Road trip musings

🚙Traveling yesterday and today (Tempe, AZ to Texas road trip with my son coming home from university) which always nets #CX observations for me. I think it often comes down to these three things...

1. 👂Listen and 🛠Act. What are your customers telling you through their actions, calls, social media, interactions with your front line...and what are you actively doing about it?
2. 👟 #Empathy but more tactically have you lived in your customers’ shoes? Have you checked in to the 🏨 late at night? Have you done your 🛫 boarding process? Have you eaten at your quick serve restaurant in a town far away from you HQ? If not, you don’t truly know your customers. (BTW...I’ve had mostly great experiences this trip thankfully! Shoutout out to Hampton Inn by Hilton in Santa Rosa, NM.)
3. ⚙️ #Process matters. If you only do it well once, you delight one but fail thousands of others. Your great experience design only works if it is repeatable and sustainable by those who have to do it.

Rise above the clouds

This week’s 🌿nature musing combines ⛅️ clouds and...well not nature...but I needed the✈️ to get through the clouds. The “Jack Handy” (dated reference, I know) thoughts started flowing...
🌬 It’s often bumpiest right before you break through
☀️ The view after and above the break through is totally worth it!
(Thanks Southwest Airlines for the great ride today! Always great #CX on your flights!)

CX...it's the big things...but it's also the little things

Received this letter over the weekend and pondered...who approved the copy for this?🤔 ALL #customer touchpoints affect #CX...even the ones you think are throwaway. So thoughts...
😬How "customer-unfriendly" to place the burden of remembering an annual event...and one that has a large uncommon draw on a bank account...solely on the customer. How many customers will forget and get overdrawn as a result?
🤖Who says "letter notifications"? Use human language not corp-speak
📱I actually never wanted "letter notifications"...and have always preferred email/text alerts. Why would I be set up this way?
😖But wait...there's no mention of email/text alerts. So will I get them...or do I sign up for them...or will I just have to remember that once a year I better have 5-10X the normal balance in my checking account ready for this draw?
🙄Well thank goodness that "for my(?) convivence", I can make note of this.
😨If they show this lack of #customerexperience now that I'm a customer, what confidence do I have that they'll be there for my beneficiaries should God-forbid the policy needs to be used?

A simple letter announcing a mundane (to the company) change could cascade to a customer losing compete faith in the brand.💸

CX...it's the big things...but it's also the little things.

Life Insurance letter.jpg

6 Customer Experience Books Every Founder Should Read

6 Customer Experience Books Every Founder Should Read

While I’m writing this in March of 2021, having just experienced a generational winter in my home state of Texas that created a source of stories I can use to bore my future grandchildren to death, I realize one nice thing about power outages is a return to books.

I’ve always enjoyed reading, but I can’t say that it was a nightly affair for me like it has become during this stunning storm of 2021. With a headlamp and candles, I devoured several books while waiting for the power to come back on.

In that spirit (although I hope your power is quite stable), I started thinking about the great customer experience (CX) books I’ve read.

If you’re new to CX or if you are looking to improve, let me share a few classics with you, along with a few you might not see in the traditional best CX books lists.