So my side note of the moment – why do I get stuck inside my own head sometimes and why do I let it lead me astray?  Here’s the thing – I’m on a journey to become more healthy, sustainably healthy.  Not a diet, not a workout now and drop it later but real change.  As a result, I want to feel better, more energized, lose some weight, be stronger and set a good example of a healthy lifestyle for my daughter.  Be the change I wish to see in the world (and in her).  Thank you, Ghandi. 

I’ve made progress (lost 12 inches, given up fast food and soda, very limited food in that comes from boxes or cans – start fresh, dropped a size and working out on a very regular basis).  Turns out that I am loving the change but somehow, I’m still not happy enough with my progress.  Crazy right?  I think it is the evil scale in the corner of my bathroom.  It haunts me with it’s mocking digital readout that states that for all the change, I still have only managed seven pounds. 

I’d like to do the sane thing and chuck the scale, truly I would.  But, I am number kind of gal and while the measurements are great, some part of me still thinks the scale is a key metric I can’t do away with.  So, sad to say but it is not the scale, it is me, standing in my way in my head.  I can’t revel in how much good I’ve done so far because all I can see is what I haven’t done.  Thoughts? Comments?  Stories?  Cheery support?  Let me know what you think.  And thanks for joining me on my Side Note!

Let’s start with Customer Satisfaction vs. Customer Loyalty (including NPS) – what are you going to use it for? 

• Customer satisfaction is all about us – the company/product/service/employees – how did we do? 
• Customer loyalty is all about your customers and their behavior – what stories will they tell about you?  What will they say when someone asks them what they think about a company/product/service?

Picking one or the other (or using both) starts with knowing how you will use the data once you get it. 

• Customer satisfaction – great for repeatable events (like customer support or field service) that need a customer based metric on the scorecard and to drive repeatable excellence in the customer experience. 
• Customer loyalty – great for determining what stories customer’s are telling about you.  Good at showing (or even predicting) customer lifetime value.  Excellent source of customer feedback for product or brand improvement suggestions.

Once you’ve decided how you want customer feedback to apply to your business, it becomes easier to answer questions like “how often do I ask?” and “what method do I use to get the customer’s feedback?” or even “at what level do I ask the question (brand/product/service)?”  **We’ll get to these questions in my next post in this series.**

I’m big on actionable information.  I like to know what business questions customer feedback will answer or what business problems customer feedback will resolve.  It helps me find the right focus for applying customer metrics.  My program team is service oriented – we are here to help our business partners across the company and improve the customer experience at the same time.  This is important because it is feedback from the customers and my business partners that help fuel how I design a program.

These are my thoughts.  What do you think?  Share your experience with me.

Here are the areas we will cover together in the next couple of weeks:

• Strategy:
  • Appetite for risk
  • Customer focus
  • Embracing innovation
• People:
  • Executive buy-in
  • Employee engagement
  • Company culture
• Metrics:
  • Satisfaction and loyalty
  • Customer retention
  • Customer lifetime value

I look forward to hearing what you think as we go through these topics.

The last step is the hardest for me – getting in shape and losing the weight.  Here’s we head back to the patience thing.  See, when I have worked out in the past, I’ve often either gained or stayed the same in the weight category.  So I quit.  Wow, that is uglier in print than in my head. 

I made a commitment to myself that this time, I won’t quit.  I will stay the course.  So, three weeks ago, I chose a Christmas present for myself.  45 pounds in 31 weeks.  45 pounds will put me at my ideal weight.  It’s a big goal and the timeline a bit aggressive but it’s better to challenge myself on this. 

No matter the results, I’m staying at it until the end of 31 weeks.  

I’m up to an hour of cardio and strength training six days a week.  I’m working my way up to 90 minutes per day.  So here I am at week three – not much in the way of weight loss so far (3 pounds) but I have lost some inches.  Frustrating but some progress is better than nothing, right?  Patience, I remind myself.   But I wish I were better at this whole patience thing.  Any words of advice for me?

Measuring retention instead of churn shouldn’t be anymore difficult, as metrics go.  It should be designed to fit how you sell in your marketplace and around customer behavior.  I like how retention metrics focus on the positive and language turns into more customer focused intentions rather than preventative measures.  I like how retention can be proactive (“What can we do to be even better? How would you like to see us improve?”) and gets you out of being strictly reactive (“Oh, you want to leave?  Can we do something to keep you now?”)  Being focused on keeping the customer once they have decided to leave feels like “too little, too late”.  At that point, I am often more insulted than interested in taking any offer to stay.  Why wasn’t I valuable enough to you for this discounted offer before I decided to leave you?

So I vote that it’s time to leave behind the churn metrics and move forward into retention metrics.  Let’s show our customers we care about them now, while they are still with us on that customer experience ride.  What do you say?

So here I am, honoring her gentle nudge and making the room to write.

I’m fortunate that after months of searching, my team and I have found a new program manager.  We get to have a new set of skills and experience to add to our small team.  It gives us the ability to add even more value to our organization and delve deeper into understanding our customer experience.  I believe passionately in the service we provide to the business.  I love being able spend my days thinking about our customers.  Part of the search for a new team member means finding someone who has a similar passionate view. 

What’s most interesting to me about this process is how important company culture fit is to the discussion.    How many times have you been on an interview (or interviewed candidates) and found the focus being all on skills and experience – with little or none on that important “fit”?  That fit is more than just do you like this person and think you can work well with them.  It’s an important concept because I don’t want it confused with homogenisation.  Having diversity is equally key.  So how do you define your company or team culture?  How do you find that right fit for your team?

Our way was thoughtful, open discussion and decision consensus across the interviewers.  What works for you?  What hasn’t worked for you?

1)  Am I sleeping better?  You betcha.  I not only sleep better, I dream more.  Go figure on that one… or perhaps I just remember my dreams even more.

2) Is my husband sleeping better?  Yes indeed.  If anything, the total silence when I sleep is a bit concerning for him.  He has yet to adjust and still checks to see if I am actually breathing now and again.

3) Am I breathing better overall? Yes, I am.  It still feels a bit odd to actually be breathing on both sides of my nose but I am doing much better.

4) Do I have more energy? Oh yes… I haven’t had this much energy in years.  Must be a combo of more oxygen in my blood and better sleep but I am loving it.  I feel like my energy level has improved significantly.

5) Would I recommend the surgery to others? Yes I would.  It hurt more than I thought going in (and I thought it would be bad) but it was worth every bit.  I genuinely wish I had done this sooner. 

As a reminder, I had the “snoring surgery” and repair for a severely deviated septum at the same time.  The two together is what resulted in more pain than I anticipated.  For those who are going for one or the other, the recovery should be easier.  Throw in the fact that I lost five pounds during the recovery, which was a lovely added bonus. 

This makes excellent progress on my personal goals for the year.

1) Breathe – this year, I will breathe better, it is my health goal – I will do what it takes and I know what that is (ever had surgery for a deviated septum?  Then you know the pain of which I speak.)

2) Pocket – I always think of time in carved out sections now.  Probably because I have been trained in the corporate view of time in half hour or hour increments.  But this year, I will make more small pockets of time for those I care about.  Pick up the phone for just a few minutes, play a game with Samantha, go to lunch with Shawn – that kind of thing.

3) Fearless – I love that question, “What would you do if you knew you could not fail?” So that is going to be my filter, my gut check for my decisions this year.  I may not change all of my choices based on that but I will know more about why I make the choices I do.  I am going to try to fear less in 2009. 

My three words for 2009.  Let’s see how I do with this, shall we?  Stay tuned and I will let you know.