Jim Sinur says “It is becoming painfully evident that traditional communication channels are just not making the grade in these days of group innovation and fast-moving change.
Organizations are dealing with communication challenges that are accelerating in today’s demanding world.
If you have ever had to manage, influence, guide, or participate in or with groups of various people inside or outside your organization, you know how severe communication issues can be.
I just wanted to reach out, so you don’t miss out on this limited time offer on my new book Outside-In The Secret of the 21st c. leading companies.
You might be thinking, what is Outside-In?
To sum it up, ‘Outside-In The Secret’ reveals the fundamental difference between the top-performing companies and the failing also-rans. It is a massive shift in perspective that revolutionizes work forever.
The insights shared are based on my work and research with companies like BMW, Emirates, Zara, Zappos, and Amazon over the last two decades.
But hey, don’t just hear it from me…
So, I have codified the learning and the ‘Secret’ approaches, tips, tricks, and hacks to make them accessible to all. Initially published in 2010 and it is now wholly updated as Edition 10!
My colleague and BP Group co-founder says this…
Why You Should Read Outside-In The Secret
You may be wondering why you should invest your precious time reading this book. With all the pressures of the current business climate, why will this investment be worthwhile?
I’d like you for a moment to think of ‘high jumping.’ This is a sport that has been pursued actively from the Ancient Greeks in the original Olympics to modern times. And for nearly 3,000 years, people jumped using similar techniques. Then an innovator, Dick Fosbery, thought of a new approach that was incredibly simple and yet at the same time delivered ‘breakthrough performance’ levels enabling him to win the gold medal in the 1968 Olympic high jump bar. He leaped over the bar backward, overturning thousands of years of ‘best practice.’
So I would like you to give yourself permission to consider that you, too, can achieve ‘breakthrough performance’ in your own business endeavors. In this book, ‘Outside-In,’ Steve Towers will introduce you to some remarkable concepts that at first seem simple and obvious, and yet when applied, will allow you to win the gold medal in your own field of business.
John Corr, Director, Alix Partners, London, England.
And Guess What? Do you want something special?
It is FREE for a short period of time…
This is what you need to do RIGHT NOW to get your copy:
P.S. — this book is the real deal. James Dodkins said that it’s: “the map that will allow you to turn your specialized knowledge, talents, and abilities coupled with this new perspective into a way of working that transforms you and your company! This is one of the shortcuts of the New Stellar Performers.” — and TODAY, you can get it for free, right here:
My previous book, Dare! Became an Amazon Number 1 Best Seller in February 2020. This book Outside-In The Secret will also be… get your FREE copy here: http://bit.ly/OI2021now
Do you ever have that sneaky feeling that we can get so much more out of our business processes? Are you Struggling to get support from the organization for your change? Are you curious about what are the best proven techniques (that go way beyond Lean and Six Sigma)?
If so you are in the right place!
THE USE OF THE RIGHT APPROACHES WILL REDUCE COSTS BY AT LEAST 30% (and at the same time significantly improve customer satisfaction!) – 100% Guaranteed
Steve Towers
This FOUR day 5 Hours per day program shows you how using the REAL LIFE work you are doing! Come get upskilled and take back IMMEDIATE improvements that realise tangible benefits from the get-go.
Let me take this opportunity to thank Mr Steve. Your teachings are timeless and they stick perfectly and forever in our minds. We shall never forget you wherever we find ourselves on this planet. Thank you so much, Steve 🙏
Benignus Otmar, Tanzania
Thank you, the experience was enlightening, empowering, educating, encouraging and engaging.
Natasha Doren, South Africa
Thank you, Steve, I have never enjoyed anything more than the CX course, The weight of knowledge I gained and the enlightenment that I got is indescribable.
Reem Elsadig, Sudan
Thanks Steve for such an excellent program, the dedicated manner you use to share with us your wonderful knowledge and wisdom in CX, and time to response all our questions! God bless you, thanks a lot!
Yanese Angeles, Dominican Republic
You started me out on this journey my friend. Thanks for letting me live out my passion!
Molly Redenbaugh, Iowa, United States
Thank you! It’s been an amazing journey and you have been a great mentor.It was an honor taking your class, I am now a confident CPP Master🙏🏾
Masele Masudi Msita, Tanzania
Thank you Steve for high-quality wonderful Master. I thought the course was brilliant.Thank you for everything.
Join our upcoming Coaching and Accreditation sessions online, LIVE & Interactive
In one minute you have the distilled strategy from the man who has created an empire with a very simple philosophy.
The Richest Guy on the Planet tells us how to do it
We live, eat and breathe this stuff. Come and learn how to do it for you and your organization. We can’t promise you will become another Jeff but you will change to healthier Obsessions!
Join our upcoming Coaching and Accreditation sessions online, LIVE & Interactive
Business failures are all around us, nothing new there then. If we go back a decade or so we saw the demise of Nokia, we’ve seen companies like Blockbuster crash and burn, and other companies in the High Street whether it’s in Europe or in the US disappear and never to be seen again.
Why is this so? When you look at the investment those companies were making there was no lack of intent to spend in understanding how the customer was changing. In the year that Apple introduced the iPhone Nokia was investing heavily in voice of the customer (VOC) surveys, customer satisfaction and NPS.
But they missed the point. Progressive Outside-In companies (think Amazon, Zara, Zappos, Emirates) are not about retrospective subjective analysis of perceived performance.
Also it isn’t about overlaying processes with a new language when fundamentally the very systems and processes were never designed to deliver customer experiences. Those now creaking processes were designed with a factory mindset centred around production line thinking, throughput and waste. Hence the challenge for many is more fundamental as it’s not about rejigging what you’re doing – it is about a complete rethink to move outside in the way that you do business.
Remarkably even in the third decade of the 21st century there are still those companies that think they can just tweak and change the language inside their organisations.
As if doing better advertising and marketing to customers and talking about ‘new’ services on top of their existing infrastructures and IT systems hacks it. The actual reality is somewhat different.
Senior Executive commentary
Top teams and senior executives need to grasp this challenge. Roland Naidoo, a senior executive at African based entertainments company Multichoice puts the choice starkly:
“Would you measure how fast a 1600cc car performed around an F1 circuit. No? Then why would you try to measure customer experience AND improve it on processes and products there were never designed with experience in mind. Go on enter your 1600 into the next F1. Wonder how it would perform?”
Roland Naidoo, Multichoice Africa
Lipstick on a Pig? Surely not…
Those companies who understand that ‘outside-in’ thinking calls for a complete realignment and new appraisal of what the customer experience consists of.
Rather than, to coin a phrase, putting lipstick on a pig. You have actually got to think about what is it you’re trying to achieve; what does success look like for our customer? And then align across all functions, all systems and ways of working towards successful customer outcomes. Disney refers to this alignment as getting everybody to understand where true north is and not to do anything unless it contributes to that alignment. Imagine all new initiatives being assessed by a similar approach?
Are you working in a Rubik cube?
Another aspect which comes into play is this idea that traditional measurement* is predominantly subjective and retrospective. Progressive outside in companies are not reactive – they get scientific about the customer experience.
Measuring each interaction as it happens and if necessary course-correcting in real-time. They develop the ability to see around corners to understand what’s coming next. They don’t have to wait for analysis 2 weeks after an event to decide that some remedial action is required.
This knowledge in the instance of what is happening requires us to create this idea of ‘action in the moment’ for all our employees. Zappos**, for instance, give their employees the tools and the capability to be able to make decisions in the moment (without the need to escalate to supervisors).
Industrial Age thinking will kill you
And there is another challenge companies face if they are still organised around functional specialist silos. If you’ve recruited low paid people and given them a script to follow, manage them to average handle times and throughputs you’re going to fail.
Once more the outside-in companies have an edge here as they understand that to give your most precious resource (the customer) to the employees then you need the right people in the right place able to do the right things at that moment of truth.
So what is your organization doing? is it trying to put lipstick on the pig? is it just trying to overlay the existing process is an infrastructure with this new customer-centric way of talking and doing?
It is very simple. You need to get down to brass tacks of rethinking what customer experience is all about its implication for the organisation going forward. Those organisations that are taking this outside-in approach find the world becomes simpler, faster and much more directly oriented towards delivering successful customer outcomes and winning for the bottom line.
Here are seven classic examples from a recent blog of someone selling Call Centre Services. No, I really am to polite to call them out. I thought I had travelled back in time 50 years, but I am appalled there are people still doing this?!
This hurts my Head
Why are these so Wrong? Answers on a post card but Part Two Next week will provide more insight.
And then in Part Three we will explore the alternatives…
Call Centre Measures that cripple Your Customer Experiences (the seven deadly sins)
Service Level – “The service level is the percentage of calls responded in a particular time limit. It assesses the skills of agents to deliver the service as per the Service Level Agreement (SLA) given to the clients.”…. It is a significant way to judge the performance of a call center.
Average Call Handle Time – “This KPI measures time an agent needs on a call.”
Average Queue Time – “To assure that the wait time of callers rests in the fair scope and the patience of customers should not be tested”
Call Abandonment – “It is a usual experience in the call center that clients disconnect the calls before even connecting to an agent.”
First Call Resolution – “The client is frequently in a rush. Thus, he requires that the concern of the caller must be fixed in the first call”
Occupancy Rate – “It is completely about the ability to complete the work within minimum time.”
Agent Turnover Rate – “It measures the rate of agents who switch the job. It not only causes customer service conflicts and delays as well as it also creates many issues.”
A person once said this to me… “If you pay people for doing dumb stuff they will get really smart at it”
A Very Wise Women
In Part Two we will review why Call Centre thinking is so BAD and should be BANNED.
We coach Certified and Accredited Professional Qualifications
110 K people qualified since 2006 in 124 countries 60+ Global Coaches and Mentors – All have been there and done it!
I revisited my lists of sources, contacts and influencers, brought them up to date (the last two years or so) and collated the best across the domains I operate in. I included the recent Award winners acknowledged for their contributions to business. The result you can access below which contains the people, their LinkedIn connections, their best videos and in some cases additional resources.
My work takes me all over the planet and I get to meet some awesome people who are generous with their time and ideas. I then test, optimise and codify these great ideas into techniques and approaches we can all access.
Dare! Amazon Number 1 Best Seller (2020)
I was relating this approach at a keynote in a conference in Romania recently following the publication of our new Amazon best selling book Dare!
The keynote went well (see the extract version below) and everyone adjourned to the bar to relax and network.
At that drinks reception several people wanted to know my sources of inspiration, so naturally, we started trading names, some well known and some not yet so. As I was doing this it struck me this was one of the most commonly asked questions whether I am talking or working with some of the leading companies on the planet. So an idea was born…
Steve’s keynote in Bucharest in February 2020
Who are the best and what are their secrets?
I revisited my lists of sources, contacts and influencers, brought them up to date (the last two years or so) and collated the best across the domains I operate in. I included the recent Award winners acknowledged for their contributions to business. The result you can access below which contains the people, their LinkedIn connections, their best videos and in some cases additional resources.
So the next time someone asks me a question about influencers I am going to point them here!
All the Best, Keep safe and well, Steve
Customer Experience, Customer Service, Leadership and Operational Excellence
Click the image to access videos, books and other resources!
Limiting mindsets. A scourge of modern times and a limit on human performance keeping us in thought straight jackets.
Dare! Amazon Number 1 Best Seller (2020)
If you want something new you have to stop doing something old
Peter Drucker
So what are modern day thinkers and Innovators doing to break out of preconditioned constraining beliefs? Well if you google ‘innovation’ you get 1,650,000,000 (one billion, six hundred and fifty million) responses which would be a bit of light reading for the weekend 😉
So I tried another tack and thought about the best online videos and books featuring innovation, and yes there is a fast track way to watch and hear the thoughts of today’s greats, in action doing their innovative things.
Who are the best and what are their secrets?
I revisited my lists of sources, contacts and influencers, brought them up to date (the last two years or so) and collated the best across the domains I operate in. I included the recent Award winners acknowledged for their contributions to business. The result you can access below which contains the people, their LinkedIn connections, their best videos and in some cases additional resources.
So the next time someone asks me a question about TipTop Innovators and influencers I am going to point them here!
All the Best, Keep safe and well, Steve
Innovation Experts 2020
Click the image to access videos, books and other resources!
Patterns. They are Fascinating. If you can understand them, and model them then you can deliver amazing results.
When I was a young kid I loved the weather forecast on TV. All those swirly lines (isobars as I was later to discover) and fronts.
Then I discovered astronomy, got a telescope, and stared in awe at the planets, stars and galaxies. It was mind blowing how they all worked together through invisible forces.
Then a good childhood friend of mine introduced me to chess. Amazing, wow! I studied openings and endings and everything in between. The great world champions, Tal, Botvinnik, Fisher and Magnus Carlsen.
Then came meditation and brainwaves. I dabbled with gamma, alpha, beta, theta and Delta and watched them represent our brain processes. I love neuro-science. Then I discovered love, the crazy emotional ups and downs, the exhilaration, heartache and the deep deep introspection.
So what do all these things have in common? Yes, patterns! If you can ‘see’ the pattern, figure them out then you too can become good with them.
Something occurred to me – were our lives governed by patterns? That ‘aha’ moment took me on a career path initially in Industrial Engineering, then Process Reengineering, then Systems Engineering, Enterprise Architecture, and even into Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Medical Hypnotherapy and Reiki.
My life can be summed as one of trying to understand patterns of energy, how they relate and how they work.
Patterns have worked for me, whether in my business life, personal (can anyone truly understand our partners and children?!), hobbies, music and so much more. By studying the greats, people, organisations, mentors and leaders you can model their patterns, codify them and share with others.
That is what, with some great friends and colleagues, we have done in and around Experience Management, whether that is writing bestselling books, developing business transformation methods, launching new software tools or simply living better lives. Working with the worlds best companies we picked apart the complexity and saw the simple beauty of approaches that work outstandingly every time without exception.
And now we have brought them online. We have unpacked the wisdom, applied pragmatic techniques and repackaged the patterns into workable replicable behaviours that we can all learn and make our own.
Please join us on this incredible journey in the next few weeks.
As a primer this course is running now – Outside-In Vision.
6 weeks at 3 hours per week to learn and practice the patterns that win the game for the worlds leading companies.
Join us live or watch the recorded interactive hands-on sessions at a time to suit you. You may just have discovered the key that picks any lock.
Since the days of Richard Normann, the guy who invented the business term ‘Moments of Truth’ and Jan Carlzon’s book in 1989, the business world has interpreted Moments of Truth in several ways.
Jan Carlzon’s 1989 book ‘Moments of Truth’ socialised Richard Normann’s concept.
I have also published many articles and conference keynotes (see the MOT primer below) reviewing the continued evolution of this interesting concept.
Definitions
My interpretation and application of Moments of Truth revolve around three themes:
First discussed back in 2009 the idea that all work an organization undertakes is, at a fundamental level, caused by Moments of Truth. In principle, everything a company does can and should be linked to a Moment of Truth.
We harness and make real this design principle using the Customer Performance Landscape. Connecting the dots from everything to the Cause of all work – The Moment of Truth.
c. The Moment of Truth for any organization is…
At a practical level organizations need to chunk down their approach to fixing and innovating Moments of Truth. CEO of Denver based SAAS company ‘Parallel’
Doug Bell, CEO The Experience Manager
Doug Bell says “A Moment of Truth is an interaction that contributes to the production of a successful customer outcome. It either does or it doesn’t. To ensure outside in, you need to look through the Successful Customer Outcome lens.”
Managing Moments of Truth
Enlightened ‘Outside-In’ organizations actively embrace Moment of Truth Management as an essential strategic and operational necessity to deliver engineered Customer Experiences. How so?
a. Designing for Moments of Truth – The Design-Implementation Gap
Early efforts were geared around designing optimal Moments of Truth, however, simply mapping customer journeys has never been enough. It is one thing agreeing on what a future state customer journey should be, it is entirely another implementing it. This Design-Implementation gap is precisely what kills the majority of Customer Experience initiatives.
b. Implementing optimized Moments of Truth
Successful deployment of innovated Moments of Truth is key to delivering optimal Customer Experiences. The most practical immediate results are focused on rapid roll out across a key experience and using the success of that to validate rolling out smoothly across the organization. Establishing ownership, accountability, metrics, controls and improvement paths are part of this discipline.
c. Operationalizing Moments of Truth
Once Moments of Truth have been designed, innovated and implemented into recrafted customer experiences they need to be actively managed ‘in the moment’ and shared. Every Moment of Truth should feed to a corporate dashboard, with real-time data showing the performance of that MOT and its associated experiences. If things go wrong the owner should be able to ‘course correct’ and real-time monitor the customer experience delivery.
Imagine a world without customer satisfaction surveys, no need for Net Promoter Scores, no focus groups, and no mystery shopping because you will know how 100% of interactions are performing 100% of the time.
Control and Action combined
The C suite and leaders will now have a clear line of sight into every corner of the organization and across the enterprise landscape REAL TIME. One version of the data truth (and not all those departmental/divisional versions of reality).
The need for retrospective action evaporates. Immediate and laser-focused control can be maintained delivering simultaneously enhanced service, lower costs, higher revenues, improved compliance and uber motivated employees.
What’s next?
In my next piece I will demonstrate how this can be done immediately. If you can’t wait for that ping me and let’s talk the how, now
