Dears,As promised in my last blog, please find the 6 sacred laws of customer experience.
CxP Law #1: Every Interaction Creates a Personal Reaction
This is the most fundamental customer experience (CxP) law of them all. Simply put, experiences are totally in the eyes of the beholder. The same exact experience can be good for one person and bad for another. As a matter of fact, it can be good for someone at one point in time and then bad for that same person at another point in time. That's why we often say "experiences designed for everyone satisfy no one."
CxP Law #2: People Are Instinctively Self-Centered
Everyone has their own frame of reference, which heavily influences what they do and how they do it. Customers, for instance, care intensely about their own needs and desires but they don't generally know or care as much about how companies are organized. Employees also have their individual frame of reference; which often includes a deeper understanding of products, company, organization, and subject matter .If left unchecked, decisions made inside of companies will often reflect the frame of reference of employees, not customers. We sometimes call this problem self referential design.
You can't eliminate your biases, but it helps to acknowledge them. Recognize that customers may not understand things like product names, acronyms, and process steps that you regularly discuss at work. So there's a natural bias for making experiences too complicated for customers. Get in the habit of asking yourself: "Would our target customers fully understand this?"
CxP Law #3: Customer Familiarity Breeds Alignment
Not many people wake up in the morning and say "today, I want to make life miserable for our customers." Yet every day, lots of employees (from front-liners to senior execs) make decisions that end up frustrating, annoying, or downright upsetting their customers. But it's often not individual actions that cause the problems. Often times, the issues come down to a lack of cooperation or coordination across people and organizations.Given that most people want their company to better serve customers, a clear view of what customers need, want, and dislike can align decisions and actions. If everyone shared a vivid view of the target customers and had visibility into customer feedback, then there would be less disagreement about what to do for them. While it may be difficult to agree on overall priorities and strategies, it's much easier to agree on the best way to treat customers.
CxP Law #4: Unengaged Employees Don't Create Engaged Customers
If you want to improve customer experience, then it might seem obvious that you should focus completely on customers. For most firms, though, that's not the correct approach. Where should you focus? On employees. While you can make some customers happy through brute force, you can not sustain great customer experience unless your employees are bought-in to what you're doing and are aligned with the effort. If employees have low morale, then getting them to "wow" customers will be nearly impossible.
Walt Disney also captured this concept very simply:
“You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality.”
CxP Law #5: Employees Do What Is Measured, Incented, and Celebrated
Some executives struggle to understand why their company doesn't deliver better experiences to customers. But it shouldn't be such a big mystery. It's all about how you deal with employees, who tend to conform to the environment that they're in. What are the key elements to the corporate environs? The metrics that are tracked, the activities that are rewarded, and the actions that are celebrated. These three items collectively drive how employees behave and how they ultimately treat customers.
CxP Law #6: You Can’t Fake It
You can fool some people for some of the time, but most people can eventually tell what’s real and what’s not. This shows up in a couple of areas. First of all, employees can sense if customer experience is not really a top priority with the executive team. The second place this shows up is in marketing efforts. No matter how much money you spend on advertising, you can’t convince customers that you provide better experiences than you do.
Don’t Break The 6 Laws
The 6 laws of customer experience are not meant to constrain behaviors. They are meant to empower highly effective customer experience efforts. By understanding these fundamental truths about how people and organizations behave, companies can make smarter decisions about what they do, and how they do it. Going against any of these laws will likely cause poor results. But if you conform to these laws, then you’re better positioned to deliver great experiences to your customers.
This is the most fundamental customer experience (CxP) law of them all. Simply put, experiences are totally in the eyes of the beholder. The same exact experience can be good for one person and bad for another. As a matter of fact, it can be good for someone at one point in time and then bad for that same person at another point in time. That's why we often say "experiences designed for everyone satisfy no one."
CxP Law #2: People Are Instinctively Self-Centered
Everyone has their own frame of reference, which heavily influences what they do and how they do it. Customers, for instance, care intensely about their own needs and desires but they don't generally know or care as much about how companies are organized. Employees also have their individual frame of reference; which often includes a deeper understanding of products, company, organization, and subject matter .If left unchecked, decisions made inside of companies will often reflect the frame of reference of employees, not customers. We sometimes call this problem self referential design.
You can't eliminate your biases, but it helps to acknowledge them. Recognize that customers may not understand things like product names, acronyms, and process steps that you regularly discuss at work. So there's a natural bias for making experiences too complicated for customers. Get in the habit of asking yourself: "Would our target customers fully understand this?"
CxP Law #3: Customer Familiarity Breeds Alignment
Not many people wake up in the morning and say "today, I want to make life miserable for our customers." Yet every day, lots of employees (from front-liners to senior execs) make decisions that end up frustrating, annoying, or downright upsetting their customers. But it's often not individual actions that cause the problems. Often times, the issues come down to a lack of cooperation or coordination across people and organizations.Given that most people want their company to better serve customers, a clear view of what customers need, want, and dislike can align decisions and actions. If everyone shared a vivid view of the target customers and had visibility into customer feedback, then there would be less disagreement about what to do for them. While it may be difficult to agree on overall priorities and strategies, it's much easier to agree on the best way to treat customers.
CxP Law #4: Unengaged Employees Don't Create Engaged Customers
If you want to improve customer experience, then it might seem obvious that you should focus completely on customers. For most firms, though, that's not the correct approach. Where should you focus? On employees. While you can make some customers happy through brute force, you can not sustain great customer experience unless your employees are bought-in to what you're doing and are aligned with the effort. If employees have low morale, then getting them to "wow" customers will be nearly impossible.
Walt Disney also captured this concept very simply:
“You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality.”
CxP Law #5: Employees Do What Is Measured, Incented, and Celebrated
Some executives struggle to understand why their company doesn't deliver better experiences to customers. But it shouldn't be such a big mystery. It's all about how you deal with employees, who tend to conform to the environment that they're in. What are the key elements to the corporate environs? The metrics that are tracked, the activities that are rewarded, and the actions that are celebrated. These three items collectively drive how employees behave and how they ultimately treat customers.
CxP Law #6: You Can’t Fake It
You can fool some people for some of the time, but most people can eventually tell what’s real and what’s not. This shows up in a couple of areas. First of all, employees can sense if customer experience is not really a top priority with the executive team. The second place this shows up is in marketing efforts. No matter how much money you spend on advertising, you can’t convince customers that you provide better experiences than you do.
Don’t Break The 6 Laws
The 6 laws of customer experience are not meant to constrain behaviors. They are meant to empower highly effective customer experience efforts. By understanding these fundamental truths about how people and organizations behave, companies can make smarter decisions about what they do, and how they do it. Going against any of these laws will likely cause poor results. But if you conform to these laws, then you’re better positioned to deliver great experiences to your customers.
Your Partner and Companion
DC*
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