customer experience

Understanding the difference between customer experience and customer service will save you money in your contact center!

There’s a quote (which I may have evolved over the years) from Chris Zane, founder of Zane’s Cycles, that goes like this: “Customer service is what happens when the experience breaks down.”

It’s a great quote for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that it nicely differentiates “customer experience” and “customer service,” which people often confuse to be one and the same. Not so.

A couple of months ago, we announced that Futurelab had become a partner infinit.cx, a leader in complex contact centre solutions which has a long list of successful customer experience stories in Germany. Today, we are happy to announce that we have gone further in our partnership. From now Futurelab will be an independent subsidiary of infinit.cx GmbH.

Less than a month separates us from one of the most inspiring events in the CX world – the International Customer Experience Awards 2019. And this year our consultancy company will be again in the center of it. 

The following is an excerpt from my book, Customer Understanding: Three Ways to Put the “Customer” in Customer Experience (and at the Heart of Your Business

Is hiring for culture fit a good idea?

In the last several weeks, I’ve seen a couple articles – in reputable publications like Harvard Business Review and The Wall Street Journal – about the “dangers of hiring for culture fit.” They cited that hiring for culture fit destroys things like diversity, creativity, and innovation. And then I saw the responses on LinkedIn because it became a “today’s news and views” topic, and I was baffled.

Oh boy. I think we need to start with some definitions.

As a customer experience professional, you focus a lot on the customer. You put the customer on a pedestal. You put the customer front and center. And rightly so; without customers, you have no business. But you have to remember this: in order to deliberately design a customer-centric culture, you must put employees more first. Only when employees have a great experience can customers have a great experience, too.

I originally wrote today’s post for Forbes. It appeared on Forbes on March 5, 2019.

“Customers are connected.” “Customers are more-informed than ever.” “Customers trust each other more than brands.” “Customers have the power.” “Customers are in control.”

It all starts with CEO commitment.

Customer experience professionals got an early Christmas present last week in the form of a revised statement on the “purpose of a corporation.” Well, it was a revision for the CEOs at the Business Roundtable, but many of us already know what the purpose of a business is.

More and more companies are pursuing customer-centered approaches in the context of digital change projects. But where is the customer located in the company? How do I measure his or her behavior? Which feedback sources do we have? How can I analyze and visualize a cross-system journey? And: what do I conclude from this? A new position is created: The Customer Experience Manager ("CX Manager"). People with this job description are faced with a multitude of questions.

Are you using journey mapping to design a better future-state experience and to deliver new value for your customers – with your customers?