies I consider to be at the top of their game and world-class in delivering surprise and delight customer service:

Ritz-Carlton (consulting client)
Marriott (consulting client)
Zappos
Amazon
Southwest Airlines (consulting client)
American Express (consulting client, 4 different projects)
Costco
Chic-Fil-A
Wegmans Food Markets
Publix
Apple (consulting client)
USAA Insurance

Section 5: How to implement Surprise & Delight Customer Service for your company or organization

How do companies like Amazon Ritz-Carlton and Zappos consistently deliver exceptional or legendary levels of customer service? Do they rely on being lucky enough to hire the 1 in 1,000,000’s like Luigi from Marriott Philadelphia West or Greg from the Waters Edge Lighthouse or Sarah from Mario’s above, or do they possess something else, like a secret sauce to deliver this type of amazing customer service? Having consulted for Ritz-Carlton in the past, I know that many follow a similar 5 step process detailed below.

Step 1: Map your customer journeys:

Leveraging an integrated team of process experts, customer service and front line employees, map the various ways customers journey through an experience with your company. Examples include:

Customer prospect, exploring your potential services and/or products
First time website visitor, buyer.
Repeat or renewal website visits.
Existing customer, new product and/or service purchase.
Customer returns, complaints or warranty claims.
Service termination or account closure.

Here is a chart that illustrates examples of these various types of journeys:

Customer Experience Journey Sample, Example

Customer Experience Journey Sample, with Measurements

___

Step 2: LISTEN TO AND CULTIVATE meaningful and valuable customer needs, preferences, etc.:

In parallel with mapping you customer experience journeys, develop a program that continually gathers customer insights into what is most important and meaningful for each individual customer. A gift card could be given to any customer, but to know that customer A likes Starbucks, and customer B would love a Amazon Kindle gift card and customer C would value an ITunes gift card goes a long way to demonstrate that you are paying attention. It also demonstrates that you are in tune with customer interests and care about them as individuals. These 1-to-1, personalized surprise & delight moments build loyalty and make a customer feel valued.

Step 3: Map customer S&D opportunities along your customer journeys:

Once you have determined and documented the majority of your important customer journeys and determined what is meaningful and valuable to each of your customer’s preferences, start overlaying customer surprise & delight opportunities along these journeys. Here is a real example of how a client mapped a surprise a delight moment for high value customer issues. The key is to develop business rules that need to be satisfied in order for that surprise and delight moment to be fulfilled. In this case, a high value customer whose order was misplaced and later corrected once error was discovered, receives a gift as an apology for the error.

Customer Experience Journey with S&D Opportunity Process Example

____

Example: Value of item lost $500. High value customer A would receive a $100 Starbucks gift card, customer B would receive a $100 Amazon gift card and customer C would receive a $100 ITunes gift card.

Step 4: Develop & deploy customer S&D policies & procedures:

The next step is to distill all of the surprise & delight opportunities mapped along customer journeys into a set of front-line employee policies and procedures. Here are a couple of examples of each:

Policies:

We will compensate high value (high value is client specific) customers for errors and anomalies that are of no fault of their own.
Front-line employees shall be responsible and rewarded for turning satisfied customers into delighted, loyal customers by empowering them to easily and quickly deliver surprise & delight moments.
Each front-line employee shall undergo front-line customer service certification training to ensure they are prepared and equipped to delivery legendary customer service via surprise and delight moments, customer needs cultivation, etc.
Cultivate and reward the best employee surprise & delight customer stories from each quarter and showcase and provide rewards for ‘the best of the best’ at the end of the year.

Procedures:

If a high value customer is calling to complain about a missing shipment of high value that was lost of no fault of their own, we will compensate with an item of meaningful value to that customer worth 20-25% of the missing item.
Prior to checking into the hotel, we will check the customer preference and need profile on record to ensure all needs are met during the upcoming stay.
Employees are to document all cultivated customer preference insights during their current visit in the global customer preference database in order better serve the customer’s individual likes, preferences, needs, etc. Details on how to do this are documented in the global customer preference database procedures manual and trained on during front-line employee customer service certification.

Step 5: Develop a set of S&D hiring standards & train on S&D policies, procedures, etc.

The last step is to ensure you are hiring the best employees that they have the highest Exceptional Customer Service Aptitude (ECSA). In addition, you need to continually train and certify your employees on customer service policies, procedures, processes and how to consistently deliver exceptional, surprise & delight customer service.

1) Screen for the Best:

To hire those with the highest ECSA, you need to develop a customer service screening questionnaire as I have done for many clients to be able to consistently hire those who are predisposed at delivering great customer service and screen out those who are not. By doing this, you are screening employee candidates to find and hire only those who posses the characteristics that are most like Luigi, Greg and Sarah who are naturals at delivering exceptional S&D service.

___

2) Train to be the Best, Continually Improve:

The next sub-step is to develop a set of high quality customer service training materials and processes to certify your front-line employees on exceptional customer service delivery policies and procedures. All new employees should be certified via the training and all existing employees should have to re-certify to ensure adherence to the latest exceptional customer service policies and procedures. Ongoing training for all employees will help ensure a high level of customer service is being consistently delivered.

Summary:

You can either hope for good luck in the hiring of natural and exceptional customer service employees that are 1 in 1,000,000 or you can develop a holistic Customer Service Excellence program with multiple dimensions and capabilities such that all employees perform to the level of a Sarah, Greg and Luigi. By hiring, training and enabling your front-line employees to consistently deliver surprise and delight moments for your customers, your company will develop a cult-like customer following similar to Zappos, Amazon and Ritz-Carlton. Your customers will remain fiercely loyal and will actively advocate to increase your revenue, margins and brand reputation. With all this being true, there is no excuse to not actively work on creating the best surprise & delight customer program possible?!

If your organization is seeking experienced assistance in deploying legendary levels of “surprise and delight” customer service, then give me a call or e-mail me at 518-339-5857 or stevenjeffes@gmail.com

Lastly, this is just one article of over 50 articles I have written on Customer strategy, customer experience, CRM, marketing, product management, competitive intelligence, corporate innovation, change management – all of which I have significant experience in delivering for Fortune 500 companies. In fact, my blog is now followed by nearly 121,000 world-wide and was just named one of the top 100 CRM blogs on the planet by Feedspot, alongside Salesforce.com, Infor, Microsoft, SAS, etc. – Reference this informative site here: https://blog.feedspot.com/crm_blogs/

Leveraging Centers of Excellence Can Propel Your Company into a Market Leadership Position

September 21, 2018 Leave a comment

How a Center of Excellence Can Benefit Your Company

COE

This blog is dedicated to educating you on a widely used function of many market leading companies, namely a center of excellence. Specifically, I cover the following points associated with a center of excellence:

Center of excellence definition (a.k.a. competency center or a capability center
What benefits are gained by a company that develops & deploys a center of excellence
What existing companies utilize centers of excellence
What types of centers of excellence are typically setup and utilized
Detailed example of the following:
- Specific benefits of a type of center of excellence
- The specific functions of a center of excellence
- Typical services delivered by a center of excellence
- Sample organizational structure for a center of excellence
- On-off shore considerations for centers of excellence

Center of Excellence Definition

Above: Center of excellence defined. Another way to think of a center of excellence is as an internal set of expert consultants available to assist you with specific sets of initiatives.

COE

Simpler Center of Excellence Definition

Above is another, more simple, definition of a center of excellence.

COE

Center of Excellence Benefits

Above is a few (of many) benefits of implementing a center of excellence. The most important aspect of a center of excellence is that it facilitates your company to getting ahead of your competitors and increases the chance that the company will attain market leader status.

COE

Companies That Have Utilized a Center of Excellence

Above is a list of sample companies that utilize centers of excellence. In order to explore the details associated with these companies and their center(s) of excellence, merely Google the company name along with “center of excellence” to find out more.

COE

Center of Excellence Applications

Above are the types of centers of excellence that have been implemented by Fortune 500 companies in the past. Recently, I helped a Fortune 500 company implement both a CRM center of excellence (COE) and a Testing COE. We will perform a deeper dive into a testing center of excellence later in this post to illustrate a few details associated with a COE’s setup, operation, functions, etc.

COE

Testing Center of Excellence Example with Functions and Benefits

The illustration above depicts the types of functions specifically delivered by a testing center of excellence (TCOE) as well as the associated benefits. For example, a TCOE maintains a training and certification function in order to help train other company teams on delivering higher quality testing and associated consumer products/services.

COE

Testing without a COE

“Hold on a minute you” might say at this point and then ask, “Why would you need a testing center of excellence (TCOE)?” Anticipating your potential push-back, the above illustrates the inefficiencies associated with performing one-off testing in a decentralized basis without TCOE support and oversight.

COE

Inefficiencies of Traditional Testing Methods

The illustration above lists some specific examples of additional inefficiencies associated with performing case-by-case ad-hoc testing in lieu of having implemented a TCOE.

COE

Typical Functions Delivered by a Testing COE

What are the functions and/or organizational components of a testing COE you might ask? Above is my viewpoint on the typical organizational components and functions delivered by a TCOE. There are many others, but the above are the most frequent functions delivered by TCOE organizational components.

COE

TCOE Delivered Testing Services

The first service typically delivered by a TCOE is to provide testing services to various company team and development initiatives. The above illustrates the types of testing services provided by a TCOE to other company teams/department.

COE

TCOE Methods and Tools Delivery

The second service typically delivered by a TCOE is to develop, maintain and deploy testing methods, tools and processes to other company departments and associated testing initiatives.

COE

TCOE Expert Services Delivery

The third service typically delivered by a TCOE is to provide consulting style expertise to other company departments and associated testing initiatives.

COE

That concludes my overview of what a center of excellence is and what it can do for your company.

If your organization is seeking world-class and experienced assistance developing and implementing a center of excellence or any of the following: associated services:

Determining whether there is a viable business case to implement a COE
Developing a strategic implementation plan for COE
Developing an organizational structure and resource plan for a COE
Developing a COE pilot program

If yes, please give me a call, I call help you implement world-class center of excellence that enable you to surpass your competition and bring your organization to the next level of market performance and share.

Lastly, this is just one article of 40+ total I have written on Customer strategy, CRM, marketing, product management, competitive intelligence, corporate innovation, change management – all of which I have significant experience in delivering for Fortune 500 companies. In fact, my blog is now followed by nearly 160,000 world-wide and was just named one of the top 100 CRM blogs on the planet by Feedspot, alongside Salesforce.com, Infor, Microsoft, SAS, etc. – Reference this informative site here: https://blog.feedspot.com/crm_blogs/

Blow Away Your Competition by Replacing Your Old CRM Program with the New Customer Relevant Relationship Management (CRRM) Model – Part 2: The Necessary Components.

March 18, 2012 4 Comments

1) Introduction:

In my previous blog, I covered what the new Customer Relevant Relationship Model (CRRM) is and the benefits of adopting this new model. In this blog, I will cover the components of the new CRRM model and what you need to put in place to make this new model a reality.

Ever wonder why companies like ESPN, Apple, Google, Zynga, Amazon, and Marriott dominate their respective markets? The reason is that they are ‘Customer First’ organizations and are passionate about listening to, understanding and then delighting their customers based on leveraging true customer insights. They treat their customers as business partners vs. commodities and include them in many critical decision making processes. They get this new CRRM model. Why/how ? – Read the rest of this blog to find out…

The differences between the old CRM model and how these companies are embracing the newer CRRM model are depicted in the following chart:

The Old CRM Model vs. New CRRM Model – Customers as Business Partners

2) Customers are fed up with old Dictatorial Management Style & Want to be Empowered as Business Partners

Customers and stakeholders today are longing for a company to partner with them and include them in the corporate decision making process. These same constituencies are sick and tired of political, corporate, and other organizations making unilateral decisions for them that are really not in-line with their needs, wants, etc. The backlash from this unwanted dictatorial management style of some companies can be seen in the Bank of America fee customer rebellion, the customer backlash from Netflix deciding to split their company without first consulting with their customers and HPs initial decision to exit the computer market.

3) Components of the New CRRM Model:

In order to progress your organization from the old CRM model to the new CRRM model, a few key essentials must be put in place and are as follows:

A. New CRRM Model that includes the 360° Cultivation of Customer & Market Insights. This model enables a 360° view of all customer and market insights including customer feedback, preferences, likes, dislikes, social sentiment, competitor activity, etc. This new model takes your insights to an entirely new level whereby you are now enabled to delight customers, stakeholders and stockholders by having insights that are light-years ahead of insights provided by a traditional CRM model.

B. Customer First Culture driven by management that is passionate about their customers including a set of customer first principles and guidelines developed by company leaders

C. Customer Ratings & Feedback Structure that will identify areas where you will collect customer 360° feedback from customer and stakeholder interactions

D. Customer Feedback & Preferences Cultivation Process and corresponding infrastructure in order to allow your customers to continually rate how well you are serving them

E. Customer Health Scorecard that provides real-time insights on how well the customers, stakeholders and stockholders perceives you as serving them as well as insights into a Continuous Customer Improvement Process (CCIP) that enables you to continually improve your customer perceptions, satisfaction, brand loyalty, etc.

These components can apply to large enterprises as well as Small to Medium Businesses (SMBs).

The following graphics are all sample components from the list above (A-D) that need to be put in place to enable this new CRRM Model.

New CRRM Model – 360° Cultivation of Customer & Market Insights

3A) The above chart “New CRRM Model – 360 Cultivation of Customer & Market Insights” demonstrates the new insights model that must be put in place to deliver world-class stakeholder and customer programs.

These enhanced insights will enable you to deliver products and services that delight your customers, stakeholders and stockholders as well as enable you to leapfrog the competition in terms of market share if they continue to rely on their antiquated CRM data and analytics insights only model.

For Small to Medium sized Businesses (SMBs), some of the insights do not apply, but the following charts (3B-3E) most certainly apply and can be tracked via simple Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.

CRRM Customer First Policies & Organizational Principles

3B) The above chart “CRRM Organizational Guiding Principles” demonstrates the principles that must be in-place to be customer first culture. This culture is driven by management that is passionate about their customers and governs the company around a set of customer first policies.

Sample Enterprise CRRM Customer Rating & Feedback Structure

3C) The above chart “Enterprise CRRM Customer Rating & Feedback Structure” illustrates a sample structure (will vary for each type of business) whereby customer feedback and preferences will be cultivated in order to develop 360° insights into customer needs, wants, likes, etc.

Enterprise CRRM Customer Feedback & Preferences Cultivation Process

3D) The above chart “CRRM Customer Ratings & Feedback Cultivation Process” illustrates a how customer feedback and preferences will be cultivated in order to develop 360° insights into customer needs, wants, likes, etc.

Sample Enterprise CRRM Customer Scorecard Ratings Visualization

3E) The above chart “Enterprise CRRM Customer Scorecard Ratings Visualization” illustrates a how customer feedback and preferences ratings will be visually represented in a scorecard.

Sample Enterprise CRRM Customer Scorecard Metrics

3E-2) The above chart “Enterprise CRRM Customer Scorecard” illustrates a how customer feedback and preferences ratings will be rolled up into an analytical scorecard that provides insights into customer trends, customer feedback, customer issues, core customer strengths and weaknesses, etc.

This scorecard can also be used to manage a Continuous Customer Improvement Process (CCIP) that continually drives improvements to customer perceptions, ratings, satisfaction, etc.

Sample Scorecard for “Shopping Experience”

The above depicts how analytics and metrics would be maintained for a business who had a retail or wholesale shopping function.

Sample Shopping Experience Scorecard – #2

Robust Scorecard Analytics and Metrics should support Customer Trend Identification and Root Cause Analysis for Customer Issues.

Sample Branding & Public Relations Scorecard

Sample Public Relations Scorecard Above gives you insights into how well your company and brands are perceived by customers, stakeholders, stockholders, etc.

Sample Customer Service Scorecard

Sample Customer Scorecard Above from Customer Service tells how well you are serving your customers.

Sample Marketing Scorecard

Sample Marketing Scorecard Above Gives you insights into how well your Marketing Efforts are resonating with your customers.

Sample Product Management Scorecard

The Sample Product Management Scorecard above gives you insights into how well perceived your products and services are with customers and prospects.

4) Company & Customer Benefits of Adopting the CRRM Model:

By treating customers as business partners (vs. commodities) and including them in the corporate decision making process, as well as allowing them to rate how well you are serving them from an array of customer facing areas, companies can reap huge rewards including the following:

1. Better insights into the types of products and services customers want & need

2. Fiercely loyal customers who feel part of the corporate team

3. Customers who are most likely to spend more, be retained longer and purchase at premium prices with higher profit margins

4. Customers who are very likely to be brand advocates and refer others to your company, brands, and services.

5. Customers who feel connected to the company and empowered to improve company operations

The following are actual customer comments from those who have participated in a customer feedback program to help shape products & services:

“I feel like xyz company cares about me since they ask my opinion”

“Finally a company that listens to us”

“It is so refreshing to have a company ask you your opinions on products and services vs. ramming something down our throats that we don’t like”

“Wow – this is fun. I enjoy providing my opinion”

“As silly as this might sound, xyz company is the only company that ever asked me what I wanted”

“In my opinion, xyz company is much more progressive than their competitors by seeking consumer opinions, what matters to them, etc.

5) Conclusion:

More dynamic companies like Goodle, Zynga, Amazon, etc. are inviting customers to become part of the corporate decision making process and empowering them to provide feedback, insights and rate company operations in order to drive continous customer improvements. Companies who adopt this new CRRM model whereby company management is democratized by including stakeholders and customers into the decision making process will reap the rewards of ever higher customer acquisition, retention and spend – leading to ever higher profits and share price.

Filed under CRM, Social Media Tagged with Alain Monié, Amazon, Amy C. McPherson, Andrew R. Jassy, Ann Mather, Apple, Arne M. Sorenson, Arthur D. Levinson, balanced customer scorecard, Bank of America, Barry Cottle, benefits of listening to customers, best practice customer listening programs, best practice customer management, best practice customer measurement, best practice customer policies, best practice customer scorecards, Blake G. Krikorian, Bob Mansfield, branding ratings, branding scorecard, Bruce Sewell, Cadir Lee, Colleen McCreary, consumer data warehouse, CRM programs, crowd sourcing, customer advocacy, customer advocacy councils, customer advocates, customer analytics, customer annoyances, customer attrition, customer balanced customer scorecard, customer beliefs, customer betterment, customer councils, customer culture, customer dashboard, customer data, customer data mining, customer data warehouse, customer defection, customer driven design, customer ethics, customer feedback, Customer focus groups, customer friendly organizations, customer friendly policies, customer guiding principles, customer idea sourcing, customer improvement process, customer intelligence program, customer listening program, customer management, customer management dashboard, customer measurement, customer measures, customer metrics, customer mindset, customer mindshare, customer monitoring, customer mood, customer motto, customer orientation, customer oriented culture, customer oriented policies, customer partners, customer passion, customer passionate, customer perception, customer policies, customer principles, customer procedures, customer pushback, customer ratings, customer relationship building, customer relationship enhancement, customer relationship improvement, customer satisfaction, customer satisfaction enhancement, customer satisfaction improvement, customer satisfaction ratings, customer scorecard, customer scorecard benefits, customer scorecard example, customer scorecard template, customer sentiment, customer service, customer service dashboard, customer service evaluation, customer service feedback, customer service governance, customer service improvement, customer service scorecard, customer tone, Customers first, Dave Ko, Dave Wehner, David C. Drummond, David J. Grissen, Diane B. Greene, Diego Piacentini, Eddy Cue, Edwin D. "Ed" Fuller, Eric E. Schmidt, ESPN, George Bodenheimer, Google, H. Brian Valentine, Hewlett Packard, intelligent customer service, J.W. Marriott, Jamie S. Gorelick, Jeff Karp, Jeff Williams, Jeffrey A. Wilke, Jeffrey M. Blackburn, Jeffrey P. Bezos, John L. Hennessy, John Schappert, John Seely Brown, John Skipper, Jonathan Ive, Jonathan Rubinstein, Jr, K. Ram Shriram, L. John Doerr, L. Michelle Wilson, Larry Page, Larry Page CEO, Marc A. Onetto, Mark Pincus, Market Intelligence, marketing balanced scorecard, marketing feedback, marketing ratings, marketing scorecard, Marriott, Marriott Courtyard, Marriott International, Marriott Vacation Club, Mike Verdu, Netflix, Nikesh Arora, Patricia Q. Stonesifer, Patrick Pichette, Paul S. Otellini, Peter Oppenheimer, Philip W. Schiller, pro customer policies, product defect warnings, product defects, product issues, product management feedback, product management ratings, product management scorecard, public relations feedback, public relations ratings, public relations scorecard, Reggie Davis, Robert A. Iger, Scott Forstall, Sebastian J. Gunningham, Sergey Brin, shareholder satisfaction, Shelley L. Reynolds, shopping experience feedback, shopping experience ratings, shopping experience scorecard, smart customer service, Social Intelligence, Social Listening, Social Listening Programs, SRM Programs, stakeholder management, Steve Chiang, Steven Jeffes, Steven Kessel, stockholder satisfaction, Thomas J. Szkutak, Thomas O. Ryder, Tim Cook, Tom A. Alberg, William B. (Bing) Gordon, Zynga

Stevenjeffes: Customer Experience, Marketing, CRM, Corporate Innovation Blog

Leverage Customers as the Chief Customer Officer (CCO) While Increasing Customer Diversity and Inclusion

Share this:

Like this:

Introducing: The Quantifiable Customer Journey Map

Share this:

Like this:

Create Elated Customers for Life by Delivering Surprise & Delight Customer Service

The following is what you will learn by reading this blog:

The main business capabilities for a company to possess to deliver superb and legendary customer service

The most critical capabilities to develop in order to enable your front-line employees to be able to deliver excellent customer service

The introduction of the concept and definition of Surprise & Delight Customer Service and how the world’s top customer service companies deliver this consistently

Examples of the best Surprise & Delight Customer Service that I have personally encountered and how they are linked to the critical components listed in #2 above

Top customer service companies considered to be world-class in delivering Surprise & Delight Customer Service

The programs you need to implement so that your company can deliver consistent Surprise & Delight Customer Service to your customers

___

SECTION 1: Benefits of having elated, “surprised and delighted”, customers:

Additional research also shows that this customer transformation does not come when they rate your company and service as merely “Satisfied” but rather only when a customer is elated and rates your customer service with a 7 , or “Extremely satisfied”, rating as shown here:

The following graph illustrates the correlation between the rating provided by a customer on their customer service and the strength of their company advocacy and likeliness to recommend a company.

SECTION 2: Capabilities required to deliver exceptional “surprise and delight” customer service:

There are more than 10 dimensions in developing and delivering customer service excellence including the following:

Development of a customer-oriented vision and strategy.

Development of service excellence standards that are institutionalized across the enterprise.

Development and maintenance of a company culture that drives team unity and focus as well as customer service excellence and a mindset of customers first.

Implementation of a customer errors, omissions and anomaly recovery processes.

Implementation of a customer experience and customer service excellence measurement system.

Inclusion of customers in helping define and develop the final customer management capabilities, content, methods, etc.

Implementation of a customer bill of rights and non-negotiable customer standards.

Development of customer emotional connection points based on customer journeys.

Development of a set of hiring criteria and standards to be able to identify and source employees who have a predisposition for delivering exceptional customer service (friendly, outgoing, personable, believes in helping others, rates high on empathy, etc.)

Deployment of training that ensures front-line employees are customer service excellence certified so that they can deliver world-class customer first service.

Delivery of surprise and delight (S&D) customer service & experience through the development of S&D customer processes.

____

SECTION 3 – Surprise & Delight definition, examples:

Surprise and delight customer service is consistently going well above and beyond customer expectations such that customers feel both surprised and delighted by their treatment & level of service by your company.

Here are some examples of where I have personally encountered surprise & delight customer service:

1) Hotels:

Delivery of surprise and delight (S&D) customer service & experience through the development of S&D customer processes

Here are the thoughts and emotions I recorded just after this superb treatment by the High Peaks Resort:

They really care about their customers.

This hotel really goes out of their way to make their customer’s stay memorable.

They know how to make a customer smile.

That just made my day.

Bottom line, I felt emotionally connected to the hotel and its employees following this treatment and felt like it was in business to make their customers happy vs. merely making $$$.

As a global consultant I have had my share of extended stays at Marriott hotels. Here are a couple of surprise and delight stories that I have always remembered:

Development of a set of hiring criteria and standards to be able to identify and source employees who have a predisposition for delivering exceptional customer service (friendly, outgoing, personable, believes in helping others, rates high on empathy, etc.)

Deployment of training that ensures front-line employees are customer service excellence certified so that they can deliver world-class customer first service.

Here are the thoughts and emotions I recorded just after this superb treatment by the Shelton Marriott:

I’d recommend this hotel to anybody.

They really appreciate a customer’s business.

I have never been treated so well by a hotel.

What a welcoming place to stay – they made me feel at home!

Development of a set of hiring criteria and standards to be able to identify and source employees who have a predisposition for delivering exceptional customer service (friendly, outgoing, personable, believes in helping others, rates high on empathy, etc.)

Deployment of training that ensures front-line employees are customer service excellence certified so that they can deliver world-class customer first service

Here are the thoughts and emotions I recorded just after this superb treatment by the Princeton Marriott at Forrestal Village:

That general manager is a class act and knows how to run a hotel.

I was shocked that my disappointment wasn’t the end of the story and it turned into a positive event I will talk about for years.

It was refreshing that they admitted a mistake and then went above and beyond to make it right.

Wow! Talk about doing a 360 and turning a disgruntled customer into a surprised and delighted one!

Unsolicited, inquired of the front desk if there were any upgrades to a suite for me that evening.

Asked if he could order my dinner to have it sent right to the lounge or my room.

Handed me my favorite drink without asking.

Since the lounge was very empty that night, asked me what I wanted on the television so I could unwind.

Got me a hot towel to wipe my face and relax.

As a result, I started to immediately forget about the crappy day I had just had and started to feel myself relax. After about 30-45 minutes I was back to my old happy self with the experience of a bad day a distant memory.

What would happen to your service-oriented business if you had a Luigi? Your business volume and customer following would explode! Your customer loyalty would increase and customer service would become a distinct and immeasurable competitive advantage.

____

By implementing #9 on our customer service excellence capability list, you will have much better odds of hiring someone comparable to Luigi:

Development of a set of hiring criteria and standards to be able to identify and source employees who have a predisposition for delivering exceptional customer service (friendly, outgoing, personable, believes in helping others, rates high on empathy, etc.)

Here are the thoughts and emotions I recorded when it comes to Luigi and his level of service:

I’d drive a long distance out of my way to spend a relaxing evening with Luigi.

Luigi is a 1 in a 1,000,000 in terms of delivering exceptional customer service.

Marriott is so lucky to have Luigi working for them.

If Luigi were to become the head of training for all Marriott service employees, Marriott would blow away their competition in terms of delivering exceptional S&D customer service.

I won’t list the thoughts and emotions for the remainder of my S&D examples, but the point is that delivering exceptional customer service delivers a lasting and positive emotional connection between the brand, product/service and with the customer.

2) Restaurants:

A) Water’ s Edge Lighthouse, Schenectady, NY:

Like Luigi, you would be lucky to hire someone like Greg, but you’ll need a lot of luck as he too, is one in a million. By implementing #9 on our customer service excellence capability list, you will have much better odds of hiring someone comparable to Greg:

Development of a set of hiring criteria and standards to be able to identify and source employees who have a predisposition for delivering exceptional customer service (friendly, outgoing, personable, believes in helping others, rates high on empathy, etc.)

___