The Best Of Customer Experience Matters, Volume #4

It’s been a while since I published one of these “Best Of” posts. I like to start these with a big thank you to everyone who has been reading, linking to, writing about, and passing along my blog…

This is my 250th post, and it’s been 100 posts since my last “Best Of” entry. Here’s a look back at some of the major themes in those posts:

• The 6 Laws Of Customer Experience introduced fundamental principles like every interaction creates a personal reaction and employees do what is measures, incented, and celebrated. It’s been an enormous hit. Several thousand people have already downloaded my free book called The 6 Laws Of Customer Experience: The Fundamental Truths That Define How Organizations Treat Customers.
• The Customer Experience Journey talks about a new Forrester research report that describes five stages of maturity as companies head towards Experience-Based Differentiation. And it also describes the “6 C’s of Customer-Centric DNA.” This is an important piece of research because it defines a path that companies need to follow.
• My First 8 Steps As A New CMO has had enormous readership; people seemed to appreciate the advice for CMOs that included re-establishing the brand, refining target customer segments, and building-up employee brand advocates. There’s even more advice for CMOs in the posts Insights From Starbucks’ Marketing Chief and 8 Pieces Of Advice For RadioShack’s New CMO.
• Leadership Matters In An Economic Downturn looked at a number of posts about managing in a recession. Keep Customer Experience Momentum In A Recession identified eight steps for keeping focused on customer experience in a downturn, including prioritizing key moments of truth, avoiding across the board cuts, and not giving up on innovation. In other posts, I wrote about Keeping your good people in a recession and Leading Your Company Out Of A Downturn.
• JetBlue’s “Happy Jetting” Is More Than Emply Promises identifies four types of branding efforts that range from no probability of success to a high probability of success. It highlights a critical, yet often missed, component of these efforts: applying the brand inside of the company. The post discusses how the JetBlue campaign differs from recent JP Morgan Chase, Circuit City, and John Hancock campaigns. I also explored this topic in Ford (Finally) Turns Employees Into Brand Ambassadors.
• Discussing Zappos’ Culture With Tony Hsieh highlights a great interview I had with the firm’s CEO about Zappos customer-centric culture. I also wrote another post about Tony Hsieh. There was more discussion about culture in Great Advice From IBM’s Former CEO, Tesco Showcases Strategy + Culture, and Lessons From Dunkin’ Donuts Chief. And if you’re looking for some inspiration in this area, take a look at a scene from “Any Given Sunday” with Al Pacino.
• The CEO’s (Key) Role In Customer Experience offers an analysis of Ken Thompson’s strong influence on customer experience at Wachovia. In Senior Execs Are Not Fully Customer-Centric I introduced 8 signs of executive commitment. I also wrote about the 86 year-old chairman of Mercury Insurance who still calls customers who write letters to the company. In addition, senior execs can learn from Four Leadership Competencies From Warren Bennis, a post about the leadership skills of the late Tim Russert, and the advice of several execs in Learning From The Good Fortune Advice Of Others.
• The Kindle: A Great Example Of Online Infusion and T-Mobile’s “Family Allowances” Showcases Online Infusion provide excellent exampIes of one of the five disruptive customer experience strategies. I also wrote a post about a strategy from Apple that I called influential bundling.
• Wells Fargo Buys Wachovia: A Win For Customer Experience provides my thoughts about this major banking hook-up, shortly after panning a potential bank merger in an earlier post Citibank And JPMorgan Chase Face Customer Experience Crossroads. I also offered my thoughts about BofA buying Merrill Lynch, Bank Of America’s online comments, and Ken Thompson’s departure from Wachovia. In addition, I wrote about problems with cross-channel bankiing interactions and in BofA and MIT Look To The Future Of Banking, I described five key skills for financial services firms.
• Shaw’s Supermarket Shows How It “CARES” looks at customer service through the lens of my “CARES” model. There were several other posts about retailers’ service: Verizon Wireless Customer Service Let Me Down, Best Buy’s Growth Plans Neglect Customers, Customer Experience Gaffs From Dick’s And Comcast, AOL, Comcast Headline Customer Service Hall of Shame, and Dial 1-800 For Customer Service.
• What The Heck Is Customer Experience? provides a basic definition for customer experience: The perception that customers have of their interactions with an organization. It’s criticial to recognize the importance of perceptions because Your Customers Are Martians. I also talked about how Customer Experience Is The New Quality. 
• A Look Back At My First Year Of Blogging highlighted some of my favorite posts in my first year of blogging, including: Experience-Based Differentiation, My Manifesto: Great Customer Experience Is Free, The Holy Grail: A Link Between Customer Experience And Loyalty, and Don’t Let Profits Replace Purpose. 

The bottom line: If you enjoyed the first 250 posts, keep reading and tell your friends about this blog.