The Newsletter
MONTHLY Insights & Inspiration
Subscribe to the Experience Leader Newsletter, where I share what I am learning and what I am inspired by as I chase excellence alongside you.
Do you want to be the best? It starts with an obsession with serving the customer. You’re going to need passion, principles, and a purpose that gets people out of bed in the morning to do the hard work of pursuing excellence. If that sounds good you, let's dive in.
There are brands that come to mind when we think of a dedication to excellence. Brands like the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, Apple, Chick-fil-A, and Disney have an association with being at the top their industries and a reputation for excellence in their products and services. Not just at one touchpoint, but at every touchpoint. This can only be accomplished by creating a culture and systems that put the customer at the center of their orbit. These companies are also known for producing revenues at the top of their industries, and in Apple's case, at the top of every industry.
Over the years of seeking to encapsulate the areas a company has to excel in to deliver a consistently great customer experience, I have determined there are five different areas that must be done with excellence to accomplish this. I call them the Five Forces of Customer Experience.
The Pursuit program is about pursuing excellence across all five areas. It can entail other projects, such as my Extraction research and Ocean's Seven innovation projects to achieve our ends. It is holistic, it is going to take work, but if you're reading this, it's likely because you want to be the best—and if that's true, I want to help you get there.
“Loyalty is cemented not by extra points, gimmicks, or goodies. It is rather confirmed by fulfilling the customer’s expectations every time they make contact with us.” - Horst Schulze
I assess the current state of your company across the Five Forces of CX to get full context so that I can provide meaningful insight and support.
Does your company purpose inspire your employees to give their best effort and your customers to want to align themselves with you?
How much do you know about what your customer and the market at large want from you? Do you have an accurate understanding of the Jobs to Be Done in the marketplace? What is the customer journey and where does your product fit into the customer's life?
What tradeoffs are customers making? Where do they have to use workarounds? Are we effectively helping the customer make progress on their Job to Be Done?
Is leadership providing the vision and example to inspire their teams to pursue excellence in their roles and responsibilities? Are there policies in the way of serving the customer? Are employee skills aligned with their roles?
Examine employee empowerment across four key areas:
Is your organization designed around the customer? Does every function of the business understand how they affect the customer experience?
After assessing your current state, if we haven't already envisioned a better customer experience with an Ocean's Seven, I will recommend we do so to position your products and services for market leadership.
We walk the road towards excellence together, with help from my expert colleagues as needed.
If we haven't already selected our Ocean's Seven, we will work together to hand-pick individuals to lead this effort. This will be a small team of decision-makers with a diverse and specific set of skills and perspectives.
We will develop a program of work to ensure we have a structured approach to our transformation effort. This will be owned by a member of the Core Team.
I will have a cadence of regular check-ins, as frequent as once per week, with the core team and otherwise be available to them whenever they need guidance.
When we approach big decisions, need to solve problems with a particular function of the business, or need to solve conflict, I may facilitate workshops to help us move forward. Occasionally, I will bring in expert colleagues from my network in areas like technology, design, fund-raising, mergers and acquisitions, and more.
Transformation is a long game, but it's worth it. If my methods sound appealing, I look forward to having a conversation about assisting you on the journey.
A structured innovation process using my framework, The Five Forces of Customer Experience, to transform your product, marketing, and service delivery to solve your customer’s problems.
Subscribe to the Experience Leader Newsletter, where I share what I am learning and what I am inspired by as I chase excellence alongside you.
