Customer Experience University - Winning Loyalty & Engagement One Customer at a Time

Make it Technology-Aided and Human-Powered: Map the Hybrid Journey

Thank you for joining me for this series titled "Make it Technology-Aided and Human-Powered." This series will provide tools to help you position your customer and employee experience for relevance in a COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 world. This installment is titled "Map the Hybrid Journey."
 
I now know how my mom felt when I lost my driver's license at age 16 for repeatedly speeding in my '57 Chevy. She didn’t mince words and forcefully said, "I told you what would happen if you didn't change your ways."
 
As a consultant, I've never actually said to a client, I told you so, but sometimes I've entertained the thought. Particularly, when I look back on consultations with leaders who were reluctant to invest in technology-aided human service before COVID-19.

Make it Technology-Aided and Human-Powered: Compassion in Action

Thank you for joining me for the second installment in the series "Make it Technology-Aided and Human-Powered." This series provides tools to help you position your customer and employee experience for relevance in a COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 world. This installment is titled "Compassion in Action."
 
In my last post, I distinguished between compassion, empathy, and sympathy. I also shared that from the onset of the pandemic, I've worked with leaders and businesses that have responded to the full-frontal blow of COVID-19. They have done so by showing tenacity, adaptivity, generosity, and most importantly, compassion.

Make it Technology-Aided and Human-Powered: Be Compassionate

Thank you for joining me for this new series titled "Make it Technology-Aided and Human-Powered." This series will provide tools to help you position your customer and employee experience for relevance in a COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 world. This installment is titled "Be Compassionate."
 
People are in love with technology these days, and well, they should be. It's hard to imagine how we would have operated any business if this type of pandemic had occurred in the late-1970s without the benefits of the world wide web.
 
Many of us undoubtedly will look back on COVID-19 (whenever we can put this virus in the rearview mirror) and remember the value of cloud computing, online commerce, home delivery, and video conferencing. But what else will we recall?

Better Than Normal - The Entrepreneurial New Days

Have you ever wanted to have a business do-over? In golf, we call it a mulligan. It's when you are forgiven your first shot and allowed to take another because, let's just say, the first ball didn't go where you intended.
 
Guess what? COVID-19 has hit the GIANT reset mulligan button for every business.
 
If pre-pandemic, you had cumbersome processes, now is the time to shed them and act like a start-up.
 
If you didn't invest enough in contactless processes, you have a great chance to fix that now.
 
Let's assume you didn't solicit customer feedback regularly and deploy it effectively? Fear not, you are living in the "Better New Days."

Better Than Normal | The Listening New Days

For me, the "old normal" world of business was too often like going to a chamber of commerce or networking event where everybody was selling, and no one was buying. There are a lot of business cards passed around, but very few people listening and understanding how they can be of service.
 
In this "Better than Normal" world, more people are willing to share input, and some companies are capitalizing by being more willing to listening. That listening takes the form of informal inquiries. For example, they track sentiment on social media and ask people to have casual conversations. Formal listening includes pulse surveys or more extensive customer or team member engagement surveys.
 
So here's the big question, are you one of those listening companies? If you are listening, what are you doing with what you are hearing?

Better Than Normal | The Empathic New Days

I used to use the word empathetic until a researcher in the field corrected me. She said, "'Empathetic is wrong and empathic is correct." She added, "There is nothing 'pathetic" about empathy. Henceforth, I'm in the empathic camp.
 
Now that's out of the way, let's look at how the world has gotten better thanks to an upsurge in empathy.
 
As you likely know, the word empathy comes from a German word that roughly translates as "feel into” and humans are hard-wired to feel into the emotions of others. For example, neuroscientists have found that the same neural pathways which activate when we feel pain also fire when we observe the pain of others.

Better Than Normal - The Vulnerable New Days

I love thinking I'm invincible - look at me who'd want to go toe-to-toe with me? Then again, when I look a little more closely I realize I'm not all that. What a gift COVID-19 has been when it comes to putting a humbling mirror up to most business owners and leaders.
Growing up in my Italian home, I was told never to say things like a pandemic is a gift, so I hope you forgive me. My point isn't that any of us wanted this tectonic disruption. It's just that we are best served by finding the thin silver lining in a stubbornly dark cloud.
For me, the vulnerability of the pandemic is an important part of these better than normal days. Let me explain.

Better Than Normal | The Purposeful New Days

This is the second installment in a series titled “Better Than Normal – Designing Transformative Experiences,” which will provide tools to help you position your employee and customer experience for relevance in a COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 world.
I have been busier than I’ve ever been before during the pandemic, but in those rare moments of reflection, I have been able to evaluate what brings value and what was simply a habit, and your customers are doing the same.
For example, I used to live in hotels and on planes, but I  haven’t struggled with getting my carry-on out of an overhead bin in months, and still business soars. Was all that air travel purposeful?
I am hoping my dry cleaner misses me because I was a loyal visitor when I wasn’t on the road. However, in the last few months, I haven’t had much of a reason to stop by. I’m not saying that planes, hotels, and dry cleaners aren’t important, I am merely suggesting that in this “better than normal” world we’re living in that all of us are given a chance to question decisions that used to seem reflective. It’s Monday, and I am home, I’d better go to the dry cleaner?
Let’s imagine your customers reflecting on the purposefulness of your business in their lives? How much of their purchases are driven by habit? How are you faring?
Ok, those are unpleasant questions, so let’s try something more positive. What might you do to increase the likelihood that customers will see the purposefulness of your offerings?
 

Better Than Normal – The Good New Days

This is the first installment in a series titled “Better Than Normal – Designing Transformative Experiences,” which will provide tools to help you position your employee and customer experience for relevance in a COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 world.
I don’t know about you, but I am already eager to put the phrase “new normal” out to pasture! When most people say it, I hear the pain in their voice and a nostalgic longing for the way things used to be. There’s an “if only” packed into it. If only, we weren’t in this new normal. Or if only, I could have this part of the old normal back. The words new normal are somehow reminiscent of my father’s penchant for saying things like “those good old days.”
I hereby decree the words “new normal” no longer are useable, and I declare they shall be replaced with the phrase “better than normal.” Since I’m striking down phrases, I will replace “good old days” with “good new days.” Alas, if only I had that power beyond this simple blog.
I make these two proclamations to frame the importance of working to make “now” better than “then” and to make the “future” better than “now.”
Let me show you two ways customer experiences are already better than normal.

It’s Emotional – Finding Comfort in Uncertainty

I suspect you may be at least a little like me. I like spontaneity, but only on my terms. I’m a fan of agendas, plans, and being confident that my position on an issue is well informed.
Then came COVID-19, a sub-microscopic infectious agent, roughly 1/1000 the width of a human hair.  I am lucky to date in that the virus has not rendered me or those I love ill, hospitalized, or worse. But it, along with the death of George Floyd, sent orderliness, planning, and knowledge certainty whirling. Those events probably did the same for you, your team members, and your customers.
It sounds strange, but I am starting to find value in discomfort and uncertainty.