Strategy
Last month I delivered a keynote speech to a group of business leaders in Athens, Greece. The HMA had adopted the concept of replacing the old concept of trying to do “more with less” with the concept from our book, “doing more ON less.” I loved the signage for the event. The concept of “more with less” is completely overused and in crisis situations just results in lots of under-funded activities, diffused leadership attention and gridlock of any progress. Doing “More ON Less” is about reducing the focus to the highest impact activities, concentrating funding on those items and focusing leadership attention on just a big initiatives. Here is how the idea of transforming through “More ON Less” could be applied in Greece today. (more…)
Mobile devices are now a core part of customers’ daily lives and therefore potentially a core part of almost any customer experience. Similar to company web sites offering up a new facet of customer experience in the early 2000s, mobile devices have the potential and will become another unique experience element of equal or more impact.
In the fourth quarter of 2010, IDC reported that there were 92.1 million traditional computers sold and 100.9 million smart phones. Smart phones and tables have now become a core part of the overall customer experience between companies and their customers. Even if you do not have a mobile device customer experience strategy, customers are hitting your current website from those devices or are calling your call centers from those same devices in greater numbers. (more…)
Innovative thinking is a highly valued capability today. By working specific mental exercises as a deliberate part of your day, you can increase your ability to integrate left brain (creative) and right brain (logical) thinking patterns into a mix that generates more productive innovative thinking.
Any edge to think and act with more agility, innovation and creativity is highly valuable. An article on the LIVESTRONG blog recently shared some practical exercises you can use to build your abilities to integrate right and left brain thinking. This enables you to be a source of innovative ideas that can be implemented in practical ways or to generate creative sparks at the right time while implementing structured processes. (more…)
Very often I am asked, “do we really need ‘every’ department to participate in our customer experience initiative. My quick answer is usually, “if a department truly has zero impact on customers, then maybe they should be eliminated or outsourced.” Many times this drifts into a follow up question to test the edges, “…well, what about our legal department for example.” I’ve seen this too many times and have a great recent example to share with you on why even legal departments can make a huge difference in customer experience.
Recently while booking a business trip, I found a good deal on a flight on my normal carrier, which is United. After booking it, I realized that the return date may need to flex and was wondering what any change fees or penalties may be for this potential change. That’s when I was hit with this perfect “Counter Point” example where legal language makes all the difference in the customer experience. (more…)
You’ve just been handed the baton for improving customer experience at your company…now what?
The role of Chief Customer Officer (CCO), Chief Customer Experience Officer and other executive titles that revolve around strategic focus on the customer are some of the fastest growing titles in corporations today. But beyond assigning a top executive into the role of watching over customer experience, what should the capabilities of the CCO organization be and what should be their accountability? The leading customer organizations are taking on corporate challenges that require strong capabilities in strategy, marketing, creative and organizational transformation. Why are they building these diverse teams? What is the business value? And more importantly, how can you build a highly effective customer organization in your company? (more…)
The field of Customer Experience Management is driving a new wave of innovation through businesses. Innovation is often about fusing different disciplines together to generate new ways of thinking and ways of solving problems creatively. A major innovation trend today is the mixing of business strategy and design to form new ways of thinking to create compelling and valuable customer experiences. In the past, designers and business leaders would go to different schools, work at different professional services firms, work in different parts of an organization and belong to different professional associations. They were completely separate sub-cultures of the business world. Today, leaders are mixing those two worlds and the result is greater innovation, better customer experiences … resulting in greater business success. Venture capital funds, top business schools, leading customer experience executives and innovative service firms are all moving to harness this fusion. (more…)
In our strategic transformation work we are often asked the question, “why should we limit ourselves to just three major initiatives?” Executive teams feel that a short list of initiatives is not a stretch for the organization or that it is too limited to create transformational change. The truth is that when it comes to execution, transformational change comes from making major progress on a small number of things. It is about stacking up the resources on the most high impact initiatives that will have meaningful impact on customer value and the customer experience.
Harvard Business Review just published research from Booz Allen & Company that was based on a broad executive study of 1800 global executives. Here are some of the highlights for you to consider and to use with your stakeholders and team to make the case for focus.
* Most executives (64%) report they have too many conflicting priorities.
* The majority of executives (56%) say that allocating resources in a way that really supports the strategy is a significant challenge, especially as companies chase a wide set of growth initiatives.
* 81% admit that their growth initiatives lead to waste, at least some of the time.
* Nearly half (47%) say their company’s way of creating value is not well understood by employees or customers. (more…)
Many businesses don’t have real signature points in their customer experience, which are the most important drivers of Net Promoter Scores. People aren’t going to refer your business to anyone if there is not a unique and memorable element to talk about.
Recently I was speaking at the national Association of Strategic Planning conference on the topic of customer experience and brand integrity. One question came up about how customer experience relates to the Net Promoter Score (NPS). It was a great question and for those who subscribe to NPS as a key performance metric, here is a post that describes how to improve that score and the business results it implies through Customer Experience and specifically Signature Points.
The beauty of tracking your Net Promoter Score is that it is entirely customer focused and it is simple. That’s powerful. NPS measures just one question, “how likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or colleague?” This is a simple question for customers to answer. The tougher question that managers then face about NPS is, “how can I improve my NPS score?” That is not a simple question. You can’t directly manage each customer’s answers to the NPS question, but you can manage the ‘customer experience’ you deliver every day. If you are working hard to improve your NPS score, here are some tips on how to simplify delivering breakthroughs in your customer experience that can give you significant jumps in your NPS score.
Three Steps to Improve NPS (more…)
While everyone is talking about the need for innovation to serve as the growth catalyst for U.S. businesses, job growth and the economy overall, a group of leaders in the Tri-Valley region is taking action.Last week, the Innovation Tri-Valley initiative (ITV) was launched at a gathering of over 300 regional business, educational, civic and political leaders (news story and press release).
Marty Beard, the key executive leading the Innovation Tri-Valley effort and President of Sybase 365, a subsidiary of Sybase, In., recently explained that, “What we are doing in the Tri-Valley may very well be defining a new model for regions around the U.S. to get moving again as leaders in innovation. It is not only an opportunity to leverage the tremendous assets we have, but also a need and an obligation as leaders to do this for our companies and for our country.” Marty’s enthusiasm, determination and drive have helped rally a highly diverse group of leaders into what has become a collaborative effort across the region. (more…)
In doing analysis for web company that provides online solutions for managing commercial and residential contractor bids and work processes, we were looking for examples of great technology integration stories. We immediately raised up the seamless integration between the iPod and iTunes as a great customer experience. It is so easy that there is no user manual needed, but this is a rare exception.
In looking for other ideas, I was thinking about integration between Google Maps and GPS devices and searched Google for examples. (more…)
ABOUT
Michael Kanazawa shares recent insights and tips about the no-nonsense, results-driven approach to driving business breakthroughs found in his new book Big Ideas to Big Results.