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

It’s Emotional – Focus on the Hole

This is the first installment in my series It’s Emotional–Creating an Unprecedented Team and Customer Experience in this Pandemic. This series is designed to offer tools to manage your emotions as well as support the emotional journey of your prospects and customers.
This week’s installment is titled Focus on the Hole. I take exception with the overuse of some words these days, particularly when those words suggest we are powerless or helpless.
One of my least favorite words (which I intentionally repurposed) for the title of this series is the word UNPRECEDENTED. Normally when we hear that word these days, it is used to signify the magnitude of the challenges we are all facing. With regard to challenges, let’s look at what the word implies.

Break the Glass – The ABCs of Customer Experience During COVID-19

This is the 5th and final installment in my series Break the Glass, where we are looking at what you can do to deliver a positive human experience in this time of great business disruption. (Next week will start a new series on the role emotions play in customer experience delivery.)
Sales trainers have long championed the concept of ABC. Which stands for always be closing. They suggest that when presenting your service or product, you should always be moving the conversation to close the sale. In the context of our current pandemic, I would modify ABC so that it stands for always be connecting.

Break the Glass – Be Surprisingly Kind

This is the 4th installment in my series Break the Glass, where we are looking at what you can do to maintain a positive human experience in a time of great business disruption.
Our focus today is on being surprisingly kind.
Prior to COVID-19’s disruption across much of the world, my team and I launched something we call the Surprisingly Kind movement. We are collecting and sharing stories of surprising kindness.
 

Break the Glass – Set Expectations

Thanks for joining me for the third installment in my series titled Break the Glass, where we’re looking at ways to take constructive action in these unprecedented times.
This week we’ll explore the importance of setting expectations for team members and customers alike. We’ll also link expectation setting to the third of the four key behaviors covered in this series – namely letting people know if and when you are open.
No matter what the status of your business – now is not the time to go radio silent.

Break the Glass – Anticipate

Last week we talked about the first of four categories of constructive behaviors that this series will cover, namely listening to the needs and pain of your team and customers. This week we will focus on anticipation and I will link anticipation to the second category of constructive behavior, which is offering value, thought leadership, and kindness.

Break the Glass – Listen

I have been surprised at how quickly some owners, leaders, and managers have lost their focus on the people who created their success. Those leaders certainly prioritized team members and customers when business was good, but due to panic prompted by threats of business survival. In essence, self-preservation leads to “self-absorption.”  

Sharing Not Telling – Gratitude and Hope in Action

I want to offer a glimpse into a personal practice that helps me in these times. I truly hope that this approach will be helpful to you as well. It involves taking time every day to list and share the things for which you are grateful. Here’s an example of a recent day of writing...

Leadership is NOT Waiting to Follow – Be Thoughtful, Proactive, Humble, and Courageous

This week I'm sharing lessons from the most challenging week of my career (and quite frankly, I had it easy compared to so many). When I’m talking challenges, I’m talking about leadership challenges faced by people I’m proud to call clients and friends. Let’s start with the word – leadership.
This past week I participated with phenomenal teams who stared into an uncertain future and led.

Leadership and Life Lessons Learned In a Pandemic – My Offer of Service

When lamenting unforeseen and adverse events, my momma Michelli was prone to say, “I would never wish this on anyone, but now that it’s here, what are we to do?”
Not surprisingly, during the past week, my mind has searched for “momisms,” “dadisms,” and the wisdom of the ages, to cope with uncertainty like none I’ve encountered in my lifetime. Leveraging off my mom’s aforementioned phrase, I’ve been reflecting on this question – what can we learn and do in the face of this Pandemic?

VUCA, Coronavirus, and Tools for Human Experience Leadership

For years now, I have been equating leadership with managing in a VUCA world.
While the acronym VUCA has origins in Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus’ 1985 book titled Leaders – The Strategies for Taking Charge, the first use of the acronym occurred a couple of years later in Army War College documents. As you likely know, VUCA refers to navigating a world replete with:
Volatility
Uncertainty
Complexity, and
Ambiguity
In continuation of my series on leading transformational human experiences in uncertain times, I’ve been struck by how well VUCA describes the challenges that leaders face in the context of the coronavirus.