While there is data showing how some industries, like airlines, continue to increase profits while continuing to disappoint customers with surly staff members (who aren’t necessarily being treated well themselves), the “secret” to any great customer experience is the people who deliver it.

Profits go up in those industries because there is not enough competition or disruption.

Make no mistake. When the challenger comes along, it does take market share from the companies who don’t get it. Southwest Airlines, Zappos and Amazon were all the disruptors of their day, and they all focused on delivering exceptional customer service. Companies that figure out how to hire the right people win.

But it starts earlier.

Know what your mission is.

It’s easy to say “we hire the right employees” but how can you measure it? How do you know you’re hiring right if you don’t know truly what you’re hiring for? If a great customer experience is your goal, then you better have a customer experience mission. If a candidate says they can deliver on skills but falls short on mission, then it’s time to find another candidate.

If people understand what they should do, great. If people understand why they should do it, better.

Scale to fit.

As organizations grow, the mission and hiring to it becomes even more critical.

Google often comes under fire for taking actions not representative of their well-known corporate motto of “Don’t be evil.” As Google grew and grew, they took this motto to be a mission of sorts, even including it in their founder’s letter for their IPO.

The company has changed course after criticism of actions not fitting this motto, including blocking search results in China. Really this is about taking action based on who they are, not necessarily what they do. The leaders know this is a long-term strategy and they might miss out on short-term gains. Getting the right people involved who can innovate and support these ideals trumps hiring based on resume credentials.

When China’s government attempted to block Google results for politically sensitive topics, Google China redirected users to Google’s Hong Kong results. China recently blocked Google completely and appears to be shutting down the service for millions of users. The way Google attempted to release free information is about the users, not the government, and their motto stays true to that.

There are so many tricky situations we simply can’t anticipate when we develop interview questions or write training manuals. Finding who you are and the people who live those ideals is the best way to truly deliver on a superior customer experience.

Customer Experience   CXREFRESH   CX      CX Strategy          Global CX      Southwest Airlines

Value creation makes the world go ’round. It stimulates revenue, engagement, and productivity. Value is the secret to customer experience excellence, and that’s why value is secret to sustainable growth. But beware: sometimes value is created selfishly, for the benefit of one party at the expense of the other. This is counterproductive to customer experience and to growth. Mutual value benefits both parties when upside for customers and the company outweighs downside for either party.

What is Customer Experience Innovation?

The first question to get clear on: Who is your customer? Make a note of anyone who has a role in the decision or action to obtain what you offer, as well as anyone who uses what is obtained. Opportunities to create value can be stimulated by thinking of your customers more holistically. Help everyone help you.

The second question to get clear on: What is customer experience? All interactions people have with or about a solution: messages, people, processes, policies, price, products, and services. Collectively, these things are intertwined in a customer’s experience with a solution.

The third question: What do customers buy? Capabilities, pure and simple. Whatever someone buys is a capability to relax, be entertained, remember, grow, live, avoid pain, and so forth. The capability to do something via your solution is also known as the customer’s “job-to-be-done“.

Almost always, your solution is consumed in concert with other products, services, people, technologies, and/or processes. This integration provides essential clues to customers’ expectations. It provides context that’s necessary to create optimal mutual value. Car manufacturers, for example, are going beyond the car basics, to create new value by: making it easy to add accessories for biking or off-roading, making it easy to open the trunk without using hands, entertaining people sitting in the back seat, making it safe to access GPS or cell phones while driving, making it easy to trade-in and finance a car, simplifying maintenance, and so forth. To get crystal-clear on what customers value, focus on what your solution is integrated with to serve the customer’s job-to-be-done.

Customer experience innovation creates mutual value for anyone in the holistic definition of “customer”, regarding any aspect of their experience with a solution, with a focus on the customer’s jobs-to-be-done.

Customer Experience Innovation Insights

Some engineers and managers have become frustrated after asking customers about hypothetical products and features, and their likelihood to buy them. Often, this research is doomed from the beginning, because the wrong questions are being asked. As a solution provider, you may be the expert in what’s possible: do not require your customer to do your job. Ask customers about their world — not yours.

Your customer is expert in knowing what they’re trying to get done. This can be asked in terms such as: “In a perfect world, what would you be able to do about X?” Or “In your wildest dreams, what would you be able to do about X?” Or better yet, let customers communicate to you through non-verbal means: pictures, metaphors, diagrams. Let them borrow scenarios from other parts of their life that convey what they’re trying to get done regarding your solution topic. Your aim is to see their world clearly: what capability are they seeking, and what is this capability integrated with?

When you ask the right questions, the thinking of your employees, suppliers, and alliance partners can be stimulated to suggest new ways of helping customers help you — creating mutual value. Adobe and Intuit are two companies that encourage everyone, regardless of job title, to suggest innovation ideas. Using agile techniques, ideas are rapidly tested with customers in an iterative process, streamlining investment for all involved, and maximizing the chances of “getting it right” from the beginning.

If you want to top your industry in customer experience differentiation and business results, you’ve got to create mutual value on an ongoing basis. Customer experience innovation can become a way of life — part of your company culture. It’s a reciprocal cycle of “help me help you” between a company and customers. Get crystal clear on who your customers are, what customer experience is — from their perspective, and focus your executives, employees, suppliers, and alliances on creative ways to help your customers achieve the capabilities they’re pursuing. This is the mutual value that fosters growth and keeps the world going ’round.

Customer Experience    Customer Experience Excellence      Customer Experience Innovation     Customers Value