customer service

Why Not Replace People With Technology?

In the second half of the 90s I was involved in consulting in the area of shared services. Being a sidekick I got to witness the sales pitch. What was the sales pitch? No human beings. Everything in the back office was subject to business rules. The business rules could be codified, programmed and back office work could be automated. No human necessary. Nirvana: 24/7/365 nirvana of efficiency guaranteed to deliver the same outcome each and every time.

I named this blog CX Journey™ for a reason - to convey that the the customer experience is just that, a journey.

What does that mean? It means that, while it's important to look at the individual touchpoints, moments of truth, interactions, channels, etc., it's more important to remember the whole journey, the entire experience that the customer has with your brand or organization as he's trying to do whatever job it is he's trying to do.

Are you one of the 40 million people affected by the recent Target data hack?

If so, then you know exactly what I mean when I say that Target failed with its post-incidence communication.

I invite you to ponder the following

1.     Why is it that commercial aeroplanes don’t fall out of the sky?

2.     Why is it that terrorism did not take root, establish itself, and grow in the USA/UK?

Have you ever wondered what "the third rail" of customer experience is? 

I have. 

But first, for those of you who have never heard this phrase, what is it? Here are a couple of definitions to get you started.

How well does your organization execute the omnichannel customer experience? Is there awareness around it? Is it a priority?

If you answered "No," it's time to rethink this. As I noted in a post from this summer: You must protect [your brand] at all costs. And by the way, your customers know your brand - they don't care about your business model. They care about the experience they (know they) are going to get when they enter an establishment with your name over the door. This applies not just to partnerships or licensees, which the post was referring to, but also to your various channels (store, online, phone, etc.) of operation.

If I were to ask you to name a company that consistently excels at customer service, what company would come to mind? In you are part of a military family, you might say USAA. If you live in the Southeast, you might tell me about Publix Supermarkets. If you are a golf aficionado, you might share your Masters experience with me. And, if you are passionate about shoes, you might mention either Nordstrom or Zappos. No doubt, others among you would name companies such as Enterprise Rent-a-Car, Chick-fil-A, Apple Stores, Disney, and Mayo Clinic.

I think I know the answer to that…

The better question then is not if you are going to do it, but how. And that is where i can help.

If the title to this blog sounds a bit like I am trying to make a connection to Business Model Generation (BMGEN) by Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur, you’re absolutely correct. As a former academic, I am a big believer in making connections and extensions to the models of others. In the end, I believe that this supports my primary goal in writing articles and blogs – to share knowledge that others can use.

Customer service or customer experience? Are they the same thing?

There's been a lot of talk about whether marketing and customer experience are one and the same or if they replace each other - you know, "Customer experience is the new marketing." Well, I have a bone to pick with that one, but this post is about yet another debate - one that I've written about before, and one that we should continue to define and discuss: the difference between customer service and customer experience.