so it's all about building the case for
customer centricity
and it doesn't matter whether you're
already well into programs in terms of
customer service and customer experience
there's always the need to actually
validate what we're doing
so though this is aimed primarily
organizations who are just really
getting into it and trying to understand
it and perhaps have the wrong perception
of it
the the essence of the messaging is that
what you can do is you can take these
ideas and actually relate them back
in your own organization and your own
context
so build a case for customer centricity
and outside in
what do i mean by outside in well
outside in is this perspective of
looking through the customer lens
back into our organization because
historically we've inherited a world
which has been
in industrial age thinking production
mindsets
and i myself as an industrial engineer
were partly responsible for that as well
um but that aside what this shift in
perspective for these organizations that
are very successful and we'll have look
at a few of them in a moment
is to shift the focus to outside in and
that was a theme back in what 10 years
ago when i wrote the book
called outside in which was a a story
book for ceos
effectively and so it wasn't a great
technical book some of them have been
quite technical um
it was a book which uh focused on the
case studies of organizations who've
made this transformation
and were beginning back then 10 or so
years ago to break new ground
now fortunately for all of us on this
call is that ground not only got broken
but it got built upon and and of course
we we now have a lot of splendid case
studies that we can talk about
but still we have people who perceive
customer experience customer service as
being a nice to have
whereas it's key and essential
especially in our sort of post
covered world as we move to that area
so one of the the kickbacks i sometimes
get when i start talking about this
is that organizations will put the blame
for the lack of performance
on the competitor and albert bray
came up with this observation those
those comments though about amazon
netflix uber
apple and airbnb talking about what
those guys really got
was understanding what customer needs
were what customer needs
are and being able to sometimes to
interpret what those needs are before
the customer themselves knew
whereas the other people the ones who
went bust like blockbuster for instance
they were stuck in a mindset of still
doing the same old same old
and just improving it so they got really
good
at making products that nobody wanted
anymore
that was the essence of it so these
people we talk about the ubers the
airbnbs and the netflix
yeah they're changing and transforming
the world but they're not doing it
because they're
obsessed over competitors that what jeff
bezos refers to as being customer
obsessed
they're they're looking all the time at
getting a better understanding of their
customers
listening 100 of the time to what the
customers are saying
so with that in mind i just wanted to
sort of put that on there so the
disruptor as you're in the
site as we would say so if you ever
already felt those sort of waves of
transformation coming around your
business and industry and it doesn't
matter whether you're in a for-profit
whether you're in a governmental
organization uh charitable organizations
state everywhere where there's a
customer this is happening
and i'm trying to think of organizations
on the planet that don't have a customer
and i don't think there are any so this
is appropriate for everybody
so amazon of course are leading the way
and
of course testimony to the fact that
jeff bezos is the richest guy on the
planet
they must be doing something right but
they're following a set of principles
and we're going to talk about those
principles here and now
some of the guys who've retained my
services in the last decade the last 10
years
i've actually been in business around
about 40 years now so obviously uh
way too long but you'll see some of
those um
all different parts of the world
naturally when i'm talking about
examples i use the ones that i've got
direct experience of
if you talk with any of my colleagues
across the bp group
then they're going to draw on different
experiences you know so there's guys
like
um the cx rockstar james dawkins who
you've got to get on this show he's he's
really splendid he's just
hosted today the cx quiz i mean talk
about bringing a fresh
perspective on this stuff you know
rather than the same old same old
so natural i pick a sort of case studies
from some of these organizations that
i've closely worked with
um the stateside ones reflect where i've
lived in the states in
massachusetts texas and uh no colorado
so i'm up there in the rockies at the
moment i'm coming to you from the uk
i managed to fly back just before covid
hit and we've been in
a virtual lockdown for five months here
in the in the uk and
staying at our sort of daughter's place
so we're just making waves never sort of
trying to book flights back and things
but you get the picture
i'm all over the world working with
different organizations
and doing different things so we'll have
a chance to ask questions about that
later
now another thing that's happening is
this perception of b2c and b2b so
business to business and business to
consumer
through the idea that these two things
are separate and different
they're not um you're either a b2 b2 b2
b2c
are you a direct b2c that's the essence
of it what you've got to do is figure
out where is the money where's the money
coming from
so in amazon say people say yeah amazon
is a b2c no they're not
70 of sales in amazon come from
b2b type activities with amazon web
services
right so you can apply these principles
it doesn't matter whether you're in a
you know working in a hospital when
you're a nurse or whether you're
the ceo of one of the world's largest
largest global corporations
or whether you're a one-man band you can
apply these principles to the work that
you're doing
and in doing that you can make
significant changes so i throw that in
there because sometimes you get kicked
back
saying we're we're not on amazon steve
and i go what is in amazon what
what do you mean they go well you know
their their insights their innovation
and you know it's a bunch of people with
a common purpose
using the set of techniques and tools
which have been tried and tested and
proven
that's that's you can boil it down to
that so if you're thinking about in
terms of
different organizations and then i've
got a couple of slides here which i like
to
there's a lot of stuff we can talk about
in terms of leadership and
transformation
but this was something i drew a couple
of years ago which was and what i wanted
to do was contrast
the traditional way organizations have
looked at improving
with what i refer to as outside in
amazon call it working backwards
but the principle applies we would start
off traditionally
developing products and services we will
take those to market
and then we find customers and we
segment customers by circumstance
so would you live what's your income
what's your family situation and so on
and in fact we can sometimes find
ourselves pitching up the whole world
and we end up on the right though in a
big bad mess well why is it a big bad
mess
well the reality was is that the
structures that we've inherited
were never designed to do what we're
trying to do in the third decade of the
21st century
they were designed for you know making
cars more efficiently more effectively
a lot of the techniques that we've got
we're all about making our factories
better
right and we took that factory mindset
and then applied it into the service
world well what's that about
you know why why did we do that making
everything look like a production line
now those structures were designed to
operate with productivity and efficiency
and effectiveness in mind so if you
imagine
your traditional silo structure we'll
have a look at one of those in a minute
or two
and then customers changed you and i
became fickle
we became less loyal we became very
choosy
and there is a a magnitude of thinking
that says
customers have become promiscuous so
not promiscuous in that way but
promiscuous in the sense that
we will go with anybody who can provide
us with the right products and service
if we have a choice so things that were
bedrock of the past
you know standardization commonality
customers being having very predictable
behaviors well they got out the window a
while ago
so that's why we end up with this big
bad mess where organizations have tried
to lay overlay
onto that structure all these different
well if customers are going to be
promiscuous and move about with
different products
i've got a you know i've got to have the
capacity to be able to deal with that
so contrast that with the simplicity of
this
slide which is the old essence of what i
believe in terms of really successful
customer experience customer service is
all about really understand who your
customer is
and identify not
what you know where they're living and
why they're living what the mean income
is and all that sort of stuff
but figure out what their real needs are
and
when we start to think about
categorization by need
it it emerges us with a whole different
way of thinking
about how we might deliver against those
needs only when we understand our
customers and their needs
should we then set about developing
services and products to deliver against
it
and of course which which model is
working best well this one it wins hands
down because it's
it's aligning the organization to
something amazon referred to the north
star it's north star alignment
it's the organization could see where
they should be looking
and continually moving in that direction
so it's not just people it's our i.t
systems it's our infrastructure it's our
political systems and so on
it's about north star alignment and this
sort of modeling where we're
as i said bezos refers to it as working
backwards
but the first person who coined this
this whole idea of outside in
was steve jobs i think we've all known
of steve jobs haven't we
and he said you've got to start with the
customer experience and work backwards
to the technology
not the other way around that makes
sense
so yeah yeah good good i had a lot of
friends
also they are working in amazon and when
you ask
them uh what what is the strategy there
or
what is the the the way that you're
thinking about the customer service
he replied to me with only one statement
and it was powerful statement
the statement was start from the
customer and backwards
yeah and that that was amazing for me
because everything is is
this is this is the really
customer-centric service because
the customer now is is the center for
each and everything that we are doing
and this is exactly what
what you're saying right now yeah and
and it's so true because if you think
about
if we if we can figure out who our
customer is and what their real needs
are
and oftentimes again figuring out their
needs before they actually have them
then we're going to be in a better place
and i recall when
uh where bezos tells this story about
how they started working backwards
one of the things he had to do back at
the time was issue
what became known as the bezos mandate
and it was instructions for the
technology guys
should do their work so it wasn't to do
it in the way they'd always done it in
the past look you will adhere to these
precepts and principles
and if you don't you're probably not
worthwhile working here at amazon
anymore because this is the way we're
going to do it
so it does require you know leadership
to have
both the sense of direction and the
ability to
to bring other people with you but given
that as we get into this you'll see that
it's all numbers oriented
there's no reason why you can't justify
working backwards or going outside in
so in that sort of context the customer
experience thing is top of everybody's
agenda we know
research groups like gartner and
forrester and those guys
um the articles in forbes and and places
like that we're all talking about the
importance of it
but i often see organizations trying to
do cx as if it's another department
they're trying to do customer service as
if it's another department it isn't
customers have always had experiences
it's only in the last few years that
we've started to get scientific about
how we understand those experiences
and how we can deploy them in a
meaningful way so
this all sounds good and proper so
what's getting in the way of delivering
it
well it's this structure it's our
functional specialist
silos structure and everywhere i go on
the world before
well 2019 i did 400 000 miles so every
go everywhere i go on the planet and i
say can i see you
are you structured invariably it's going
to be a child that looks like this
now the interesting thing is is this
chart doesn't physically exist
it's not like a chair or a table it's a
collective hallucination
but it bounds the way we think about the
work that we do
right so i'll just let that think it
sink it matrix like
it's a collective hallucination it's not
real
and yet it bounds our lives and our
careers and the way we think about what
we want to do and how we want to do it
so why is it why is it wrong well it was
designed again
with this idea that there are functional
specialists as we see the sales
operations customer service and so on
and these people have unique sets of
skills and they're also driven
by key performance indicators which are
appropriate to the work that they're
doing
and think about that it's appropriate to
the outputs they're achieving
so of course in call centers we all know
handle average handle time you know
abandon rates
um sort of delayed work and all those
sort of metrics that we have around the
place they're all measures of doing
things
well wouldn't it be cool if we had
measures in customer experience centers
of the outcomes we were delivering well
this structure
functional specialist silo structure was
never designed to do it so let me prove
it
if we overlaid that with an experience
or a process and the two are
interchangeable by the way
so to that point about the six sigma at
the start people will say
steve have you left the world of lean
six sigma even though you're a master
black belt and you got that from ge have
you left that world
no no everything's a process everything
everything anybody does
anywhere is a process but again some of
the baggage with customer experience is
that
they sometimes can perceive themselves
as being separate to the process
thing and the reason they would say is
although that process stuff is all
old industrial age stuff you say it
doesn't have to be it's it's a pattern
of behavior it's a pattern and a way of
doing things
that if we connect the dots in the right
way we can take it to a new place
see we've got a process an experience
meandering its way through the
organization
so classically if we were to put the
pain customer onto this
diagram where would we normally put them
where would they go
yep you're probably right on the extreme
left and the extreme right
all right and we talk about end to end
working where does that come from we get
another factory analogy
we talk about yeah the people who are
sort of facing off to the customer
they're in the front line
right that's a warlock analogy isn't it
we find the customer are we fighting the
customer
i shouldn't think we ought to be um no
they're down in the trenches
another analogy which has been with
inherited
so let's think about this for a moment
we're banging the drums the ceo of this
wonderful organization and saying the
customer is really important to us
it's changed so much in the last few
years we've got to focus our attention
on it
and the person in operations there in
the black box says oh i get that i'm a
customer myself
but hey do you know in the value chain
i'm nine steps away from the customer on
the left
and i'm four or five steps away from the
customer on the right so i hear what you
say but the customer is not my job
somebody else's job the reality of that
is
the only reason it's not their job is
the way we've drawn the chart
now as we've already said the chart is a
collective hallucination
what if we drew different charts where
we put the customer at the center of
everything
right and we do charts of people and
processes and systems
in concentric circles going out from the
customer
well and it would still be a collective
hallucination but it's one that's
probably going to be more appropriate
for the time we're in now
so the customer's not my job is a cry
we're here so somebody's saying we have
to be customer centric it can be a tough
sell
so i'm gonna i'll wish through these
slides so you can read them offline why
do we need to be customer-centric
couldn't we just try better at doing
what we're already doing yeah
just do more of the same well there's
four reasons why
it makes money reduces costs it boosts
motivation you know for every one of us
who's working in these environments
and oh by the way there's no choice as
well so let's let's skate through this
uh this
um landscape so number one it makes
money
what do we mean by that how does that
actually hang together
so so many arguments as i've already
indicated around customer centricity are
soft and fluffy
right yes we do want to get the right
emotions with customers and yes
we do want people loving our brand but
we're not going to get though if we're
not doing the right thing
right those emotions though that
customer happiness
come about as a consequence of being
able to promise something and deliver it
successfully so managing the expectation
right it doesn't come about by you know
you do something wrong and then you go
into apologetic mode and you try to
bribe
the customer with you know staying with
you let's figure out how to get things
right now
that is a core competence of people who
have done things like industrial
engineer who have
process mindsets but what we can do is
we can look beyond just looking inside
the organization
and extend it out to the complete
customer experience
that's a big differentiator for those
organizations who really get it
so it makes money how does it how does
it make money well happy customers come
back for more
so if we're doing the right thing you'll
get the footfall returning to you
by having a focus on the successful
customer outcome because we understand
their needs
anything which isn't contributing to
that why are we doing it anymore
can't we free up that scarce resource to
do more worthy work
that would be sensible wouldn't it but
it's counterintuitive because most of
the time
our process improvement languages talk
about looking at what we're doing and
how do we make it
run better how do we get it more
efficient and more effective and more
productive
well nothing wrong with doing that as
long as you're doing the right thing
but you know oftentimes we might be
fixing a mess
that doesn't deserve to exist all right
so we can get to this this picture of
making money by
organizing ourselves around doing the
right thing so whether that's processes
experiences whatever it is
and some examples here recently about
our industry's changing so of course
with the
advent of 5g a lot of infrastructure
industries so i'm thinking like a
broadcasters and things like that
the carpet will be pulled out from
underneath their feet but what's their
reaction to it at the moment
it's well we've got to make better
dishes right we've got to get better
technology
we've got to get more signal down the
the fiber link
or whatever no that's all going away so
it's not as if the writing isn't on the
wall for some of these industries
and then i relate back in some of the
stories that i tell to nokia when apple
introduced the iphone
and in 2007 nokia was the most
profitable telecommunications company on
the planet
and then somebody came from nowhere
right wasn't even in the industry
and literally took the carpet from
underneath them and within a couple of
years
um nokia were no more they disappeared
as far as an entity is concerned
now why why are people in denial about
that well
it's because they're busy doing the
wrong things so we've got to get the
focus shifted
to what is the right thing to do and the
right thing to do is to deliver
successful customer outcomes
so we could demonstrate that if you
focus on customer experience and
here we have some sort of snapshots from
forrester from a few years ago
the value that you're going to create is
going to be significantly more
than if you just do the same old same
old and get better at doing that
so higher better cx correlates with a
higher revenue growth across major
industries
so that's the reason why you do it it
makes money now to some people in cx i'm
like
oh because my one of my kickers is we've
got to get more scientific about this
stuff
and they go no no we don't want more
science we want more
feeling and emotion and then i go back
to this thing about if you're not doing
the right thing
the emotions you're going to get are
going to be the negative ones we've got
to figure out the right thing to do
but we're all motivated by this working
with the charity and
i said you've got to grow your revenues
and they said no no no
money's money's not nice it's very um
you know we don't want revenues we want
contributions
so i go so how scientific are you about
the contributions you receive and they
go
what do you mean and i said well how do
you go about
organizing yourself so that you can
maximize the contributions that you get
from your
customers oh we don't call them
customers they're contributors
right we make contributions i said so
how do you how do you let the little old
lady know
instead of leaving it to the cat's home
they could leave it to you as a
charitable foundation
oh no no we we don't get involved in
that right
well they do now the company i'm
actually talking about is the nature
conservancy
it's the the based out of uh arlington
near washington dc in the us
and they are now the most progressive
most successful
charity on the planet right well how did
they get there because they've got
the same people in the same buildings
they started to look at the world
differently
they started to look at it from that
outside in working backwards perspective
and that shift allowed people to then
sort of say well why are we still doing
this and why are we still doing that
and of course they're able to make use
of the contributions
because it's not revenue is it
contributions in the right sort of way
the another big perspective is it
reduces cost
well i've already indicated if you
figure out what the customer need is
and we align ourselves to doing it
anything else that you were doing that
was around that
you don't need to do anymore so we can
get rid of bureaucracy
and red tape and i refer to this this
idea of winning the triple crown
and then the chapel introduced me to
this phrase was a guy called jim signer
who some of you will remember he was the
sort of head of gartner for many years
in terms of doing research
but his specialism has always been
around process process management
business process management and so on
and lastly over the last few years he's
come
into that sort of cx domain but jim and
i'll talk about it we're as old as each
other and we'll talk about it it's the
same stuff
right it's just we've extended the scope
of it
to embrace the complete customer
experience and what do i mean by that
well typically a process in an
organization starts when it crosses the
threshold so whether that's a digital
threshold or a physical threshold
somebody walks in the store
and it's over when they've got the good
or service that they came in to buy
right that's so that it's like that so
it might be in the airline industry it
might be ticket
buying a ticket to getting your bag off
the carousel at the end
well people like southwest airlines said
no that's not good enough fixing things
within that context doesn't understand
the customer need you've got to go to
where the need arises
and it isn't over until the needs
finished now let's fix the context of
the customer experience
that's what we call going outside in
it's where you look at where the need
arises
and it isn't over until the needs say so
in an airline context it's a i need to
go on a flight
right and it isn't over till i'm i'm
back at home you know with a coffee and
relaxing you know with the family again
so if we could fix things in that
context
we don't have to try just fixing them
within our own organization
we could actually go out into the
experience so there's lots of examples
of that and
one of the links i'll give you later is
that you sign up for the pre-publication
version of customer experience secrets
so it's not trying to do a sales pitch
no it's free i'm going to make it free
for everybody who's on this
this call so we don't have to be stuck
in this this
maze in this dilemma um these are all
what i refer to as moments of truth and
handovers going on inside an
organization
the bottom line of post-its though is
the time scale
and this was the classic uh insurance
claims
automotive claims in the us right and
they took
all this considerable mess and you can
imagine all the associated costs because
all those things are tasks and
activities and work being done
and and changed it so instead of all
those tests and activities
they could do what used to take them 20
days they could effectively do it in two
now you don't get from 20 days to 2 by
examining your 20 days
that's the inside out way what you've
got to figure out is what is the right
thing to do
and then how do we migrate from the old
to the new
again i'm showing some some of the the
insights which are so simple
you know it's sort of beggars belief
sometimes but this this is exactly
so you you have a car accident
classically you'd have to fill a claim
form in
go and get three quotes from different
garages and discuss
with with them what your deductible your
excesses and your policy
arrange for the car to be fixed arrange
for a replacement car
then go and collect your car and then
you know finish off with the claim
that's why it took 20 days what um
progressive do
the name is on the frame there what
progressive do you have an accident they
have a little black box installed
underneath the hood or under underneath
the bonnet if you want if you use that
it depends on where you are in the world
doesn't it and when this car comes to an
unnatural stop
it sends a signal back to base base
phone you on your
mobile phone are you okay steve yeah i'm
fine i just hit a slick patch the car's
off the road is the car
the way of the traffic is it so yeah
it's fine stay with your vehicle steve
and we'll have something with you within
20 minutes
so and somebody arrives in 20 minutes
with a set of keys for a nicer car than
the one that you've been driving
right and says we'll bring your car back
when it's fixed
end of story no claim form to fill in
the person who arrives to give you the
keys of course is a qualified assessor
anyhow
so if they need to liaise with the
police or any other witnesses they can
do it
well to you that that mini process takes
20 minutes
but the car's back with you within 48
hours you know they take it to a
repairer they go get the job done and
then they bring
it back all spring cleaned and
everything like that so it's just
one example of working backwards working
outside
in in that sort of customer-centric
thinking
and the other advantage you get as well
as you can see that there's a whole list
of
by it's not just about improving
revenues and
reducing costs you reduce fraud you get
a lower level of disputes
you lower your marketing costs you
improve your retention rates your lawyer
retention costs and you can see all
these things
they're all factual measures they're not
soft and fluffy
we could attach metrics to all these and
then we can show you know
how does that actually fit together and
this is precisely what organizations
like
you know progressive will do so reason
number two we do it it's cost reduction
so reason number three i like this one
as well
uh it boosts motivation and we all want
to be working in organization
where there's a degree of positivity um
yeah i have one one comment related to
the second reason
uh for sure you're gonna reduce reduce
the cost
of many things but yet
i so many organizations they say that
uh and especially now in in the in the
pandemic
they say that now we just want to
achieve the level of customer service
we we don't want to go to the customer
excellence or we
we we are not seeking for for that right
now our
at this time or at the time of change or
at
some certain times they they they have
so
they say that i would spend this amount
of money for
training people to be trained to and for
example for
the same example that you have given to
us which is the car uh
accident so i will give training to the
people how to communicate
i'll give training to the people how to
finalize this
process uh shorter than normal and so on
i will pay amount of time for this
customer who comes with a claim to for
example to have
a reception for for them to or waiting
area
for them i will spend a lot of time and
a lot of money a lot of efforts
which i can right now for a void
and i will not afford it right now in
this time especially in the pandemic
time
because they don't want to spend this
amount of
of money so
i i feel that they don't see those
benefits they only now see that they are
going to pay this amount of money
without getting any anything in return
yeah
and and you will meet that resistance
and that's very much what this deck is
about is to actually demonstrate to
and where i like to pitch this deck is
uh the chief finance officers
right of course i'm i'm privileged in
the fact that i can do that because i've
worked with a lot of these organizations
who saw the names earlier on but the cfo
will drive this
and how many people would say the cfo
driving improve customer experiences and
customer service
how does that work well it's obvious if
you're actually managing to grow
revenues and reduce costs as a
consequence of doing this
uh the other the uh not it's not a pitch
but the thing i say to people look any
project that you're working on which is
about customer experience and it's doing
it from the outside in
is self funding it will pay for itself
you know within a quarter right so you
don't have to be looking at an roi on
this you don't have to be thinking of a
return on investment it's not the
radio program i mentioned yesterday we
were talking about the challenges for
digital
right and so digital cx and my take on
that is look
unless you figured out what the right
thing to do is first don't start doing
anything don't go and automate stuff
don't go and start doing all that data
analysis
figure out what the right thing to do is
and only then align yourself to do it
so the the idea that you know there's a
mindset out there
of customer service thinking which says
well not about customer excellence this
isn't about customer excellence this is
about doing the right thing delivering a
successful customer outcome
and if we can get laser light focused on
that anything else we're doing can fall
away
you know we can get rid of the
bureaucracy and the red tape and we can
be more direct
so if it wasn't for the fact that
there's literally dozens and dozens of
examples of organizations doing this
and so that's that's what i do is it's
not about a charm offensive trying to
convince them
if you trained and our ethos in the bp
group as a not-for-profit
is to train up a bunch of coaches and
mentors in each organization so they can
do it
so you'll have seen some of those
organizations even with 40 years in the
mobile i couldn't possibly get across
all those organizations
and run transformation programs so our
coaches and mentors are all about
spending
um i'm they'll talk to you about one at
the end of this it's like a four day
five hours a day program
where we train up a couple of people and
then they go and train their own
organization
and that's how quickly it can actually
happen as soon as you've done that
so i take your point exactly but the the
whole idea of doing a deck like this is
is to get away from that sort of it's
not about customer happiness for the
sake of it
um this is going to save you a fortune
and it's going to please the
shareholders
so whether we're shareholders are
citizens of our you know government
entities
or whether we're actually uh
shareholders of a charitable
organization
this this stuff aligns with that success
i think that was a great question great
observation
so it reduces so we've got it grows
revenue reduces money boosts motivation
so we all want to be working in
organizations where customers are happy
because we know
that if we're working in organizations
where the customers are dissatisfied
that has a very negative impact on that
on our psyche
and our ability to be able to you know
deliver service and so on like that
and there's enough surveys out there
which actually demonstrate that
you know happier employees will produce
more content customers
and in fact if you look at something
like richard branson the ceo of virgin
he often says his most important
customer is his employee
because if i can't give them the right
tools and the right techniques and the
the right word with all to be able to do
their job i'm not going to get
happy customers i'm not going to get
satisfied customers so
his most important endeavor is ensuring
employees have everything that they need
to be able to do the job successfully on
behalf of the customer
so that again is another nuance where we
sort of think
you know we're going to we're going to
build the best customer service in the
world but
if we're paying people in the wrong way
and we're disenchanting them and
demotivating them
it's not going to work so we have just
got to get the lines straight
so happy people make more profit you
don't have to believe me on that again
there's there's enough
sort of surveys which actually show that
but of course
if you talk to some of the more
draconian old industrial age
type the managers people who are
oftentimes my age these days
is they you know they don't like the
sound of that because it's taken them
like 30 40 years to climb the totem pole
and you come along with all this new
fangled stuff about customers and stuff
what they're going to do well they might
accept that what you're saying is true
but they still don't want to implement
it because
it's upsetting no none of us like change
what's that old expression
the only person who likes to change is a
baby right
so we want we want to get this this
happy motivated
employee workforce and we do that
because of course we align
to the successful customer outcome so it
doesn't matter what industry you're in
this customer experience management
thing is the new battlefield
to me it's an extension of everything
we've done before and i like to think
about it
the way my life life has gone is all
about patterns
so i play chess i'm an international
chess master i'm into meteorology the
weather
um i i love the i love astronomy
so the patterns in the sky and stuff
like that process is a pattern
and customer experience is a pun if you
could figure out
what the right pattern is and then help
your organization to implement it
wow the sky's the limit your costs will
fall away
if you're in a revenue generating
organization revenue will go up if
you're in a non-revenue generating
organization
you'll be able to do uh more with the
same
and that's better you know freeing up
resource to do more meaningful things
that's got to be good and service will
improve customers will feel the benefit
and they'll keep you know if they have a
choice they'll keep coming back to you
instead
so a tribute to alberto brey who made
this observation to actually shift
the thinking away from being competitor
obsessed and doing the strengths
weaknesses opportunities
threats thing and actually becoming
customer obsessed
focus on the successful customer
outcomes figure out what it is we need
to do to deliver
them and then deploy that as a solution
really comes down to being as sort of
simple as that so
remember amazon's story they were a book
club for goodness sake
so there's no choice so you've answered
you've answered the question why do we
need to be customer centric well
it checks all the boxes so the getting
it of this stuff
precedes implementation so i've seen
organizations start to do cx for the
wrong reasons
and of course it fails and then they say
you know that cx stuff it doesn't work
didn't work for us we tried it our
customer service thing we tried it but
it didn't work
it's because they're trying to fix the
mess instead of understanding
the agenda's changed so i'm gonna pause
now there must be a whole bunch of
questions you must be
wanted to interrogate me so
yeah yeah we have a lot of questions
related to uh how the customer service
uh in this digital world
will be because uh many people they are
asking
right now that many business
now are shifting to uh from from normal
business to
digital right now and it reminds me with
um at least the industry that i'm
working in uh
healthcare we had a uh
issue that people they were so afraid to
to come to
our hospitals why because they they
thought that we are the main point the
huge point of
of the infection and the pandemic as
well
so they were they refused to come to
the hospital even if if they have uh
any challenge in in their health but
what we try to do is to change our
business from the normal business
in our patients to be telling
consultations
yeah so so people now they uh
uh call the doctor speak to the doctor
get all the
vital signs and then to be sent to the
doctor doctor has the diagnostics have
everything
and then to send the prescription to the
pharmacy pharmacy delivers
the medicine to the patient
but the question here is with this
change with this dynamic change we call
it the new norm
because yeah of course the the era
before corona it's not like the era
after corona but the main idea now is
we as hospital or healthcare or any
other industries
we are trying to transform the majority
of our business
from normal to digital so
i'm afraid here that we lose
the passion of implementing cx
so how how we can how we can provide
at least at least good or adequate
customer service
through the digital platforms okay i
think
you've hit the nail on the head though
interestingly enough the
what it's forced a lot of people to do
going through colvid and healthcare is a
really prime example of that
is to look at different ways of working
and the discovery of those different
ways of working means that that
landscape has changed forever
so i was talking with one of the larger
banks in africa yesterday
and i was asking when are people going
back to the offices and one of the
the uh exco the the executive committee
said
you know actually i think 78 of our
workforce will never come back into the
office because we
do this differently in the same way that
you the digital has really helped to
have those remote consultations and
collect
all the data that we used to have to do
when when we were going to a clinic or a
hospital situation
that's a good thing because it's better
delivering against the customer need
now along along the way it's not about
you know glossing that up as we might
say in terms of what the
the actual experience is but it's adding
value into the experience so
one of the healthcare providers that are
now here in europe for instance
what they're doing is they're getting
into lifestyle management as well
so it's not just prevention um and cure
it's actually look if if i can encourage
you to you know do more exercise
eat more of the right foods and things
like that and you think yeah but
they're a hospital you know the health
trust and you go well isn't that the
point
and they go no well they're going to
lose customers aren't because they put
me as many people who get ill
anymore so you know what why why would
you do that
and a really good example of that and
thinking about it from a digital
component point of view is
how much of the stuff that we used to
have to do manually can we elevate
and align to the customer need and then
add value in that way as well
so not just strip out the you know
interpersonal contact how do we do that
digitally
you know we've all been sort of uh you
know variously working from home and
using
zoom and teams and google me all these
different platforms and stuff
but a missing component is the is the
face-to-face
you know the true being in the room
together thing so
how could we in terms of our customers
the people that we're working with on a
day-to-day level how can we put that
back into digital how can we create that
empathy
how can we create that sort of
camaraderie that exists if you if you're
in a one-to-one situation with the same
person in the room
so it's it's about finding different
ways of doing it but the
we we know the real motivator for
wanting to do it is to be able to
deliver a successful customer outcome
rather than thinking about how do we
just do what we're doing better
it's like if we're going to go digital
right we've got to make sure we have the
right structures in place
we get the right expertise on board
around cx
we have the right level of maturity in
our organization because you know
you know if people think of the world
like a production line
and you start talking about cx you'll
lose the battle um you sometimes have to
reframe what you're
talking about in the context to give
them the benefit that they derive what
you mean we can get faster throughput
we can get it from 20 days down to two
wow i'm going to win prizes there for
the reduction in elapsed time
you don't even need to mention the word
customer service or
other words or customer experience for
instance
and then digital needs the right
strategic imperatives not just
piecemeal you know we fix this we fixed
that we fixed the other
and people will say well digital has a
big cost associated with it it doesn't
have to do
if we're aligning to the successful
customer outcome
it'll decouple all the bureaucracy that
we've traditionally had in the back end
so i have also another question it comes
from
project management backgrounds as well
he asks that
of course they want to implement the
customer satisfaction or
the cx uh programs but the the main
challenge that they face especially the
project managers
that this tight uh uh
timeline they should finish or they
should deliver they should hand over
this project
in this particular timeline so
they will compromise a lot of customer
experience
here to deliver on time so
they will shift their focus from
providing
excellent customer service to only
providing
service to the customer media okay
imagine that this
is the kick of interaction of the
project
imagine that this is the project and we
are starting a new project
and because of the tight
timeline they compromise the customer
service
to achieve their goal and hand over or
deliver
the project on time there is an
expression that i use sometimes if you
pay people for doing dumb things
they'll get really smart at it right
so if our reward structure and in this
instance the metrics by which we're
measuring success did your project come
in on time to budget and achieve those
deliverables
and we can we put a tick in the box
there if that compromises
on the successful customer outcome then
we shouldn't know what to be doing it
so where's the fundamental problem
though the fundamental problem is is how
our metric system works so our key
performance indicators are working
because a lot of them will still be
oriented in the old world
against measuring what we're doing
rather than measuring the outcomes we're
achieving
so if we shift our focus from the output
of what we're doing to the outcome that
we want to achieve
and the metric system guides that
behavior
whereas i'll give you an example a call
center example friend of mine he runs an
investment bank
in london periodically we get together
and it was one of those guests to get
together and he'd been going for eight
years a very successful businessman
and he said steve i know you do this
hypnotherapy thing can you come in and
hypnotize my people to be more motivated
so i said well what do you mean and he
said well he said i've got a problem he
said the motivation he said he's gone
through the floor these last
like two years so i said well what have
you done to them and he said i haven't
done anything
he said it's the same people i recruited
seven or eight years ago he said but
there's there's no wind in their sails
anymore they're they're
so demotivated so he said will you come
in and
animatize them and i said well i can't
do that that might not be ethical if
they don't want to be imitated
but at the same time i could come along
and let's do that he says i'll do this
management by walkabout thing you know
every wednesday could you come in then
so i go along on this wednesday and he
said we'll walk around the floor
let's go in the call center so we're
going to the call center
and bearing in mind it's an investment
bank so people are dealing with high net
worth
individuals this isn't like you know
people are buying a dozen eggs
this is like people have got investment
portfolios
right so he said yeah you know and look
and and
you look across the course and it looks
looks fine looks okay
and so he gets his team leaders together
and he's uh introduced to steve
explains who i am and he says right guys
i keep banging the drum about the
customer and how important the customer
is to us and we all know that don't we
the customer is our bread and butter
they pay our salaries so i want you to
today
to go out there and really not only just
have a smile on your face
i want you to figure out what the best
outcome those customers could get
and give it to them can you do that
yeah yeah and he nudges me
see what i mean there's just no that's
just not that you know
he goes on to his next team leaders very
similar reaction so we're going to have
a coffee
and while we're having a coffee said oh
he said this is really frustrating me is
i'm going to go back in there he said
i've got to i've got to bang that drum a
bit harder so after the cough we would
go back into the call center he calls
his team leaders over again and he says
guys i can't emphasize enough how
important the customer is to us
and now we've got to deliver success at
every single interaction every moment of
truth we have to deliver success
do we get that yeah
and he said no no seriously i really
want you to put the energy and
enthusiasm
into those customer interactions oh and
by the way
we've got to get that average handle
time down to less than three minutes
right right you just lost it completely
at that point
it's because of course the the people
are managing themselves based on the
measurement system and if the
measurement system's causing them to do
dumb things
it doesn't matter you know you you
haven't solved the customer problem but
it's two minutes 50 seconds
um oh i think the line's going i'll call
you back later
right failure demand goes through the
ceiling demotivated employees result
because you're not actually satisfying
the customer
customers and so on so we do um
i think just to finish off the the end
of the answer to that
very long answer short question is we do
a metrics thing where we
say look at what how you measure success
at the moment
get your common measures out on the
table a mark with a marker pen
marking red all those things which are
measures of outputs so in our call
centers for instance that would be as
i've already said average handle time
abandoned rates throughput you know
delays all that sort of thing and then
mark in green all the things which are
measures of outcomes
right and you'll find typically pareto
kicks in and 80 percent of the measures
will be red measures
so the emphasis there is we want to be
measuring more outcome measures
so to your your project question though
is that we're measuring the wrong things
which is causing abort behavior which
compromises customer success
so we've got to get that mechanism in
place which talks about measuring the
right things and
what are the right things to measure
well what's the customer need we're
trying to satisfy
now how can i articulate those in four
or five discrete measures
that we know we've delivered against
that need
even when the customer can't you know
don't go and ask the customer what they
want because they'll tell you and then
more fool you if you go and deliver it
you know it's like it's like asking our
our kids what they want for dinner
what's it going to say is it pizzas
gummy bears
ice cream custard on the same plate
right
we know as good parents and reminds us
grandparents
we know what they need and there's
probably something on the green scale
with a little treat afterwards
so why do we incessantly keep going
asking our customers what they want
because they tell us and then we go and
do it
and it still fails right we've got to
figure out what they need
so i don't know i don't know that that
solves the problem in terms of project
management because until the
the measurement system changes but then
part of this whole movement around
customer experiences
is having it it's happening at every
level in the organization
you've got to open the conversation
about do you know i'm delivering
projects on time to budget and achieving
the deliverables and you'll pay me a
bonus for doing that
i don't think it's really improving
customer service in fact
our customer satisfaction figures are
going through the floor as a consequence
of that
yeah correct definitely so
another question related to
uh training um the question says that
um they conduct the training customer
service training a very good program
and they spend the time with the people
for
three or five days to conduct customer
service training
a very good customer service training
and people
finishes the training and they are so
happy
and they are so motivated and they
wanted to help the customer
but the fair is the very first moment
they go
and meet their supervisors they meet
their managers
they start to tell them no no forget
everything
on the training that you forget
everything related to the training
we are in the ground right now we need
to
generate money we need to generate
profit
so forget about it and let's go back to
our uh uh matrix or our kpis
yeah so what what trainers will do in
this in this situation
okay the the way i do this thing called
organizational judo
you've got to work with the energy
that's already in the organization
rather than trying to introduce new
energy and push against something you
know the immovable object
you're not going to be able to do that
so in that situation in that sort of
scenario
i would be finding out as an individual
who wanted to you know improve customer
service and customer experience
what are the metrics that are driving
the behavior of my supervisor
you know what what are the numbers that
they have to come in against right
if i can guarantee i'm going to get you
those numbers
if i can show you i'll get you those
numbers and they won't believe you
right because they're going to say yeah
all that customer seller that words and
all those things they don't mean
anything so look
these are your targets agreed right you
might have to
go beyond the radar to actually discern
what they are how they're being measured
for success
but let's say you managed to do that
then if you can say to them look
i i need a week's worth of time to
deploy a way of working which will not
only deliver those numbers but go
significantly better
right yeah now they're going to go and
say no i don't believe you you go
what's the worst that could happen we're
going to have a week where
we're going to do it the way i would
like us to do it the way we've been
trained
right we're going to do a week like that
and if we haven't got those numbers at
the end of it great
we can put the lid on this and we can
put it back in the cupboard
but if i do deliver those numbers i want
the remit to do more
right so i'll talk to when in our
training programs we talk about
let the doing of this stuff become the
advocacy to do more
don't try to sell people on this stuff
directly because they won't get it
you know hence the very reason for the
pack is that if you're going to be
if you're going to be able to
demonstrate you can reduce costs and
grow revenue at the same time
if somebody come to me back in the day
when i was you know managing the
30 odd thousand people in city and said
look steve i can reduce your cost by
five percent i would have snatched the
hand off
well i'd probably done an elbow bump now
but you get the idea
i would have i would have done something
like that this stuff that i'm talking
about the way we train it
will fairly typically take 20 25 of
costs out
and people go well yeah but how does it
do that and you go well it's identifying
the things you don't
need to be doing anymore and in stopping
doing those things you release that as a
cost
now most of the levels we've got in our
organizations
the the kpis are driving all the
behaviors
and the kpis are usually geared around
how many of these things have you done
this week
or this month or this quarter if you get
the inside track on that
and then see how by doing what you've
been trained to do in terms of customer
service customer experience
can meet those metrics they're not going
to argue with you and after a week
you've demonstrated it
they're going to say well what sort of
alchemy was that what sort of magic were
you weaving to actually achieve those
things
and you go well it's it's a structured
approach to actually improving
service and experience yeah i i faced
that before
and uh i did i followed the same exact
approach
and then i found the the management they
told me that
let's block the same experience the same
exercise the same training across
all our facilities and that was that was
for me a great achievement that
i was able to convince them that we need
to conduct the training for
each and every one because this is
essential
yeah one one last question
uh related to a call center i have
call center uh agent who who asked this
question
he tells me desperately he tells me that
he has a lot of issues a lot of
challenges in this environment
of call center because it's very dynamic
and
some challenges happen like the uh if he
wants to to get
uh anyone leave uh he couldn't because
of the rush of the coals
because of the the seasonality maybe
because of
some changes happening and so on so he
feels that
he is so uh demotivated
to do his work and also his work is
let me say it's the the same exact work
he is doing every day he's responding
telling the same greeting
giving the same information meeting the
same people
it might be one one particular customer
who repeats
every day or every single hour because
he has an
issue or he knows that his company his
organization they have
issue right and he is
uh obligated to tell the customer sorry
customer
we wanted to inform you that the problem
will be solved within and so on
he tells me that or his question seems
that
he is so desperate because he has this
day-to-day routine so he tells me that
he might be motivated at the first
two hours of his shift and
and the remaining six or seven hours
are robot uh uh
so i'm not sure
what is your answer about it but it
might be
uh it might be giving him some tips to
to how to overcome this this
uh desperation okay um it sounds like
he's suffering groundhog day if you
have ever seen that film where every day
just keeps repeating itself and it's
um and it's like i mean the other
perspective on that is like
you know you're in a waking nightmare
because you know what's going to happen
you know you're going to get demotivated
by 11 o'clock in the morning
and you know the rest of the day is
going to be dismal and you're praying
for the end of the day you know that's
that's what it revolves around
um i i you know i do a lot of mentoring
as well
and what i say to people when you meet
them in those situations is
you you've got to start looking where
the grass is greener you've got to be
able to upskill yourself
so that you've got the bandwidth to do
different things
so you're not locked into that sort of
time warp
keeps repeating itself over and over
again you know with the same holistic
result at the end
in the meantime and and you know what i
can saw the some of the people who i'm
mentoring is look you you're in that
you're in a
you're in a place where you're earning a
salary you're earning some money
you can start upskilling yourself in
your spare time
by looking at different you know
available programs and things like that
and there's a lot of the stuff that's
out there now
you know which is available and it's you
know free
you know if for a small summon and that
sort of thing
start up skilling yourself to something
that would interest you right
so that you're preparing yourself for
the future so even though you know
today's gonna be as miserable as sin
it's going to be awful and dreadful and
everything
you know when you get back to base later
on you've got something exciting that's
waiting for you
you've got a call with a few other
people who are similar like minds
and you're crafting something together
to get yourself out of that particular
hole
yeah yeah oh i could hypnotize you
so you imagine you're going into this
fantastic place every day where
everybody's happy to see you and you're
all collaborating it's wonderful it's
like being in a stage show
was that would that work yeah yeah for
me it works
because we we we have the same
the same the same routine the same exact
routine especially for trainers or
learning development species because
sometimes we need to provide the same
exact training for
let's say two days five days ten days in
a row but
the the the as as tv dr stephen covey
said that
we need to sharpen the soul every day or
every week or whatever the frequency for
you and
also this is this is one of the the uh
emotional intelligence factors that you
need to
understand what is your self-motivation
so this is so important and i feel from
this question that
this person lacks for lacks a lot of
self motivation
he doesn't know what are the drivers for
for
for motivations and of course i will i
will uh
speak to him as well and if if he wants
to have
any any um any other or further
clarification or maybe mentoring i will
forward uh his question uh to you as
well
and so it is a common situation and it
you know it's it talks about working in
an environment which doesn't understand
how to motivate people and encourage
people and
if you're in a toxic environment like
that if you know you can't change it
then you've only got one of the choice
but meanwhile you know upskill yourself
you know
find yourself with you know an an
interesting hobby which lights your fire
and then
you know collect the paycheck thank you
very much while you're up skilling
yourself and preparing
your future yeah yeah
definitely yeah so uh i feel that you
have
something that you need to tell us no i
was
i was going to say if the customer
experience secrets book
light show fire that's going to be
available sometime this year so
if anybody's interested again to get
back to you and i will give you a
sort of a complimentary signed copy we
also run around
we run around the world until covet
all our programs have gone online now so
there's one there that's mentioned
in august which is all about it's a
four-day program but you can just do
two days and it has two qualifications
associated with it the accredited
customer experience professional
and if you stay the four days which is
five hours a day
um usually and and again we've been
doing these in geographic friendly times
so we
we did one in australia one in singapore
and things like that
so you don't have to be you know staying
up until the the wee small hours
you know in gcc sort of region
and you can sign up do the thing online
it's it's live
it's it's with me and there's dozens of
other programs as well but that's one of
the core competence things i think about
and some of the principles we've talked
about today in terms of that deck
and helping to convince the hierarchy
that this stuff is a good thing to be
getting on with or actually embedded
into that program so you'd be very
welcome
there's a link there on the screen as
you can see what is it three weeks and
four weeks away now yes four weeks away
that
but they're fantastic we had 22 people
finished it last week on the previous
one
and it's great fun we do as best we can
all the teamwork
online we're all in little different
rooms breaking ourselves up into little
three or four people and then coming
back together again so
i'd love you to join that program do
reach out if we're not already connected
on linkedin a bunch of connections there
um bpgroup.org at the bottom one is
where we list all our training programs
but you probably get
blinded with science there cx obsession
is my blog where i send off every now
and again
and stevetowers.com tells you more about
yours truly
yeah uh steve i would like to thank you
so much for coming to the broadcast
today and giving us
some of your uh valuable uh
time and also guys i will leave uh
for you in the comment section
everything related to
uh steve everything either the website
or the nickname and also the link
here on the screen i highly recommend
you to follow
because i myself i i benefited a lot
from
from all the speeches and chaos and
also uh many free free things that
you'll be
doing thank you steve uh so much we have
been a sincere pleasure
we appreciate your effort and your time
a very big thank you for
everyone who attended with us on zoom or
on
facebook wait for us for the next
episode which allowed gonna be
on uh friday we will have one of the
biggest
professionals in the world who speak
about how to execute your
strategy especially in uh
change uh period or change times
again thank you so much steve happy to
have you today
go with peace and thank you very much
thank you
