The evolution of most Customer Success leaders goes something like this:
Crawl – almost all of your time is spent dealing with escalated customers
Walk – you start identifying root causes of escalations and churn
Run – you have programs in place to solve these issues and prevent future ones
As we identify root causes of escalations and churn, we realize it is not just one department that needs to get involved…it is many. And as we put programs in place to solve these problems and drive long-term loyalty and advocacy, it can’t be just one team that secures customers for life…it is the entire company. It’s the overall experience that matters most.
Customer Experience is an area where many Customer Success leaders are starting to develop programs to drive customers for life. Whether it is developing a customer journey map and identifying critical touch-points, or a thoughtful Voice of the Customer program, Customer Success has an important seat at the table in helping improve a customer’s experience with their company.
At a recent dinner with my peers, I invited Melinda Gonzalez to join us and share her insights on Customer Experience Management and Design. Melinda ran the Customer Experience and Loyalty program at Salesforce.com. With Customer Success Management in her background, Melinda has a unique point of view in terms of how Customer Success can partner with Marketing – as well as the entire e-staff team – in driving Customer Experience.
Rather than give advice on what we should do, she gave her perspective on the mistakes you should avoid:
#10: Mapping Internal Touch-points
Most organizations start their customer journey map from the “inside out”: what are the teams, programs, and processes that touch our customers. However, your customer probably views this journey quite differently. Make certain you don’t just rely on internal analysis. Take an “outside-in” approach: ask your customers as well.
#9: Falling in Love with a Metric
So many CEOs and executives want one number they can use to measure the strength of their customer base but this may not be possible or realistic. There are a lot of examples of companies that overuse or misuse NPS as THE number. As the folks at Forrester pointed out a few years ago, a Net Promoter Score should be used like any other CSAT score and part of your overall Voice of the Customer program. It should NOT be used as a metric that would indicate action or intent. And from an overall experience perspective, a single metric – like NPS – does not tell you what is working or what you need to fix. You have to dig deeper to gain a true sense of health, issues, as well as progress.
#8: Forgetting to Celebrate Success
Most organizations ring the gong once a customer becomes a customer. But do you celebrate their success beyond that point? And is it from your point of view (“they renewed!”) or is it from theirs (“they raised their Series B!”)? Melinda stressed the importance of celebrating success and how this can make a big difference in building trust, loyalty and ultimately customer advocacy. Celebrating your customer’s success doesn’t need to take a lot of time…but you do need to make this a priority for you and your team. Need a little inspiration in this department? Here’s a great list that can help.
#7: Obsessing About Detractors
When I chat with organizations about their NPS data, most are concerned with customers who give them low scores. Alerts and workflow are commonly built around taking action on detractors. However, fixing a customer’s problem doesn’t necessarily mean you will improve their loyalty. And focusing on problems isn’t the same thing as focusing on how to make your customers fall in love with your brand. Loyalty is not the opposite of dissatisfaction. Melinda’s advice was to spend time with your “passives” (the movable middle). What’s holding them back from giving you a 9 or a 10? To create fans of your brand, you need to build a separate program around advocacy…which is very different from eliminating problems.
#6: Ignoring Employees
While it may seem obvious, many companies forget that their employees play a huge role in delivering the right experience. Creating a great employee experience is one of the most important ingredients to a great customer experience. Unengaged employees can’t create engaged customers. What is the day-to-day experience like for your employees? Your team’s engagement is largely driven by their relationships, their alignment and their purpose. Another key piece is how you meaningfully and authentically celebrate their success. Upping your EQ as a manager will go a long way in upping your employees and ultimately customer’s success.
#5: Un-Engaging New Customers
Your customer spent weeks…maybe even months deciding from whom to buy and they finally picked you. They are excited to get going and start to realize all the business goals they discussed with your sales team. What happens next is one of the most important states in the customer journey. Don’t lose the momentum & enthusiasm of a new customer! Just as your sales and marketing team script every pre-sale moment…so should you in mapping out your on-boarding process. Having a great new customer on-boarding process is one of the most important ways you can stay ahead of red flags.
#4: Treating All Customers the Same
As you look across your customer base, you will find that the size, location, channel, and even effort required to make each of your customers successful probably differs. No one customer is the same, and yet many companies service their customer base as if “one size fits all.” Each customer segment requires a unique engagement process tuned to the specific needs of those customers. Understanding these unique differences and developing a segment-specific experience is key to avoiding this CX pitfall.
#3: Neglecting Experience Design
Great CX Design matters. And it is more than meeting functional requirements in terms of a customer getting what they need from your product or service (ex: I can log in and submit an expense report.) Melinda encouraged us to consider the 3 elements that The Temkin Group uses to measure great customer experience design: Success, Effort, and Emotion.
Success: How well do experiences meet customers’ needs?
Ex: I am live and can submit an expense report
Effort: How easy is it for customers to do what they want to do?
Ex: It took longer and was much harder than I expected
Emotion: How do customers feel about the experiences?
Ex: I hate filling out my expense report every month
To achieve great Customer Experience design, you need to think about your product, processes and people and whether or not it is delivering on all 3 elements.
#2: Over-Relying on Customer Surveys
Voice of the Customer is much more than a collection of surveys. Think about all points of data collection. When should you use NPS and/or CSAT surveys vs. “customer effort?” What data should you examine before you send a survey? It is Melinda’s point of view that you should look at usage data, community data and other unstructured data sources first before you add to this mountain of data with survey responses.
And the top CX Mistake you need to avoid?
#1: Faking Executive Commitment
Where is your CEO on the spectrum of Customer Experience advocacy? Are they an “Opposer”, Passive, Toe-dipper, Supporter, or a full-on Advocate? Much of what determines level of commitment is the “actionability of insight” they drive across the company. In other words, you go to great length to ask the question and get customer feedback…but are you going to do anything with this feedback? As Customer Success leaders there is a lot we can do to drive executive awareness of the CX areas that need improvement (Melinda’s tip: laminating the feedback of all survey responses and distributing it to executives). But it ultimately boils down to company culture and your CEO’s customer success mindset to truly drive the needed change.