What is CX?

Do you really know Service from Experience?

Customer Service is the process, procedure, action or delivery of a service or product. 

From serving your customers on a retail floor to ordering and picking their stock from a warehouse; the core meaning of service is to do just that, provide someone with something they need in a timely fashion. 

The customer element comes in when a business is busy trying to ensure a smooth end to end delivery.

Customer Experience (or CX) implies a deeper involvement dependent on the level of the customer journey. 

Rational, physical, psychological, emotional and sensory aspects feed into the overall customer experience when dealing with a brand or business.

It is created not only by contribution of the company but by the customer values. 

It is a truly encompassing process that covers crucial care and service elements but extends way beyond service capabilities into emotional involvement, rational decision making and psychological impact.

That's the basic difference between the two.

There is so much more to it than just basic difference. 

If you'd like to gain a bit more insight then please, read on.

Why bother?

You're busy, I get it. 

You have 99 priorities and this ain’t one. 

You may not have a choice if you start to fall behind the competition.

A company should be able to offer a stable CX Customer Journey offering for all customer touchpoint so both company and customer can be supported no matter what stage of the customer journey they find themselves at. 

Drill down to the people element of your business for a second and park the flashy digital offering, awesome cut price offers and cutting edge innovation. 

CX underpins all of that, and without it the super-sexy portal you're designing or multi-site expansion will suffer.

The fantastic Adrain Swinscoe, author of ‘Punk CX’ advises individuals and businesses to be great at a little rather than good at a lot. 

So many rush to have something over the competition they over complicate the customer journey in the process. 

Strip it down and listen to your customers and your people. 

They have the answers that you need. 

If you’re scared to ask the questions it means deep down you know that fundamental change in your customer offering is sorely needed.

We all know It’s easier said than done, but by investing time in creating a Customer Journey Map and taking time to investigate your current offering is worth while. 

Speak to the People!

Change doesn't have to be great nor does it have to slow down your business.

You can keep the core values of your business whilst looking at ways to simplify and increase speed whilst increasing communication. 

Communication is the biggest driver in a customers decision to move to your competitors. 

Make promises? Stick to them!

Promote that you do by telling your customers how you do it. It is simple yet effective. 

Adopting a CX journey map can mean your businesses taking a long hard look at themselves, over turning stones and refusing to settle for the status quo. 

The old excuses of not having time, fearful of upsetting loyal employees or being unsure if a rethink is just a knee-jerk reaction all come up when you start to evaluate how much you to invest in CX.

The Fear Is Real (and talking to me)

Too many fear upsetting a ‘good thing’ but you have to ask yourself; if you’re not constantly evaluating your offering is it still really a ‘good thing’? 

No business can settle on a model and keep it for life. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it doesn’t apply to the evolution of Customer Experience. 

It’s driven by emotion and the psychological motivations and needs of individuals which is constantly changing. 

Think of how many things we are now mindful of, that we now engage with and action as part of our daily lives now. 

You can’t sit there and say you haven’t adapted, become invested emotionally in something or someone, or embraced the mindfulness of a cause. 

We’re human and it’s what we are genetically engineered to do. 

For some unknown reason, businesses don’t always seem to grasp that you can use emotion and psychology to their advantage. 

It requires application and committed thought but it will greatly improve the customer journey. 

You can compile and condense multiple touch points by understanding the emotional and psychological elements made up of your customers involvement with you. 

From retail to sole traders, no matter your size I urge you strongly to care about CX. 

The model size and scope may change dependent on your size, but start thinking and embrace a fear.

The ‘C’ word

Change is a scary word, but when most businesses settle down to mapping out their CX vision they see that it’s not so much about change, but about engaging with the basics, streamlining process and shouting about what they do best, in an effective manner.

Your interactions both digital and physical can support a multi-stage journey for businesses of all sizes.

Those companies and individuals who have adopted a CX strategy are able to identify and correct an area of failure quicker than those who don’t. 

They create ‘CX influencers’ in customers who have had successful engagement-even if the transaction didn’t always go right first time. 

It isn’t solely about being the cheapest or the fastest anymore, it’s about the engagement aspect. 

Your customer loyalty is dependent on your experience offering more so now than ever. 

A loyal customer influencer is worth their weight in gold across social media and word of mouth in growing your referral clientele. 

Influencer status if not just reserved for the rich and famous, it originated and still has it’s most power with the public and you should care about what they have to say.

Power to the People

So you get why you should and your ready to dip your toe in or reach out to get more advice.

Where do you start? 

You start at home. 

Talk to you leaders, your people. 

If you’re a one man band determined to be the best sole trader in the region; get it down on paper. Find out more with complete honesty about what your customer journey looks like now. Then set about mapping out what you want to look like moving forward. 

What can be streamlined? 

What serves no purpose and can be ditched? 

Where are the bottle necks in our service provision? 

Do we even think about what happens if a customer wants to leave us? 

(The answer to that one is a resounding YES)

Run workshops and sessions and get people in on the action. 

If they chose not to, ensure you support them by stressing that his isn’t about buying a new strategy, it’s about reinventing the one you have.

If you don’t have the time and resource to invest in full commitment, it’s time to reach out to a consultant who could provide you with the tools and support needed to get on track, on time.

Assess Yourself

In order to fully determine a CX projects success or failure, you need to capture the feedback of all involved. Both people and customer must be allowed to give their views and feedback on weather the thing that involves them with your business as much as the product/service offering is actually working.

Internally survey your people on any adaptations, amendments or actions that they are implementing to under pin your CX vision. 

Report back, remain transparent and work on improvements where necessary. 

Sole traders, you know yourself if somethings working. If it isn’t, you need to get real and look at what needs the work (and don’t just say that’ll do).

Get a quarterly survey out to your customer base. 

Incentivise for returns if you wish, but the fundamental purpose of this survey if to simply ask them ‘How easy are we to do business with’. 

No one has the time to fill out a multitude of answers usually. It falls to the aggrieved and the agitated to voice their woes leading to raised backs and combat power stances from those who are criticised.  

Use the information provided to spot trends, invest in areas of your business and use it to reach out to clients who provide you with constructive guidance. 

It opens pathways like you wouldn’t believe and is very much a true marker of your CX engagement. 

Some argue the survey has had its day, but tell me this; if its past its day why do we still look to engage customers via this medium day in day out?

I Ought to Praise You (Like I Should)

If you are running an effective customer engagement piece with CX at its heart, the influencers will come out in their droves. 

In case you’re wondering who fills out those ‘Win a gift card’ surveys that you find on your receipts you get hounded about at the tills at the supermarket-that would be me. I’m that person. 

I set aside time once a month to go through them all. I see it as extension of practicing what i preach.

No, i’ve not won, but I will always give more praise than I will criticism. 

Simply because the companies who dare to ask, are doing their damnedest to engage with a positive CX journey for their customers. 

Do they all get it right? 

Of course not, but that’s why they are asking you.

So, if it has been a less than stellar interaction, it’ll always be explained with a serving suggestion of guidance moving forward. 

Influencers will give you your answers and will retain their loyalty.

People will go out of their way to spend more time, more money and more effort on you and your business if you have CX engagement. 

Think how you feel when a loyal customer leaves. It always leaves me with questions and an immediate urge to do a root cause debrief.

How do you feel when a complaint lands on your desk or when an employee says, ‘That’s what we always do’ ? 

The latter especially makes me cringe and my face stew up like i’m sucking on a lemon. 

I absolutely cannot stand that line. It’s an excuse and a weak one at that.

If it gets under your skin like it does mine or it slopes your shoulders and causes you to feel despondent, then now is the time to get your call to action on. 

Lean on Me 

Dive head first into CX. 

Embrace your brand and your vision and lead it into the next chapter. 

Stop saying you don’t need it and get onboard. 

Stop over complicating the matter. 

Just embrace it.

Make it lean.

Make it focused on the customer.

Make it easy.

You know, like Sunday morning.