Blogs

Mother Nature gets it wrong, too!

Earlier this month I visited my happy place, Lake Michigan, with my family & my dear friend & her family

The kids had a blast hiking the dunes at Grand Mere State Park – the sun was shining on the pristine lake, as the small waves gently lapped the shore.  🌊

On our way home we decided to stop off at another one of my favorite spots, Cherry Beach. Which is only 10 miles away from Grand Mere.

What we found was a completely different lake – frozen, no movement, & blustery wind.  ❄

On the drive home, I started thinking with my CX hat – this same thing happens countless times a day to customers all over the globe.

It looks something like this: A customer interacts with one team member (or location) & has a magnificent experience. The team member listened to the customer’s needs, connected with them, & delivered an experience that exceeded their expectations. 🙂
Then, the next time the customer interacts with the brand they have a different team member (or visit a different location) & have an experience filled with friction, frustration, & disappointment – challenging their loyalty to your brand. 😡

So, what’s the best way to ensure this doesn’t happen?

🏆 Create CX service standards

👨‍👩‍👧‍👧 Start by gathering a cross-functional group of team members, ask them to share examples of how they live your organization's values.
For example, if one of your values is “Accountability” – ask team members to share internal or customer situations where they went above & beyond to deliver a superb handoff between departments or went the extra mile to find a solution for a customer.

📑 Once you have examples for each value, look for themes/trends to operationalize them for all team members across the organization. We want each person, regardless of their department, if they’re customer facing or not, etc. to be able to see how they could deliver this value to everyone they interact with – colleagues, customers, the community, etc.

📣 Once you have a draft, begin to gather feedback from key department leaders, etc. – continuing to refine & co-create the final draft.

👍 Then share the proposed CX service standards with the executive leadership team to get their buy-in. Outline the proposed communication & education plan to roll out these CX service standards throughout the organization.

😍 A final key piece of the CX service standard strategy is to tie reward & recognition to team members who display the CX standards & deliver on your brand promises.

Now only if Mother Nature could deliver consistent weather….  ☀