Driving Action in Customer Experience

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 . One , two three , four .

Jeannie Walters 0:31

Hello , Customer Experience Change Agents . It is time for another episode of Experience Action , the podcast where I , Jeannie Walters , answer your questions whenever you leave me a voicemail , so let's listen in now .

Listener Question 0:48

Hi Jeannie . This is Kiah from the Experience Investigators team . This question came to us from a participant at one of our recent webinars: Once you have buy-in , how do you promote and motivate CX getting to the rest of the organization ? We have a cross-functional team , but they don't always go back and share the information with their teams . What can we do to improve this communication ?

Jeannie Walters 1:11

Communication in customer experience is so incredibly important . We literally cannot emphasize it enough . You know , when I work with clients all over , one of the things I hear is frustration , because sometimes customer experience is treated as a project or a program or something to check off the list . But really customer experience is about who we are , how we show up and what we actually do for our customers , not the products and services that we sell , but what happens to their lives , their businesses , their roles because of the products and services and the actual experience we give them along the journey as a customer with our brand . So I love the awareness of this question , because many of us are in the situation , as customer experience leaders , where we might have a slightly ragtag team of leaders who want to contribute , who believe they understand , who are eager to be part of something called customer experience , but then when we ask them to bring back specific instructions or ideas or feedback loops to their separate teams , sometimes that just falls to the end of the to-do list . So what can we do ? Well , first of all , if you have a cross-functional team , consider yourself lucky , because not everybody does . But if you have that cross-functional buy-in , make sure that you are effectively managing that team and the meetings that you have with them in a way that drives progress forward . I see a lot of organizations who have what they call customer experience councils or teams and they get together and they basically look over the numbers of customer feedback and they say , " Hey , Joe , your engineering team should really look at this thing from a customer and this complaint and this number and let us know what you're going to do about that . So Joe goes back to his team with very good intentions , by the way , and then Joe gets , you know , distracted , like we all do , with the daily tasks at hand , and so maybe that customer experience discussion never really comes up , and the reason it never comes up is because Joe is not really held accountable . Joe doesn't have the right kind of authority , maybe , or even influence , to make the changes that are coming up in customer feedback . So as you develop these meetings and these teams , make sure you are structured in the right ways . We can't always have influence and authority over our colleagues . We don't have the right to say to the product team change your whole roadmap, right ? We need to figure this out for our customers . That's not what we're looking for . We need to collaborate and co-create and make sure there is so much engagement that the communication is happening because of that . So a few ideas for you if you are in this situation . One is make sure you have very clear goals around what this team is and what the expectations are . This is the jJoe reason we developed our tool called a customer experience charter . Now , if you have a team of folks who are really trying to move forward with customer experience efforts , the last thing you want to do is have them attend a meeting that is unproductive . If you don't have focused goals , if you don't have specific ways that you're asking people to participate , then you're wasting everybody's time . I hate to say that , but it might be true . So if this is one of those hard truths in your organization , a couple tools that we have . One is the customer experience charter document . This is where you outline what are organizational goals , what are the efforts , who's involved , who's doing what when , what are we all committed to here ? Because that way , when people attend your meetings , when they become part of that team , they know what the expectations are there is no doubt about that and you know what people roll in and out of these teams . They don't necessarily stay there for the long haul . So having the charter document actually helps set expectations for anybody coming in at any point . The other thing for that meeting specifically is we have specific ways that we like to run those meetings . There are resources at Experience Investigators where you can find out , you know , what's an agenda , how should we do this , how do we follow up and hold people accountable , what's the best way to set those expectations ? So take a look at that , because setting expectations is all about connecting with the bigger picture . And again , this is where customer experience management within an organization can be so challenging , because everything feels like a priority and there are a lot of ad hoc things going on . Everything feels like a priority and there are a lot of ad hoc things going on . Maybe you have customer journey mapping happening in one group and you are completely separate from the voice of the customer group or the customer insights group . We want to bring all of that together around your customer experience mission and defining what success looks like , so you know exactly what to do . So anytime you are bringing this team together , you want to start with the mission and your overall goals . Remind everybody . This is why we're here . This is why all win if we do this well The last thing we want is for somebody to walk away from that meeting and think , yeah , it's nice nice, mean , I would love to be nicer to customers , but we just don't have time for that . I'm sure you've heard this . So , setting those expectations from the beginning , having clear goals , making sure that's documented and communicated with that core group , and then make sure you're actually asking for them to do something . Now again , this might sound so basic , but think about how many meetings people have where we walk away and we say , yeah , that was a good meeting . We talked a lot about different ideas . I'm glad other people are going to take care of that , because if we don't have a specific action that we are asking our team members to take , then how can we expect them to actually deliver on that ? They will go back to their teams and get distracted . There will be short-term issues that feel very urgent , that take priority over these customer experience efforts . So we want to get very clear on everybody's call to action and you want to not just document that , but say that out loud , confirm at the end of the meeting . This is all best practices , not just about customer experience but about meetings in general . general . w i Then we want to follow up . We want to have proactive ways to check in and say , hey Joe , how did that conversation go ? Is there anything you need from me ? Can I support you in this ? Joe might say , oh gosh , I totally forgot , we haven't gotten there yet . You then can be prepared . You can say you know what ? I found some quotes from our customers in recent customer feedback that I think might help you tell this story . Or , hey , joe , could I come in and help you facilitate a journey mapping session just around this issue ? Do we need to do some root cause analysis to figure out why this keeps happening ? Be a resource , but be proactive here . Don't just wait for them to come back to that next meeting and shrug and say , oh yeah , we didn't get to that , and shrug and say , oh yeah , we didn't get to that . We need to empower and engage and make sure that we are providing the right resources , support tools , whatever we need , so that that leader is successful . And that's the focus . If we are only communicating about bad news and we are only communicating in a way that is punitive , meaning that we go to these different department heads and we say thanks for being at this meeting . You know customers are really complaining about this thing . You better fix that . They're going to start running down the hallway when they see us . They're going to start running down the hallway when they see us . So communication is really about this idea of let's set the right expectations , let's make sure we are asking specifically for action , not just assuming that we are following up and that we are recognizing and rewarding the people who do this well . So if you have one of those leaders who takes that call to action and really moves forward with their team , then when they bring that information back , you want to celebrate that . You want to show the rest of the organization and the rest of the team what can happen . When we work together in this way on behalf of our customers , we all win . Our organizational results go up . We want to celebrate the leader who is doing so well , give them some of that public recognition and then , at the end of the day , we need to make sure that we are never , ever wasting people's time . And unfortunately I have heard this feedback from different leaders . They say , yeah , I know I go to these meetings , I'm part of this team , I'm going to stop going . It's not worth my time . That's because they don't understand how these efforts are connected to the bigger organizational goals . They don't see a way that they personally will be rewarded for this , see a way that they personally will be rewarded for this , and they don't feel confident about what they're being asked to do . So anytime we are communicating , we really need to be very clear about the goals , the actions , the results and the recognition . We also , of course , can lean into some of the ways that we work today . Do you have collaborative channels that might help , things like Slack or Teams , where you can have a conversation about everything going on in CX and give people that real-time support that sometimes they're looking for . They can also get inspired by what other team members are doing with the information and then , if you're still struggling getting people to really bring this back and do things with it , ask people to be a communication champion . I have seen this work where sometimes organizations can work hand in hand with their internal communications group , or you can also just find maybe a more junior person on the team and invite them in and say your job is to communicate this . Help us understand what's the best way to communicate to this team . You know , one of the things that is challenging is that if you have an engineering team , that might be a very different set of needs around communication than a marketing team or a social media team . It's just different people with different skill sets . We need to meet them where they are . And if you're looking for oh my gosh , where do we start with this ? Use the tools in your toolkit . Do a little journey map about what should this look like ? Figure out what are those processes , tools , technology and people that we need in order to deliver that . So when you're thinking about communicating around customer experience , remember the job is never , ever done . We need to build momentum , moment by moment , with the right communication . Great question , I can feel you working hard . 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 . So thank you for all that you're doing . Thank you for the fabulous questions . Keep them coming coming . AskJeannie . vip is where you want to leave me a voicemail , and if you're a little shy and don't want to leave your voice or you don't want to say your name , you are free not to say your name and leave me an anonymous question we get those all the time .

Customer Experience and Support Outreach

Jeannie Walters 14:04

Or if you want to send it to us via email or through any of our social channels , you are welcome to do that as well , and we'll have a team member read it , just like we did today . So thanks to everybody who is listening in , who's watching on YouTube , and don't forget that you can find a lot on our YouTube channel . So if you haven't checked that out yet , I encourage you to do that , and I hope to see you at an upcoming webinar or LinkedIn Live or just in the general interwebs . Say hi , let me know how you're doing and let us know if we can ever support you and the incredible work that you do . Don't forget my mission is to create fewer ruined days for customers , and you being here with me helps me live that mission . So thank you so much and I'll see you next time . To learn more about our strategic approach to experience . Check out free resources at experienceinvestigators . com , where you can sign up for our newsletter , our Year of CX program and more , and please follow me , Jeannie Walters , on LinkedIn .