Customer Experience Management: 10 Big Ideas

Customer Experience
Management

Copyright 2011 CustomerThink Corp.

Customer Experience Management: 10 BIG Ideas

Foreword
By Bob Thompson, CustomerThink Founder/CEO

Over the past few years, Customer Experience Management (CEM) has become a key strategy to build customer
loyalty. CustomerThink’s research has found that experiences (all the interactions that customers have with a
company’s people and systems) account for as much value as the core product/service purchased.

As customers, we can all recount instances of how remarkable experiences motivated us to return to a business
again and again, spend more of our hard-earned money and tell our friends and families. Conversely, negative
experiences cause us to look elsewhere and advise our friends, colleagues and complete strangers to do so, too!

Forrester Research found that 86% of companies say customer experience is a top strategy in 2011, and that 76
percent want to differentiate based on customer experience. Yet when the dust settles a few years from now,
only a small percentage of companies will succeed in standing out from their competitors.

Why? Because customer experience strategy must be matched with coordinated and sustained execution. CEM
success is not as simple as just fixing customer service, vowing to “delight” customers or improving marketing
messages. It takes a commitment from the entire organization, starting with the CEO.

That’s why I have compiled this collection of 10 articles from CustomerThink’s most popular authors on
Customer Experience. While it’s a just small fraction of the 500+ posts from these experts in the past year, these
ideas will get you started on the road to CEM success.

To explore CEM further, please visit our CustomerExperienceOne community. Also be sure to learn more about
each of the Top 10 Authors (as of Nov. 30, 2011) featured in this guide.

Top 10 Authors in Customer Experience Management

1. Stan Phelps, Synergy Events
2. Joseph Michelli, Ph.D., The Michelli Experience
3. Maz Iqbal, Dynamica Consulting Group
4. Bob Thompson, CustomerThink Corp.
5. Tony Zambito, Goal Centric
6. Cheryl Hanna, Service Untitled
7. Colin Shaw, Beyond Philosophy
8. Lynn Hunsaker, ClearAction
9. Chip Bell, The Chip Bell Group
10. Linda Ireland, Aveus

All the best on your journey to Customer Experience success!

© Copyright 2011 CustomerThink Corp. 1


Table of Contents
Leading Customer Experience for Your Company: Three Imperatives for Success .................................................................. 3

Thinking Strategically About Customer Experience: Five Components of Customer Value ..................................................... 5

Trust and Choice are Essential Customer Experience Ingredients .......................................................................................... 8

Customer Experience Innovation: The Third Phase of Your CEM Journey ............................................................................ 12

Giving a Gift Before Purchase Could Increase Your Sales by Over 40 Percent ....................................................................... 16

Choosing the Right Customer Loyalty Metric ...................................................................................................................... 18

What NOT to Say to the Gift of Customer Complaints ......................................................................................................... 20

The Impact of the Digital Buyer Experience on B2B Sales and Marketing ............................................................................. 21

Casting Extraordinary Service People to Deliver Artful Performances .................................................................................. 23

Customer Emotions Drive ROI of Customer Experience Programs ....................................................................................... 26

Copyright Notice

The contents of this e-book are copyright property of the authors and CustomerThink Corp. A free copy is available to all
CustomerThink members.



Leading Customer Experience for Your Company: Three
Imperatives for Success
By Linda Ireland

Let’s say your CEO just tapped you on the shoulder and asked you to take on a new responsibility:

“We need you to drive customer experience strategy and actions for our organization. Define the strategy.
Strengthen our customer experience. Differentiate us in the marketplace. Will you do that?”

This is becoming a more common story. More and more companies are tapping a leader or team to be
accountable for customer experience strategy and execution. Some are line executives in marketing, service or
operations and customer experience is folded into their work. Some lead customer experience as a discipline –
much like Six Sigma – where they train a sanctioned expertise across the organization. Others, like CIGNA’s
Ingrid Lindberg, are senior level internal consultants, illuminating the way, setting expectations and advising line
leaders on how to achieve customer experience objectives in their areas or business units. Larger companies are
now creating Chief Customer Officers.

If you’re like the leader who shared this experience with me, the question isn’t so much will you but rather HOW
will you? His thought was “Sounds like fun. How do I do that?”

Regardless of the particular title or box on the organization chart a customer experience leader takes, everyone
I’ve met has had their own “How do I do that?” moment. How can you set yourself and your organization for
success? I’ve found three imperatives that – if followed – can be the road map to success for any customer
experience leader:

1. Link customer experience to financial performance
Every customer experience starts with a person who has a problem, need or desire they’d pay money to solve. If
and how well the problem is solved is the key to any organization’s growth and sustainability. When it comes
right down to it, customer experience matters because it drives financial performance. The first imperative of
customer experience is to acknowledge this link.

If you were to ask most leaders why customer experience matters, they’d probably talk about building customer
loyalty, or satisfaction, or the likelihood customers will advocate for a brand. I’d agree, but this is only a tiny
fraction of why customer experience matters. It is, however, a large part of why a lot of leaders believe there
has to be a tradeoff between customer experience and financial performance. If I could eradicate one thought
from the mind of every business leader, it would be that one. Research has proven, that organizations with a
well-understood definition of customer experience are TWICE as likely to beat their profit targets than those
who do not.

2. Create an ‘end in mind’
Stephen Covey espouses it in the venerable classic, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: begin with an end in
mind. He was right. Imagine what should happen, and how customers should feel as they realize a need, learn
about options to solve it…through each of the six steps common to any customer experience. This is your end.

The second imperative of customer experience is to define the ideal, or target experience for your customers. In
order for your organization to make a breakthrough or substantial change in performance, everyone needs to
have this end in mind. Your target experience ‘end in mind’ is driven by solving a need for the customers who



drive growth and profit for your organization. It is more than a list of best practices — the things all companies
should do. It’s different than “more is always better.” Your customer experience is unique to your organization
and the problem it solves for its customers. Do you want to do what everyone else is doing or do what solves
your customer’s need best?

3. Use your target customer experience in decision making
Choosing between dumb things and smart things is easy; everyone is trying to choose smart things. You should
be trying to choose between the two or three smart things that will have the biggest payoff for your customer’s
experience and in turn your organization (see imperative #1). I’m advocating that you use your customer
experience as an operating strategy.

The third imperative of customer experience is to use your ideal or target experience as a litmus test for daily
decisions and actions across your organization. As we’ve discussed here before, there is a difference between
deciding and doing. It’s worked for Tony Hsieh and Zappos, and it’s a step CIGNA is taking. Starbucks is famous
for creating, falling down, and getting back up on using experience to drive daily decisions. How can it work for
you?

Now what?
I’ve shared these imperatives each time I’m asked the “How do I do that?” question. What do you think? Where
would you start if you were charged with leading an organization’s customer experience efforts?

LINDA IRELAND
Linda Ireland is co-owner and partner of Aveus LLC, a global strategy and operational change firm that helps
leaders find money in the business performance chain while improving customer experiences. As author of
Domino: How to Use Customer Experience to Tip Everything in Your Business toward Better Financial
Performance, Linda built on work done at Aveus and aims to deliver real-life, actionable, how-to help for leaders
of any organization.



Thinking Strategically About Customer Experience: Five
Components of Customer Value
By Maz Iqbal

How do you think about Customer Experience?
In my view too many people are thinking about Customer Experience tactically. Or put simply: too many people
are thinking of Customer Experience in terms of making changes to the interaction channels.

Being a strategist, I prefer to think strategically and have been looking for a way that helps me to do that when it
comes to:

 Attracting and keeping customers; and
 Thinking about, organising and executing Customer Experience.

So how do you attract and keep customers? And how should you think about (frame) your customer experience
efforts? I assert that the answer to both of these questions is the same: create superior value for your
customers and keep doing it continuously.

Which begs the question: what is ‘value’ from a customer perspective?

Fifield: customer value equation
One of the most useful frameworks that I have come across is the one developed by Paul Fifield (by building on
some work done by Osterwalder and Pigneur) in his book Marketing Strategy Masterclass.

Value = Benefit – Effort – Risk – Price

Maz Iqbal: customer value equation
If it was OK for Newton to stand on the ‘shoulders of giants’ I am more than happy to steal from Professor
Fifield. Yet, I believe that Prof. Fifield’s equation neglects a critical piece of the puzzle. So I have added it in and
thus my equation is:

Value = Benefit – Effort – Risk – Price +/- Treatment

Let’s take a closer at the six elements of this equation.

Value
The first point to make is that value does not reside in the product or service that you offer. Value is in mind of
the customer. Put differently, customer value is the value that each individual customer perceives in:

 what you are offering including any implied or explicit promises; and
 getting the job done in the way that you are proposing in your offer.

This means that ‘value’ will occur differently to different customers. So a customer who is housebound is likely
to value the home delivery of their weekly groceries very differently to another customer who is able to and
enjoys visiting her local supermarket.



Finally, it is worth stressing that ‘value’ from a customer perspective is much more than price. And it certainly is
not about being cheap. Recent wine tests have shown that in blind taste tests customers rate the same wine
differently: if the wine is priced cheaply then the wine is rated as being of an inferior quality even though it is
exactly the same wine in the same bottle!

Benefit
Your offer must promise and deliver the benefits that the customer is looking for. One way of thinking about this
is in terms of the job that the customer wants done and the outcomes he desires. The closer you offer is to the
perfect solution for the job and the desired outcomes, the more benefit it deliver and the more value that you
create for your customer.

Clearly, each customer will have a different perception of the importance of the job, the perfect solution and the
value of that solution. To make this manageable you must segment your customer base into distinct customer
segments.

Effort
Customers have been conditioned to want ease and convenience. I would go further and say that ease and
experience are so important to us that once we have found a supplier that delivers this we stop looking for other
suppliers.

The desire for ease and convenience spans the process of finding, evaluating, buying, taking receipt of and using
the product or service. This means that the organisation needs to pay attention to more than the product or
service. It needs to pay as much attention to interaction and distribution channels as it does to the product or
service.

It is worth noting that real value, from the customer’s perspective, is only created in the usage process. Too
many suppliers neglect to pay sufficient attention to the customer’s actual usage process. So they fail to come
up with solutions that minimise the effort of using these product or service. This is an area in which Apple has
excelled and made its fortune. Now compare Apples attention to detail (as regards the user experience) to this:
How “wrap rage is hurting the customer experience”

As Fifield says “Generally, there will be greater customer value attached to those offerings, where the
organisation has spent time, research, effort and insight into finding new ways of making the old jobs easier.”

Risk
The greater the level of risk that the customer sees in you the vendor and your offer, the lower the perceived
value of your offer.

The perceived risk is much higher when the customer has a lack of knowledge and prior experience in how best
to get his job done. And in particular how to judge the expertise of the supplier and the quality of the offer.

It is worth noting that risk is always present: usually at a subconscious level. Customer are particularly sensitive
to things that can go wrong and which make them look stupid in their own eyes (self-esteem issue) or in the
eyes of others (social standing). It is the reason that advertising is not dead, will not die and why established
brands do well despite doing poorly on other elements of the customer value equation. We are risk averse and
stick with the devil we know; brand recognition matters – ask anyone who does not have an established brand.



Price
In some ways this is one of the more complex components of the customer value equation. Why Because it is
not as simple as the price being too high. From a customer perspective, it cover the following aspects:

 Price being too low (wine example under Value heading) and thus leading the customer to think that the
offer is of inferior quality or not fit for purpose (increasing the Risk component of the Value equation);
 Price being too high;
 Seeing the same product cheaper somewhere else;
 Depreciation in value – how fast the resale value of the product will fall;
 The time/effort trade-off in searching for the lowest price;
 Buy now or buy later when price falls etc

Treatment
Treatment recognises that customers are people and as such the place a value in how they are treated as human
beings. Put differently, customers put a high value on ‘service. In particular, they prefer to do business with
organisations that leave them feeling ‘valued’.

I have placed a +/- in front of the Treatment component because if customers are treated well (especially by the
employees of the company) then it make a positive contribution to customer value as perceived by the
customer. If the company fails to do that then the Treatment component becomes negative and decreases the
value of the rest of the offer.

Two companies that excel in the Treatment component are Amazon and Zappos. Here is an example of the kind
of impact this has on the customer: “Great Customer Service Build your Revenue and Brand: My Amazon
Experience”

MAZ IQBAL
I define myself as a ‘customer based strategist’. My focus is on helping organisations to generate-define-design-
execute customer based strategies that create superior value for customers and competitive advantage for the
enterprise. You can access my thinking at The Customer Blog. (www.thecustomerblog.co.uk).



Trust and Choice are Essential Customer Experience
Ingredients
By Lynn Hunsaker

This article describes the 5th of 10 unique characteristics of customer experience relative to more well-known concepts such
as customer satisfaction and retention. The characteristic defined in this article is: Choice — Customer experience is built on
trust and mutual respect for variety; share of budget is more important than loyalty.

So you want a relationship with your customer? If one of your greatest hopes is for your brand to be loved by
your customers, think about what it takes for your personal relationships to thrive. Since customers (even B2B)
are people, they tend to have similar responses to relationship strengths and weaknesses whether the
relationship is personal or with a brand. As you know from your own experiences, trust and respect for your
choices are at the root of relationship failure or success. Yet, customers’ trust of companies is steadily eroding!
In fact, U.S. consumers’ trust dropped a whopping 8 points from 2010 to 2011 in the Edelman Trust Barometer
study1, and U.S. and U.K. firms rank 8th and 9th in trustworthiness, behind Brazil, India, Italy, China, Germany,
and France. (Note: all graphics shown in this article are from the 2011 Edelman Trust Barometer.)

Astoundingly, trust of banks dropped 46 points in the U.S. and 30 points in the U.K over the past 3 years. Only
one in four people in these countries feel they can trust banks to do what is right. In 2008, U.S. automobiles
were the lowest ranking industry, but they have managed to bounce back with a 17 point gain.



Hindsight may be a great teacher here, as we’ve observed self-centeredness in these industries in recent times.
In the interest of maximizing short-term financial performance, these companies seem to have forgotten that
relationships are a two-way street. Once trust is eroded, any amount of advertising and sweet-talking tends to
have little effect. For so many reasons, it’s essential to maintain high trust with your customers.

If you love someone, set them free. Yet, long-term (e.g. 1-year, 2-year) agreements, exclusions, caveats, change
fees, extensive fine print, extra steps (hassles), and many other penalties are the norm in several industries.
These are examples of bad profits, as described by Fred Reichheld in his book The Ultimate Question:
“Whenever a customer feels mis-led, mistreated, ignored, or coerced, then profits from that customer are bad.
Bad profits come from unfair or misleading pricing. Bad profits arise when companies save money by delivering
a lousy customer experience. Bad profits are about extracting value from customers, not creating value. When
sales reps push overpriced or inappropriate products onto trusting customers, the reps are generating bad
profits. Bad profits provide a distorted picture of business performance. The distortion misleads investors,
yielding poor resource decisions that hurt our economy. That tarnished reputation undermines consumer trust
and provokes calls for stricter rules and tighter regulations.”2

The 2011 Satmetrix Net Promoter® Industry Benchmarks Study reports 1 in 5 U.S. consumers say bad
experiences lead them to switch brands. Bad experiences were described by 34% of consumers as interacting
with a rude or disinterested employee, and by 20% as unexpected charges or fees; 20% also listed poor product
or service quality as the main reason for switching brands.3 Specific examples are described in a 2010 study by
Consumer Reports, which lists the naughty or nice policies of 20 leading consumer companies. (By the way,
these concepts apply just as well in B2B, government, non-profit, etc.)4 Don’t let your fear of a few usurping
customers lead you to punish all your customers for wanting to give you their money! Re-think the customer-
centricity of your sales and service policies, and all your other policies, for that matter.



As Jeanne Bliss explains in her book I Love You More Than My Dog: 5 Decisions That Drive Extreme Customer
Loyalty in Good Times & Bad, “Consider the story that the collective decisions of your organization tell
customers, employees, and the marketplace. What story is emerging about who you are and what you value?
Are your decisions reflecting what you intended? When you make decisions that respect and honor customers
you will earn their respect — eventually their love. Are your decisions compelling customers to tell others to try
your products and services? Are customers telling your story?”5 You don’t need fancy technology or campaigns
to build highly profitable customer retention. You simply need to consistently provide the value that you
promise.

When a company is distrusted, 57% of customers will believe negative information, and only 15% will believe
positive information. In contrast, when a company is trusted, only 25% of customers will believe negative
information, and 51% will believe positive information.1



A study by the London School of Economics examined the revenue gains by increasing positive word-of-mouth
and by reducing negative word-of-mouth. They found that reducing negative buzz pays off 300% over improving
positive buzz.

If you want ongoing strong financial performance, build trust into your customer retention efforts. Remember
the golden rule: Do unto others as you would have done unto you. It’s the best rule of thumb for anything in life,
and an essential ingredient to reaping high returns on your customer experience investments.
1
Edelman Trust Barometer, 2011.
2
The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth, by Fred Reichheld.
3
Satmetrix Press Release, February 17, 2011.
4
Consumer Reports, November 22, 2010.
5
I Love You More Than My Dog: 5 Decisions That Drive Extreme Customer Loyalty in Good Times and Bad, by Jeanne Bliss.

See the other posts in this series:
Customer Experience Management is Doing the Right Thing
Start with Your Customers for Success in Every Strategy
Fall in Love with Your Customers for Best Customer Experience
Customer Experience Management is Uncommon Sense
Customer Experience is More Than Engagement

LYNN HUNSAKER
Lynn Hunsaker helps companies improve enterprise-wide customer-centricity and profitability through
ClearAction customer experience management consulting. She led customer experience initiatives in large
companies since 1989, and authored 3 books, including Innovating Superior Customer Experience. See the
ClearAction B2B CEM Benchmarking Study and newsletter.



Customer Experience Innovation: The Third Phase of
Your CEM Journey
By Bob Thompson

CEM first caught my attention in 2005, which prompted me to launch a major research study in 2006. Based on
interviews of industry experts and business leaders, I defined CEM as “Managing customer interactions to build
brand equity and improve long-term profitability.” You can learn more about CEM and how it is different from
CRM in my article The Next Generation of Customer Management? Customer Experience Management.

Past: Customers have always valued experiences (buzzword optional)
Differentiating around the customer experience is hardly a new idea. Nearly 30 years ago, Jan Carlzon
engineered a turnaround at Scandinavian Airlines by improving “moments of truth” in passenger interactions
with the airline.

Since then, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has been mainly concerned with how to market to
customers and get value from them, often leveraging technology. But largely forgotten was the insight that
Carlzon understood intuitively: Customers perceive value based on the experiences they receive and perceive.

Or, as he told me in a 2006 interview (paraphrasing)—it’s not about the aircraft!

And for some time, we thought if we just had very new and nice and technically developed aircraft, people would
regard our company as good. But when we questioned our passengers, it showed that 90 percent of them didn’t
even know what kind of aircraft they were flying. Where did they get their impression or perception of the
company? We found out that they got the perception in those meetings with human resources, the employees
working in the company: a salesman over the telephone; a girl behind the check-in counter; a stewardess on board
the aircraft; the captain, the way he spoke over his microphone.

If you’re excited about the potential for CEM to improve your business, good! But before you get started, take
some time to read Carlzon’s groundbreaking book, published waaaay back in the dark ages of 1987: Moments of
Truth: New Strategies for Today’s Customer-Driven Economy.

Present: Listening to voice of customer, building the business case
In the past five years or so when we’ve seen CEM emerge as a more systematic approach to differentiate based
on customer experience. The use of survey-based “Voice of Customer” (VoC) programs has also hit the
mainstream during this period. Frankly, I don’t see how any company can claim to “do” CEM without a strong
VoC program as a foundation.

For mainstream CEM adoption, of course the “ROI” question must be answered. Executives want to know, “If we
invest in CEM and improve how we listen to and treat our customers, how does the company succeed?”

The answer is simple: CEM is important because experiences really do matter to customers in their buying
decisions. Experiences affect loyalty, which every CEO should be concerned about.

In CustomerThink’s 2006 cross-industry study, we found a remarkable consistency in customers valuing
experiences about equally with the core product/service. We also found that leaders in CEM effectiveness
tended to achieve higher levels of business performance (profitable growth). Since then numerous studies have



found much the same thing. For more on the ROI issue, read Jon Picoult’s article Yes, Virginia, There Is A Return On
Customer Experience Investments.

Getting customer feedback is a critical first step towards CEM success. And increasingly companies are turning to
survey-based “Voice of Customer” programs to get insight into the quality of specific interactions or
transactions, or to assess the quality of relationships. This has created a significant new industry for so-called
Enterprise Feedback Management (EFM) tools.

But technology-enabled listening is not enough. In my Can You Hear Me Now? article I wrote about these five
pitfalls:

 Pitfall No. 1: Lack of executive support to drive change
 Pitfall No. 2: Garbage in, garbage out
 Pitfall No. 3: Employees aren’t motivated to be customer-focused
 Pitfall No. 4: Listening with only one ear
 Pitfall No. 5: Ignoring social voices

In short, while companies are doing a much better job in asking questions with the support of technology, they
need to be sure they are asking the right questions and have the organizational support to act on what they
learn.

Future: 360-degree listening, experience innovation
These days, most companies are aware of the importance of customer experiences to build loyalty and retain
customers. In difficult economies or maturing markets, the “easy money” of new customer acquisitions is gone.

Over the next few years, companies should expand their VoC efforts to listen to the customers and the market
more completely. Unstructured and often unsolicited feedback—from social media and many other sources—is
a goldmine of insight waiting to be discovered. You shouldn’t wait for the next survey to get feedback!

Further, it’s time to stop being reactionary. Yes, it’s important to fix problems because they’re a negative drain
on the customer experience. But it’s equally important to proactively create innovative new experiences that
differentiate the company.

CEM journey
I think one of the biggest mistakes that companies make is trying to run when they should be walking. Your CEM
strategy should be built based on your market position and maturity. Said another way: Don’t try to “wow” your
customers with creative experiences when your call center won’t answer the phones.

So with that in mind, I would suggest three major phases on a successful CEM journey.

Phase 1. Stop the Bleeding

If your company is losing customers due to poor customer service or other problems, by all means fix
these problems first. A classic example of this sort of recovery is Sprint. In 2007, the mobile telecom
company achieved unwanted notoriety by firing its unprofitable customers. That’s good solid CRM-like
behavior, but it failed to account for the media backlash and didn’t address the core issues of why those
customers were calling and therefore unprofitable.



Well, Sprint has engineered an impressive turnaround by systematically uncovering and fixing customer
service problems. In my recent interview of Jerry Adriano, Sprint’s VP of Customer Experience, I learned that
the company has dramatically improved its customer satisfaction rating, reduced costs and decreased
churn. The process took a couple of years and required top management to get serious about CEM. Well
done, Sprint!

Phase 2. Focus on (Selective) Touchpoint Excellence

Once you’ve fixed the major “dissatisfiers” that cause customer defection or negative WOM, take some
time to study the end-to-end customer experience and learn which interactions or “touchpoints” matter
most.

For example, Sampson Lee’s article reviews research on credit card customer experiences across 39
touchpoints, seven different stages (Image, Application, Card Usage, Promotions, Gift Redemption,
Repayment, and Service) and multiple channels. He found that some touchpoints are important in
driving customer retention, while others are more important to increase loyalty (NPS).

To win at CEM, you don’t need to be world-class in every single touchpoint. Focus on the interactions
that matter most to customers and will drive the business outcomes you seek.

Phase 3. Innovate in Experience Design

Now here’s the fun part! What I’ve described thus far can be summed up as fixing and refining what
you’ve got. If your competitors are asleep at the switch, this may be enough to gain a competitive edge.
But fixing problems and optimizing touchpoints will only take you so far; probably not to industry
leadership.

To fulfill the promise of experience-based differentiation, you may need to create entirely new
experiences. For example, observe the technologies and services that consumers are using—including
social media and smart mobile devices, just to name two. How could these be applied to your business?

Read Michael Hinshaw’s recent post on redefining customer experience for a mind-expanding perspective
on the possibilities. To get and stay ahead in customer experience, you’ll need to be more like Apple—
constantly innovating the experience, not just optimizing existing touchpoints. Apple is known for its
products, of course. But go to an Apple store and you’ll also enjoy the shopping experience with well-
trained employees and no cash registers up front in the typical retail checkout process.

Don’t stop there. Instead of putting on a show for your customers, invite them up on stage with you! As
a social/collaborative business, look for ways to create products and experiences with your customers. A
provocative example of this sort of “co-innovation” is how Threadless sells t-shirts designed by its
community.

Tips for Success
As you look at expanding your efforts in CEM and VoC in 2011 and beyond, here are a few things to keep in
mind.

1. Understand your customers’ complete value proposition. Experiences matter, but so do products and
price. In the realm of customer experience, service/support processes carry a lot of weight, because
emotions run hot when problems occur. But don’t overlook the value of marketing, selling, purchasing



or consumption experiences. Well-designed VoC programs will keep you on track with all of your
customers’ loyalty drivers.

2. “Listen” to customer behavior and existing communications. There’s a wealth of insight to be gained
from analyzing what customers are “saying” with their actions or communications. For example, you can
use predictive analytics and text mining tools to identify patterns in customer interactions that are likely
to lead to attrition, so you can act before it’s too late.

3. Optimize the cross-channel experience. Most large organizations continue to struggle with silos, and
this can create huge problems for multi-channel customers, which tend to be more valuable. Make sure
that web, phone, social and other channels are working together. This is one area where a Chief
Customer/Experience Officer can really help.

4. Reward your employees. Yes, technology is essential to manage large VoC programs, and disruptive
technologies can enable innovative experiences. But when we researched what really matter to
customers in “memorable” experiences, the top factor was dealing with friendly, capable and
empowered employees.

5. Move towards Market Feedback Management (MFM). Social media has emerged as a critical source of
insight into what customers, prospects and influencers think about your brand. New social media
monitoring tools can help, but generally these are not integrated into one comprehensive overall VoC
effort. That must change in the next few years.

BOB THOMPSON
Bob Thompson is CEO of CustomerThink Corp., an independent research and publishing firm focused on
customer-centric business management, and Founder/Editor-in-Chief of CustomerThink.com, the world’s largest
community dedicated to customer-centric business. Thompson is a popular keynote speaker, blogger and
author of numerous reports, articles and papers, including “CrowdService: Harnessing the Wisdom of Crowds in
Customer Service and Support.”



Giving a Gift Before Purchase Could Increase Your Sales
by Over 40 Percent
By Stan Phelps

I’ve always been a huge proponent that marketing lagniappe drives 3 strong benefits. By giving little unexpected
extras (GLUE), you can achieve the following:

1. Differentiation – stand out from the competition
2. Retention - increase satisfaction which encourages repeat business
3. Word of Mouth – give your customers something to ‘talk, tweet, yelp, blog and Facebook’ about

Now a recent study in the International Journal of Marketing Studies has revealed that giving a gift before
purchase could increase consumer spending by over 40%. Thanks to Ric Dragon at Dragon Search Marketing for
forwarding it. Here is a synopsis of the article by Hershey H. Friedman and Ahmed Rahman:

An experiment was conducted in a restaurant to
determine the effects of a small gift upon entry and
greeting customers with a thank you for their
patronage. Two types of gifts were used: a cup of yogurt
and an inexpensive key chain. The authors found that
providing a gift upon entry into a store had an impact
on how much was spent, on the performance rating,
and on how strongly the establishment would be
recommended. This study did not find any differences
between gifts: a gift of a cup of yogurt had the same
impact as a key chain. The difference in amount spent
between the group that was not greeted or given a gift
and the group that was greeted and given a cup of
yogurt was 46.4%, a considerable amount.

The article discusses the underlying principle of reciprocity, the power of surprise and the importance of giving
without an implicit expectation of return. The conclusions are very interesting:

This study demonstrates that there is value in greeting customers who enter a store. Customers who are not
greeted will spend considerably less, will rate the store lower on performance, and will also be less likely to
recommend the establishment. Providing a small gift upon entry into a store will have an impact on how much is
spent, on the performance rating, and on how strongly the establishment will be recommended…

The value of a satisfied customer to a business is immense. One study showed that customers who are totally
satisfied contribute 17 times more sales to a firm than customers who are somewhat dissatisfied and 2.6 times as
much sales as customers who are somewhat satisfied (Whalley and Headon, 2001). If all it takes to improve
attitudes of customers is an appreciatory comment and an occasional gift, then organizations should use this
approach as part of their marketing communications strategies.

From Yogurt to Peanuts



One of my Hall of Famers in the Project is Five Guys Burgers and Fries. Jerry Murrell and his eponymous five sons
(Matt and Jim travel the country visiting stores, Chad oversees training, Ben selects the franchisees, and Tyler
runs the bakery). Free is baked into the model at Five Guys:

1. Free peanuts when you walk through the door
2. 15 free toppings for your burger or dog
3. An extra handful or two of bonus fries
4. Free refills for your soda or ice tea
5. Free of logo’s and excess decor

The free peanuts you can shell are my favorite. According to Todd at cheese-burger.net:

While you wait for your order to be prepared, there is a mountain of peanuts just inside the front door to munch
on. Free peanuts have become the trademark “thing” that Five Guys is known for. I saw over fifty bags, 50 pounds
apiece, waiting to be opened and devoured. They have signs at the door to serve as fair warning for folks with
peanut allergies, and they’re pretty strict about not letting you take any peanuts to go as a safety precaution. But
it’s a pretty cool thing: order your cheeseburger, scarf down a handful of salty, ballpark-style, still-in-the-shell
peanuts.

By my rough calculation Five Guys gives away over 2 million pounds of peanuts per year. Do little things make a
big difference? For a company that does little to no advertising, here is the mantra from founder Jerry Murrell:

We figure our best salesman is our customer. Treat that person right, he’ll walk out the door and sell for you. From
the beginning, I wanted people to know that we put all our money into the food. That’s why the décor is so simple
— red and white tiles. We don’t spend our money on décor. Or on guys in chicken suits. But we’ll go overboard on
food.

How do you stand out in the sea of sameness like Five Guys Burgers and Fries? How do you win repeat
customers and influence word of mouth? Are you Giving Little Unexpected Extras?

What’s Your Peanuts or Yogurt?

STAN PHELPS
Stan Phelps is Chief Solutions Officer at Synergy Events. Synergy is an award winning experiential marketing
agency specializing in the creation of signature brand experiences. Stan believes the ‘longest and hardest nine
inches’ in marketing is the distance between the brain and the heart of your customer. He is fascinated by the
concept of lagniappe and is currently writing his first book, ‘What’s Your Purple Goldfish?’ [Launching 1.11.12]



Choosing the Right Customer Loyalty Metric
By Joseph Michelli, Ph.D.

Recently I mentioned a Harvard Business Review article entitled, “Stop trying to delight your customers” and I
introduced the concept of a single item CES or Customer Effort Score. That score is calculated based on
customer responses to a question that asks for a rating (on a 1-5 scale) based on how much effort customers
must exert to get their needs met at your company. Also in that post I suggested that my next installment would
compare the power of the CES for predicting customer loyalty to the more commonly used metrics of customer
satisfaction (CSAT) and customer engagement (Net promoter score or NPS).

So let’s dive right in with an obvious truth, customer satisfaction measures have virtually no ability to predict
customer loyalty. They can predict customer churn but not loyalty. If you ask your customers, “how satisfied are
you with our service or our business?,” their answers will simply indicate whether customers think you are
competent to perform your function. Low levels of satisfaction indicate that customers are not confident in the
basic viability of your offerings. Good to excellent satisfaction scores simply mean you are competent and as
such remain a contender for future business. So low satisfaction predicts attrition but high satisfaction does not
predict retention.

Now on to a question that Fred Reichheld called “the Ultimate Question” in his book of the same name.

“How likely is it that you would recommend this company to a friend or colleague?”

As you probably know, that question produces a metric called the Net Promoter score, or NPS for short, which is
calculated on a 0-10 scale using the following formula:

P — D = NPS

Where P is the percentage of customers who are promoters and D is the percentage who are detractors. But
who is a promoter and who is a detractor? It’s as simple as:

 Promoters (score 9-10) the loyal enthusiasts who keep buying and referring others, fueling your growth.

 Passives (score 7-8) those satisfied but unenthusiastic customers who are vulnerable to competitors.

 Detractors (score 0-6) are the unhappy customers who can damage your brand and prevent your growth through
negativity.

So in other words, the NPS equals the percentage of your 9’s and 10’s minus the percentage of your 0-6’

Bain & Company’s analysis of the NPS shows that businesses that achieve long-term profitable growth-have Net
Promoter Scores two times higher than the average company. Additionally, NPS performance leaders outgrow
their competitors in most industries-by an average of 2.5 times.

So head-to-head, how does the single item NPS score compare to the single item Customer Effort Score (CES)?

According to the authors of the Harvard Business Review “Stop trying to delight customers” article, “We
evaluated the predictive power of three metrics—customer satisfaction (CSAT), the Net Promoter Score (NPS),
and a new metric we developed, the Customer Effort Score (CES)—on customer loyalty, defined as customers’
intention to keep doing business with the company, increase the amount they spend, or spread positive (and



not negative) word of mouth. Not surprisingly, CSAT was a poor predictor. NPS proved better (and has been
shown to be a powerful gauge at the company level). CES outperformed both in customer service interactions.”

While I encourage the use of NPS and CES in varying applications with my clients, a single question can NOT
unravel the mystery of customer loyalty.

More importantly, what are your customers saying about you when it comes to NPS and CES inquiries?

JOSEPH MICHELLI, PH.D.
Joseph Michelli, Ph.D., an organizational consultant and the chief experience officer of The Michelli Experience,
is a #1 New York Times Bestselling author of The Zappos Experience: 5 Principles to Inspire, Engage, and WOW,
The New Gold Standard: 5 Leadership Principles for Creating a Legendary Customer Experience Courtesy of The
Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company and The Starbucks Experience: Principles for Turning Ordinary Into Extraordinary.



What NOT to Say to the Gift of Customer Complaints
By Cheryl Hanna

Customer feedback should be revered by business owners. What better way to find
out if you are continuously meeting the needs of your customers in the most
efficient and best respected ways? It’s a rare business that never has a complaint,
but the negative connotation of the word tends to bring down our spirits, so why
not use the positive spin and label it “feedback?” After all, it’s not to be taken as a
criticism; it’s meant to keep us informed and help us improve.

Of primary importance is not to get defensive. Take notes and ask questions. Find
out what frustrated your customer because if you don’t, how will you ever be able
to elicit more positive feedback? Of course, you don’t want to offer excuses or
blame. Customers really don’t care why it happened; they just want you to fix it.
Start with apologizing, and take the responsibility for moving past objections by
finding a solution. You want to recognize the customer was hurt, and you want to photo credit: La Citta Vita
assure someone you will do all that is possible to correct the problem.

Recently I asked some of my colleagues for examples of what not to say when dealing with customer
“feedback.” See what you think:

 Don’t ever say, “I’m sorry that you feel that way.” According to Rebecca S., manager of The Limited, a clothing
store, that kind of statement translates into telling a customer you don’t care they’re unhappy. Rebecca changed
that statement to say, “I’m very sorry this happened. I will correct this problem for you.”
 Don’t ever say, “We’ve seen worse.” You might as well be waving good-bye to your customer. Address the
problem immediately, and make sure you have apologized. How you are going to remedy the situation is the
solution; not that your staff has done worse.
 Don’t ever say, “This has never happened to us before.” Margie M., owner of a shoe boutique received an Italian
designer shipment of expensive shoes. She sold a pair to a new customer, and within a week the customer was
back because the entire side of the shoe had separated from the platform. “It never did happen before,” Margie
said, “but I told the customer how sorry I was, went into the back and gave her a replacement pair. I didn’t want to
make excuses; I just wanted her to be happy. My boutique is extremely upbeat, and I actually love that designer.
Mistakes do happen, but I thought discretion was the better part of my sales presentation.”
 Don’t ever say, “I can’t do anything about it.” Again, just wave good-bye as your competition greets your previous
customer at the door.
In the end, thank your customer for the feedback. Since 90 percent of customers never complain, and just don’t
come back, feel privileged someone has taken the time, and let them know you appreciate how they have gone
out of their way to help you do better. If you want to keep your customers and build customer loyalty, don’t let
your customers down.

CHERYL HANNA
Cheryl Hanna is a successful real estate sales person in Florida and has used her customer service knowledge
and experience to set her apart and gain a competitive edge in a very difficult market. Cheryl has been writing
professionally since 1999 and writes for several blogs and online publications



The Impact of the Digital Buyer Experience on B2B
Sales and Marketing
By Tony Zambito

In the past decade, we have undergone a
monumental shift in how sellers and buyers
engage. The digital revolution has ushered in a
new age of how products or services reach
people that were unimaginable just a short ten
years ago. Advancements in technology and
digital media coming in waves causing
organizations to be caught unaware of the
impact the totality of these waves have had on
their businesses. In many ways, buyers and
sellers are attempting to engage as if they are
in a department store and sellers are on the
down escalator and buyers are passing them
by on the up escalator. This is most notable in
the B2B spectrum of marketplaces.
Image by davidking via Flickr
In 1999, B. Joseph Pine II and James Gilmore
published The Experience Economy: Work is Theatre and Every Business is a Stage. A truly groundbreaking book
that made a lasting impression upon me around the same time persona development was taking shape. Pine
and Gilmore can be characterized as oracles for they offered the premise that we were entering an experience
economy where value was created by staging memorable experiences for customers. Many successful B2C
entities, such as Disney, leveraged the principle of staging a theme to create memorable experiences.

As the digital age takes root into the fabric of our economy, CEOs today, and most appropriately those in the
B2B marketplaces, must begin to think about the new era of the buyer experience economy and how it impacts
their organization.

Let’s take a look at some areas where the new buyer experience economy will cause rethinking:

1. Buying channels versus selling channels: since the dawning of the industrial and manufacturing age,
selling became a downstream endeavor. The mandate being finding channels to push and distribute
products or services out to buyers. The digital age has ushered in a new way of thinking. That being,
creating channels that are upstream and enabling buyers to find you and engage.

2. New media adoption: for some B2B markets, adopting new forms of digital media that enable buyers to
engage and find you is proving to be disruptive. I am going to shy away from using the often used term
of content marketing for the moment. While quality content is important, the larger strategic question
for CEO’s to think about is what new forms of media are relevant to their buyers?

3. How to organize: This may be especially tough for companies who have a long and rich tradition of large
field sales departments where in some cases today even free doughnuts cannot buy an appointment.
The old school of compartmentalizing processes into sales, marketing, and service is in serious need of



an extreme makeover. Companies need to discover new ways to organize that allows for exceptional
buying experiences and removes barriers.

4. Buyer experience design as a core competency: While experience design and the notion of customer
experience have been around for a few years, B2B organizations as a whole have not embraced these as
necessary core competencies. Yes, there are exceptions and some B2B companies have done well in
reinventing themselves. By and large though, these efforts have been coined under the labels of
initiative, project, program, and the like. And we all know what happens to those things called initiatives, projects,
and programs after the first year.

5. Buying conversation versus selling conversation: Interwoven into the DNA of B2B organizations is the
many years of sales training, sales programs, and sales systems that have as its aim to begin a selling
conversation with buyers. Tremendous investments have been made in selling methodologies and sales
systems all promising the results of improved sales performance and increased revenues. Additionally,
marketing structure and purpose has been oriented towards supporting selling conversations. There
seems to be a problem however if organizations continue to be wedded to their existing sales processes
and marketing support systems. Buyers, in the new buyer experience economy, appear to want entirely
different conversations. This is not a dire prediction about the end of sales. Far from it. What is true in a
new buyer experience economy is that there needs to be a new understanding and rethinking of exactly
what constitutes a conversation with buyers today.

Companies who embrace the notion that the new economic difference maker will be that of the buyer
experience will find themselves as the market leaders of a new era. A new era that not only sets a stage and
theme for experience but also enables buyers to create buying experiences that are unique to them.

TONY ZAMBITO
Tony Zambito, Founder and Principal of a buyer strategy consulting firm. Goal Centric is the originator of the
buyer persona methodology. Tony is launching Buyerology© as a new means of understanding buyer behavior.
Tony also served in the role of Vice President in Sales and Marketing capacities for TRW, Knight-Ridder, and
Compaq (HP). He holds a B.S. in Business and an M.B.A. in Marketing Management. Read Tony’s blog Buyerology
Now for insightful commentary on changing buyer behavior.



Casting Extraordinary Service People to Deliver Artful
Performances
By Chip Bell

What do Michael Curtiz and Martin Brest have in common? They each had the challenge of casting the best
candidate for a starring role in a new movie. Michael had an exciting new star named Ronald Reagan, who had
screen tested for the lead male role opposite Katharine Hepburn in a new movie titled “Casablanca.” And Martin
had a similar challenge: a successful, new box office drawing card named Sylvester Stallone had screen tested
for the lead role in a comedy movie titled “Beverly Hills Cop.”

Selecting people for customer service roles is similar to casting people for roles in a play or movie. First, both
require artful performances aligned with audience expectations. Creating an interpersonal experience that
customers remember as satisfactory, pleasant or dazzling is like the actor’s mission of having audiences so
caught up in the play or movie they start believing the performer is the person portrayed. Second, both require
a casting choice based on personality. Ronald Reagan in Humphrey Bogart’s slot would have resulted in a movie
quite different from the screenwriter’s intent. And, Rambo as Axel Foley?

Fair and Accurate Casting
How was casting done without selection being solely “the whim of the director?” Did Michael Curtiz worry that
Ronald Reagan would file a grievance with the actors’ guild if not selected? Did Eddie Murphy get the slot
because Martin Brest had no interest in devoting the hours needed to “build a file?”

A challenge that film and customer service professionals share is how to choose fairly and accurately the
performer with the greatest potential for success. Hiring is—and must—be based as much on intuitive feelings
as on analytical judgments. The problem is that imprecise justification of subjective data to explain hiring one
service applicant over another is risky. And, with good reason.

Selection choices based more on the subjective than the objective—more on vibes than facts—are more
susceptible to bias and prejudice. The “I have a gut feeling you just won’t fit in here” rationale has slammed the
door on too many who may well have become our shining stars. It was and is the justification for bigotry, old
boys’ networks and myopia, which pay homage to a particular race, color, gender, national origin, age or sexual
orientation.

Be that as it may, the exaggerated effort to exclude interpersonal information from the selection process—to
focus solely on objective information—may lead to hiring decisions that are fair but stupid rather than fair and
smart.

Some Casting Guidelines
How then, do you cast people for extraordinary customer service? Here are four guidelines that will enable you
to avoid the conflict between fair and subjective.

1. Clearly define the service role and the critical qualities you are looking for

The service for the potential service star begins with a clear view of the service role to be filled. First, define the
skills the service person must bring to the job, and the technical aspects of the job that can be learned and you
are willing to teach. Then focus on the interpersonal qualities that are important. Be as specific and thorough as
possible.



Many frontline service roles require people who are friendly and courteous. Such behaviors are relatively easy to
observe and document. But, the qualities found in highly successful service employees don’t end there. Equally
important are people with a strong need to see things to their end, the ability to withstand irate attack without
wanting to retaliate or feeling personally affronted, and the ability to demonstrate ingenuity in solving a
customer’s problem.

2. Make the selection process match the service outcome.

Years of experience have taught Disney World that one of the most important skills for employees in service
roles is the ability to get along well with others. Managers judge potential cast members—Disney’s term for
employees—through group interviews. The group experience mirrors the contact between cast members and
guests. If an applicant appears uninterested in what other interviewees have to say, chances are that he or she
will not be attentive to Disney guests.

It is worthwhile to simulate typical service situations during the interview. Just as an actor auditions using lines
from the play or an athlete tries out in a practice scrimmage, a simulation during the interview will help you
accurately gauge how well the applicant will perform the service role.

For example, one previewing technique for call center job candidates is to play excerpts of real calls they’re
likely to receive from customers. Hearing the nature of these calls might cause a few candidates to “select out”
of the job, even if they have the skills or background.

Simulate customer service requests first, and then advance to more difficult situations. For example, tell the
employee or job applicant: “Now, I will be a customer with a problem in how my account was handled. You are
the service rep this customer encounters first.” How the person works out the answer is far more important
than whether the answer is right or wrong. Put the person at ease initially by letting him or her know you are
not after a “single correct answer.”

3. Look for the applicant’s capacity to create a relationship with the audience.

From the customer’s standpoint, every performance is “live” and hence unique. It earns the best reviews when
it appears genuine, perhaps even spontaneous. And it should never be rigidly scripted--certainly not canned. The
implication for selection is that super service people must have good person-to-person skills; their speaking,
listening and interacting styles should seem natural and friendly and appropriate to the situation-- neither stiff
and formal nor overly familiar.

Watch how applicants treat others. Job seekers can teach you a lot about how they are likely to treat customers
by the way they treat non-customers. Ask receptionists or administrative assistants for their view on the
applicant. If they took an applicant on a short tour after an interview, how warmly did he or she greet others?
Did they ask good questions, and were they sensitive to details important to the role they were applying for?
The general manager of a Marriott Hotel described how her decision to hire a new front desk clerk was cinched
when she watched the applicant stop and pick up an empty paper cup from the floor in the employee break area
as the two were en route to meet the front desk supervisor.

4. Learn how the applicant reacts to pressure and stress.

The frontline service person encounters far more stress than most people in the organization. Angry customers
vent their frustration on the first person they encounter without regard to whether that person is specifically to
blame. The resilience and tenacity of service people—the capacity to “hang in there” when the going gets



tough—can be critical for customer care. Customers prefer frontline people who respond with confident
empathy, not calloused indifference or passive weakness.

You don’t have to conduct stress interviews to ascertain stress management skills. Simply asking an applicant to
recall a time when he or she encountered an irate customer may be adequate. Simulating an experience with an
irate customer is another. Be willing to “push” the encounter issue in order to have the candidate demonstrate
his or her ability to handle tough situations.

Beware of Pollyanna’s who “love all customers.” Customers are not always right, but they are always the
customer and the primary determiners of success or failure in the marketplace. Choose people who are
respectful of and attentive to customers’ needs and expectations, not those who are naïve. Frontline stress is a
reality to be understood and managed, not ignored or denied.

Performing in the Service Role
Customer service is first and foremost an interpersonal experience. Service people must bring a mix of skills and
aptitudes to the role if they are to be successful. Casting frontline people to perform the art of serving well
require gauging both the subjective and the objective. When we recognize and meet that challenge, the conflict
between subjective and fair, between qualitative and equitable, no longer exists.

Effective supervisors and managers make choices about service applicants based on a clear definition of the
service role they are seeking to fill. They use interviews that entail an honest examination of the qualities that
make up a “service orientation” and offer the applicant concrete ways to demonstrate these qualities.

Frontline employees have a major impact in determining what customers experience and how they will evaluate
the organization. As with cinema, making the best casting choice is critical to box office success.

A Few Casting Questions
There are no magic questions that automatically illustrate an applicant’s character and service outlook. But
there are questions that work better than others at eliciting the kind of information you need in order to make
an informed hiring decision. Here are a few to use or adapt:
 What does giving the customer “superior service” mean to you?
 Let me give you a typical customer service situation we get at Acme. (Describe the situation). How would you
handle this type of situation? (Look for attitude, not the perfect solution).
 Tell me about a time when you successfully balanced the best interests of the company with the best interests of a
customer?
 We all get weary from time to time from the pressure of dealing with people. What do you do to renew yourself so
you can stay “up,” fresh and enthusiastic on the job?
 I know I sometimes get uptight when I have to deal with an irate customer. You’ve had experience with difficult
customers – can you offer an example that illustrates how you might typically handle them?
 What do you like most about being in customer service?
 If you were asked to coach someone brand new to serving customers, what advice would you give that person?
What are the “do’s and don’ts” you would tell them?

CHIP BELL
Chip R. Bell is the founder of The Chip Bell Group and has offices in the Dallas and Atlanta areas. Chip’s newest
book is Wired and Dangerous, co-authored by John Patterson. Chip’s consulting practice helps organizations
build a culture that supports long-term customer loyalty.



Customer Emotions Drive ROI of Customer Experience
Programs
By Colin Shaw

Nelson Pascua, Vice President of Client Services for Medallia, Inc., provides a succinct overview of how valuable
understanding the customer’s experience is in his article “Top 5 ROI Benefits of Customer Experience
Management.” Beyond Philosophy’s model is congruent with Pascau’s five points: streamlined customer
experience management (CEM) creates return on investment (ROI) through customer retention, customer
engagement, new customer acquisitions, employee engagement and a more cost-effective feedback system.
Our list, however, includes a very important sixth point: cost savings.

Poor customer experiences cost money. In fact, we’ve always found ways for our clients to save money through
good customer experience management.

For instance, when one of our utility company clients would receive a call at its call center, a field engineer
would automatically be deployed to the customer’s location in order to assess and resolve the situation. It
sounds great in theory, but the plan backfired. Many times, field engineers didn’t have the proper tools to solve
the problem when they arrived. Initial visits required rebooking, which meant customers needed to take
additional time off work. The frustration and disappointment of not having the problem solved the first time
created stress for customers. The emotional toll was immense. Then there was the matter of the $200 cost for
the utility to deploy the field engineer a second time.

The solution saved an average of $195 per repeat call. Rather than automatically deploying the field engineer,
the call center representative spent more time diagnosing the problem over the phone. At that point, a well-
prepared field engineer would arrive and do the job in one visit. The utility spent five dollars at the call center
level, making the entire process less expensive and leaving customers genuinely happy.

Though the article often alludes to customer emotions — a business traveler “frustrated and angry” with a
hotel, or the “wow” and “ouch” stories customers tell others — it never uses the word “emotion” or directly
addresses the subconscious experience. We focus on customers’ emotional experiences, which account for
more than half the typical customer experience. When we are working with clients we use proprietary research
methods that help us evaluate the elements that drive value in a customer relationship.

Understanding customers’ emotional experiences ensures a solid ROI. A company that knows how its customers
feel about their interactions is able to take a proactive approach to customer experience. Creating an
emotionally satisfying first customer experience can eliminate the need to recover customers lost to negative
experiences, like frustration and anger over slow service.

The old adage “any press is good press” isn’t true when it comes to customers. A customer who finds a sales
representative too aggressive, or a call center’s automated system too impersonal, can easily make other
customers apathetic to the company with their negative stories. Conversely, the capital expended to make a
customer’s experience enjoyable — an unexpectedly quick response to an email or a salesperson that addresses
them by name— is more likely to perpetually engage with the company and drive higher net promoter scores.
Such happy customers will also freely advertise their wonderful experiences to other customers.

To guarantee ROI through customer experience, the entire company must understand the particular emotions
of its customers. It is not just the duty of the sales agents and call center to take care of the customer; everyone



up to and including the CEO must be fully committed to the customer experience. The entire business must be
customer-centric.

Emotions drive our lives, so it is no surprise that emotions drive the customer. The company that understands
these emotions has a sharp advantage over the competition, and the ROI an emotionally satisfied customer
brings is well worth the small investment the company has to make to provide it.

COLIN SHAW
Colin Shaw founder of Beyond Philosophy, the leading experts in the customer experience, is an international
author of four best-selling books on customer experience. Beyond Philosophy provides consultancy, training
and customer insight research from its offices in Atlanta, Georgia in the United States, and London, England
Follow Colin Shaw on Twitter ColinShaw_CX


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