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Yeah.

It’s one of the biggest challenges that any organization faces today, whether it’s commercial business or it’s in government situation or nonprofits. I mean, this whole idea of how do I continue to improve the customer experience in a world where there’s more competition globally, the technology is constantly changing, customer segmentation is practically fragmenting as we speak, and expectations of everybody is constantly rising. So this is a challenge that nobody can get away from. Customer experience is sort of everything. Let me explain to you what I mean by that.

So whatever product or service it is that you provide, let’s use a product to start with, how does the product perform? How reliable is the product? What’s the cost of the product? Can you upgrade the product? How environmentally sustainable is the product? All of that is, customers are going to experience it. So that’s part of customer experience. But then there’s this whole other category like how easy is it to find out about your products and how do I order a product and how quickly can I get that product? Can I can I track the scheduling and the delivery of the product? And how do I pay for the product? That’s not the product. That’s the second category. That’s all of the value that’s created through the delivery system, and that’s part of the customer experience.

And then if I interact with your people, whether it’s through chat or it’s over the phone or it’s face to face or just reading the writing on your website, the attitude with which you are treating me as your customer, that’s part of the customer experience. And then whether or not you’re treating me like, you know, this is just a transaction, you’re just buying something, let’s get it handled or are you actually looking to develop a longer-term relationship with me? That’s part of the customer experience. And the problem for leaders is that so few of them have got a working toolset, a set of language and principles and methods that their people can use to improve customer experience in all of these different categories of value.

Without a toolset that everybody can use, no matter which department they’re in, that will improve experience, add value, create value, then what happens is the different departments go to work and they’re disconnected from each other. Now there is a solution for this, which is, you know, a proven, reliable, successful toolset that the team can use for continuous improvement to add value for customers and for categories in those four categories- product improvement, delivery improvement, attitude or mindset improvement, and the cultivation of relationships. And I can go into explaining all of those, but let me just pick one.

So for example, the definition that we use of the word service is taking action to create value for someone. Well that’s what all the four categories should be doing. So we use the word service and it’s directly connected to the experience that you’re providing. But how do you get your people to actually think about and understand what is the customer experience from the customer’s point of view? In other words, your people know what it is they’re doing. They know what procedures they’re following. They know when they get a complaint, but they don’t necessarily know where is that customer experience.

So one of the tools we developed, and I think you saw when we were in Sri Lanka, it’s called the six levels of service. And that comes along with an understanding of what’s below expected, basic or even criminal, and what’s above expected. When you serve somebody the way they desire, are you surprised them or you really reach an unbelievable level. The beauty of that particular tool is it not just gives everybody in an organization a way of speaking in common about the customer experience and how to improve the customer experience and where we need to improve the customer experience. But then you can also use it to say, “Hey, those six levels, as you saw, are always slipping down, so you can’t stand still.” Otherwise, by default, because of rising expectations or because of competition, you’re going to be slipping down.