#CX 36: Why Customer Experience Must Be Effortless w/ Ethan Beute

WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.280 --> 00:00:08.230 Hey there, this is James Carberry, founder of sweet fish media and one 2 00:00:08.230 --> 00:00:11.109 of the cohosts of this show. For the last year and a half I've 3 00:00:11.109 --> 00:00:14.869 been working on my very first book. In the book I share the three 4 00:00:15.029 --> 00:00:18.829 part framework we've used as the foundation for our growth here at sweet fish. 5 00:00:19.269 --> 00:00:22.140 Now there are lots of companies that have raised a bunch of money and have 6 00:00:22.300 --> 00:00:25.500 grown insanely fast, and we featured a lot of them here on the show. 7 00:00:26.260 --> 00:00:30.460 We've decided to bootstrap our business, which usually equates to pretty slow growth, 8 00:00:31.019 --> 00:00:34.500 but using the strategy outlined in the book, we are on pace to 9 00:00:34.579 --> 00:00:38.490 be one of inks fastest growing companies in two thousand and twenty. The book 10 00:00:38.490 --> 00:00:42.450 is called content based networking, how to instantly connect with anyone you want to 11 00:00:42.570 --> 00:00:45.210 know. If you're a fan of audiobooks like me, you can find the 12 00:00:45.250 --> 00:00:48.250 book on audible, or if you like physical books, you can also find 13 00:00:48.289 --> 00:00:53.439 it on Amazon. Just search content based networking or James Carberry, car be 14 00:00:53.640 --> 00:00:58.159 a ARY, inaudible or Amazon and it should pop right up. All right, 15 00:00:58.200 --> 00:01:03.310 let's get into the show. The most economically valuable thing you can do 16 00:01:04.150 --> 00:01:11.230 is to meet customer expectations. Notice that I didn't say exceed customer expectations or 17 00:01:11.629 --> 00:01:15.750 surprise and to light your customers. The most economically valuable thing you can do 18 00:01:15.269 --> 00:01:19.939 is to meet customer expectations. My name is Ethan viewed. I'm the host 19 00:01:19.980 --> 00:01:23.980 of the customer experience podcast asked and the cohost of the B tob growth show. 20 00:01:23.019 --> 00:01:26.579 I host the C X Series on the show and in this episode I'm 21 00:01:26.620 --> 00:01:30.780 going to share a handful of awesome takeaways from a book that I'm late to 22 00:01:30.859 --> 00:01:34.969 the party on. It was published more than five years ago. It's called 23 00:01:34.969 --> 00:01:40.650 the effortless experience. It's by Matt Dixon, Nick Toman and Rick Delicy. 24 00:01:41.250 --> 00:01:45.890 Dixon, by the way, also co authored the Challenger sale and the Challenger 25 00:01:45.969 --> 00:01:49.680 customer. And these may not be revelations to the more well studied customer success 26 00:01:49.719 --> 00:01:55.000 experts who listen to the show, but likely will be for everyone else, 27 00:01:55.239 --> 00:01:59.719 as it was for me. I am only going to share some takeaways from 28 00:01:59.760 --> 00:02:02.349 the first chapter of the book, and this chapter, as well as the 29 00:02:02.430 --> 00:02:07.389 greater portion of the book, is based on research with ninety seven thousand consumers 30 00:02:07.669 --> 00:02:15.110 and hundreds of executives inside businesses serving these customers. So here's the setup and 31 00:02:15.229 --> 00:02:17.060 a quote from the book. What if you got up in front of the 32 00:02:17.139 --> 00:02:22.539 team and, instead of asking them to delight your customers, you ask them 33 00:02:22.939 --> 00:02:27.539 to make things as easy as possible for your customers, and you told them 34 00:02:27.860 --> 00:02:31.449 to do this by focusing on a small set of actions, like avoiding situations 35 00:02:31.650 --> 00:02:37.610 where the customers likely to have to call back, not transferring customers when they 36 00:02:37.650 --> 00:02:43.449 can handle the issue themselves, not asking customers to repeat themselves, not treating 37 00:02:43.490 --> 00:02:46.039 people in a generic manner and so forth. By the way, those are 38 00:02:46.120 --> 00:02:51.560 four of the most annoying things to the customers surveyed and likely, if you've 39 00:02:51.599 --> 00:02:53.960 looked at your own customer feedback or you looked at your own experience as a 40 00:02:54.039 --> 00:02:58.789 customer, these things annoy you as well. So what this chapter does is 41 00:02:59.150 --> 00:03:01.949 open up by dispelling a couple of myths that are typically off the radar of 42 00:03:02.469 --> 00:03:07.110 marketing, sales and leadership, but they're highly relevant to these people and to 43 00:03:07.189 --> 00:03:12.110 the entire organization. You know, there's so much focus on customer delight in 44 00:03:12.509 --> 00:03:17.379 wow moments, but not enough focus on something much simpler and more economically valuable, 45 00:03:17.939 --> 00:03:23.659 meeting customers expectations and reducing their effort. Three takeaways from the chapter delighting 46 00:03:23.780 --> 00:03:30.210 customers in the service channel does not pay. Number two, customer service drives 47 00:03:30.289 --> 00:03:36.289 disloyalty, not loyalty. And number three, the key to mitigating disloyalty is 48 00:03:36.449 --> 00:03:39.889 reducing customer effort. So let's focus on that first one, delighting customers. 49 00:03:40.169 --> 00:03:45.400 Delight is not the fully sensible and most effective mission of the CS organization. 50 00:03:45.439 --> 00:03:49.400 A lot of the stories that we hear are typically what they call, quote 51 00:03:49.400 --> 00:03:53.039 unquote, lottery ticket logic. We tend to over celebrate the rare moments of 52 00:03:53.120 --> 00:04:00.150 delivering above and beyond and overspend on training toward moments of wow. I'm going 53 00:04:00.189 --> 00:04:03.469 to quote them here. There's virtually no difference at all between the loyalty of 54 00:04:03.509 --> 00:04:09.870 those as customers, whose expectations are exceeded and those whose expectations are simply met. 55 00:04:10.860 --> 00:04:16.100 Loyalty actually plateaus once customer expectations are met. So what do they mean 56 00:04:16.139 --> 00:04:20.379 when they say loyalty? They define it with three specific behaviors. One is 57 00:04:20.500 --> 00:04:26.329 repurchasing, continuing to buy from you. Number two is share of wallet, 58 00:04:26.529 --> 00:04:30.209 buying more from you over time, and number three is advocacy, saying Nice 59 00:04:30.250 --> 00:04:35.129 things about you to other people. So again, there's no difference in loyalty 60 00:04:35.290 --> 00:04:41.560 between customers whose expectations are exceeded versus those who are simply met. And of 61 00:04:41.639 --> 00:04:46.279 course, when they interviewed senior leaders, exceeding expectations comes with much higher operational 62 00:04:46.480 --> 00:04:51.079 costs. So higher cost for no particular benefit. I'm going to quote them 63 00:04:51.120 --> 00:04:55.829 again. The data show that an aggregate, customers who are moved from a 64 00:04:55.870 --> 00:05:01.230 level of below expectations up to meets expectations offer about the same economic value as 65 00:05:01.310 --> 00:05:06.500 those whose expectations were exceeded. And of course, exceeding expectations is more expensive 66 00:05:06.540 --> 00:05:11.699 for us from an operational standpoint. So the goal here is basic competence, 67 00:05:11.740 --> 00:05:16.540 professional service and getting the fundamentals right, solving the problem and getting people back 68 00:05:16.540 --> 00:05:21.930 to their day. Point one, delighting customers in the service channel doesn't pay. 69 00:05:23.529 --> 00:05:29.649 Point two, customer service interactions tend to drive disloyalty rather than loyalty. 70 00:05:30.449 --> 00:05:33.370 You know, here at bombomb we have an amazing customer success and customer support 71 00:05:33.370 --> 00:05:39.279 people and we often get those very positive replies about how a particular team member 72 00:05:39.319 --> 00:05:44.759 of ours made someone's Day or really over delivered for a customer. But an 73 00:05:44.800 --> 00:05:49.310 aggregate, and I'm quoting from the effortless experience here, any customer service interaction 74 00:05:49.829 --> 00:05:57.029 is four times more likely to drive disloyalty than to drive loyalty. And worse, 75 00:05:57.189 --> 00:06:00.870 and I'm quoting here, those customers we make disloyal are much more likely 76 00:06:00.990 --> 00:06:06.660 to spread that disloyalty to other potential customers through negative word of mouth. And 77 00:06:06.899 --> 00:06:11.980 even worse, and finally, and I'm quoting again here, forty five percent 78 00:06:12.019 --> 00:06:15.300 of the people who had something positive to say about a company told fewer than 79 00:06:15.339 --> 00:06:20.170 three people. By contrast, forty eight percent of people who had negative things 80 00:06:20.250 --> 00:06:27.410 to say reported that negative speak to more than ten people. So those positive 81 00:06:27.449 --> 00:06:31.129 experiences are shared less, those negative experiences are shared more, and we're four 82 00:06:31.250 --> 00:06:36.600 times more likely to drive disloyalty anytime someone gets into our support channel by phone 83 00:06:36.639 --> 00:06:42.839 or email or elsewhere. Final quote here. We pick companies because of their 84 00:06:42.879 --> 00:06:46.670 products, but we often leave them because of their service failures. So the 85 00:06:46.910 --> 00:06:53.110 goal is self service, product service, great product and service experience so that 86 00:06:53.189 --> 00:06:56.870 people don't need to get into your customer service channel in the first place. 87 00:06:58.149 --> 00:07:01.740 Finally, point number three from the first chapter of the effortless experience. The 88 00:07:01.819 --> 00:07:06.860 key to mitigating disloyalty is reducing customer effort. This is the third one in 89 00:07:06.899 --> 00:07:10.620 the chapter, of course, because it teas up the rest of the book. 90 00:07:10.860 --> 00:07:15.810 It's all about reducing effort. Four of the five drivers of disloyalty are 91 00:07:15.850 --> 00:07:19.170 about additional effort that customers must put forth, and you've already heard them at 92 00:07:19.170 --> 00:07:24.290 the top of this episode. In rank order, they are requires more than 93 00:07:24.370 --> 00:07:29.649 one contact to resolve the issue. Number two, generic service, treating people 94 00:07:29.730 --> 00:07:34.120 like a number, noncommittal responses, corporate speak. Number three, having to 95 00:07:34.240 --> 00:07:38.879 repeat information. I know that's a frustration for me. You told one service 96 00:07:39.040 --> 00:07:42.160 rep you know this piece of information or this number and you have to tell 97 00:07:42.199 --> 00:07:45.990 the next person the same thing. Right. People hate having to repeat information. 98 00:07:46.110 --> 00:07:50.389 Number four, perceived additional effort to resolve this reminds me of an episode 99 00:07:50.430 --> 00:07:55.310 I released with Mike Red Board of hub spot, who really drove home the 100 00:07:55.389 --> 00:08:01.259 point in that podcast conversation that the customers reality is the reality. So their 101 00:08:01.339 --> 00:08:05.060 perceived additional effort to resolve even if on our side of it, as the 102 00:08:05.180 --> 00:08:07.019 service provider, we think, oh, wasn't that big a deal, if 103 00:08:07.100 --> 00:08:11.980 the customer perceives it as such, it is a big deal period. It 104 00:08:11.180 --> 00:08:16.689 is a matter of fact. Finally, transfers getting bounced around. Now, 105 00:08:16.689 --> 00:08:20.490 if you're not a very large organization's probably doesn't happen so much, but if 106 00:08:20.529 --> 00:08:24.370 you're in a medium to large organization, you may have to bounce people around. 107 00:08:24.529 --> 00:08:26.639 The more you do that, the more effort and the more perceived effort 108 00:08:28.079 --> 00:08:33.480 and the greater likelihood of producing disloyalty. Here's how common they are. Fifty 109 00:08:33.519 --> 00:08:37.360 six percent of the customers interviewed again, about a hundred thousand people interviewed. 110 00:08:37.519 --> 00:08:41.590 Fifty six percent said they had to re explain their issue during a service interaction. 111 00:08:41.990 --> 00:08:46.110 Fifty nine percent had a higher perceived additional effort to resolve the issue. 112 00:08:46.750 --> 00:08:50.509 Fifty nine percent also said they were transferred during a service interaction. Finally, 113 00:08:52.110 --> 00:08:56.700 sixty two percent of people said it took more than one contact to resolve the 114 00:08:56.820 --> 00:09:01.659 issue. This produces frustration because it requires effort and therefore it produces disloyalty. 115 00:09:03.019 --> 00:09:07.860 Ninety six percent of customers who had high effort experiences reported being disloyal, compared 116 00:09:07.899 --> 00:09:13.250 to only nine percent of customers with low effort experience. I'm going to say 117 00:09:13.289 --> 00:09:16.690 that one more time. Low effort experience, only nine percent of people were 118 00:09:16.769 --> 00:09:22.570 disloyal high effort experience. When we're asking our customers to spend time and energy, 119 00:09:22.970 --> 00:09:28.159 mental and physical and emotional. Ninety six percent of the people in high 120 00:09:28.159 --> 00:09:33.679 effort experiences were disloyal. To close here, there four principles of creating low 121 00:09:33.759 --> 00:09:39.389 effort service. Number one, low effort companies minimize channel switching by boosting the 122 00:09:39.509 --> 00:09:46.309 stickiness of self service channels. This prevents customers from having to reach out in 123 00:09:46.389 --> 00:09:50.269 the first place. Number two, head off the potential for subsequent calls by 124 00:09:50.389 --> 00:09:56.340 having employees practice next issue avoidance, being a little bit proactive. Hey, 125 00:09:56.580 --> 00:09:58.820 now that we've addressed what's really on your mind right now, let me tell 126 00:09:58.860 --> 00:10:05.340 you about something upcoming. Proactively avoiding future issues a huge value to the customer 127 00:10:05.379 --> 00:10:09.809 because it reduces effort. Number three, succeed on the emotional side of the 128 00:10:09.970 --> 00:10:16.970 service interaction. One or more chapters of the book go through Experience Engineering Tactics 129 00:10:16.009 --> 00:10:20.169 very specific things you can do to manage this. If you've been listening to 130 00:10:20.250 --> 00:10:24.360 the customer experience podcast, you know that video is a great way to manage 131 00:10:24.399 --> 00:10:30.879 that emotional side of the service interaction. Fourth and finally, here and power 132 00:10:30.919 --> 00:10:35.190 front line reps to deliver a low effort experience by using incentive systems that value 133 00:10:35.230 --> 00:10:41.309 the quality of the experience over merely speed in efficiency. It's really easy to 134 00:10:41.429 --> 00:10:45.429 measure and reward speed in efficiency. It's a little bit more difficult to get 135 00:10:45.429 --> 00:10:50.340 at quality, but quality in effort reduction is a big, big deal. 136 00:10:50.500 --> 00:10:54.659 It's a huge value driver in your business. This their book goes into way 137 00:10:54.779 --> 00:10:58.580 more detail on all of these topics. I just wanted to share my appreciation 138 00:10:58.820 --> 00:11:03.860 for the book and the provocative opening thoughts in that first chapter. The single 139 00:11:03.940 --> 00:11:07.649 most important thing you can do today is to create and deliver a better experience 140 00:11:07.769 --> 00:11:13.850 for your customers as an individual, as a team and as an entire organization. 141 00:11:13.370 --> 00:11:16.409 Reducing effort is a great way to do that. I hope you found 142 00:11:16.409 --> 00:11:22.639 this valuable. If you did subscribe to the customer Experience Podcast, you can 143 00:11:22.679 --> 00:11:26.720 find it in your favorite podcast player and while you're there, take a minute 144 00:11:26.720 --> 00:11:30.360 and leave a review or drop a rating. It's super helpful to the PODCAST 145 00:11:30.679 --> 00:11:33.190 and to people evaluating whether they might get some value out of it too. 146 00:11:33.629 --> 00:11:37.070 Thanks so much for listening. My name is Ethan Butte and I welcome any 147 00:11:37.149 --> 00:11:46.070 feedback on linkedin or in my email inbox. Ethan at Bombombcom. We totally 148 00:11:46.110 --> 00:11:50.740 get it. We publish a ton of content on this podcast, and it 149 00:11:50.820 --> 00:11:54.220 can be a lot to keep up with. That's why we've started the BB 150 00:11:54.379 --> 00:11:58.220 growth big three, a no fluff email that boils down our three biggest takeaways 151 00:11:58.259 --> 00:12:03.850 from an entire week of episodes. Sign up today at Sweet Phish Mediacom Big 152 00:12:03.970 --> 00:12:07.850 Three. That sweet PHISH MEDIACOM Big Three