Learning Makes You Happier — Science Shows it. Have you ever experienced a “conference high?”  Not, I’m not talking about what happens when you skip out on the afternoon session because you got a whiff of something “totally legal in this state.” I’m talking about the feeling you get when a great speaker is on […]

How do you make your Voice of the Customer plan more meaningful? Four words: More customer, more voice. Quick Voice of the Customer Overview You are probably familiar with the term Voice of the Customer, often referred to with the shorthand “VoC.” The idea behind a true Voice of the Customer program is to consistently, reliably […]

Charging into the new year, it’s easy to want to name what’s ahead of us. I am seeing a few enthusiastic sorts claiming 2020 will be “The Year of Experience,” “When Experience Finally Wins” or “The Year of the Customer.” I ask you to greet these well-meaning mantras with appropriate suspicion. For one, a quick […]

I’m weirdly excited about this year. 2020 – a year of vision! (See what I did there?) This time of year is all about the BIG plans. We’re going to eat healthier, get better sleep and drink more water, right? Of course. We’re also going to execute big strategies based on big plans in our […]

The goal of learning in any workplace is to be, well, better. Better at serving customers. Better at increasing efficiency. Better at employee development. Better at staying ahead of the competition. All of that is achievable with the options in learning today, but how often are we really taking advantage of it? The learning paths for everyone should […]

Customer Experience Leaders Have a Global Customer Focus Even after over a decade of helping small and large businesses alike, I still meet leaders who believe that Customer Experience is just about call-center scripts or proper protocols around customer complaints. As you and I both know, dear reader, it’s so much more than that. The […]

Leaders want to deliver exceptional experiences. We all want to deliver for our customers, starting with a sales experience that builds trust between our organization and our buyers. After all, sales sets the stage for the entire customer journey. Sales is where current challenges are discussed and in turn, promises are made. Those promises may be made with the […]

ALL Leaders Experience Leadership Bias… There is a natural conflict of interest between companies and customers. It’s natural for any organization to have goals that don’t align perfectly with the goals of their customers. And there can certainly be natural conflicts of interest within the organization as well — between leaders and employees, between departments, […]

The employee experience can feel hard to manage. As leaders, we ask our employees to care about a lot of things, even those that are only tangentially related to their job descriptions. As an industry, we’re overwhelming employees with messages about the next big thing they need to learn… Digital Transformation! Personalization! Blockchain Technology! And […]

It’s easy to underestimate the efforts it requires to become a truly customer-centric organization. Brave leaders do their best to lead customer experience initiatives that make an impact. But there are processes, protocols and even people who are obstacles to seeing results.   What is the Customer Experience Gap?   The customer experience gap is […]