4 questions to check… are you exploiting your complaints goldmine?

Have you got PPI? Do you think you might have had PPI? I’ve lost count of the times that some click-bait ad has popped up to ask me that question or, on some occasions, I’ve had to take a phone call from someone aggressively selling me PPI claims services I don’t need. Well, now the Financial Conduct Authority has got in on the act and enrolled none other than the Terminator himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger, in an advert to urge people to get their claims in before 29th August 2019.

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“Customer Experience Day? That means eff-all to me!”

Did you have a good CX Day? You didn’t realise it was happening? Strange! I thought it was up there with Pancake Day, Mothers’ Day, Fathers’ Day and the Eurovision Song Contest as a red-letter day in anyone’s calendar. Well, maybe I’m exaggerating a touch, but the reaction – quoted verbatim above – when I mentioned to someone that it was, indeed, Customer Experience Day proved to me not that there had been a failure of publicity, but that the day itself possibly didn’t have much point if you’re not a CX specialist. Which made me realise that we can get far too obsessed with customer experience itself and lose the point of why it’s important.

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When great service is good enough – but could be even better

I’ve just had a great service experience with BT and now that more than 10 years have passed since I was responsible for their customer service strategy, I’m not blowing my own trumpet to praise them. It made me realise that when you get a great service it’s sometimes unremarkable. In this case, having a better understanding of customer outcomes could have moved it from great to outstanding.

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Customers first, or employees – do you really need to ask?

I was struck a few years back when I read Herb Kelleher’s excellent account of the growth of SouthWest Airlines that he held the view that customers come second whilst employees come first. Aha! I thought, contrarian thinking from the head of a company renowned for delivering a great customer experience, that’s great! And since I have come across similar statements from Richard Branson and many others  I have tended to repeat this as a piece of received wisdom. Time then to unpack the issue and ask: in a company that wants to provide a great customer experience do customers come first or second?

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Business lessons from the Edinburgh Fringe: 3) Just add circus skills

If you have been following this series closely you’ll be equipped to build great relationships with your customers and be able to motivate your co-workers with a few killer one-liners and some well thought-out communications. There’s just one thing that needs to be added to spice up the workplace: circus skills. Yes, this is my big take-away from the Fringe: the business world would benefit enormously from regular injections of acrobatics, tightrope-walking and attempts at the seemingly-impossible.

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Business lessons from the Edinburgh Fringe: 2) Stand up and be funny

I’m going to tell you a story… no, I’m going to start with a confession – I don’t go to that many comedy shows so what I’m going to say is based almost entirely on the few shows I saw at the Fringe. But, as we consultants say, two data points make a trend and anything more than that is cast-iron proof. Oh, and I’m also going to attempt some humour… what’s that? People heading for the door? And I’ve only just started…

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