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Dan Hill, a pioneer in using facial coding to create emotional metrics, believes emotions matter. A fellow presenter at the Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit in Boston, Hill reinforced that the experience for a customer is a story—with a plot, tension and conflicts that need to be resolved and rationalized. In order to understand how to make the customer experience mean something to our customers, we must understand the impact of emotions on decision-making—what we feel, think and do as customers. Medical science has proven that 95 percent of our mental activity is subconscious. Our actions are intuitive and we…

A recent meeting with a Chief Transformation Officer reminded me of the many challenges associated with gaining leadership support to drive change. Armed with a mandate to improve the client experience, this executive was still having difficulty getting the traction and attention needed to improve how the organization interacts with its clients. Without critical leadership support, she was worried about program funding being cancelled and the resulting impact on her career. Spending most of her time putting projects in place, this chief executive made the common mistake of underestimating the time needed to win the support of the entire executive…

More than 70 years ago, organizations began to collect customer feedback through satisfaction surveys. By analyzing survey results, the goal was to more effectively guide decisions about product development, branding, sales, marketing and other business investments. Today, more than 20 million surveys are being completed every day by customers around the world. Most organizations are tracking overall satisfaction using the two highest-scoring points on the commonly-used 5-point scale. While this type of customer satisfaction program was at one time considered to be an adequate way to gauge the pulse of the customer, today’s reality is that focusing solely on customer satisfaction data…

Companies that have mastered the ability to deliver a consistent, branded customer experience are leveraging a powerful marketing tactic—one that is able to build a loyal customer base and reap rewards for years to come. Customers are more likely to believe what they experience and feel rather than what they read in a marketing message or advertisement. When loyal customers feel an emotional bond with a company, their positive comments and word-of-mouth referrals are significantly more persuasive than any marketing or advertising campaign. Every successful customer experience program establishes opportunities for a company to forge deep and personal connections with…

“There is only one boss—the customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” - Sam Walton, Founder, Walmart Today’s customers are more demanding than ever before. They are fully empowered and they know it. Customers are picky, cautious of their choices and focused on receiving “value for their money.” They are quicker to leave if unhappy and have a much lower tolerance for error and indifference. Most companies agree that delivering a high-quality customer experience is essential for growing loyalty and increasing revenue. Loyal customers are more…

An organization’s culture can be a potent, powerful force that contributes to its success or failure. Organizations that have successfully created a customer-centric culture gain a hard-to-replicate competitive advantage—one that is far more effective than most technological innovations. The term ‘culture’ can be defined as a group or organization’s set of shared attributes, values, goals and practices. Some organizations promote their culture as “a culture to win,” a “sales culture” or a “culture of excellence.” Cultures are formed at the earliest stages of an organization’s life. Whether or not they are defined early on, cultures often reflect the values and…