I’ve written about how my opening keynote speech at Forrester’s Customer Experience Forum was based on Dorothy’s journey in The Wizard Of Oz. Given the story that I was telling, I presented the five stages of customer experience maturity as a yellow brick road.

As part of the discussion, I highlighted two components for each stage: 1) key focus and 2) cultural change. Since this part of my speech spanned several slides, I created this single graphic to capture the key content for my blog.

The bottom line: It’s time to map out your trip along this yellow brick road.

In a continuation of the look back at my first two years of blogging, today I’m listing some of my…

Favorite Recession Management Posts

The essence of leading in a recession is captured by this quote by John F. Kennedy:

The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word ‘crisis.’ One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity.

While there is some debate as to the accuracy of JFK’s interpretation, the sentiment is right. Here are some of my fsvorite posts about managing in a recession:

• The Customer Experience Journey To Oz (6/29/09). Managing in the recession takes heart, brains, and courage.
• Recession And Innovation From Wool To Hulu (3/18/09). Five smart people talk about the opportunity for innovation in a recession.
• Customer Experience Correlates To Loyalty (2/18/09). The correlation between customer experience an loyalty got stronger during the recession.
• Retail Execs Discuss Leading In A Recession (1/16/09). Good advice from senior execs at The Container Store, Polo, and Neiman Marcus.
• Recession Leadership: Be Real, Communicate, And Look Ahead (1/9/09). Great insights from guru Ram Charan.
• Turn Hard Times Into Goat Stew (12/24/08). Interesting, yet somewhat disturbing story about a butcher making the best of a bad situation in Afghanistan.
• Deciphering The Current Economic Situation (12/12/08). Extremely insightful explanation by a McKinsey director about why capitalism causes recessions.
• Recession Insights From Zeller’s CEO (11/7/08). I defined four questions that senior execs need to ask in a recession.
• Jeff Immelt On Managing In A Downturn (10/29/08). Must-read advice from the GE CEO to his business leaders.
• Recession Strategies From IDEO And Potatoes (10/23/08). Story about how the recession changes consumer habits.
• Keep Customer Experience Momentum In A Recession (5/2/08). My eight steps for keeping your company focused on customer experience.
• Lead Your Company Out Of A Downturn (2/16/08). Execs need to decide whether to manage their companies through the recession or lead them out of it.

The bottom line: Recessions require more leadership than ever. 

For the 10th straight quarter (a span of 2.5 years), I’ve been the most-read analyst at Forrester. In Q2, my readership was 75% higher than the next analyst. So, needless to say, customer experience remains a hot topic — even in the downturn.

To get a better sense of what’s hot, I’ve listed my 15 most-read research reports in Q2 2009 along with their publication dates (unfortunately, only Forrester clients can get full access to these reports):

1. The State Of Customer Experience, 2009 (4/24/09)
2. The Experiences That Satisfy Consumers, 2009 (4/14/09)
3. Engage Gen Y Online With Social Interactivity (6/2/09)*
4. How Customer Experience Drives Word Of Mouth (5/28/09)
5. Voice Of The Customer: The Next Generation (2/26/09)
6. The Customer Experience Journey (9/17/08)**
7. Customer Service Trumps Price (5/15/09)
8. Customer Experience Boosts Revenue (6/22/09)*
9. How Loyal Are Consumers? Not Very (5/18/09)
10. Customer Experience And Loyalty: A Closer Look (3/6/09)
11. Customer Experience Correlates To Loyalty (2/17/09)
12. Executive Q&A: Net Promoter Score (5/19/09)
13. Obstacles To Customer Experience Success, 2009 (2/20/09)
14. The Customer Experience Index, 2008 (12/12/08)**
15. Customer Experience Index 2008 Snapshot: Credit Card Providers (5/22/09)

Notes:
*Published in June; a lot of readership in a short period of time
**Published in 2008; they remain very popular

What’s coming next?

I will continue to dig deep into the customer experience efforts at large organizations, concentrating specifically on how companies move up the maturity scale in areas like culture, voice of the customer programs, metrics, and organizational alignment. In addition, I plan to expose some of the best practices and tools that companies are using to successfully navigate their customer experience journeys.

I am also analyzing how consumers view price and service in their evaluation of companies across industries. I hope to publish some research that dissects price-sensitive and service-sensistive cohorts. 

In the short-term, I will be publishing a research report that looks at the cross-channel best (and worst) practices in the auto insurance industry and a doc about best practices for customer experience in the downturn (from my keynote speech at Forrester’s Customer Experience Forum).

The bottom line: Keep reading and I’ll keep researching and writing.

In a continuation of the look back at my first two years of blogging, today I’m listing some of my…

Favorite Leadership Posts

The essence of leadership is captured in this quote by Napoleon:

The role of the leader is to define reality and give hope

• Free Book: The 6 New Management Imperatives (2/20/09). This free ”eBook” identifies the new competencies that are needed in today’s “radically changed business environment.”
• 6 Steps For The President To Revive “Brand USA” (11/3/08). In this post, I show how President Obama should apply the 6 new management imperatives.
• Don’t Get Distracted By Shareholders (3/15/09). Jack Welch comes out strong against the idea of focusing on shareholder value. 
• Great Advice From IBM’s Former CEO (8/4/08). Good leadership advice from Lou Gerstner.
• The CEO’s (Key) Role In Customer Experience (6/18/08). I dissect a quote from Ken Thompson who had done a great job creating a service-oriented culture at Wachovia.
• Leadership Lessons From Tim Russert (6/14/08). Execs can learn a lot from how he acted in his all too short life.
• Leadership Insights From Obama’s Inauguration Speech (1/21/09). My assessment of Obama’s first speech as president.
• Leadership Lesson: Less Is Better (1/11/09). Executives have to learn not to try and do too much.
• Sometimes Good Is Better Than Brilliant (4/28/08). Some good advice from the chairman of VF Corp.
• Amex CEO Gains Insights From Napoleon (4/10/08). I discuss a great quote from Napoleon.
• Four Management Styles: Are You Psychotic? (11/30/07). I had fun creating this 2×2 matrix.
• Words Of Wisdom: Gandhi On Sustainability (8/13/07). Gandhi says that there can be no give and take on fundamentals.

The bottom line: Good leadership is a scarce resource.

In a continuation of the look back at my first two years of blogging, today I’m listing some of my…

Favorite Corporate Culture Posts 

I really like how leadership guru Arthur F. Carmazzi describes the value of corporate culture:

The ability to do more than expected does not come from influencing others to do something they are not committed to, but rather to nurture a culture that motivates and even excites individuals to do what is required for the benefit of all.

• 6 C’s Of Customer-Centric DNA (4/10/09). I’ve identified 6 key elements for creating a customer-centric culture.
• Management Imperative #1: Invest In Culture As A Corporate Asset (10/21/08). There’s a reason why I put culture as the #1 imperative.
• Senior Execs Are Not Fully Customer-Centric (5/6/08). I’ve defined 8 signs of executive commitment.
• Execs Need To Focus More On Culture (5/4/09). A good discussion on “managing by the numbers” versus “building a strong culture.”
• Discussing Zappos’ Culture With Tony Hsieh (5/29/08). The service-orientation of Zappos’ culture can be directly connected to it’s CEO’s vision and operating style.
• WL Gore Succeeds Without Employees (12/7/08). A great example of a company that engages its “associates.”
• Tesco Showcases Strategy + Culture (9/11/08). Great quote in this one: “Tesco doesn’t want one leader. We want thousands of leaders who take initiative to execute the strategy.”
• Home Depot Still Has A Spark Of Customer Centricity (9/5/08). A comment from a Home Depot employee showcases how different leaders affected the company’s culture.
• Joie de Vivre Engages Employees And Everyone Wins (12/19/07). This provides an example of the ROI from a great corporate culture.
• Customer Experience Is The New Quality (6/20/08). The customer experience movement can learn a lot from the more mature quality movement.

The bottom line: Organizations change, but culture persists.

Since it’s the 4th of July, I want to wish everyone who is celebrating the holiday a…

Happy

Independence

Day!!!

In honor of the holiday, I decided to look back at some insights from a couple of our founding fathers.

Let’s start with a quote from John Hancock:

There’s only so many priorities that you can fund. What you choose to target, you need to win.

Here’s a quote from Samuel Adams:

Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason

My take: John Hancock points to an important concept — focus — which is something I spoke about in a post about Mayor Booker from Newark, NJ and in a post called Leadership Lesson: Less Is Better.

Samuel Adams’ quote talks about the need for empathy, which is critical when dealing with customers and employees. This quote from the Cleveland Clinic captures the essence of how to think about your customer interactions: ”The patient is not only an illness, he has a soul.”

When it comes to employees, this is a clear call for companies to focus on their corporate culture, which is why the first management imperative listed in my free eBook is ”Invest In Culture As A Corporate Asset.” 

The bottom line: Enjoy your 4th of July!

The US healthcare system needs a major makeover. Costs are skyrocketing, institutions aren’t geared for chronic care, and customer experiences aren’t very good. But there’s some hope.

Retailers and medical providers are applying retail strategies to health care. After closing a majority of its walk-in clinics, Wal-Mart is rebuilding the business through partnerships with hospitals, Cleveland Clinic is working with CVS drugstore clinics, and the Mayo Clinic operating a couple of Express Care clinics. These retail locations aim to increase the convenience and decrease the costs of some health care interactions.

In Forrester’s Customer Experience Forum, I led a panel of customer experience executives that included the Chief Experience Officers from both CIGNA (Ingrid Lindberg) and the Cleveland Clinic (M. Bridget Duffy, MD). It was great to see such dynamic executives leading customer experience transformations inside of these institutions.

Lindberg’s team found that the language used by the large insurer (which is common across the industry) was a huge barrier for individual consumers. So they created a list of words and acronyms not to use with members. By simply changing the words they saw a 156% increase in understanding. The visibility of customer experience at CIGNA has been raised to the point that it’s a monthly topic for the senior executive team.

The customer/patient experience effort at the Cleveland Clinic can be seen in the first few pages of it’s 2008 Annual Report:

This quote shows Cleveland Clinic’s commitment to more than medical outcomes. Duffy explained how each of the doctors at the Cleveland Clinic gets a scorecard at the end of the year with volume metrics and quality and safety metrics. The scorecard now includes patient satisfaction and loyalty scores.

The bottom line: Health care needs more leaders like Lindberg and Duffy

Editorial note: Bridget Duffy left the Cleveland Clinic.

In a continuation of the look back at my first two years of blogging, today I’m listing some of my…

Favorite Marketing/Branding Posts

From my perspective, brands aren’t color palettes or logos. They’re not tag lines or advertising campaigns. They’re an organization’s raison d’être. Here’s how I describe branding:

True brands are more than just marketing slogans, they’re the fabric that aligns all employees with customers in the pursuit of a common cause.

• Brands Are Dying; Deal With It (3/6/08). It’s time for companies to reinvigorate their brands.
• My First 8 Steps As A New CMO (9/13/08). I was pleasantly surprised by the enormous readership of this post which outlines how CMOs can get started.
• JetBlue’s “Happy Jetting” Is More Than Empty Promises (5/8/08). JetBlue showcases some basic principles of brand building.
• Ford (Finally) Turns Employees Into Brand Ambassadors (4/16/08). It’s critical to get your employees on board (and engaged with) any marketing efforts.
• CMOs: Start Building (Real) Loyalty (4/3/09). Highlights different research that can help CMOs build loyalty.
• 6 Steps For The President To Revive “Brand USA” (11/3/08). Even the USA has a branding problem.
• Marketing Lessons From An Ex-Marine (12/20/08). Find out how marketers can apply a Marine approach called BRASS.
• John Hancock Repositioning Provides Lesson About Empty Promises (4/24/08). Advertising should be used to reinforce branding, not create it.
• Firms Need Some Soul Searching (9/25/07). An important lesson from Aretha Franklin. 
• Don’t Let Profits Replace Purpose (8/13/07). Brands are much more than color palettes and logos, they represent a company’s reason for being. Many companies have lost site of that. 

The bottom line: Most organizations need to re-establish their raison d’être.

It’s hard to believe (at least for me) that I’ve been blogging for 2 years and that this is my 383rd post. Before I get too deep into this retrospective post, I want to send a big THANK YOU out to everyone who has been reading, commenting on, linking to, writing about, and passing along my blog.

I started blogging to raise the level and quality of discussions around topics that I am passionate about:

• Customer Experience
• Marketing/Branding
• Corporate Culture
• Leadership
• Managing through the recession

Hopefully I’ve made some headway on this goal!

Over the next week or so, I will list some of my favorite posts in each of those topic areas. Today, I’ll start by looking at my…

Favorite Customer Experience Posts

Walt Disney captured the essence of customer experience in this quote:

Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends

• The 6 Laws Of Customer Experience (7/22/08). If you do anything on my blog, make sure to download and read this free ”eBook.” It has become enormously popular and has been “syndicated” in many forms and languages by several organizations.
• Customer Experience Boosts Revenue (6/25/09). I built a model which projects the revenue increases from an improvement in customer experience across 12 industries.
• Forrester’s 2008 Customer Experience Rankings (12/15/08). Results from the second annual ranking of customer experience delivered by 100+ large US organizations.
• The Customer Experience Journey (9/18/08). This post is about one of my most popular 2008 research reports; it defines the five stages of customer experience maturity.
• Customer Experience Is The New Quality  (6/20/08). This post captures my basic philosophy about customer experience.
• Six Trends Reshape Voice Of The Customer Programs (3/8/09). Voice of the customer is a key area of customer experience, so companies need to adopt the leading practices.
• Don’t Confuse Customer Service With Customer Experience (3/24/09). This post provides my definition for customer experience and highlights the importance of customer service.
• My Closing Thoughts On Net Promoter (1/29/09). I’ve compiled my advice about the increasingly popular Net Promoter Score (NPS).
• Corporate Customer Experience Groups; To Do Or Not To Do? (9/20/08). This highlights my view about the role of a corporate customer experience executive and his/her related team.
• Lessons Learned From Chief Customer Officers (10/14/07). Advice for and from executives in charge of coportae customer experience efforts.
• My Manifesto: Great Customer Experience Is Free (9/11/07). Everything starts with a manifesto, here’s mine.
• Experience-Based Differentiation (6/17/07). This is the blueprint for customer experience excellence which drives my research; it won Forrester’s best research award.

The bottom line: Customer experience has come a long way in 2 years!

My opening keynote speech at Forrester’s Customer Experience Forum was titled “Charting Your Customer Experience Journey Through Tough Times.”  I made a lot of references to Dorothy’s journey in The Wizard Of Oz.

Dorothy had to overcome a lot of obstacles (flying monkeys, cranky witches, etc.). It turns out that the key ingredients to her success are also the key ingredients for a company’s customer experience efforts in these tough economic times:

• Heart (Tin Man): These economic times are unsettling for customers and employees. So companies need to raise the bar on their empathy to cater to the changing needs of customers and to build engagement with employees.
• Brains (Scarecrow): It’s easy to make sweeping across the board cuts to respond to a tough economy. But companies need to think more deeply about their business to distinguish what’s really important (and shouldn’t be cut) from those things that are not important (and can be cut).
• Courage (Lion): While the natural tendency is to get into a defensive mode during a recession, companies need to prepare for the future and strengthen their business. I referenced this quote from John F. Kennedy:

The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word ‘crisis.’ One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity.

There’s some debate as to the accuracy of JFK’s interpretation of the Chinese characters, but the sentiment is absolutely correct! 

I ended my presentation with a rewritten version of the song “Somewhere Over The Rainbow.” Here are the lyrics:

Click here to download the song (.wav, 13.5MB)

There was a lot more in my speech, like the Yellow Brick Road of customer experience maturity. So I’ll be writing more about my comments and other parts of the forum over the next week.  Stay tuned!

The bottom line: Don’t wait for a wizard to improve your customer experience