The Corporate Woman

So tell me, is your customer experience deliberate?  That was one of the questions posed last week at the NPS conference and it made me think – what do you mean by deliberate?  Does that mean written down?  Does that mean everyone in the company knows it?  I think that you have to be both – every employee should know it, feel it really, and it should be written down.  Because if no one writes it down, everyone believes we all have the same idea… and I would bet that isn’t the case.  It may be shades of grey close but still, is that deliberate enough?  This is beyond mission statements and core values – this is what you want your customers to see, think and feel when they interact with you and your products/services.  Right?  What do you think?

Tags: customer exprience

Few things will kill the development of a successful program designed for change than unengaged stakeholders.  For many, the desire to get things done quicklycauses the elements of communication and engagement to fall by the wayside.  If you have been in that situation, you know how easily you end up wondering at the end why your new or improved process isn’t going as well as planned. 

I have found that it saves a great deal of time and work if you spend the up front time engaging key stakeholders across the business.  This process is critical, yes, I said it, CRITICAL, to ensuring change is successfully enacted.  It helps on several levels, for example:

• You identify your internal supporters and detractors.  Listening to them helps you develop their WIFM and ensure you are able to overcome obstacles.
• The stakeholders feel a part of the change.  Their voice is heard and thoughtfully understood.
• The initial stakeholders identify other people you need to add to the list.

This is a process I teach my team and advocate for every new program or process.  When you have stakeholder interviews up front, you get great ideas to help you be even more successful and identify the obstacles to overcome.   Having this group on your communication list for ongoing updates also helps keep your improvement top of mind.  Do you engage your stakeholders at the beginning of every new project or program?

Tags: Program, Stakeholders, Success

I’m going to try and avoid my soapbox here but I will warn you in advance that I may not be successful.  You be the judge…

In my experience, most surveys I’ve taken and seen (includes both those I’ve been asked to provide input on as well as those I couldn’t bear to actually complete), don’t really get actionable information as a result.  I get the sense that most people think surveys are easy to do and really, how hard can it be to come up with a bunch of questions?  In a way, they are right.  It’s not usually the questions that trip you up (although there are those and we’ll get to that in a bit).  The hard part, the tripping point, is really purposeful information.

1. If you had the answer to this survey question, what action would you take with it? 
2. Pretend you’re the opposite of a lawyer and don’t ask any questions when you already know the answer. 
3. Would you take this survey if you got it? Really?
4. Avoid conjunctions.  I don’t know why this comes up so often.  Conjunctions don’t conveniently shorten your survey by grouping concepts, they cloud your results.  (And, but, or, yet, for, nor, so).  “Please rate your satisfaction with the cleanliness and quality of our bathroom.”  Really, is cleanliness the same as quality?  Perhaps it was clean but the toilet paper was of poor quality… but I digress to another potential blog here.
5. Don’t be so wordy.  Overdone corporate speak, really long questions and acronyms are the usual culprits here.  Keep it short and simple to get the best results.
6. Have at least one open text/feedback question.  Instead of trying to cover every possible base, leave the customer the chance to share what they want to share, the way they want to share it.

And my last thoughts on the manner – keep the whole survey short and focused on your point.  Tell me how long the survey is or will take in the invite.  There’s always more but these are the things that always seem to come up in one form or another.  Now you tell me – how many times have you seen these simple rules violated?

Tags: best practices, customer loyalty, customer satisfaction, design, suggestions, survey

I was inspired by a conversation with a colleague, to write about this very topic.  Why do we tend to add complexity?  In other words, why is simple so darn hard?  We appreciate it, we recognize it when we see it, we even admire it – but aspire to it as an integral thing, nope, that’s just not natural behavior – or so it seems. 

I’d like to say I’m exempt from such bewildering behavior but I’m not.  I remind myself daily, like my very own mantra, how could I do this simpler, clearer, easier? 

So, not being an expert, I can merely pontificate on the potential causes – Is it human nature?  History might well bear out the truth in that.  My thought is that it has something to do with being an adult or the process of becoming an adult.  Children can be quite direct and simple with veritable effortless glee.  So I wonder if it has something to do with the socialization process that forces us to add complexity rather than automatically strive for the simpler the better.

But enough about me and what I think!  I’m far more curious to learn what you think about this topic.  Leave a comment and let us all know why you think simple is so hard.

Tags: Communication

Okay, I admit it, I am new to the social media whirl.  I am an admitted party wallflower – sociable and gregarious in compact and focused settings but throw me into a party of strangers and watch me cringe.  I spend more wondering what to say, trying to remember my “hmmmm, that’s interesting” questions and trying to determine what the polite time to leave is, that I never get to the actual enjoying part.  Sad, is it not?

So why would I be willing to plunge into the social media merry-go-round with so many I don’t know (and some that I do)?  Think of it like therapy.  If I can come up with interesting things to say that total strangers could possibly enjoy without thinking me entirely untenable, I might, just might, get more confidence and comfort level on the in person thing.  I also get the chance to learn interesting (and sometimes not so interesting) things, which is good, because I love to learn.

So where did I take the plunge, you ask?  Well, I chose Twitter (@TabithaDunn) and Facebook.  Twitter because it seemed the most challenging and Facebook because my friends seem to inexplicably hear a bellwether that caused them to migrate there.  So, after some polite social pressure, I caved and joined.  Now I have friends and tweeps.  I am even slowly collecting followers, which may or may not mean anything, depending on who you ask.  <grin>

What about you?  Have you taken the plunge?  If so, where did you dive?

Tags: Facebook, Social Media, Twitter

I had the opportunity to speak to the local Toastmaster’s group and guests yesterday on the topic of public speaking.  I shared with them my journey from terror and lots of mistakes to finally learning how to be comfortable and myself in front of an audience.  I was happy to share my pain and suffering in the hopes that someone could learn from what I have learned.  The most fun was hearing the questions people asked!

It was also thought provoking to look back and remember how much speaking used to terrify me.  Did it used to scare you?  Or does it still?  Why is this such a scary thing?  At the time, it seemed so clear to me why my knees were knocking, my breath was short and I couldn’t remember a darn thing I planned to say.  But I can’t seem to pin down the why.  It just was.  I am so thankful now that these experiences are actually fun and interesting.  I am fortunate that I was able to learn from all those mistakes and overcome my fear.  Now I get to share what I learned!

Tags: Public Speaking

There isn’t one best way to best understand your customers but whatever you choose, it really needs to start with understanding their behaviors.  For example, your customer has decided to leave and you have a way to capture the reason why.  When they say price… do you accept that?  Or do you realize that price really means something else – such as “Budget – something in my life has changed and I need more money in my budget, so this has to go or I need a cheaper price” or “Value – I just don’t see the value in this vs. what I have to pay”.  Neither of those are actually price – they are root causes of the price top level statement. 

So being able to dig into the behaviors of your customers and understand why they do what they do is incredibly valuable.  In this way, you can really flesh out customer segmentation and work on developing personas or mental models that can actually give you actionable customer insights to drive decision making and strategy development.  And this part of a customer experience program can be very fun – I always enjoying digging in and understanding customers.  How about you?

Tags: Customer Experience, Customers, Loyalty

The importance of communication in leading a successful change effort cannot be overestimated.  I find myself pondering that element while participating in a major change initiative at work.  It is difficult, in our busy day-to-day world, to remember that others are not mind-readers - there is not instantaneous knowledge transfer.  Therefore, what you know is not necessarily known to others.  So how do you, as a leader, remember to communicate to the broader audience? How many of us build a formal communication element into our planning process that enables us to segregate people into communication audience categories and follow up diligently throughout the change?  Based on my experience this is a key element of employee dissatisfaction, when done poorly.  And what a shame, because so many initiatives might be more successful had effective communication happened in a timely manner.

Tags: Change, Communication, Leadership