The most successful leaders don’t rely solely on data to tell them what’s happening. They take steps to put themselves in their customers’ shoes. They want to deeply understand the business—its products, employees, and competitors—and experience it as their customers do. I agree. Get out there and see what’s happening firsthand. Make it a habit. Learn as much as you …
Customer advocacy is a hot topic in marketing and customer experience circles—and especially so following the economic upheavals of 2020 and 2021. Many of today’s most forward-thinking leaders—Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and Emily Weiss, to name a few—see it as the only true and sustainable way to win customers and market share over the long term. I define customer advocacy …
Recently, I gave a presentation at the Tugboat Institute Gathering of Teams. The talk focused on common missed opportunities in customer service as well as steps that leaders and teams can take to make a difference for their customers. It concluded with several questions that teams can ask to help shape service that is best for their customers and their …
Apple, the trillion-dollar tech giant, is also a giant in customer service. When my iPhone battery life began to diminish, I found myself on Apple’s online support pages, where I was quickly offered four options: bring the product into a store, send it in for repair (which I could schedule online), start a chat, or set up a call. With …
It could be that you have just a few people in a small department or company, handling interactions with customers. On the other hand, you might have thousands of agents working across multiple sites. In either case, or any point in between, you need a Customer Access Strategy. Just think about the inter-related decisions related to rolling out a new …
Quantifying customer lifetime value, or CLV, provides powerful insight into the impact of customer experience initiatives. Put simply, CLV measures how valuable a customer is to your organization over time, rather than just one purchase. You can learn more about a basic approach for calculating CLV in this LinkedIn video from my course “Calculating the Value and ROI of Customer …
When you think about customer experience, what comes to mind? For most people, the answer is likely that it’s an organization’s responsibility to provide customers with a great experience. This isn’t wrong, but there’s more to it. Your best-laid plans for customer experience go nowhere without invested and dedicated employees. To build a strong culture of employee engagement at your …
The world is changing, and customer expectations are evolving. So, innovation is the heartbeat of customer experience. But how do you innovate? Innovation, the late Peter Drucker points out in his landmark book, The Discipline of Innovation, is the “effort to create purposeful, focused change in an enterprise’s economic or social potential.” He adds that it’s different than other disciplines. …
The principles that guide effortless customer experiences seem basic. The truth is, it’s difficult to get customer service basics right, and many organizations don’t. While customer service catastrophes still make headlines, run-of-the-mill customer service annoyances are still maddeningly common.
Aren’t there a million and one nuances you could focus on when establishing quality standards for customer service employees? So how do you even get started? Here is an easy, yet effective, approach. A proven way to establish quality standards for individuals is to categorize them as either foundation or finesse. Learn more about foundation and finesse standards in this …
