Annette Franz (Gleneicki)

Author and businessman Harvey Mackay once said: “You learn when you listen. You earn when you listen – not just money, but respect.”

Those words could not be truer when it comes to customer experience and to your business.

I’ve written about change and change management many times over the years. Last year was also and especially a big year to talk and write about change and the challenges and disciplines required to execute change.

What’s the secret to a great customer experience?

I’ll keep today’s post simple – and fun. Bob Farrell, founder of Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlors, shared the secret to a great customer experience in 1973 (yes, almost 50 years ago!!), when he developed a motivational speech for new employees called Give ’em the Pickle!, based on a letter he received from a disappointed customer.

How do you define customer trust? How do your customers define trust as it relates to your brand?

In last week’s post, I wrote about Building Your Multi-Faceted, Multi-Skilled CX Team. I outlined the various skills that you’ll need on your team. An important thing to note is that not all skills needed to execute on your customer experience strategy will come from the core CX team. And not all of the oversight will come from that team, either.

Over the years, I’ve written a lot of posts about change and change management. In a post I wrote earlier this year about change and some of the learnings and takeaways from the pandemic and the business crisis that created, I noted that that we had/have a lot to learn.

Do you consider the candidate experience to be part of the employee experience? If not, you should. The employee experience begins well before the employee gets her badge and goes through orientation. The employee experience lifecycle is a long one, running through similar stages as the customer experience lifecycle.

Earlier this year, I wrote an article about CX Teams: Who, What, Where, How Many, and How Much?, answering all the questions that you might have about what a CX team looks like, i.e., the make-up of the team, size of the team, who it reports to, budget responsibility, barriers to success, and more.

There’s the Golden Rule: treat others the way you want to be treated.

And there’s the other Golden Rule: he who holds the gold makes the rules. In other words, those with the money are in power, i.e., your customers.

I originally wrote today’s post for Shep Hyken’s blog. It appeared on his site on May 29, 2020.