Lynn Hunsaker's Blog (24)

Customer Satisfaction Bonus Traps

Why do sales and service representatives feel compelled to tell customers how to answer a survey? Does the company want to know what the customers really think, or is the company trying to build positive publicity by claiming superior ratings?

The answer to the second question exposes the company's cultu… Continue

Added by Lynn Hunsaker on November 17, 2009 at 6:23am — No Comments

The Art of Listening: A Key to Customer-Centricity

Curiosity is the key to great listening skills that improve customer experience. When you're truly curious about your customer's opinions, expectations and requests, you'll find the customer to be more pleasant, interesting and fulfilling to you as well.… Continue

Added by Lynn Hunsaker on October 22, 2009 at 11:00am — No Comments

What's Your Customer Experience Value Quotient?

If value is defined as benefits versus costs, what's your company's customer experience value ratio? Superior value is the objective of customers and marketers alike. And since customers hold the purse strings, marketers are compelled to view value as customers do. In the customer experience value ratio… Continue

Added by Lynn Hunsaker on October 2, 2009 at 11:45am — No Comments

Customer-Focused Culture by Living With Your Customers: A Lesson From Amazon

You never know someone so well as when they live with you! What better way to transform your culture to truly customer-centric ways of thinking and doing, than to invite your customer to attend all your discussions? This has long been a practice at Amazon, since founder… Continue

Added by Lynn Hunsaker on September 1, 2009 at 6:23am — 3 Comments

Customer Experience Innovation Involves Everyone

Every person in an organization is needed for customer experience innovation. That’s because customer expectations and competitive offerings are always on the rise. Your processes, policies, skills, and motivations have a lot to do with keeping customers coming back — and even more to do with customers deciding not to come back. Think of your own situation as a customer — whenever you’ve decided not to go back to a certain product or service or place, it was usually because you were turned off… Continue

Added by Lynn Hunsaker on July 10, 2009 at 6:30pm — No Comments

Customer-Centric Culture Essential for Customer Experience Management

CLICK HERE FOR INTERNET RADIO VERSION What Does it Mean to be Customer-centric? To have the customer's best interests as the focus of your attention -- not to be pre-occupied in your own interests at the customer's expense. To do this, you need to: (1) Really know the customer in order to anticipate their best interests. (2) Differentiate between primary and… Continue

Added by Lynn Hunsaker on June 15, 2009 at 7:35am — No Comments

Interaction Bridges for Customer Commitments

CLICK HERE FOR TRAINING PODCAST SAMPLE CLICK HERE FOR WEBCAST VERSION For customer experience management (CEM), it’s natural to focus on smoothing interaction difficulties between paying customers and sales and service representatives. Additionally, innumerable interactions for CEM occur inside the company, causing da… Continue

Added by Lynn Hunsaker on May 23, 2009 at 9:00am — No Comments

What IS Customer Experience?!

You probably hear lots of "customer ..." phrases that seem interchangeable. In reality, there are big differences in these terms, although they are related. Customer Experience: customer's journey from realization of a need until the need no longer exists.

… Continue

Added by Lynn Hunsaker on May 8, 2009 at 12:29pm — No Comments

5 Keys to Employee Engagement for Customer Experience

CLICK HERE FOR PODCAST VERSION (4:48)

Lack of cooperation across organizations is a momentum inhibitor for customer experience management (CEM). Among best-in-class CEM practitioners, top cha… Continue

Added by Lynn Hunsaker on April 23, 2009 at 8:30am — No Comments

Improve Customer Experience: Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Actions speak louder than words when it comes to most things in life. Michael Phelps, Britney Spears, Barry Bonds, Martha Stewart and plenty of others learned that the hard way. Customers feel the same. They hear plenty of promises in ads, on signs, and from sales and service people. Ye… Continue

Added by Lynn Hunsaker on March 28, 2009 at 7:30am — No Comments

Missing! Systems Thinking for Customer Experience Business Results

"Do the whole job" is a mantra needed by our companies and society at large. Piecemeal efforts and short-term strategies ultimately lead to finger-in-the-dike management that is rampant today. All of the recent customer experience studies indicate that vital linkages are broken between: - survey results and business results - data and actions - goals across functions and business units - incentives and desired behaviors - multiple voice of customer sources - views of what customers want - brand… Continue

Added by Lynn Hunsaker on March 20, 2009 at 8:30am — No Comments

Measure Customer Value the Customer's Way

Customers automatically use 50 or more metrics for any customer experience, according to author Anthony Ulwick, in his book "What Customers Want". We may be re-inventing the wheel as we strive to come up with customer metrics that spell success. Looking at things from the customer viewpoint we've got to admit that customers really do know what outcomes they want. "It's easy to portray customers as emotional, illogical indiv… Continue

Added by Lynn Hunsaker on February 17, 2009 at 9:10pm — No Comments

4 Tips for Keeping Goals & Initiatives on Track: Part 1

Goals are essential for taking your personal life and business prosperity to higher levels of performance, satisfaction and success. All too often, best intentions can get derailed over time. Here are 4 basic principles that apply to any resolution, initiative, program, dashboard, or MBO (management by objectives; incentives or stretch goals): 1. Connected - make sure you’re focusing on things with strong co… Continue

Added by Lynn Hunsaker on January 17, 2009 at 8:18am — No Comments

Customer Experience Improvement on a Tight Budget

Great strides in customer experience improvement are attainable with minimal out-of-pocket investment. Most companies have a wealth of untapped resources within. Proven winners both during and after a down cycle are those that embrace a slowdown as an opportunity to strengthen innovation and business processes. This strengthening better aligns offerings and ways-of-doing-business in ways that matter to customers and are… Continue

Added by Lynn Hunsaker on January 2, 2009 at 10:00am — No Comments

Customer Service: 'Wow' Versus 'Ow'

What's the difference between 'wow' and 'ow' (as in 'ouch') service? Willingness to check for understanding. It's doing the whole job, with the customer sensing your overriding wish for his or her well-being. When you check for understanding, the customer’s woes dissolve, they appreciate your wisdom, and they deem your company worthy of wonderful word-of-mouth. Check Your Understanding of the Customer's Plight By the time customers contact a service professional, they've typica… Continue

Added by Lynn Hunsaker on December 2, 2008 at 8:16am — No Comments

Customer Experience in a Down Economy

As economic cycles change, customer experience strategies must adapt to evolving customer expectations, competitive forces and financial realities. To offer timely advice on customer experience strategies, a group of 18 experts contributed to a free public… Continue

Added by Lynn Hunsaker on November 26, 2008 at 4:11pm — No Comments

Are Customer Programs Giving or Getting?

Who benefits most from customer programs in place today? - New customers? - Existing customers? - The company itself? - All of the above equally? I'd venture to say it's rare to find customer programs that benefit all of the above equally -- or that truly benefit existing customers. In these economic times particularly, it certainly pays to keep customers coming back! Existing customers are the natural source for good word-of-mouth and referrals, and for expanding share-of-wallet with your bran… Continue

Added by Lynn Hunsaker on November 8, 2008 at 8:30am — No Comments

Customer Experience - What is it?

The term customer experience has a wide array of interpretations. For some people it revolves around shopping or website navigation. For others it's about ease of use as the customer interfaces with the product or service they purchased. For some, it's about technical and customer service. And still others view it as creating affinity through unique events, communities, and promotions. The big question is: how do your customers define customer experience? Customer experience managment… Continue

Added by Lynn Hunsaker on November 1, 2008 at 11:49am — No Comments

Customer Satisfaction Cliffhangers

Customers are typically motivated to give companies feedback by hopes that their opinions will be valued, make a difference in their near-future experiences, or spare others any grief they've endured. Anytime customers share feedback -- whether solicited via survey or unsolicited via complaint or casual comments to front-line employees -- it's important to acknowledge the customers' view and thank them, with assurance you're working on solutions. Don't let them feel like they're hanging on a cli… Continue

Added by Lynn Hunsaker on October 23, 2008 at 10:52am — No Comments

Stepping Into Your Customer's Shoes

If we could 'be a fly on the wall' observing customers' experiences what a treasure trove of wisdom we'd have! Surveys, user groups and advisory boards are common tools for understanding customers -- but what is their scope? Do we have a comprehensive suite of tools for stepping into our customers' shoes? Customer Experience Scope We often short-change our perspective of the customer experience. A panoramic view of the customer's pressures, delights, wishes, and circumstances e… Continue

Added by Lynn Hunsaker on October 16, 2008 at 8:30am — No Comments