Improving Customer and Employee Experience for Business Growth

Do you have an Experience Champions Program? It took me several years after the initial launch of the CX practice to realize my job was largely about change management. As a CX leader in a newly launching program, I knew I needed to get a LOT of help.  I need to figure out a way to “turn light bulbs on.”  By that I mean creating a desire in others to be an integral part of the change required to build a CX engine.  The Experience Champions program was one of my proudest accomplishments because the graduates shared their feelings after the program and they all felt it grew them personally and professionally. (btw- experience included both employee & customer experience) Here are the basic components, along with a shortened list of benefits to the employees and the bank where I worked: Basic components: ▪ 18-24 cross functional employees ▪ 8 month commitment ▪ Explain why they want to be a part of the program ▪ Can commit between 5-10 hours per month in addition to their daily workload 🏆 Benefits to the Employee: ▪ Get an opportunity to learn about and apply EX and CX ▪ Get to network with others outside of their area ▪ Get to facilitate internal meetings and share what they’ve learned with their teams ▪ Add to their value and profile for career progression ▪ Become a CX advocate (light bulb turned on) 🏆 Benefits to Company: ▪ Deeper pool of upwardly mobile candidates for leadership roles ▪ Embedding CX into the culture ▪ Developing a common language ▪ Easier acceptance of CX and EX initiatives ▪ Breaking down of silos ▪ Improve employee retention ▪ Better customer experience We had three programs over a four year period, and over 50 graduates🎓 🎓 🎓 🎓 🎓 . They all have made significant contributions. Many have been promoted since. I’m curious if you have had any experience with Experience Champions programs and how they turned out?  #customerexpeirence #employeeexperience #experiencechampions #changemanagement #leadership #management

Not a lot of businesses are recognizing the power of Change Management as a vehicle for enhancing customer experience efforts. Here's how to unlock the power of change management principles in the context of CX. 🎯 Understanding Customer Needs Before initiating any change, you must have a deep understanding of what your customers really want. Utilize data analytics, behavioral data, operational and financial data, customer interviews, surveys, market dynamics, competitive information, and other signals to assess and understand needs. 🤝 Aligning Objectives Leadership Alignment: Ensure that your leadership is onboard and committed to customer experience improvement. Stakeholder Involvement: Involve the frontline employees who interact with customers daily to contribute to the decision-making process. 🗓️ Planning Identify Key Changes: Prioritize which areas require change based on customer feedback and business metrics. Set Targets: Establish measurable KPIs to gauge the success of the changes you plan to implement. These should be business- and customer-driven metrics. Don't make this a metric like "increase OSAT from X to Y." 📣 Communication Internal Communication: Clearly communicate the why and the how to all internal stakeholders. This should include executives, directly impacted employees, and the broader line of business. Tailor it to the stakeholder. Customer Communication: Be transparent with customers about what changes to expect and how they will benefit. Keep them up to date on progress. 🛠️ Implementation Pilot Testing: Conduct a small-scale test of the changes to assess their effectiveness. Feedback Loop: Gather continuous feedback from customers and employees throughout the implementation process. 📊 Evaluation and Adaptation Assess Impact: Examine metrics regularly to determine whether the changes are having the intended impact. Iterate: Use data-driven insights to make necessary adjustments. 🚀 Sustaining Changes Training: Continuously train your team to adapt to new changes. Feedback Mechanisms: Keep the dialogue open with customers and employees for sustainable improvements. 👩💻 Leveraging Technology 👨💻 Data Analytics: Use analytics to pinpoint improvement areas. Communication Platforms: Use tools like Slack or Teams for internal communication. Automation: Implement bots for routine tasks. CRM Systems: Manage customer relationships digitally to gain insights. 💡 Involve Employees Effectively Employees are the face of your customer service. Include them in planning, provide training opportunities, establish regular feedback forums, and reward those who contribute to customer experience improvements. Have you applied change management principles to enhance the customer experience in your organization? What worked for you? What didn't work for you? #ChangeManagement #CustomerExperience #Leadership #DataAnalytics #EmployeeEngagement #Technology

You don't need a hiring and retention strategy. You need to become the kind of business that hires and retains great people through a great employee experience. As I interact with leaders who are looking to grow their businesses, hiring and retention are becoming far more often cited barriers to growth. I spoke to a CEO of a 100-person company just last week who has 20 unfilled positions and is turning away work that is needed to achieve this year's revenue target. Many business leaders come to me looking for a simple strategy or a quick set of tactics that will solve these challenges. And there are some things you can do that will have a quick impact, like listening to employees, recognizing their accomplishments, and taking an interest in their lives. But you can only solve those things permanently through an engaged workforce. A workforce that people want to be a part of, that recruits other great people and keeps them longer. And an engaged workforce can't come until you recognize that you are in the experience business - for your clients AND your employees. One example of this is Chick-Fil-A. We all recognize them as the fast casual restaurant with the best customer experience. But you may not know that they apply the same experience strategy to their employees. Chick-Fil-A wants their customers to: 1. Want to spend time in their restaurants more often 2. Be happy to pay full price 3. Tell others about the experience of eating there Chick-Fil-A wants their employees to: 1. Enjoy spending time at work 2. Look at their paycheck as the least important part of the job 3. Tell others about the experience of working there To improve your employee experience, start where Chick-Fil-A does: by designing employee time - by making work a place they want to be. Start with the experience you want for your employees and work backwards to ensure they view work as time well spent. What that looks like will be different for every business, but it's some of the most important design work you'll do. It will make you the kind of business that doesn't turn away work because you can't hire and retain great employees. #employeeengagement #employeeexperience #hiring #retention

What’s the often overlooked but powerful element of outstanding customer experience? It's none other than the profound influence of employee experience. Happy and engaged employees become the cornerstone of remarkable customer interactions. Here's how organizations can invest in nurturing a thriving workplace: 1. Empower employees with decision-making autonomy to resolve customer issues. This fosters a culture of accountability and sound business judgment. 2. Encourage employees to take ownership of customer interactions. This instills pride, responsibility, and the ability to provide personalized service. 3. Equip your team with the skills needed to deliver exceptional service. Continuous  training benefits employees and enhances customer experience. 4. Recognize and reward employee efforts. This elevates morale, fosters motivation, and subsequently enhances customer interactions. 5. Make time to celebrate the wins and learn from each other. A strong team culture amplifies success, making the whole greater than the sum of its parts. Creating a supportive work environment leads to improved customer loyalty and growth. ✨ Sharing a throwback from an offsite event. Reflecting on my career, these moments with my teams were instrumental in fostering a culture of excellence and growth.❤️

Leaders must activate the full potential of their teams to ensure greatest mission impact and outcome. It is very clear that traditional management strategies need a major upgrade. We are stepping into an era where employee activation is not just a buzzword but a business imperative. Leaders need to create a culture that not only enables but actively empowers every team member as a force multiplier. The key to unlocking this potential lies in setting the right conditions—a culture grounded in the principles of transparency, collaboration, empowerment, and innovation. Here are 5 themes on how leaders can set these conditions: 1. Cultivate a Principle Based Culture: Encourage an organization of learning, an open exchange of ideas, feedback, and suggestions directly within the entire flow of work. This not only boosts morale but also enhances the quality of decisions made at every level. 2. Implement Responsive Processes: Equip employees with real-time insights and tools necessary to adapt swiftly to customer needs and market changes. Whether it is service recovery or system improvements, every team member should have the autonomy to act on critical insights promptly. 3. Leverage the Right Technology that Enables this Action: Adopt technologies that integrate seamlessly into daily workflows (making it more easy, effective, and emotionally resonant), enhancing communication and enabling more effective collaboration. This ensures that every stakeholder can take meaningful action that aligns with the best interests of the business. 4. Promote Inclusive Decision-Making: Empower everyone at every level to participate in decision-making processes— and make decisions. No decision is still a decision. This approach not only democratizes innovation but also ensures that diverse perspectives are heard, leading to richer, more effective business solutions. 5. Focus on Continuous Improvement: Regularly review and refine processes and strategies based on customer and employee feedback and changing business needs. This proactive stance on improvement helps organizations stay ahead of the curve and fosters a culture of perpetual growth and learning. By empowering employees and truly activating their potential, organizations are not just responding to changes; they are driving them, ensuring a future where both the organization and all its people thrive. #Leadership #Management #Culture #Technology #CustomerExperience #EmployeeExperience #EmployeeEmpowerment #OrganizationalCulture #Innovation #Transformation #FutureOfWork

Business leaders are often their own worst enemies when it comes to improving #CustomerExperience, lifting loyalty and retention, and improving lifetime value. Leaders typically seek to train their employees on how to say more empathetic things to customers without giving employees the time and autonomy to be more empathetic. Leaders regularly say they want employees to take the time to understand customers' needs while rewarding the employees who handle the most customers in the least time. Leaders frequently claim to want a more customer-centric culture while rewarding employees primarily (or exclusively) for short-term financial outcomes. Leaders ask employees to build stronger bonds with customers while at the same time demanding employees do more with less. Leaders say they want to provide effortless experiences to customers while failing to evaluate and alter the corporate policies, practices, and systems that add time, effort, and frustration to customer experiences. Leaders hold employees accountable to improve NPS and satisfaction scores without making the proper investments to address what drives down those scores. There is one and only source of long-term growth for brands: Customers. You can't cost-cut, efficiency-lift, or even out-acquire your way to growth. These are all short-term ways to lift margin and revenue, but they are not sustainable. If you won't listen to customers, understand what they need and want, and find ways to prioritize investments to match, then you cannot retain and grow customers, lift reputation and word of mouth, and increase the lifetime value of customers. Employees can lift #CX in small pockets from the ground up, but sustainable, customer-led growth only comes from top-down customer-centric culture.

Customer experience has been a focus of many business leaders for quite some time. The notion that investing in better CX yields financial, competitive and operational benefits is well-established. Indeed, studies from Forrester and PwC indicate roughly 68% 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚 𝐝𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐂𝐗 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐦 𝐨𝐫 𝐟𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧. 𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐲𝐞𝐞 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 (𝐄𝐗) 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲. And, while the link between CX and EX is well understood (happy employees make happy customers and vice verse), 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐈𝐆𝐍 𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐲𝐞𝐞 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 like they have for CX. Employee experience design can help you tackle challenges like 𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐲𝐞𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 or satisfaction scores, 𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐡 𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫, difficulty 𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨𝐩 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭, as well as issues like employee 𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 that can 𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐞𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐩𝐮𝐬𝐡 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐨𝐫. Here are some things leaders can do to start establishing an employee experience design (EXD) capability: ✋🏽 𝐒𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐚𝐧 𝐄𝐗 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫: The leader needs to understand how the company interacts with its employees, how things get done across organizational boundaries, and have the relationships and authority to engage people across the organization. ⚽ 𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐄𝐗 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐦: EX requires a cross-disciplinary team that is assembled based on the project scope and scale. Involve representatives from those parts of the organization that impact the specific employee journey the most. 📈 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐬𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧: Get the team trained up on the key skills needed for experience design and set them loose on an initial challenge area, for example improving the onboarding experience or innovating the dreaded performance appraisal process. Give ample time for them to test their new skills on one or two focused projects and make team learning a top measure of success. 📖 𝐆𝐞𝐭 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞: There is no substitute for experience, so if you do not have internal expertise that is both interested and available to dive into employee experience, get help from external experts. Building a new capability is no easy endeavor, but leaders need only look to the positive results that came from investing in CX to see the potential rewards. What kinds of experience design work are you doing? 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐝𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐞𝐱𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥? #EmployeeEngagement #EX #CX #EmployeeExperience #ServiceDesign #DesignThinking Steven B., Ezequiel Williams, Lisa G. Morris, Manfred Gollent, reshift

Criticism of ESG, & sustainability more broadly, increased in 2023. Despite this, companies continue their sustainability work, albeit more quietly, likely in part to avoid becoming political targets but also because they understand the science & recognize investing in sustainable business practices is far cheaper today than it will be in the future. This recent Business Insider article (https://lnkd.in/gE-AYD-F) is but one of many highlighting the ongoing transformation of businesses in their efforts to become more sustainable. The article includes insights from Christine Spadafor, currently a visiting executive at The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, said "...part of the reason ESG work will stick around is that many organizations think it's good for drawing in younger workers, especially Gen Zers. Gen Zers are much more "decisive & discerning" than older generations about where they want to work, Spadafor said. "It's not just getting the job, but it's getting the job in the right place where the values of the company are consistent with their values...". Attracting talented people, both young & old, to the workplace today by emphasizing values alignment translates to better customer experiences (CX). Building on what I wrote in Radical Business (https://lnkd.in/gb-c_R3W), there are five generations in today’s workplace. Creating powerful employee experiences requires you know more about them than their name & title; you must show that you understand generational & diversity differences & the growing desire they have today to work for values-driven, purpose-led companies. When your employees believe their work is meaningful then they contribute more discretionary effort that is reflected in the experiences they create for customers. When those experiences are great, 72% of customers will share them with other people. Lavish the same attention on your employees’ experience as you do your customers if you want to make measurable progress on your societal value initiatives. IBM, a 110-year-old company, understands this. Diane Gherson (2018), the company’s former Chief Human Resources, said employee engagement accounts for 2/3s of a customer’s experience score [Lisa Burrell 2018] so making the employee’s experience vital to your company’s success seems like a sensible idea. Furthermore, both customer & employee experiences show evidence of correlation. Creating great CX is correlated with higher employee engagement (they are 1.5 times more engaged)[James Gilbert 2019]. 2024 is a great time to strengthen the values-based, purpose-led experiences for employees & customers. #sustainablebusiness #sustainability #business #ESG #doingwellbydoinggood #leaders #leadership #leadbyexample

Employee experiences really matter. This is not just culture, not just your mission / vision / values, not just snacks or a nice break room. It is the actual specially crafted intentional experiences that you provide to your employees. We just wrapped a consulting project focused on building a set of employee experiences that span a 12-month journey for a luxury brand. They wanted their employees to have the same experiences that they were asking them to create for customers. This CEO and leadership team are making an investment that is already allowing them to attract top talent away from their competitors. So what goes into building a series of meaningful, memorable, brand-defining employee experiences? For this client, we focused on the following: 1.) Elevating the Ordinary: Taking the commonplace actions that happen in the corporate world and adding special luxurious, personal touches into them. 2.) Fostering a Sense of Personal Pride: Commemorating courage, creativity, and achievements in unexpected, beautiful, and elegant ways throughout the year. (This is not the commonplace corporate calendar of employee events). 3.) Creating Moments of Insight & Self-Discovery: Building meaningful moments that foster powerful personal insights and encourage self-discovery that enhance joy, capability, and sense of place. 4.) Growing Heartfelt Connections: Enhancing the bonds with the brand, each other, and the community by delivering experiences with authentic emotions and tangible benefits—beyond the expected. Your employees drive the experiences for your customers and the best experiences are centered around human connection. So if you want to deliver a differentiated experience to customers, then it starts with cherishing and investing at the same level with your employees. #employeeengagement #employeeexperience #investinpeople