MC: 0:00

Experience Action. Let's stop just talking about customer experience, employee experience and the experience of leaders. Let's turn ideas into action. Your host, Jeannie Walters, is an award-winning customer experience expert, international keynote speaker and founder of Experience Investigators, a strategic consulting firm helping companies increase sales and customer retention through elevated customer experiences. Ready, Set, Action.

Jeannie Walters: 0:31

Welcome to episode 100 of the Experience Action Podcast. I'm Jeannie Walters. I'm so happy you're here and I'm so happy you've been with me for 100 episodes. Now, when I started this podcast, it was all about answering your questions, and you delivered. We have received questions about how do you show more empathy to customers, how to make sure that we are reporting on the right things for leadership, how to get everybody in the organization to really understand the importance of customer experience. And throughout this journey, I've shared with you our approach to really treating customer experience as something that drives business results. And, of course, we do this with a framework of mindset, strategy, discipline. Now, thanks to your questions, I've been able to share tidbits and examples and things that I hope you've used to move forward. So today, I want to reflect a little bit. I want to share with you some of my favorite parts of episodes that really highlight the importance of mindset, strategy and discipline. Now, I hope you'll enjoy this retrospective and this recap, but, more importantly, I hope you use these ideas to really get the results that you want to stand up as a leader who understands the importance of customer experience in your organization to deliver not only for your customers, but for your employees, for your leaders and, frankly, for the world at large. The mission of my company has always been to create fewer ruined days for customers, and that's because I truly believe we make a better world that way. We can only do that through customer experience leaders and change agents like you. So thank you for being on this journey. Thank you for empowering those around you to really deliver on behalf of your customers, because it's the right thing to do and because it's the right thing to do for your organization.

Jeannie Walters: 2:42

Don't make any assumptions about what people already know. It's a great opportunity to use your interview skills to sit down and ask leaders what's important to you here about customer experience. It will be enlightening to hear what the sales leader thinks versus what your IT leader thinks. Now, many of them might say things like you know what? It's not my job, that's not what I'm focused on. That itself is an enlightening answer about where they are. So the first thing I want you to do as a CX leader in your first 100 days is to determine the best way to really understand your organization's customer experience landscape. Now, you might hear about this with maturity models or things like that. Whatever they've used there to gauge that. Great, that gives you information. I want you to get your arms around.

Jeannie Walters: 3:40

What does customer experience mean here at this organization? How are they measuring success? How do I want to measure success? How can I have an impact on the organization itself?

Jeannie Walters: 3:52

So the number one thing to do here is to define success.

Jeannie Walters: 3:56

Now, we always recommend two things to do this. Number one is your customer experience mission statement. What is your belief? How do you show up? How do you make sure that everybody understands what experience you deliver, no matter what, to your customers? And number two is the customer experience success statement. This is where you walk through. What are our organizational goals? What do our leaders care about? How can we deliver on those ideal outcomes with the right effort around customer experience, and how do we measure that? So get very clear on what success looks like. Now, let's say you've worked on the mindset. It's time to really define success. Success in your organization might be different than success in another organization. That's why we have to get super clear on what will work for your organizational goals, your leadership and, ultimately, what you can deliver. What do you control? But all of this comes down to understanding what that vision is, so that we can then adjust the actions and tactics that we take on a daily basis as leaders who believe in customer experience.

Jeannie Walters: 5:07

Customer experience strategies succeed when they are aligned with clear goals and actionable plans. That means more than just talk. That means making sure that we are showing up with the right tools, technology, processes, ideas and, ultimately, action steps to really deliver on that strategy. Here's an example.

Jeannie Walters: 5:30

I have to admit that sometimes I geek out on strategy, right! I talk a lot about, oh my gosh, this is how you have to set everything up and I'm sorry, I'm a little bit of a customer experience strategy nerd. That's just the way it is.

Jeannie Walters: 5:44

MIT Sloan Management Review published results of a survey where they surveyed 2,670 business leaders worldwide, including leaders from retail and consumer packaged goods companies, about their organization's customer experience, and essentially what they heard was just 15% of respondents say they're significantly outperforming the competition on customer experience quality. So that means 85% are saying nope, we're not even close. We can't stay ahead of our competition with our customer experience strategy. So what are the characteristics here? Well, I think a lot of it has to be sorry to geek out again everybody about elevating customer experience strategy to the same level as other efforts, like digital transformation, like all of the ways that we're connecting data. That all relates to customer experience strategy.

Jeannie Walters: 6:38

So I wanted to just get a little introspective there, because I think a lot of this does depend on how leaders see customer experience as a strategy, so that they actually are willing to invest in it, so that they can try these new ideas, they can innovate, they can give customers what they actually want.

Jeannie Walters: 6:58

Let's stop talking in vague terms. Let's stop basically inviting our leaders to say things like well, customer experience is nice to have, but it's not a must have. We matter, you matter, and it's not just because of the customers, it's because this is what drives success for the organization. But we have to make that case. So, as you write your customer experience goals, do whatever you can to attach them to your organizational success. That's how you will earn the respect, the resources, the investment, the headcount, everything else that you need to be successful.

Jeannie Walters: 7:38

All right, so you've defined your success. You have a customer experience success strategy statement. You have a customer experience mission statement. Now what? Well, now you have to put it into real action. This is where you break it down into the tactics, the ideas, the tools that can be measurable, so you understand that the actions you're taking every day, every week, every month, every quarter are leading to those ultimate outcomes that you want. So this is where the discipline comes in. We have to show up. We have to make sure that we are not getting lost on all the urgent matters when really we have to address the important things on a daily basis.

Jeannie Walters: 8:23

Success comes from disciplined measurement, action, outcomes and communication. So everything we do has to tie back to the mindset that CX mission statement. It has to tie back to how we've defined success with that customer experience success strategy statement. And, ultimately, we need to rely on other people in our organization. As I like to say, cx is a team sport. That means that we need cross-functional buy-in. We need cross-functional support. We need to make sure that our goals are social and everybody understands the context. When we achieve that, that's when customer experience is simply part of the fabric of the organization. That's when we see real change, ongoing change and things that not only make customers happy but drive the best possible outcomes for our organizations.

Jeannie Walters: 9:22

I can't think of a better industry to be in. Having a strategy well-defined and aligned with your organizational strategy. That's what's so important about this. There is so much alignment between where we want to go as an organization and what we do in customer experience. That's the argument we need to make, and then we need to back up those organizational strategies that are defined already. I know that all of you out there are really moving mountains every single day, because this is not magic wand stuff, this is real work. We need to get clear on what we're doing and why we're doing it, and every day, I know every single one of you is moving forward on behalf of your customers to make this a better world, and, man, I can't think of many things that are a stronger mission for those of us who do this work.

Jeannie Walters: 10:21

Well, I hope these snippets have inspired you to take on what you can. If nothing else, think of one action step that you can measure. Define what success would look like if you could achieve what you want to. Get real about customer experience, because it is so much more than an idea or just words.

Jeannie Walters: 10:44

I, of course, really dislike when people tell me oh, it's soft skills. Customer experience is a winning business strategy, and that's why I'm so excited that you've been with me for 100 episodes, because when we do this well, it is so much more than customer feedback metrics like net promoter score or customer satisfaction rate. It is so much more than having a pithy banner on our website that says we believe in customers. It is so much more than talking about why doesn't everybody get this. It's so obvious. It's common sense. Just like any other part of business, customer experience deserves your attention and your respect, and so please keep those questions coming. Make sure that I understand the challenges that you have in your organization so that I can keep my finger on the pulse.

Jeannie Walters: 11:42

I talk to clients like you every day, and one thing I hear a lot is there's just so much to do. So today, I want you to take a deep breath. I want you to look at what you've already accomplished. I want you to feel good about that, and I want you to think of one thing, one thing that you want to tackle this year. So in the next 100 episodes, I hope you'll share your wins with me.

Jeannie Walters: 12:06

I hope you will report back on the one thing and the progress that you've made. It means so much that you're here with me. Thank you for continuing to listen to Experience Action Podcast and keep those questions coming. Until then, don't forget we're in this to create fewer ruined days for customers and I can't wait to continue this ride with you. To learn more about our strategic approach to experience, check out free resources at experienceinvestigatorscom, where you can sign up for our newsletter, our Year of CX program and more, and please follow me, Jeannie Walters, on LinkedIn.