So You Want to Measure Customer Effort – 3 Things You Must Know
When the Greek philosopher Sophocles said, “success is dependent on effort,” he wasn’t thinking about 21st-century customer experiences. Today, in a consumer context, Sophocles might have said: “Customer success should require minimal customer effort! In last week’s newsletter, I offered a rationale for asking customers about the effort they exert to get their needs met…
Are You Easy? How to Drive Loyalty by Reducing Customer Effort
When I was in high school, no one wanted to be described as “easy.” However, an “easy” customer experience is a different story! Let’s take a quick look at customer ease, how to measure effort, when to measure it, and why some customer effort can be positive. Overview of Customer Effort In 2008, the US…
Make it Technology-Aided and Human-Powered: Map the Hybrid Journey
Thank you for joining me for this series titled “Make it Technology-Aided and Human-Powered.” This series will provide tools to help you position your customer and employee experience for relevance in a COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 world. This installment is titled “Map the Hybrid Journey.” I now know how my mom felt when I lost my driver’s license…
The Changing World of Customer Experience [Infographic]
I’m convinced the pre-Socratic philosopher, Heraclitus happened upon an enduring truth when he said, “you can’t step into the same river twice.” I heard that quote when I was a freshman in college and it was the same year I’d read the classic book by M. Scott Peck titled The Road Less Traveled. In this…
Isn’t It Time for Ecosystem Mapping? | The Changing World of Customer Experience
I’m convinced the pre-Socratic philosopher, Heraclitus happened upon an enduring truth when he said, “you can’t step into the same river twice.” I heard that quote when I was a freshman in college and it was the same year I’d read the classic book by M. Scott Peck titled The Road Less Traveled. In this…
Everything Matters When It Comes to First Impressions | Mastering Your Customer’s Arrival Experience
In my first of two books about Starbucks titled The Starbucks Experience, I posited a customer experience principle I referred to as “everything matters.” That concept prompted an Orlando Sentinel reviewer to offer a tongue in cheek criticism by noting “everything matters – that narrows it down, doesn’t it?” In The Starbucks Experience, I used…
Silos Do More than Hold Grain – They Hold Back Customer Experience Growth [Infographic]
I’m on the road this week working with clients in the Pacific Northwest and Canada on the cusp of the launch of my new book The Airbnb Way. (By the way, time is running out to receive a special pre-order offer on The Airbnb Way. You’ll need to order by October 6th to receive the…
Customer Segments or Customer Need States?
Customer segments or customer need states? The answer is … both! It’s an important distinction in which I work with my clients to understand and leverage. It is the difference between creating experiences based on customer segmentation versus customer need states. To help make this distinction clear, I will use my son Andrew and myself…
Optimal Customer Visioning [Infographic]
Over the past decade, I began using customer journey maps as a way to envision the optimal future customer experience. As part of SWOT analyses and other strategic planning activities or as a free-standing tool, I often work with leaders to not only see the current state of their customer experience and their initiatives to drive incremental…
Not All Customer Moments Are Created Equal | Building Memories When It Matters Most
If I asked you to tell me about a concert that you attended, my hunch is your story would either be of a recent event, a favorite concert, or a live-event debacle. I am not a gambler, but when it comes to predicting what is most salient in human memory, it’s a good bet to…
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