Customer Experience… a better name for Marketing?

You might be reading the title of this blog entry thinking “Wait a minute? Is this guy serious?”

So – am I serious?

Deadly.
Now, of course, we can argue for a year and a day as to what makes marketing & customer experience different, however I think a lot of this comes down to what a person’s definition of marketing is. This is the key to the problem. Marketing is the most misunderstood of all business activities.

If you walked down the high street and stopped every person you met and asked them what marketing was, you would be more than likely to get a different answer from each one. The majority of them would tell you something that bore some resemblance to the truth, however you would be highly unlikely to get a truly accurate answer from any of them. Some might get it completely wrong. Some might give you the partial truth, along the lines of:

“It’s something to do with advertising isn’t it?”

or even…

“It’s like selling isn’t it?”

Someone with a little bit of knowledge or training might stretch as far as to say:

“It’s all about the 4/ 7 P’s isn’t it?”

Now, to be fair, none of these are completely inaccurate. They are, however, incomplete and as such, partially inaccurate. The best definition that I have heard to date comes from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) in the UK, that defines Marketing as:

“The management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.”

Now, how we achieve all of the above is, of course, through the use of sales, advertising, the 4 P’s, etc., hence me saying that all of the earlier potential responses held partial truth. However if we take a very long, hard look at this definition, I would argue that it is very hard, if not impossible, to differentiate between this and any definition that we might be able to come up with to accurately describe customer experience.

Now there are some (possibly many) people who would argue that customer experience isn’t just about making a profit. Of course, there are many decisions taken from a customer experience perspective that have no short-term impact on the profit position. However could the same not be said for brand advertising too? If an organisation is carrying out customer experience practices, it aims to make the customer happy; and if the customer is happy, the longer they remain a customer; and the longer they remain a customer, the greater the amount of profit the company makes.

So why not call ‘Customer Experience’ Marketing instead then?

For years I worked in Marketing for a number of different organisations and when I told lay people what I did for a living, most of them thought I made adverts, or I was a salesman or did copy writing. Now, I have, of course, done all three of those things in my time, however as time evolved, my role naturally became more strategic in nature.

When I became an independent consultant, I found that describing myself as a marketer often gave people completely the wrong impression of what I was about and what it was that I wanted to do. The last few years of my career in corporate had been more focused on the customer experience/ retention/ loyalty end of marketing and I quickly came to realise that this was the best way to consider marketing – from the perspective of the customer – as per the CIM definition of Marketing.

Now, there are bound to be a few marketers and customer services professionals who may argue with this post, how I would ascertain that it’s because they might be looking at their role with too narrow a focus. Let battle commence…

It’s only fair to share…

Your people are customer centric, it’s just your business isn’t…

One of the common things that comes up in conversations I have with board members and business leaders is how they wish their people could be more customer centric. The word ‘empathy’ is thrown about in business meetings and conversations, almost as if were something that can be picked off a shelf. In contact centre quality monitoring feedback sessions, I have even heard line managers asking their advisors to show “more empathy”. However if someone isn’t displaying empathy, simply asking them to be more empathetic probably isn’t going to make a difference. In situations like these, such words become platitudes.

I’m not suggesting for a second that the way in which front line staff engage with customers cannot be improved. There are simple conversation techniques and other actions that can be introduced that will significantly improve the degree to which the customer feels ‘engaged’. However if someone doesn’t know what they are doing wrong, just asking them to ‘get better’ at it simply won’t work – especially if that person is earning little more than the minimum wage.

Yet all of this still doesn’t hit at the heart of the matter. I have seen businesses in which staff are well trained and often relatively well paid, yet the organisation still feels as if their front line are not as engaged as they could or should be. So why is this the case?

Let’s get customer centric!

Very few people come to work to deliberately do a bad job. Although it may not be their dream role, most people understand that they are likely to get higher levels of satisfaction if they make more effort. Most frontline staff really do want to do the right thing by the customer.

Everyone remembers that ‘first day feeling’ when they turn up at a new job, excited and keen, interested and engaged. However within a few days, weeks or months, all of this can change. And if employees are disengaged, then they are not going to be customer centric.

Some of this comes down to complacency; however how much does the company play a role in this? Problems often stem from the business itself rather than its people.

No two situations are the same, so there is unfortunately no single cure-all for companies with disengaged employees. However the companies I have observed with engaged employees have a number of things in common:

• Good training: If you hear from your members of staff that customers they speak to repeat themselves, then it is probably true and there is usually a really good reason for it. Customers often feel as if they haven’t been heard. There are very simple conversation techniques that, if introduced, can make the customer feel as if they are being properly engaged. If correctly implemented, these techniques can reduce call durations, repeat calls, complaints and management escalations

• Good recruitment & selection: Getting the right people is never easy. However depending on the nature of your proposition and the customer profile, you need to identify frontline staff that can provide the right match. It is scientifically proven that, as a result of hormonal changes that happen with teenagers and young adults, they can often find it more difficult to empathise. This, combined with a less life experience and (often) less developed social skills, means that younger people can (sometimes) struggle to relate to the people they are speaking to. Also, in emotional and high-trauma scenarios, as is often experienced in the Insurance & Healthcare sectors, younger people can find dealing with some customers too distressing. On the other hand, younger people can often be less cynical, more flexible and more up-to-speed with current trends. And typically cheaper to employ too!

• Process rules system, not system rules process: One of my personal bugbears is the use of the phrase ‘IT solution’. Don’t get me wrong, some IT systems can be great; however I have also experienced situations in which new systems have been introduced;  and because of poor specification/ design or inflexibility, the process the company follows has to be changed to fit the constraints of the system. This, of course, is very wrong. If the tool doesn’t allow the employee to do the right thing for the customer, then they can soon become frustrated and disengaged. Systems should always support processes, not the other way round

• Leaders that lead, not manage: This phrase is often overused, but it is very true. People who get promoted into leadership roles are often very good at managing work; however that doesn’t mean that they can delegate or are natural leaders. Different people need to be led in different ways, as is demonstrated by the Situational Leadership model. However without training, most new leaders will not naturally understand what they need to be doing

• Empowered people: One of the mistakes leaders and managers can make is to assume that the people that work for them are less intelligent, trustworthy or talented than they are. Most people in a business, given the right tools, training and rules/ constraints, are able to make the right judgement calls. Once these things are in place, then there should be absolutely no reason not to trust people to make the right decisions by the customer. People on the front line need to be able to operate without fear or the threat of reprisals. When people get scared, they stop making judgements; and when you lose judgements, you lose innovation. However if a policy that has been made continues to be broken, maybe the business needs to reconsider the policy rather than scrutinising the people breaking it

• Making it fun: Work environments that are fun generally tend to be more productive. Introducing a little competition and extra-curricular fun into the workplace can provide a great morale boost, however…

• Keep it professional: Having fun doesn’t necessarily mean a drop in professional standards. In a call centre I once audited in the North of England, although the people were not particularly well paid, they all wore business attire and spoke to each other professionally at all times. For them, this was about being taken seriously by each other and the business they worked for. This business had engaged employees and extremely low staff turnover. Part of keeping it professional is…

• Giving them hope: Although it may not be a dream job, if people are able to see the benefit of the skills they gain; and can also understand what their opportunities for progression are, then they are far more likely to be engaged. If people understand that the current job is a potential springboard to something better, either within or outside of the business, then they are far more likely to make an effort and focus on doing the right things. Creating a career roadmap for each employee can often be a good way of achieving this

• Competitive benefits: It isn’t always about the pay and benefits, however they usually help. If the business considers the cost of staff turnover in terms of recruitment, selection and training, then offering a little bit more in terms of benefits might turn out to be a better financial approach overall

• Fair appraisals: Everyone needs to feel as if they are being treated fairly and that there is no favouritism towards other people. A clear and fair appraisal system can lend itself to making this the case

It’s only fair to share…

Business Culture and Cake Baking

In business, culture can often be the hardest thing to fix. Strategies and tactics can be introduced, brands can be repositioned, structures and reporting lines can be changed, and leadership teams can be hired and fired. But culture is a whole different ball game. And for those companies that have been in business for a very long time, cultures can be embedded and ingrained to such an extent that they can be seemingly impossible to shift. For very large businesses, the challenge is usually viewed as being the time that it would take to make change happen, with the commonly (over-) used metaphor being the time it would take to turn an oil tanker.

Yet for most companies with cultural issues, if they were not able break the existing culture, everyone knows what would be likely to happen. Everybody understands that the business runs the risk of slowly (or sometimes rapidly) fading away. Often it may even seem so hard to do, that it could just feel easier to watch the business simply turn over and die. Just like witnessing the dinosaurs die out, or watching the elephants slowly saunter on over to the graveyard to use two other overused metaphors!

Difficult indeed. However in the words of Theodore Roosevelt “Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.” This ‘nothing in this world worth having comes easy’ attitude makes great sense, however the quote unfortunately doesn’t go on to explain where to start or what to focus on. So, before I start exploiting the metaphors too much and talking about ‘not being able to bake a cake without cracking some eggs’, here are some of my thoughts on the matter of cultural change.

• Culture comes from power, not leadership – In most instances power and leadership come from one and the same place – management – however sometimes they do not. If the leadership team have the power, then it is primarily their responsibility to initiate change, but power in business can sit in other places too. Sometimes power can come from specific business functions – I have worked for companies with sales, engineering, finance, marketing and regulatory led cultures. Power can also come from the business structure, with the degree of bureaucracy influencing the conservatism and centralisation /decentralisation of decision-making. In the book Understanding Organisations, Charles Handy identified six potential sources of power within organisations, namely Physical, Resource, Position, Expert & Personal power. For each business wanting to undergo change, these power sources need to be understood and managed as part of the process.

• Create a common focus – If there is nothing or very few things upon which the entire business can agree, the company should consider trying to establish a common focus. This is one of the reasons why some businesses create mission, vision & value statements; however this is also something that the Promises & Commitments derived from Customer Experience work can be utilised for. As Promises & Commitments should ideally come from the voice of the customer, they can be easier for the business to agree upon than mission, vision & values, which are typically created by leadership teams. It can be easy to disagree with the opinions of management, however it is more difficult to disagree with the opinions of customers!

• Focus first on what unites, not divides – When trying to bring about cultural change, some companies focus on trying to solve the problems and differences that exist between different parts of the business. Of course, significant differences need to be resolved; however it can be easier at first to find the things that everyone can agree upon and create common ground rather than diving headlong into problem-solving mode.

• Break the myths – Some people within companies truly believe that the culture is too heavily engrained upon the business for it to change. In this regard, I have regularly heard that a business is ‘too big’ or ‘too old’. If that were true, then companies would have no option but to see themselves crumble and die. Although change can be more difficult in these types of environment, nothing is ever impossible. Multinational companies such as Aetna & Apple have both successfully undergone large-scale culture change programmes, which shows that it should be possible for anyone.

• Create new rituals – Often culture can be formed as a result of negative rituals. It might even be a daily ‘bitching’ session around the water fountain or coffee machine, yet these rituals can cause untold damage to the culture and morale of a business. Of course, you cannot just simply ban the bad rituals, as they are likely to pop up in other forms and places, however you can create new rituals to act as replacements to the negative ones. I’m not talking about crazy ideas such as suggestion boxes (my favourite story of a suggestion box was one that never got used for weeks and weeks after it was introduced. The very first suggestion that appeared in the box got the controlling manager very excited, only for him to find a note reading “get rid of the suggestion box”….), however I have seen other ideas work well, such as cross-functional lunches and the boss taking the team out for a drink after work.

• Feel the fear and do it anyway – Cultural change is scary. Very few people truly relish the idea of change, as they know that even if it doesn’t bother them, it will bother others and create tension and disquiet. However we are all aware of the different models that describe the stages of change, such as Tuckman’s Forming, Storming, Norming & Performing and Lewin’s Unfreeze-Change-Refreeze model. All of them describe a period of pain that has to be gone through.That being said, pain and fear are often good signs. Conflict is a sign that passion still exists, and passion is an essential element in driving forward positive change. Fear and pain need to be embraced as an essential part of the change process.

• Let go – Managers and leaders often misunderstand what their role is. I have often spoken about the dangers of managers or leaders assuming that the reason why they have climbed the ladder or gained a promotion is because they are ‘better’ than the people lower down within the organisation. The people at the front line of a business usually have a better understanding of what is wrong with that business and how to fix it. ‘Engaging employees’ has become a trite, banal and somewhat patronising phrase, however it is still a nirvana that most businesses should strive for. The challenge is how to engage employees and, in my opinion, the only real way to truly engage them is to give them control of the transformation programme. Giving control to the people doesn’t mean losing your status as a leader – quite the contrary – however most leaders are too frightened to let go. It may seem counterintuitive; however letting go is the best way of respecting employees and gaining their respect and loyalty in return.

Food for thought. Slice of cake anyone?

It’s only fair to share…