Category: CEMMethod

Where is your work ethic mate?

One day a fisherman was lying on a beautiful beach, with his fishing pole propped up in the sand and his solitary line cast out into the sparkling blue surf. He was enjoying the warmth of the afternoon sun and the prospect of catching a fish.

(from the desk of James Dodkins)

About that time, a businessman came walking down the beach, trying to relieve some of the stress of his workday. He noticed the fisherman sitting on the beach and decided to find out why this fisherman was fishing instead of working harder to make a living for himself and his family.

“You aren’t going to catch many fish that way,” said the businessman to the fisherman, “you should be working rather than lying on the beach!” The fisherman looked up at the businessman, smiled and replied, “And what will my reward be?”

“Well, you can get bigger nets and catch more fish!” was the businessman’s answer. “And then what will my reward be?” asked the fisherman, still smiling.

The businessman replied, “You will make money and you’ll be able to buy a boat, which will then result in larger catches of fish!” “And then what will my reward be?” asked the fisherman again.

The businessman was beginning to get a little irritated with the fisherman’s questions. “You can buy a bigger boat, and hire some people to work for you!” he said. “And then what will my reward be?” repeated the fisherman.

The businessman was getting angry. “Don’t you understand? You can build up a fleet of fishing boats, sail all over the world, and let all your employees catch fish for you!” Once again the fisherman asked, “And then what will my reward be?”

The businessman was red with rage and shouted at the fisherman, “Don’t you understand that you can become so rich that you will never have to work for your living again! You can spend all the rest of your days sitting on this beach, looking at the sunset. You won’t have a care in the world!”

The fisherman, still smiling, looked up and said, “And what do you think I’m doing right now?”

CEMMethod step 2: Crafting the Successful Customer Outcome

If you find this a useful addition to you Outside-In* toolkit let us know and we will release more 🙂

Six steps to winning with the Customer Experience

1. Start by identifying the Moments of Truth (customer interactions)that exist across all of your customer experiences (you can create more specific experience maps later).


2. Make a list of all the Moments of Truth (MOT).For each MOT write a description, method of interaction, and customer expectation.
We use the Diagnostics dashboard to make sure we turn the MOTs into 15 quantifiable and actionable metrics.

There are three ways to collect and collate this information:

  • Workshops of all interested people.
    That includes customers, advisors, employees and management.
  • Recording of actual experiences.
    Yes, record the experiences and evaluate afterwards. We use a video technique that identified Moments of Truth with red flashes, Internal Interactions with blue and decision points as green.
  • Analysis of customer feedback.
    Review the letters, calls and social network commentary and capture the experiences to gain insights and a better understanding.

3. Document the learning and produce a visual illustration(process activity maps).


4. Use the maps to identify areas working well and those that need improvement.Focus on the critical MOTs — those crucial interactions that determine whether the experience you are creating delivers the optimum encounter, expectation and emotion.


5. Build a Action Plan to engineer the ABACUS of the customer experience.
At each stage identify the relevant MOTs that cover off these elements:

  • Awareness
    When and How does the customer become aware of the process, product or service you offer?
  • Buy-In
    How and Where does the customer ‘get it’ and become an advocate for the experience?
  • Acquisition
    How is the purchase made. Not just a product buy but the actual commitment.
  • Care
    Why should the customer care? How do you ensure the trust and commitment is reciprocal and reinforced?
  • Use
    How does the product, service work. Has it been designed from the customers perspective (Outside-In)? Ease of use goes beyond efficiency and focuses directly on the actual customer experience.
  • Share
    In our always-on world how does Share happen? Is that understood and optimized? Recall the fantastic tale from Canada – Westjet Christmas story[1] with more than 35 million hits on youtube in 3 months. By the way that is more than the population of Canada! That’s good news, but what about capturing the bad news before it becomes a crisis – recall the United Breaks guitar[2] story?


6. Engage the entire organization to undertake the journey to Customer Experience Management.We use the structured CEMMethod™, derived from the work of companies such as Virgin, Disney, Southwest Airlines, Emirate, BMW, Bentley, Zara and many more truly Outside-In enterprises. Whoever and where-ever you are it is directly and immediately useful.

If you are serious about engineering the Customer Experience then let us know (below). We will provide immediate links to videos, resources and an expert community doing this stuff as a way of life.



[1] Westjet Christmas – a terrific example of sharing your values and ethos – http://bit.ly/1habsP2

[2] United Breaks Guitars – how a bad experience turns into a corporate crisis – http://bit.ly/1dmOKaW
 

The And or Or of Customer Experience (interview from customersthatstick.com)

The best Customer Experience insights should be quick to deliver and directly to the point.

This interview hosted by Adam Toporek with author Daniel Newman (CEO of MillennialCEO.com) has several interesting reflections with a few home truths in less than 5 minutes.

Outside-In and CEM books

The 2006 book Customer Expectation Management – Success without Exception, identified global leading best practices and lessons from the worlds top performing companies.
We have now harnessd these best practices into a set of practical and easy to use toolkits and education services which will help you transform the way processes work forever.

I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed the book! It really helped tie together various concepts and practices I have been evolving towards over a number of years, crystallizing them into a simple but powerful framework.  Steve Melville, Director, Oracle, USA.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/092965207X/httpwwwstevet-20
See the book on Amazon.

In 2010 the book Outside In The Secret galvanized global leading corporations to redefine their view of business, and in doing create clear water between themselves and their competitors. In redrawing the business map companies progressively with the Triple Crown as they simultaneously reduce costs, grow revenues and enhance customer services.
 
It is a copernican shift in the way people do business.

You will never think of business in the same way again.

See the book on Amazon.

Are you doing Needs of Customer. or sadly its previous now mostly defunct Voice of Customer?

Listening to what customers say they want and then developing it is the height of enterprise stupidity. Go ask Nokia, Kodak, Blockbuster how their VOC programs helped them decline and become history.
Alternatively seek advice from Disney, Samsung, Virgin and Apple who work out the NOC even when the customer doesn’t know it themselves.

Do you have a viable and effective Needs of Customer method?
Review: www.cemmethod.com 

A New Order of Things

From the desk of James Dodkins
There is no easy way to introduce a new order of things however there are some principles that can be followed based on this type of mind shift.

1. Objective and immediate.
The results we achieve with Outside-In are significant and substantive e.g. Triple Crown*. Accordingly any effort should first of all identify the clear tangible benefits.

2. Talk is cheap.
Fine words and phrases will not win hearts and minds without substance. Delivery is key, hence the ‘start where you are’ sentiment. In current projects (where support may be lacking) introduce the techniques within the CEMMethod by stealth.
Lift the heads of those around you to think of Moments of Truth, Break Points and Business Rules for instance. “Nothing new mate, just some stuff other guys have used within… Six Sigma../..Lean../..EA../..compliance etc. (delete as appropriate)”

3. Build support.
With (2) underway you will build support. That is the point to shift focus and begin the more practical discussion of where and how.

4. Go for broke.
If you are extremely lucky/persuasive and have the top team already onboard go for broke. Discover the worst most problematic issues and set to righting em. By fixing the Cause you will remove the Effect.

5. Move on.
It is a 400 year shift in mindset (Dee Hock, VISA founder).
It will ultimately transform the planet. The jury is in fact back and the results speak for themselves. So when all looks desolate and casting your pearls before swine is depressing, remind the swine that they are part of the problem and move on.

6. Make it so.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE it just feels that way when surrounded by flat-landers (doh).
Learn, exchange and do.

James Dodkins, Chief Customer Officer,
BP Group

CEMMethod update (new version pending)

In January we updated the CEMMethod (it is now on its fifth version since 2006). Before year end we will introducing several new concepts and tools. If you would like that information please subscribe to the blog and I will include you in the previews.