In a CX minute: Thoughts on customer experience, May 5, 2021

Welcome to week seven of In a CX Minute.

Let me try something different today: I want to share three things that came up during conversations this week and get your input or comments on it (that’s what we mean by conversation – if I’m the only one talking, it’s a monologue or soliloquy).

Before we get started, please, please, please don’t get stuck on semantics. These concepts we will debate are very important to get behind as you design and adopt CX initiatives in your organizations. What’s the risk of getting stuck in semantics? “anyone who’s been stuck in the mud in Alabama knows, you step on the gas, one tire spins, the other tire does nothing” (points for identifying that line’s origin).

Speaking of origin – this is a good place to start

I was having an excellent discussion on data (as we all do these days, constantly, right?) and adoption of digital technologies and processes during the pandemic when someone asked me what I thought was the biggest barrier to adoption and implementation of data-driven and insight-driven processes.

As always, I said “people don’t understand data” – which caused someone in the meeting to call me on it and says, “that’s a cop out, you can’t just say people don’t get it – define that”.

Challenge accepted (again, brownie points for origin – before clicking on the link, of course).

Here is what most organizations fail to understand about data: The data usage cycle.

Origin –> Purpose –> Outcome –> Insight –> Destination

If you don’t know:

• What it’s used for
• What it does for us
• What can we learn from its use
• And where it goes…

there’s not a lot you can do with it.

Caveats: this is not a technical discussion of which database or table is responsible for storing the data, or what process uses it – rather this is a model to understand how data plays in processes.

If you, for example, would like to use the customer’s phone number – do you know how to capture that? Store it safely? Obtain permission to use it? Comply with regulations when using it? (That’s origin, as an example).

How about why use the phone number versus another identifier? Why would you use this – unlike most companies that do it to exert marketing messages to the customer, is there a purpose to using this specific data identifier? Maybe something that is directly related to the process it is supporting?  (purpose discussion, as you can surmise)

I have plenty of questions, but this is how an organization gets to identify the right data for each process and use that to co-create value at each interaction: having the right data, the right insight is what will ensure we reach the proper outcome, while meeting customer expectations.

Let’s say you got this, and let’s say you are among the few organizations who has both embraced the data usage cycle and adopted it for your decision making – what’s next?

Types of customer data: Definitions, value, examples

Types of customer data serve distinct purposes. Identity data, descriptive data, attitudinal data, behavioral data defined with examples.

Let’s talk about the experience for the customer

Sorry, you knew at some point it had to come about… yes, this is the time.

This came up during an executive workshop I was fortunate enough to be invited to contribute and participate in.

We were talking about how an experience can be designed for the customer (this is about a real-live, physical experience – not about what we call experiences and are interactions… but I already discussed this plenty in the past here and elsewhere – I won’t go back to that).

One of the salient points that emerged from this workshop (and it sounds corny): we need to differentiate between customer experience and the experience of the customer.

This is paramount to understanding the responsibilities and duties of each participant: the organization is responsible and deals with ensuring that customer experiences happen, and the customer is the one in charge and making sure their experience of the customer is what it should be (this is why I don’t want you to get stuck on semantics, it is far more than a clever re-arranging of words).

We often, well – I often, say that the customer is in charge of their own experience, that they change it ad-hoc according to circumstances, and that experiences are not linear or corresponding to a journey (they may be part of one, but there is rarely a correlation between journey and experience that is straight).

Organizations must invest in CX, the infrastructure (tech and processes, maybe even people and culture) that powers the customized workflows that customers leverage according to their expectations to fulfill their in-the-moment needs.

By differentiating between customer experience and the experience of the customer we can, as organizations, truly let the customer build their own experience, while focusing on our end of that interaction: making sure that experience the customer or consumer chose to be their experience for this moment can be realized.

The more I spend time working the details and differences between the two, the more I like the idea of having two similar concepts, with different stakeholders that care for them – what do you think?

What is a customer experience analysis? CX strategy 101

If you want to drive business revenue and loyalty, you need to understand what a customer experience analysis is and how to act upon the results. 

Do your customers love you, loathe you, or are they ambivalent about you?
Why does this matter?

And final point I’ve been mulling and debating this week as I go around talking to people (my job: talking – yeah, I know): detect versus measure.

This one became clearer as I was having a debate on a video show about humanizing CX for all stakeholders. Of course, humanizing means more sentiments and feelings and such stuff. You know me and that stuff – I don’t believe that organizations are human or can be humanized, right? You’ll get there, trust me.

Anyways, the person I was conversing with was making a point about measuring feelings – which you cannot do – and it dawned on me that, just like CX versus the experience of the customer, the problem we are having is that we recognize the importance of emotions and feelings, but we also don’t know what to do about them.

As someone said, “you cannot manage that which you cannot measure”.  Therefore, if we want to add sentiments or feelings or emotions to the concepts of experience – we must measure them.

How upset can you be? How is you being 4/10 or 8/10 upset will make a difference in how an interaction is resolved? How about 0/10?  Or 10/10? The resolution, what the customer expects to get at the end of it – and the outcome that organization strives for – is unrelated to emotions. Thus, trying to measure a 4/10 or 8/10 in a scale of upset is worthless.

What counts, what helps, and what you must understand is that an interaction, which is what you are working for, has many variables – among them, potentially, emotions. However, you only need to know about them in binary form (is present, is not present), not in a scale or number. You don’t need to measure them, you simply need to detect them, or sense them to be present.

Want to use speech analytics to see if someone is upset or happy? Great, do it – but the extent of their value is a binary contribution of a multi-variable equation that is resolved differently each time and where those emotions may or may not play a role (and only as one of many and in binary form).

In other words, don’t think that by “measuring” emotions to becoming more “empathetic” an organization will deliver better experiences.
Because that is not what’s happening.

It is simply one more datum point – and one that only indicates you need to work in that interaction to bring it back to normal, not as an influence on the outcome. If you can rescue an interaction by calming down a known upset customer, for example, you bring it back to normal and execution resumes.

Simple, non?

In other words, use those signals you capture to detect potential negative data points (emotions or otherwise) and then use workflows and insights to normalize execution.

Empower agents to bring about peace and happiness, to make sure the infrastructure supports customers experience, as needed, and then let the customer focus on completing the experience of the power they set out to accomplish in this instance (it all comes around, full circle, when you set out to connect data points)

Come on, let me know what you think – email me at the worse kept secret in the industry, ping me on LinkedIn. Let’s talk about this.

If you do, I am likely to spotlight you in the next episode of “I don’t know what I am doing, with friends” video recording in the coming weeks.

What do you think? Want to be famous?

You can find the ‘In a CX Minute’ section HERE if you’d like to catch up on my other musings.