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Contact Vox to learn about how we can help you create a comprehensive Customer Experience that drives bottom-line results dramatically higher.

I had the privilege of attending the all-city Chicago Vistage meeting last week. While it was great to meet other like-minded business leaders, it was most compelling because of the speaker, Alan Beaulieu. Alan and his twin brother are economists who provide forecasts for companies, organizations, and even governments through their company, the Institute for Trend Research.

If you’re thinking “you lost me at ‘economist’” then we are kindred spirits. It’s not my thing. But he was powerful in his predictions, and I’ve been thinking about the discussion ever since. I admit, when he first began speaking about 2011 and the future, I was growing uncomfortable. What about NOW? What about TODAY?

But his focus was on beyond. What happens beyond Chicago, beyond the United States, beyond 2011, beyond this economic turmoil in which we’ve been immersed.
It’s so tempting to think short-term. So many organizations are focused on the immediate realities of our world today. Even the “unsinkable” companies of past generations are looking at how to make the next payroll; how to pay off the latest debt; how to cut the costs FAST.

When it comes to customer experience, it’s easy to fall into short-term thinking. Here are some examples:

• Promotion without strategy – customers can smell desperation and often exploit it. Know your limits and understand your desired pay-off before promoting something too quickly. (KFC!)
• Talking without listening – Executives who decide what to say to customers without talking to them first will have a hard time appealing to them. (MotrinMoms learned this the hard way.)
• Sacrificing current, loyal customers for the sake of acquiring new customers – AT&T recently retreated on their original iPhone policy in response to the outcry from current customers.
• Finally – this one is a personal favorite – treating social media as the end-all of customer communications. Social media is a fabulous tool, as I discuss here, but it’s just that – a tool. It’s part of a larger strategy of connecting with customers in powerful ways to naturally create loyalty and retention. If there is no larger strategy at work, social media will be a way to possibly connect with a segment of customers, and that’s only if it’s executed well. If not, it’s just another tool being underutilized.

So, as hard as it is, I believe we all have to start looking at beyond. Take a minute, map out where you want to go with your experience strategy, and then take the steps to get there. I feel better already.

Let’s not whitewash it. It’s a scary world right now. Everyday, we’re absorbing news via all our devices and witnessing low quarterly earnings, uncertain futures, and friends and family being laid off. It’s easy to just keep going through the motions of cutting expenses, limiting focus to “critical” activities, and just making sure the boss is content.

And yet some companies are innovating right now. Here’s a sampling of how some of them are working on the customer experience (and action you can take) TODAY.

1. Take one small step. A client of ours is focusing on their e-commerce strategy. With limited resources, they are making small changes to their e-commerce process to ensure customers have a better, faster checkout process. This has led to improved conversion, cross-sell and up-sell numbers via the web site.

2. Unite! One organization asked us to come in and rally the troops around customer experience. Summer is their big season, so we are helping every person at the organization - from the CEO to the janitorial staff - understand their place within the customer experience. It’s helped them create a common language and improve their own service standards.

3. Focus on the future. One client in a very hard-hit industry is creating a 3-year plan to get ready for the future. Dabbling in new ways to connect with customers, testing theories, and gathering feedback, they’re able to set the stage for success instead of stagnate where they are.

4. Communicate. Many industries have been hit hard, resulting in difficult times for customers and employees. The focus right now for a client in such an industry is on engaging their employees to deliver a superior customer experience. How? By implementing ways to stay connected through dialogue and communication that’s honest, compelling and relevant. They’re asking employees to celebrate each other and their little victories in new ways.  Engagement is up and customers are remaining loyal, even through bad news cycles.

These aren’t costly, cumbersome projects. These are lean and flexible in response to the times we’re in. Anything you can take away here to get started? Let me know.

From time to time, Jason Dabrowski (a good friend of Vox) sends us his relevant and often hilarious customer experiences.  He just sent us this story about dealing with Bodybuilding.com and the US Postal Service. You can read the full story on his personal blog.

Having spent a lot of years in one type of customer service job or another, I know a lot about how badly the experience can go.  When I notice good customer service, I have to say something.

Today I’m talking about bodybuilding.com

Despite the name, bodybuilding.com isn’t just for bodybuilders.  I’m no bodybuilder, and you don’t have to be one to find lots of useful information at bodybuilding.com.  It’s part store, part fitness information supersite.

Wanna find a routine for cardio?  Wanna find out what a deltoid is and what exercises build it’s strength and endurance?  Wanna know what glutamine is for?  They’ve got articles explaining all of this, and even have guides to show you which related products are the best value…

I ordered some protein powder and some vitamins over the weekend.  Wednesday I decided to check my tracking information (Provided by bb.com in handy emails).  The USPS website said that at 9:04am my shipment status was “arrival at unit.”  My mailman never shows up at 9am.  I’m lucky if our mail arrives by 2pm, and the zip code listed in this tracking page was wrong.  No package outside, either.

So I emailed bodybuilding.com and asked for help.  Having had trouble with other shipments in the past it always seems like UPS, FedEx, etc., don’t want to help the recipient and are more inclined to listen to the shipper.  I also tried calling the USPS hot line.  They had no tracking information (guess online is not connected to phone setup, bad bad idea) and not only that when I tried pressing zero or saying “Customer Service” i was rudely greeted with “this system has updated and accurate information, customer service is not a selection at this time.”

Bodybuilding.com responded with a different number, but I had the same result.  After informing them of the same result, something occurred to me.  ”Arrival at Unit” doesn’t sound like “Delivered” to me.  A search of USPS.com revealed nothing (big surprise), but a Google search revealed that “Arrival at Unit” translates into English as “it’s at your local post office now“.

I had overreacted.  

Seconds later Bodybuilding.com responded with an apology and letting me know that had already put in a reshipment order, and threw in a shaker cup for free for the inconvenience.

I wrote a profuse apology and explained that I had overreacted, that if I need any more assistance, I would let them know and that I would try to be more patient in the future.  They responded that it was okay, gave another apology and said to contact them if there was more trouble.

Later in the evening, I decided to check USPS again to see if they had an estimated delivery date or something.  I assumed it would be Thursday.  Well, unfortunately the website said this:

“Your item was undeliverable as addressed at 2:33 PM on February 25, 2009 in OAK PARK, IL [redacted zip code]. It is being returned if appropriate information is available.”

Super.  I had overreacted, bb.com reshipped, and I had just told them earlier they could cancel the reshipment.  It would appear that I now needed that reshipment.  So I passed the info on to them, and they said they would not only reship the items, but were now waiving my shipping fee because of the mess.  They apologized AGAIN.

So many apologies from the company that’s actually doing the right thing, and yet “customer service is not a selection” at the business that is at fault.  But don’t fret, it gets BETTER!

This morning I went to the gym, came home and was working on some job application stuff when the buzzer rang.  Yep, you guessed it.  I pressed the “talk” button and said “yes?” and the response was “Package for Jason?”  You’ve got to be kidding me.  Went downstairs and sure enough, a box for me from bodybuilding.com.  Took it upstairs and yes, it’s the original order I placed.

So now, I’m feeling like a complete moron.  The CS people must think I’m an a-hole.

Yet they stepped up to the plate, consistently, on this order.  There was no questioning me or trying to tell me to calm down and be patient, nope.

• They immediately apologized, and started a reshipment.

• Their communication was quick and efficient.

• They added value to the order by throwing an additional, related product (protein powder needs shaker cups), at no charge. They’re probably less than 5 bucks, but still, nice touch.

• When it looked like the shipper was failing to deliver on purpose now, they waived shipping altogether and did the reshipment again.

When you look at it, with the cancellations and waiving and trying to give me more products, they probably spent more time and effort on me than they were going to make on this one sale.  And remember, none of this was THEIR fault.  This problem all started when a overly eager customer (me) overreacted and involved the poor service and communication of USPS, two things that are not the responsibility of bodybuilding.com.  Things that bb.com couldn’t have anticipated at all.

But now, I, the silly customer, have my products.  I also know that I am buying products not just from a great store with great prices and loads of information on fitness, they also have the kind of customer service you wish you could get elsewhere.  Wouldn’t it be great if, say, Comcast was this responsive?  I think I would die of shock if my cable company was this dedicated to customer service.  Course, they need all the money they could be spending on keeping customers happy to make moderately humorous commercials with talking turtles and overblown puns.

When discussing customer experience with our clients, we always start from discovery.  How much do we know about your customers?  How much can we learn?  Inevitably, two words pop up as a means of gathering information: Focus Group!

Focus groups seem so appealing. They are inexpensive in time and money; they appeal to the voyeur in us; they seem to offer a glimpse into what our customers want.

I hate focus groups, and do everything in my power to get away from them.  You can learn SO much more from one-on-one conversations or testing, depending on what type of information you’re gathering.

A podcast of Chicago Public Radio’s This American Life got me thinking.  The premise of the show was a question: can one bad apple spoil the whole bunch?  Can one person ruin it for the rest of us?

I believe that the answer is a simple, straightforward YES.

In a focus group, the bad apple (and there’s always one) ruins it, and makes the rest of us behave in ways we normally wouldn’t.

According to Will Felps, (a professor who researches “bad apple teammates” featured on This American Life) one person can highly influence others’ behavior.  He proved that in as little as 45 minutes, others will adopt the bad apple behaviors - spoiling the whole bunch.

Well, Felps separated the bad apple behavior into 3 categories:

1.      The Jerk - attacks and insults others

2.      The Slacker - doesn’t do as much as others

3.      The Depressive Pessimist - complains; doubts group success

The end result of introducing one of these bad apples into a group was that people communicated less and did not share ideas. 

Imagine what this implies for focus groups. When you’re trying to learn about customers, the LAST thing you want is to prevent people from communicating.  If a bad apple personality is present, others will clam up, just get through it, and leave feeling frustrated not only about the experience but also about what they were evaluating - YOUR product, brand, site, etc.

One-on-one interviews, user testing, and even customer surveys (when done well) can lead to intelligent data about your customers’ wants and needs.  Combine this with behavioral data and you have powerful information to build a better experience.

Just like those bad apples - focus groups just lead to rotten results.

Follow Jeannie on Twitter at  www.twitter.com/jeanniecw

I don’t know anyone who wants to be wrong. Our culture is wired with a deep, primal need to always be right, which leads us to deceive ourselves into believing we actually are always right, which again leads us to believe that everyone else is wrong.

Normally, one would think this is just another eccentricity of human nature and actually a pretty good defense mechanism in a competitive world (it takes a lot of confidence and determination to be successful, to win), but when it comes to Customer Experience, being right won’t necessarily do much good for you.

You see, at the root of most customer experience problems you’ll often find two opposite sides, both believing their view of the issue is the right one. The problem here is perspective. Anyone in customer service is fundamentally wrong in thinking that service has anything to do with whether or not the customer is right. I’m not saying representatives should assume the customer is always right. In my experience, the customer is often wrong, but that’s not the issue!

The important thing to understand is that the customer’s feelings are always right! It doesn’t matter why they’re angry, irritated, frustrated or upset, just that they feel that way.  Your job, as a representative of your company is to acknowledge those feelings and do whatever you’re empowered to do in order to make them feel better. Focusing on trivial details, like who did or said what, is irrelevant. The only things you should consider are: “what can I do to help this person?” and what can I do to make sure this problem doesn’t happen again?” This perspective will not only resolve the immediate problem but make your job easier in the future.

Some of the best examples of GOOD customer service come from situations where someone was honestly willing to discard his original perspective.  In my experience, a good customer service professional always assumes he could be wrong while listening to consumer complaints. Not fighting to be right is the only safe way to achieve true empathy.

Put yourself entirely in the customer’s shoes, and consider the problem from their perspective instead of your own.

I know some of you will say that this could be bad for business, or that it is imprudent or risky to think others are always right, but let’s consider this for a minute:

Always thinking you may be wrong:

-          Eliminates the pressure to compete or to “win” the debate as a way to successfully resolve the situation

-          Allows you to be less defensive and more open to what the customer says

-          Removes emotional attachment you can better listen to the problem and understand how it affects the customer

-          Actually helps to find a solution that will please the customer

-          Gives the customer a sense of being victorious, successful and confident about engaging your brand/company again in the future

-          Makes loyal customers happy and make happy customers loyal (note: Happy customers won’t bad-mouth your company to friends and may in fact praise you on your conflict resolution skills!)

Needing to always be right:

-          Automatically escalates the conflict by upping the stakes of winning or losing

-          Makes both sides defensive and unwilling to actually hear the other side’s perspective

-          Inflames strong emotions and irrational behaviors that have nothing to do with the real problem being discussed (like wanting to fight just to feel justified and complain to everyone about the terrible experience you had with that company)

-          Masks the underlying causes of the situation, making it even harder for the company to discover potential problems that will soon affect profitability

-          Makes a resolution only achievable by defeating one party and rendering both sides frustrated

-          Extends the length of the conflict, wasting more of the company time and manpower.

-          Makes upset customers more frustrated, even after getting what they wanted. They will spread the word about the terrible experience they had to endure!

So, my suggestion to all of you is: When it comes to handling your customers’ experience, strive to be wrong.  It’s good for your business. It’s good for your customers’ experience, and it’s good for your success.

If nobody wins, then nobody loses. And that’s how everyone wins.

Am I right?

Follow Luis on Twitter at  www.twitter.com/luiserpa

Do you sometimes wish your customers would act more logically? 

If they could just be less emotional, they would choose your bank, or buy your hamburgers, because it is the best choice, right? 

Well, on my way to work this morning, I was catching up on my favorite podcast, Radiolab, and they explored this idea.  Radiolab is a fantastic public radio podcast out of WNYC that explores various scientific questions and makes the answers accessible to the non-science community. 

The podcast in question was all about Choice.  Why do we choose the things we choose?  How does our brain chemistry affect our choices?  What if we could remove emotion from the equation?  And what they found was that without emotion, our ability to even MAKE a decision is impaired.  It is not that we choose more rationally, but that we lose the ability to choose at all. 

I think the point is that emotion is an essential, fundamental part of who we are and how we interact with the world around us.  Knowing that, how does your company emotionally connect with customers?

You can listen to the podcast here, and ponder these things.

Some companies may say that a good experience is priceless, but it seems that someone at Belkin really thought that he could get a few good experiences for a lot less and now the company is paying a steep price to recover their customers’ trust.

The (dumb) idea was simple in concept: use Amazon’s Mechanical Turk Cloud Service to recruit “reviewers” for Belkin’s products.  The hired reviewers’ task was pretty simple: give the highest possible rating available to the products as if they had bought them.  The price tag for each review: just 65 cents!  (see full description of the offer in the image below)

The history was first published by The Daily Background and then reported on TechCrunch. Looks like it was all the action of a Business Development Representative named Michael Bayard and not a company-wide strategy, but the damage it caused is still the same.  After the spread of the article through the web, Belkin posted a reply taking action to fix the situation without denying or explaining how it happened in the first place.

The point of story here should be obvious but I will spell it out it anyway: A good Customer Experience CAN’T be produced artificially!  It is always the result of good services and care provided to your customers and the results you get will always mirror your real intentions.  Alienated and wronged customers usually spread the word pretty fast. The whole incident is being called now “The Mechanical Turk Shilling” and the negative comments about it on the Blogosphere and twitter have been growing exponentially since Saturday.

I am betting that Belkin will be paying way more than 65 cents now to fix the situation, and nothing guarantees that their product reviews will ever be totally trusted again…

Esquire Magazine printed a great satiric jab at customer satisfaction surveys on the final page of this month’s issue. It’s funny enough to make you snort a little when you laugh (which made my morning commute interesting), and it makes some great points about “satisfaction,” whatever that means.

1.       Self-interest

Unfortunately, satisfaction surveys are often used to judge the same department that creates them. Naturally, the people developing the survey will try to influence its results in a way that benefits their team. They will use all sorts of tricks, like the guilt-trip Esquire jokingly uses here (select “Five” or be responsible for “untold human misery”). Surveys should not be used to directly reflect performance. They are only accurate when designed impartially, to discover the customer’s true perception.

2.       Persuasive architecture

If the people creating your survey are biased (and crafty), the survey will be laid out in a way that drives the reader to select the option that best suits their goals (”Five” is red, bold, underlined, appears eleven times, and is the only option that pops-out at the bottom). Persuasive architecture is essential to any webpage or marketing piece, but will produce misleading results when used in satisfaction surveys.

3.       Meaningless tag lines

Esquire uses the example, “We Strive for Five,” which sounds exactly like several other cheesy, rhyming initiatives I’ve come across in just the past 2 years - all of which were failures. What does it mean to “strive for five?” Make your tag line mean something to your customer. Your customers don’t care about your goals, but they probably care about improving service and being heard.

I was just reading this great article in the New York Times business section about how McDonald’s is making a big comeback.  What stood out to me is how they have shifted their focus from “being the world’s best quick-service restaurant” to being “our customers’ favorite place and way to eat.” 

In changing the food they serve and they way they serve it, they have won back millions of “McDonald’s Converts.”  And, as I read the article, I realized… I’M A MCDONALD’S CONVERT! 

I hadn’t set foot in a McDonald’s in probably 10 years until they started offering iced coffee for a fraction of the price of Starbucks.  One day, I tried it, and it was really good. 

Also, the store itself seemed less, how do I put this, disgusting than I remember it being.  It was clean and colorful, and the staff was friendly.  Overall, a not-too-shabby experience.  That, plus the cost difference, was enough to change my ritual from grabbing-a-quick-Starbucks to grabbing-a-quick-McDonalds.

I guess the lesson is: never stop trying to reach your customers.  If the way you are reaching them isn’t working, try shifting your focus.  McDonalds found out what was missing from their experience, then they adapted to fit that need.  Any question about whether it worked?  Check out their profits!

The year has begun, and I think we all know this is a challenging time for businesses. But one way to optimize your bottom line in 2009 is to make at least one “customer resolution.”

This is a simple exercise that can yield positive results. The idea is to resolve to improve at least one aspect of your company’s customer experience. Here are a few quick ideas.

• Grab as much of your “standard” customer correspondence as you can get your hands on. This could be monthly statements and invoices; customer form letters; anything that you know is sent to large numbers of customers on a regular basis. Now look at them. Nothing fancy. Just read through them as if you were a customer, a customer without any special knowledge about your industry or company.
• Pop on to your website, and pick two or three easy tasks that a typical prospect or customer might like to accomplish. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes, and walk through these tasks - gathering information, asking a question, or (if you have this) paying a bill or other customer process. Note how many clicks it takes, and how simple or complex it seems.
• Call into your company’s offices or call center and, acting as a customer, attempt to get a couple of questions answered. Pay particular attention to the tone of the employee as he or she helps you. Or, if possible, listen in to a few actual customer calls. Note nature of the customer requests, the hold time (if possible) and the tone of the customer at the end of the call.

Here’s my guarantee to you: If you just spend a little time and make a sincere effort to better understand one aspect of the customer experience, you will discover some problem that in hindsight seems incredibly obvious: the billing statement is confusing for no reason; you are using terminology a typical customer doesn’t understand; irrelevant content or poor navigation on your website are getting in the way of what your customers really want; or your call center employees lack the freedom to actually help solve customer problems.

Once you uncover the issues with your customer experience, you’ll see that many are problems that aren’t all that hard to fix. You owe it to your customers and your company to make the effort.

So, what’s your “customer resolution” for 2009? Take the initiative! There’s a big payoff for those that do.