Customer Experience Matters

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…

• The maturing of customer experience. Forrester’s second annual Customer Experience Index that rated 113 organizations across 12 industries showed that there’s a lot of opportunity to improve. This also showed up when consumers rated Web, phone, and in-person interactions in Experiences That Satisfy Consumers, 2009, The good news is that customer experience management is definitely maturing which I highlighted in the following posts: Customer Experience Grows Up, Six Trends Reshape Voice Of The Customer Programs, and The State Of Customer Experience.
• Customer experience correlates to loyalty. In Customer Experience Correlates To Loyalty, I found that customer experience correlates to three key elements of loyalty: willingness to repurchase, reluctance to switch, and likelihood to recommend. And the correlations got even stronger since 2007. I dug a bit deeper into the data in More Info On Customer Experience And Loyalty.
• Building a customer-centric culture. Culture is a key ingredient for good customer experience — so I introduced the 6 C’s Of Customer-Centric DNA. And it’s also why I told execs that they need to Invest In Culture As A Corporate Asset. Other posts that looked at culture included: The Cultures Of Best Buy, Google, GE, And Semco, WL Gore Succeeds Without Employees, At Four Seasons, Customer Experience Is Everyone’s Business, and Execs Need To Focus More On Culture.
• It’s time to rebuild brands. In Brands Are Dying; Deal With It, I discuss the decline of good branding. So here’s some advice for CMOs: Ford Lacks An American Idol Storyline, Walgreens’ New CMO Seems On Track, Marketing Lessons From An Ex-Marine, Eight Steps For CMOs In A Recession, Time Is More Valuable Than Money, Satisfy Your Customers Subconsciously, and CMOs: Start Building (Real) Loyalty.
• The reinvention of management. The economic meltdown highlighted the need for an overhaul of management techniques. Look at what Jack Welch says about the need for change in Don’t Get Distracted By Shareholders. So I packaged a number of posts into a free eBook called The 6 New Management Imperatives: Leadership Skills For A Radically Changed Business Environment.
• Managing through the recession. I’ve been writing a lot about how to manage in a recession. Here are some of the key posts in this period: Recession Strategies From IDEO And Potatoes, Jeff Immelt On Managing In A Downturn, Turn Hard Times Into Goat Stew, Recession Leadership: Be Real, Communicate, And Look Ahead, Retail Execs Discuss Leading In A Recession, Learn From Home Depot And Macy’s, But Not Office Depot, and Lessons From Condoms And Canned Goods.
• Innovating through design. There’s a lot of opportunity to improve business and our society if more organization apply user-centric design approaches. Here are some examples: Good Design Saves Lives In The UK, Wells Fargo Improves Communications With Ethnography, Design Solutions Can Improve Society, IDEO’S CEO Discusses Innovation, Great Lessons From Aravind Eye Care, 10 Innovation Steps For CEOs, Off Topic: Ushadidi May Improve The World, and Recession And Innovation From Wool To Hulu.
• Customer service is a critical experience. In Don’t Confuse Customer Service With Customer Experience, I made the point that customer service represents a critical set of customer experiences. That became crystal clear from consumer responses in Customer Service Trumps Price. Who’s doing well? Look at Customer Service Champs From BusinessWeek.
• The Apple/Windows customer experience battle. As part of my Customer Experience Index research, I publish snapshots on the results in 12 industries. It turned out that my PC industry snapshotcaused quite a stir. It was picked up by major news outlets, a ton of bloggers, and drove many comments on my blog. I felt the need to clarify my view in another post about the results. Apple even created a Mac ad that referenced the results.
• Getting the most from Net Promoter. I spoke at the Net Promoter conference in San Francisco which motivated a set of posts about this important, but often misused, metric: Intuit’s Brad Smith Shares Customer Experience Insights, Fred Reichheld Gives A Net Promoter Update, and My Closing Thoughts On Net Promoter.
• Lesson from and for politics. Given the presidential race and Obama’s victory, I was compelled to write a number of posts about my thoughts: 6 Steps For The President To Revive “Brand USA”, Off Topic: Obama’s Victory Speech, Obama Needs A Citizen Experience Officer, Learning From Bush’s Leadership Mistakes, and Leadership Insights From Obama’s Inauguration Speech.
• Other notable posts: My Top 15 Posts In 2008, What’s On My 2009 Research Agenda?, Ten Customer Experience Resolutions For 2009, LEGO’s Building Block For Good Experiences, and Google Squeezes The Soul Out Of Design.

The bottom line: If you enjoyed the first 366 posts, keep reading and tell your friends about this blog.

This is my 199th and final post for 2008. While I enjoyed writing all of the posts, I enjoyed some more than others. So here are some of my 2008 favorites (in chronological order):

• Trend Watch 2008 Wrap-Up (1/8/08). I captured the highlights of my commentary on trends and predictions for this year.
• Lead Your Company Out Of A Downturn (2/16/08). This was my first post in a series on the topic of managing in a recession.
• The Holy Grail: A Link Between Customer Experience And Loyalty  (3/25/08). This was my favorite piece of research in 2008. It quantitatively showed why customer experience is important.
• Website Usability Is A Rapping Matter (4/4/08). This is a funny video that all customer experience professionals should watch.
• JetBlue’s “Happy Jetting” Is More Than Empty Promises (5/8/08). JetBlue showcases some basic principles of brand building.
• Discussing Zappos’ Culture With Tony Hsieh (5/28/08). I really enjoyed my interview with Tony and hearing about the Zappos culture.
• A Look Back At My First Year Of Blogging (6/13/08). This highlighted many of my favorites. During the year, I also published three “Best Of Customer Experience  Matters” posts.
• Leadership Lessons From Tim Russert  (6/14/08). Tim was great, and I really missed him throughout the entire election season. 
• Customer Experience Is The New Quality  (6/20/08). This post captures my basic philosophy about customer experience.
• The 6 Laws Of Customer Experience (7/22/08). This “mini book” has become enormously popular and has been “syndicated” in many forms and languages by several companies.
• My First 8 Steps As A New CMO (9/13/08). I was pleasantly surprised by the enormous readership of this post.
• The Customer Experience Journey (9/18/08). This post is about one of my most popular 2008 research reports.
• Off Topic: My Jimmy Fund Walk Against Cancer (9/21/08). I am very thankful for all of the people who supported my family’s participation in this very worthy event.
• Management Imperative #1: Invest In Culture As A Corporate Asset  (10/21/08). This is the first of 6 new management imperatives that reflect the changing times. 
• Forrester’s 2008 Customer Experience Rankings (12/15/08). This was the second year that we ranked the customer experience of more than 100 companies.

The bottom line: I hope you had a great 2008 and have an even better 2009!

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…

• 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.

I can’t believe it, but this is my 150th post. So let me start with a big thank you to everyone who has been reading, linking to, writing about, and passing along my blog…

As I’ve been doing for every 50th post, I’ll mark this milestone with a retrospective of my last 50 entries. So here’s a look back at the major themes in those posts:

• Customer experience links to business results. In what (I think) is one of my most impactful pieces of research, I showed the direct connection between customer experience and business results in nine industries that I studied. It turns out that customer experience is highly correlated with customers’ intentions to switch and their willingness to purchase additional products. In an upcoming post, I’ll talk about why correlation levels differ across industries and companies.
• Customer service opportunities abound. First of all, I rebutted an article in Time Magazine saying that self-service will replace customer service. It turns out that consumers still want to interact with other people. As a matter of fact, customer service is so important that I introduced a new model called ”CARES” for evaluating it. To understand customer service breakdowns, I showed the six gaps between interntions and reality. I also had posts that talked about specific companies: A note to Comcast’s investors about the firm’s poor service; a call to Circuit City’s board of directors to improve the retailer’s experience; a shout out for USAA taking Business Week’s top spot; and an evaluation of American Airlines’ response to grounding passengers.
• Branding takes more than ad campaigns. Several posts referred back to the second principle of Experience-Based Differentiation (EBD): Reinforce the brand with every interaction, not just communications. Too many companies think they can just advertise their way to a new competitive positioning. Given that key element of EBD, I gave advice to Sears about shedding its customers; Victoria’s Secret about being too sexy; and Miller beer to be more genuine. One of the clearest posts on this topic came a little bit earlier when I told Chase that it can’t advertise its way to friendliness.
• Online practices: The good and not so good.  Several posts looked at different angles of online strategies. I pointed to GapMinder as a great rich Internet experience. I also discussed how Hulu.com demonstrates good Gen Y design. I even took a look at announcements from Jay-Z, MySpace, and iTunes. But the Web doesn’t operate in isolation, so I passed along some of my research on Web-to-store experiences. Of course, not all Web efforts make sense; which is why I couldn’t blindly endorse Starbucks’ Web 2.0 activities. My favorite post about online efforts incorporates a MUST SEE video with a great rap song on Web usability.
• Innovation is a critical non-strategy. First of all, I think innovation is absolutely critical. That’s why I discussed how to use the five disruptive customer experience strategies as a source of innovation. But it is not a strategy on it’s own; which is why I agreed with an article in Advertising Age that said innovation is a tactic, not a strategy. I also highlighted interesting elements of Honda’s innovation process and Apple’s design process. You might also want to take a look at this older post as well: Trend Watch #4: Business Week “Innovation Predictions 2008.”
• Some firms are better than others (a.k.a. rankings). I examined consumers feedback on 112 firms to showcase ratings in a number of areas. The posts highlighed that Credit Unions and Bordrs are the easiest to work with; Costco and Sam’s Club are the most useful; Borders and Old Navy are the most enjoyable; credit unions have the most loyal customers; USAA and Schwab have the highest Web satisfaction; Citizens and Barnes & Nobles have the highest store/branch satisfaction; and USAA and The Hartford have the highest phone satisfaction. RBC was on the top of 22 frims in the Canadian Customer Experience Index.
• Management “wisdom” comes in different shapes and sizes. I continue to examine one of my favorite topics, the role of leadership. Kenneth Chanault (Amex CEO) used a quote from Napoleon that I really liked: “The role of the leader is to define reality and give hope.” In response to a Chrystler ad that said it cared about customers, I recommended that their executive team focus on Experience-Based Differentiation. The post called Starbucks Searches For Its Soul remindes exec that they need to retain a sense of purpose. And, in the face of an economic downturn, I commented on an article in Fortune Magazine about leading your company out of a downturn. Last, but not least, I shared a quote from one of my favorite characters, Morpheus.
• We’re a long way from customer experience excellence. To begin with, I defined the perfect customer experience as “a set of interactions that consistently exceed the needs and expectations of a customer.” In a number of posts, I looked at how companies are approaching this customer experience nirvana. In Obstacles To Customer Experience Success, I described that more companies have senior customer experience execs, but most still lack discipline. In Customer Experience Maturity — Not!, I showcased results from 287 execs that took the Experience-Based Differentiation self-test (most firms failed all areas of EBD).
• A number of miscellaneous tidbits. I made recommendations to a number of companies and industries: health plans need better member experiences, American Airlines should rebuild confidence with customers and employees, Citigroup has a the chance to improve its credit card business, banks need a Gen Y overhaul. I also had a couple of off-topic posts on sporting events: my superbowl observations and opening day at Fenway Park.

If you want to get completely caught up on my blog, also take a look at these previous “Best Of CxP Matters” posts:

• The Best Of Customer Experience Matters, Volume #1 (provides highlights of my first 50 posts). 
• The Best Of Customer Experience Matters, Volume #2 (provides highlights of my second 50 posts).

The bottom line: If you enjoyed the first 150 posts, keep reading and tell your friends about this blog.

It’s hard to believe, but this is my 100th post. So let me start with a big thank you to everyone who has been reading, linking to, writing about, and passing along my blog…

As I did on my 50th post (The Best Of Customer Experience Matters, Volume #1), I decided to mark this milestone with a retrospective of my last 50 entries. So here’s a look back at the major themes in those posts:

• Trends for 2008. In my Trend Watch series,  I examined 52 trends and predictions published in The Economist, The McKinsey Quarterly, Advertising Age, Business Week, and Trendwatch.com. In Trend Watch 2008 Wrap-Up, I organized my 14 favorites into four areas: 1) Consumer Needs, 2) Online Opportunities, 3) Required Skills, and 4) Strategy & Culture. A couple of those: ”Emergence Of The “Renaissance Marketer” and ”The responsible company: Performing with purpose is the new challenge.” To mark the new year I also came up with Ten Customer Experience Resolutions For 2008.
• My 2008 research agenda. Since my research findings make their way into this blog, I thought that you might be interested in my research plans. So I wrote a post called What’s On My 2008 Research Agenda which highlights my areas of focus and also looks back at my 2007 research. It turns out that I was the top-read analyst at Forrester last year and my top-read report (which is also Forrester’s top-read report) was Experience-Based Differentiation (EBD). So my blog will continue to be heavily influenced by EBD. You may want to Rate Your Customer Experience Skills With The EBD Self-Test.
• Customer experience rankings. Based on a survey of nearly 5,000 US consumers, we created Forrester’s 2007 Customer Experience Index which ranked the customer experiences of 112 firms across 9 industries: Banks, Credit Card Providers, Health Plans, Insurance Firms, Internet Service Providers, Investment Firms, Retailers, TV Service Providers, Wireless Phone Carriers. In what was our first year for these ranking, Costco and Borders came out on top and Charter Communications and Medicaid came out on the bottom. Look out for this ranking again next year.
• Advice for reaching Gen Y. In what has turned out to be a very hot research area, Ross Popoff-Walker and I published a report called “The Gen Y Design Guide” The post Designing Experiences For Gen Y provides some tidbits from the research about how Gen Yers (ages 18 to 27) are different from older consumers and advice on how to design experiences for them. I even got to incorporate lyrics from Soulja Boy’s “Crank That” in the post (how Gen Y of me!).
• Customer experience advice for banks. The last 50 posts are loaded with specific advice for banks. As a group, large banks did poorly our customer experience rankings and could really benefit from focusing on customer experience in 2008.  Here are some posts that were specifically aimed at banks: Banks Have A Gen Y Blind Spot, Customer Experience Execs Help Banks, Two Words For Vikram Pandit (Citigroup CEO): “Customer Experience”, and Chase Can’t Advertise Its Way To Customer Friendliness.
• Words of wisdom. I like to incorporate insights from different sources. Here are some words of wisdom included in the past 50 posts: Colin Powell On Customer-Centric DNA, Babe Ruth On Customer-Centric DNA, and The Customer Is Not Always Right.  My favorite advice came from Walt Disney On EBD, who said: “You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality.”
• Intermittent silliness. In Firms Gone Wild (a.k.a. Dumb Moments In Business), I discussed Fortune Magazine’s 101 Dumbest Moments In Business. It included Nepal Airlines sacrificing two goats to appease the Hindu god of sky protection. In Customer Experience For Dummies, I daydreamed about writing a book. Hooters Energy Drink: Branding Gone Bad looked at comical brand extensions like “Danny DeVito’s Premium Limoncello” (it turns out that “Hooters” in the title really attracts readers). Also in the silly department:  Bathroom + Maslow + Experience = An Interesting Post, Better Customer Experience Excuses, and Four Management Styles: Are You Psychotic?
• Red Sox mania. I would not feel right without including some references to my posts about the World Champions. Here’s what I wrote about the Red Sox: Happy Birthday: Red Sox Are American League Champs!, Red Sox Nation Takes Over The World (Series), and Mashup: Halloween + Red Sox + CxP. That last post includes a nice experience that my family had with Jason Varitek.    

The bottom line: I hope that you’ve enjoyed the first 100!

P.S. Don’t forget to read The Best Of Customer Experience Matters, Volume #1

For those of you that like to read things offline (on the train, plane, or wherever), I’ve created a .pdf version of the post “The Best Of Customer Experience Matters, Volume 1.”

How can you get it? Just click on the link below and download a 30-page .pdf file that contains the main post along with the other posts that are referenced…

The Best Of Customer Experience Matters, Volume 1 (.pdf)

The bottom line: Enjoy the reading!