Unless you serve robots exclusively, your customers are humans. Human feelings influence our actions and drive customer behavior. Therefore, you must design a Customer Experience that makes your customers feel a way that drives value for your organization. In our global Customer Experience consultancy, we have said for nearly 20 years that customer’s emotions account for over half of the outcome in any Customer Experience. At first, people thought we were crazy, but now, many organizations under...
Oct 26, 2019•24 min
Understanding Customer Habits: A Practical Guide Habits can be excellent or terrible for your Customer Experience. When it is the customer’s habit to buy from you, then there is not a problem. However, when it goes the other way, well, let’s just say some habits are meant to be broken. Understanding what habits are and how they work is vital to your Customer Experience. When you understand customers’ habits, how they form and how they are governed by the mind, you have a much better chance of ma...
Oct 23, 2019•25 min
What is the Secret of Airbnb? I would never be an Airbnb host. Having a stranger staying in my house doesn’t fit with my personality. That said, there are a lot of people that would do it. Airbnb has over seven million listings in 100,000 cities worldwide and reported revenues of $1 Billion (with a b) in the second quarter of this year. They are so successful; they have plans to become publicly traded in 2020. That’s saying quite a bit considering that the entire home-sharing platform developed ...
Oct 19, 2019•29 min
A practical guide to Customer decision making When the Nobel-prize winning economist professor Daniel Kahneman wrote his book Thinking Fast and Slow , he introduced the concept that we had two ways of thinking about things. He named them System 1 and System 2. The two systems work together to help us make decisions about things. When we applied these concepts to decision-making in Customer Experience for our book, The Intuitive Customer, we renamed them. The Intuitive System is System 1, and the...
Oct 12, 2019•31 min
Case Study: RICOH Printers (Canada) I spend a remarkable amount of time complaining about how organizations get things wrong with Customer Experience. However, not every cause is lost. Some companies get their Customer Experience right, and we can all learn a lot from their journey. In our global Customer Experience consultancy, we have the honor of working with fantastic organizations that are committed to doing the difficult work of improving their Customer Experience from the inside out. One ...
Oct 05, 2019•28 min
The Key to Successful Marketing Communications There are a lot of people that do not know the difference between Marketing and Advertising. Many people assume they are the same thing, but they are not. Marketing is deciding what you are going to say; Advertising is saying it. In my corporate life, I worked in Marketing for a long time. One of the things I learned was that Marketing should know the marketplace and understand their customers. Marketing communication should reflect this understandi...
Sep 28, 2019•28 min
How To Overcome Organizational Silo’s To Make Progress In The Fellowship of the Ring , Gandalf the wizard calls all the creatures of Middle Earth—the elves, dwarves, men, and hobbits— to a council. Their goal is to determine what to do with the Ring that threatened to end life as they knew it. Gandalf reasoned that since the Ring was a problem for all of Middle Earth, everyone should be involved. A Customer Experience Council (CX Council) follows Gandalf’s lead. Although, to be sure, the stakes ...
Sep 21, 2019•20 min
Is Any Attention Good Attention? I like Oscar Wilde. His best quote is, “There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” Of course, there are times when people are talking so bad, one might wonder if it is worse than being ignored. This episode of The Intuitive Customer explores if there are times when the bad press can be good news for your brand. In other words, are there times when bad news is good? Is any attention good attention? The answe...
Sep 14, 2019•23 min
Customer Satisfaction is Declining in the UK! A new report by the Institute of Customer Service indicates that Customer Satisfaction is declining in the UK. Earlier this year reports from both Nunwood and Forrester, two firms entrenched in the Customer Experience movement, presented similar sentiments. All of this disappointing news about the state of Customer Experience makes one wonder what is going on in business today? We decided to ask the expert Joanne Causon, CEO of the Institute of Custo...
Sep 11, 2019•35 min
How and Why We Stereotype People and Things Stereotyping is not considered a good thing, certainly not in politically correct circles. However, our ability to do it is hard-wired into our brains, and it doesn’t only apply to people. We can stereotype an organization, too. Let’s say you need to name a type of business that is frustrating across the board. My first thought is internet service providers, aka, the cable company. No matter which carrier you have, you probably have a beef with your se...
Sep 07, 2019•22 min
The Secret of Creating an Effective Customer Experience (CX) Strategy What is the experience you are trying to deliver to your customers? This is one of our key questions we ask organizations when we consult with them. It seems a very simple question and yet in reality, the answer is very strategic and critical to moving your CX to the next level. What is surprising is most organizations do not know the answer to this question! Be clear, everyone thinks they know the answer, but in reality every...
Aug 31, 2019•28 min
I have a few things that drive me crazy in the business world. In this episode of The Intuitive Customer, we are going to talk about how organizations often define loyalty, and why I think they have it all wrong. It makes me upset when I think about it. Many, if not most, companies believe that when a customer gives you all their business, it means they are a loyal customer. After all, isn’t that what we all want, all the business our customers have to give? If they are giving it to us, then the...
Aug 24, 2019•25 min
Relationship Types and How to Use Them We act differently in our various relationships. We have a way we operate at work or school; we act a certain way in public and another way with our friends and family. The difference is the type of relationship we have with the other people involved. This variance in behavior is also at work in our relationships as customers. In this episode of The Intuitive Customer, we explore how our relationship with customers affects how we interact with them. For thi...
Aug 17, 2019•26 min
Are You Using the Right Measures? Measuring your progress for your Customer Experience strategy is an essential aspect to your program’s success. Not only will it show if your program is working to provide an excellent experience for your customers, but it also shows what customers really value, which can be an elusive thing to discover. In this episode of The Intuitive Customer, we discuss the importance of measuring Customer Experience correctly. We invited Don Peppers , bestselling author, bu...
Aug 10, 2019•31 min
Why Some Friction is Good We owe you an apology. Even though the lawyers say we shouldn’t say this, we feel we might have misled you on the subject of friction in your Customer Experience strategy. We have been telling you to make your experience as easy as possible, and you should. However, there is some merit to making things a little bit difficult in some cases. In other words, it turns out that the discussion of friction is more nuanced than we at first led you to believe. In this episode of...
Aug 07, 2019•24 min
How Customer-Facing People Should Evoke Emotions in Customers I have always thought that talking about how to do something was important, but not as important as actually doing something. I feel so strongly about this idea that I named my company after it. I want my clients to take their ideas “beyond the philosophy” and into action. To that end, this episode of The Intuitive Customer discusses how organizations can take theories and use them in their everyday operations to improve the Customer ...
Jul 27, 2019•24 min
Can We Trust Facebook? Upon reflection of Facebook’s latest privacy violation and $5 billion fine, one must wonder whether we can trust Facebook. After all, the social media platform hasn’t exactly been keeping our private information under lock and key. On the contrary, it appears as if our likes and dislikes, networks and preferences are for sale to the highest bidder. This episode of The Intuitive Customer explores the implications for Facebook of this latest privacy violation. It reveals a l...
Jul 24, 2019•23 min
When I worked in the corporate world, people often asked me what I did all day. Facetiously, I would say that I played chess. While it was meant to be cheeky, the joke was not far from the truth. I spent my day navigating company politics. You will not find training programs on company politics or how to deal with them. It is a bit shocking considering their significance in the corporate world. Our latest episode of The Intuitive Customer podcast addresses office politics and how to manage them ...
Jul 20, 2019•28 min
Choice architecture is a significant factor in buying decisions you make every day. From how they stock the buffet line to how likely you are to donate your organs after you die, the psychology of choice is influencing your decisions every day. In this episode of The Intuitive Customer, we explore the concept of Choice Architecture and how it affects our daily lives. We also discuss the different variables that you need to consider in the way you present your choices to customers as part of your...
Jul 13, 2019•29 min
The Vital Art of Creating Memorable Messaging When we make buying decisions, we usually are choosing from a short list of options. Our memory assembles these options. So, from a Customer Experience perspective, it is vital that your product or service is one of these options recalled at the moment of the buying decision. In this episode of The Intuitive Customer podcast, we explore how our memories generate these choice sets for buying decisions. We also take a look at how you can ensure that yo...
Jul 06, 2019•27 min
How Can We Measure Customer Emotions in Our Digital World When you think about the Olympic medalists on the podium during the awards ceremony, who do you think is happier, the silver medalist or the bronze? Objectively, you might say the silver medalists because, after all, they came in second and the other competitor was third. Objectively, the silver medalists had a better outcome and should be happier. However, the happier medal winner is the bronze medalist, and the reason we know this is th...
Jun 29, 2019•34 min
Customer Journey Mapping Using Behavioral Science Journey mapping is how organizations look at the customer journey, or the steps a customer would take from the beginning to the end in their experience. However, we would say regarding journey mapping that it is not only vital to consider the customer journey from beginning to end but also to view it from the customers’ perspective. Journey Mapping employing this approach is what we call Behavioral Journey Mapping . We discuss how to undertake cu...
Jun 22, 2019•32 min
How to Understand Customers Preference Have you ever noticed how some people put a lot of letters after their names in their signatures and bylines? Some of them go on for quite a while, like a second surname. It annoys me sometimes. Then, I remember that when I introduce myself, I often refer to my status on LinkedIn as one of the top 150 Business Influencers. I do it because I am proud of it. I presume that people with the degrees are feeling proud of their hard work and accomplishment earning...
Jun 15, 2019•26 min
Happy Employees Make Happy Customers When your employees are happy, they are more likely to make your customers happy. Common sense dictates that this is logical. However, despite the rationality of this statement, too many organizations do not spend enough of their resources ensuring their employees are happy—and their Customer Experience suffers for it. This episode of The Intuitive Customer dives into Colin’s new book on the subject ‘Happy People Make Happy Customers’ and we explain why the e...
Jun 08, 2019•30 min
Why Are We Scared of New Technology? We have some exciting new technology for CX. Facial recognition technology and facial expression analysis yield some new and exciting data about how customers feel during a Customer Experience. The only problem is that many people find it creepy. This episode of The Intuitive Customer asks the question Why Are We Scared of New Technology? It turns out, we have been here before with new technology. Of course, that time, it was something far more crazy than rec...
Jun 01, 2019•25 min
The Massive Importance of Memory in a Customer’s Experience Customer loyalty is a function of customers’ memories. That is to say, customers don’t choose your experience over another; customers choose the memory of your experience over another. Therefore, we feel it is vital that you ensure your customers have an excellent memory of your Customer Experience. This episode of The Intuitive Customer explores the massive importance of memory for a Customer Experience and how our brain influences wha...
May 25, 2019•31 min
Creating a Frictionless Experience As a global customer experience consultant for nearly two decades, I have never heard a customer say, “Gee! I wish that buying process was just a little more complicated!” Why? All customers want their experiences to be easy. When things aren’t easy in a given moment, we describe that as friction. Every organization needs to find their moments of resistance in a Customer Experience and fix them—before the competition beats them to it. This episode of The Intuit...
May 18, 2019•28 min
We don’t like uncertainty. It affects our lives in many ways, and especially as customers. Consider the fact that we buy insurance. We purchase peace of mind that we are covered if something unlikely (and terrible) happens. Likewise, we buy Powerball tickets in the improbable event that we will win. In other words, we are terrible at estimating the probability of unlikely events, for good or ill. This episode of The Intuitive Customer explores why that is at a psychological level and what you ca...
May 11, 2019•19 min
Why Are Insignificant Things So Significant? Have you ever had the feeling that something about a buying experience didn’t feel right? Chances are if you did, you didn’t buy the product or service. Most times, how a purchase feels is a driver for our customer behavior. This episode of The Intuitive Customer explores why insignificant things are so significant. In other words, why do the little things have such a big influence on what we do as customers? Also, we discuss how you can assess and ad...
May 04, 2019•27 min
What Customer Emotions Drive the Most Value 15 years ago, in Munich, I was asked a question I couldn’t answer when presenting to an insurance company. The person asking understood what I was saying about evoking the proper emotions in a Customer Experience. No, he wanted to know how much money he would get back by investing in my idea. I didn’t know. That was in 2004. For the next two years and in partnership with the London Business School, we undertook research to answer that question. After m...
Apr 27, 2019•25 min
