The Intuitive Customer - Helping You Improve Your Customer Experience To Gain Growth

Customer satisfaction is low. What’s worse, we can’t just blame COVID for the problem. Sure, COVID is part of it, but, surprisingly, this problem has other causes.  Not only that, but a recent report from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) suggests that only 30 percent of companies tracked by ACSI improved their score—since 2011. That means that 70 percent of companies either had flat results or saw a decline in customer satisfaction.  It’s time to stop making excuses and turn things around.  In this episode, we talk with the Managing Director of the ACSI, David VanAmburg about what has been going on over the past ten years in Customer Experience. Like usual, the problem, has a few different influences. We discuss them and what we can do to fix them in 2022.  Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience I have experienced many waves of change in my career. When I was starting out it was all about Total Quality Management and Business Process Reengineering. Then, following that was Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Starting in the 90s and over the last 20 years, it has been Customer Experience. It surprised me to see that in a time when more organizations were addressing Customer Experience that the ACSI scores were mostly flat or declining. We discussed a few things that might be part of the problem. Here are a few key moments in the discussion: 04:22  VanAmburg gives us his take on the things that are affecting the low scores we see of late on the ACSI. 08:18. Colin asks why VanAmburg thinks that only 30 percent of companies improved their customer satisfaction scores in the last ten years covered by the report.   10:20 VanAmburg explains the problems of too much focus on the smaller picture and not enough of the bigger picture when analyzing data from a CRM.     12:58  Colin talks about how some companies jump into things without understanding them or committing to them, including CRM.  17:04  VanAmburg explains how retail banking faired through the pandemic, and what other companies could learn from it.    18:31 Ryan summarizes the discussion and teaches us all about medium maximization and how that can affect results. 24:07 Colin and VanAmburg discuss the influence of customer expectations and how those changed during the pandemic and affected scores during the pandemic.  27:31 Colin asks what VanAmburg thinks will happen in 2022,  and his answer probably won’t satisfy you.    Please tell us how we are doing! Complete this short survey.  Customer Experience Information & Resources LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 289,000 followers of his work. Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy LLC as one of the best management consultancies for the last two years. Follow Colin on LinkedIn and Twitter. Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University.  Why Customers Buy: As an official "Influencer" on LinkedIn, Colin writes a regular newsletter on all things Customer Experience. Click here to join the other 22,000 subscribers.  Experience Health Check: You already have an experience, even if you weren't deliberate about it. Our Experience Health Check can help you understand what you have today. Colin or one of our team can assess your digital or physical Customer Experience, interacting with your organization as a customer to define what is good and what needs improving. Then, they will provide a list of recommendations for critical next steps for your organization. Click here to learn more.    How can we help? Click here to learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services.

What would it be like if your printer sent you an email to let you know it needed ink? Or if your car could tell you that you need to take it in for transmission service? Or if your refrigerator could tell the repair professional what was wrong with it before you ever said a word?  Sound like a futuristic take on product technology? It is, and it’s called the Internet of Things (IoT). However, you might be surprised to know that the ability to have all these things is already available and some companies have been using it to excellent effect. In this episode, we hosted Tobias Goebel (@tpgoebel) Product Marketing Principal at Twilio IoT. Goebel’s article, “It’s Time for the VoC to Get a Little Brother: The Voice of the Product,” introduced the idea of the Voice of Product (VoP) to us. We discuss how the VoP can change how experiences occur in the future and why it should be a significant part of your customer strategy today.  Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience Goebel is clear that he thinks the VoP will not replace the VoC. Instead, Goebel sees it as enhancing the interactions customers have with organizations. The VoP can help firms be proactive in anticipating customers’ needs by communicating issues before they become problems, be active in resolving customer issues by providing unbiased feedback regarding its usage and be reactive to the trends the product team sees and areas of opportunity the VoP uncovers from the data it reveals.  Here are a few more of the key moments in the discussion:  05:04  Goebel describes how he views IoT and what that means for product technology and the VoP.     10:35  We discuss how the VoP could be used with different consumer products, like vacuum robots and table saws.  12:19  Goebel shares the three benefits he sees for connecting a product into an organization.     16:07  We hear a story about iRobot, which inspired Goebel’s article and fueled his fascination for what was possible with the VoP from a customer service perspective.   20:23  Ryan and Goebel discuss how the Voice of Customer and the VoP can work together to provide lots of valuable insight and facilitate faster response times.  26:47   Goebel explains how Amazon has a leg up on this insight as it is an outlet for millions of products and has access to the data about them. 28:52  We talk about why now is the time to tap into VoP and what you should consider when you do so.    This episode was sponsored by Twilio  Please tell us how we are doing! Complete this short survey.  Would you like to appear on the show? Please contact us here Customer Experience Information & Resources LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 289,000 followers of his work.: As an official "Influencer" on LinkedIn, Colin writes a regular LinkedIn column called, Why Customers Buy . Click here to read and subscribe.  Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy LLC as one of the best management consultancies for the last three years. Follow Colin on LinkedIn and Twitter. Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University.  How can we help? Click here to learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services.

We all know that feeling when you see which client is calling and you inwardly groan, What is wrong now? Some customer relationships are more difficult than others, for sure. That is to be expected in any organization.  However, there are other customer relationships that have moved beyond difficult. The costs of the resources it takes to manage the many aspects of doing business with them has outgrown the revenue the generate. Or they are so heinous to deal with that the money you do make doesn’t feel worth it for the toll it takes on your people and organization.  With customers like these, it might be time to fire them.  In this episode, we talk about our listener Robert’s problem with difficult customer relationships and when it is time to call it quits. Moreover, we discuss the best possible way to handle this tricky process that can keep you from burning that bridge entirely, even when there are days when you would be all too happy to light that match. Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience Every customer relationship has two general areas to consider. First, there is the financial aspect. Are they making your organization money? Sometimes, when you determine the costs of the resources it takes to maintain the account, you discover that they aren’t, which makes your decision less difficult. Second, there is the interpersonal aspect. Are they making you and your people miserable? If servicing the account means that you have high turnover in the account management positions that deal with the customer, as well as throughout the organization, it might be worth it to reassess the relationship. We discuss these areas, as well as other considerations in the decision process.  Here are a few key moments in the discussion: 04:53  We learn about Robert and his business problem with difficult customers and when to know it’s time to move on. 07:13  We start by agreeing that there are customers who should be fired and how you can identify those situations from a rational perspective. 11:48  Colin shares an example of who shouldn’t be in on the decision to fire a customer and who would be better suited with the task, and why.    16:11  We discuss the key traps to avoid in this decision process, so you can make a decision that will not cost you more in the long run. 21:38  Colin shares a seven-step process for letting a customer go as gracefully as possible.   27:29. Ryan shares some tips for managing your reputation during the transition. 30:46  Colin shares one last tip for what you should do to avoid this situation in the future.      Do you have a business problem you would like our help with? Please contact us to tell us about it. We may solve it with you and our listening audience on the podcast! Please tell us how we are doing! Complete this short survey.  Customer Experience Information & Resources LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 289,000 followers of his work. Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy LLC as one of the best management consultancies for the last two years. Follow Colin on LinkedIn and Twitter. Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University.  Why Customers Buy: As an official "Influencer" on LinkedIn, Colin writes a regular newsletter on all things Customer Experience. Click here to join the other 22,000 subscribers.  Experience Health Check: You already have an experience, even if you weren't deliberate about it. Our Experience Health Check can help you understand what you have today. Colin or one of our team can assess your digital or physical Customer Experience, interacting with your organization as a customer to define what is good and what needs improving. Then, they will provide a list of recommendations for critical next steps for your organization. Click here to learn more.  How can we help? Click here to learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services.

Our listeners have problems and they let us know about it. For our I’m in a Pickle feature on the podcast, Tina in New Zealand wrote to us because the engineering firm she works with  thinks customer relationships are a waste of time. She wants to know how to convince the engineers that customer relationships are what get the customer strategy gears turning toward long-term success.   I found this pickle particularly interesting because I have faced this myself in our global Customer Experience consultancy. In fact, it was the impetus for the research we did with the London School of Business that led to my third book, The DNA of Customer Experience: How Emotions Drive Value.  In this episode, we share our experiences working with firms that are less than convinced that customer relationships are essential to business success. From storytelling to Emotional Signature® research to adopting the same strategies as one would for personal relationships, we share plenty of practical tips to help Tina get out of her pickle and on her way to convincing the team to see things her way. Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience People didn’t always have interpersonal relationships. Now, we do, and not just in our personal lives. We have personal relationships in business, too. As customers, we use the same cognitive machinery to manage both types of relationships, and, not surprisingly, there are parallels in the management of them, too. We take a close look at Tina’s business pickle and present real-world, practical solutions to convince the engineers it’s worth it to develop a business relationships with customers.   Here are a few key moments in the discussion: 03:02  We read Tina’s pickle to set up the discussion on what business problem our listener is facing.  05:17  We start by looking at some of the reasons this might be happening to Tina at work and Colin shares an example of his experience in a similar situation. 09:21  Ryan chimes in with how convincing people to do anything requires a mixture of what they are interested in and what you are trying to tell them.     12:16  Colin shares how a skeptic at a German insurance company asked him to prove what Colin was saying was true, and how that led to the research behind Colin’s third book, The DNA of Customer Experience. 15:48  Colin share his insight on what makes successful customer-facing people and what Tina can do to optimize the experience for the engineering customers.    18:08  Ryan discusses how part of the convincing might require pointing out that relationships have staying power, but competitive differentiation in the marketplace. 20:48  Colin shares how his work with Maersk Line revealed to leadership the pitfalls of a transactional relationship with customers, and how their changes led to a giant turnaround for the company. 23:19  We share 5 tips (well, really only four; one of the tips will get you in trouble) for building relationships from HelpGuide.org, and our other advice for Tina and her company.  Do you have a business problem you would like our help with? Please contact us to tell us about it. We may solve it with you and our listening audience on the podcast! Please tell us how we are doing! Complete this short survey.  Customer Experience Information & Resources LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 289,000 followers of his work. Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy LLC as one of the best management consultancies for the last two years. Follow Colin on LinkedIn and Twitter. Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University.  Why Customers Buy: As an official "Influencer" on LinkedIn, Colin writes a regular newsletter on all things Customer Experience. Click here to join the other 22,000 subscribers.  Experience Health Check: You already have an experience, even if you weren't deliberate about it. Our Experience Health Check can help you understand what you have today. Colin or one of our team can assess your digital or physical Customer Experience, interacting with your organization as a customer to define what is good and what needs improving. Then, they will provide a list of recommendations for critical next steps for your organization. Click here to learn more.  How can we help? Click here to learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services.

Did you know that customer satisfaction scores are the lowest they have been in the past 15 years? It’s true, and you can’t blame it all on COVID, although there is some blame to be cast there. Per the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), only 30 percent of companies tracked by ASCI improved their score; that means 70 percent didn’t, and that’s alarming. It’s also one of seven significant lessons that 2021 taught us.  This new year also coincides with the 20th anniversary of me founding my global Customer Experience Consultancy, Beyond Philosophy and publishing my first book on the subject, Building Great Customer Experiences (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002). Things have changed since then, but one thing that hasn’t is that people want exceptional experiences that meet (or exceed) their expectations—and organizations need to deliver them. In this episode, we explore the seven things we learned professionally and personally in 2021 and what they mean for your customer strategy in 2022. Spoiler alert: it means that everything is changing. Again. Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience Twenty years ago, all the signs around me pointed to the next big thing in business: Customer Experience. However, the influence of Customer Experience is waning now, making way for something new: Customer Science. Customer Science is the blend of Artificial Intelligence, customer data, and the behavioral sciences, and just like its predecessor Customer Experience, it has outstanding implications for your customer strategy.  Here are a few key moments in the discussion: 04:52   Ryan kicks off the professional lessons learned this year with the realization that changing challenges is the reality of the business environment today and how to respond to it.  06:43  Colin explains how uncertainty is something human beings do not process well, and it leads to customer behavior that reflects the behavioral science theory of Loss Aversion.  10:26  Colin explains that Customer Experience is getting absorbed into a larger, more influential concept poised to change the business world, Customer Science.   12:45  Colin shares shocking statistics from the American Customer Satisfaction Institute Index.     15:06   Ryan and Colin discuss what is happening to Customer Experience and how it is the cycle of things in business.  17:05  Colin explains how some companies succeeded in improving their customer satisfactions scores. 19:03  Ryan shares that his personal learning in 2021 was about work/life balance and that he thinks little improvements in areas of his life lead to more improvements down the road.    22:10  Colin talks about his weight loss journey and how a jolt to his bad habits in his personal life demonstrates what often needs to happen in the business world.      Please tell us how we are doing! Complete this short survey.  Customer Experience Information & Resources LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 289,000 followers of his work. Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy LLC as one of the best management consultancies for the last two years. Follow Colin on LinkedIn and Twitter. Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University.  Why Customers Buy: As an official "Influencer" on LinkedIn, Colin writes a regular newsletter on all things Customer Experience. Click here to join the other 22,000 subscribers.  Experience Health Check: You already have an experience, even if you weren't deliberate about it. Our Experience Health Check can help you understand what you have today. Colin or one of our team can assess your digital or physical Customer Experience, interacting with your organization as a customer to define what is good and what needs improving. Then, they will provide a list of recommendations for critical next steps for your organization. Click here to learn more.  How can we help? Click here to learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services.

When I was 25, my mum was proud of the fact that we had never discussed the verity of Father Christmas, which, of course, is not in question. She wanted that story to be a part of my life, so she made sure it was, well into adulthood.  I have continued the tradition with my kids. Father Christmas, the story of a toymaker that brings love and joy to children all around the world has been in effect at the Shaw house for over 30 years. Now, we are indoctrinating the grandkids as well.  Storytelling as a form of persuasion and communication is unparalleled, whether it is about Father Christmas (aka Santa Claus) or an example about whether Disney Theme Park Guests want to eat a salad while visiting the park (spoiler alert: they don’t).  In this episode, we discuss the power of storytelling in business, from the theory behind why it works to how you can apply it practically in your experiences to enhance your customer strategy. Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience Human beings seem to be hard wired for stories. We seek out stories because they entertain us. We remember stories better than we do if the same information is conveyed in a nonstory format. We tend to be more persuaded by stories and are more likely to relay stories to other people than if the same information was communicated in another way.  Here are a few key moments in the discussion: 04:49  Ryan presents the generalized summary of what theoretical work on storytelling has taught us.  07:27  Colin gives an example of an often-told story he uses to make his point about an abstract concept, to make concrete his point about an abstract concept. 10:16  Colin discusses the role of  social proofing in storytelling around organized religion, simultaneously trying to explain his point while not getting cancelled.     15:08  Colin admits that Apple tells a story he likes to hear, and how that affects his affinity for the brand.   16:31  Ryan shares how many tech companies have origin myths, that are not that different from superhero stories in a way.   20:01 WARNING: Colin says something that is not safe for the six-year-old (or six-years-old at heart) listeners of the podcast.  21:53  We share practical advice about how to use story telling in experiences and customer strategy.        Please tell us how we are doing! Complete this short survey.  Customer Experience Information & Resources LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 289,000 followers of his work. Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy LLC as one of the best management consultancies for the last two years. Follow Colin on LinkedIn and Twitter. Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University.  Why Customers Buy: As an official "Influencer" on LinkedIn, Colin writes a regular newsletter on all things Customer Experience. Click here to join the other 22,000 subscribers.  Experience Health Check: You already have an experience, even if you weren't deliberate about it. Our Experience Health Check can help you understand what you have today. Colin or one of our team can assess your digital or physical Customer Experience, interacting with your organization as a customer to define what is good and what needs improving. Then, they will provide a list of recommendations for critical next steps for your organization. Click here to learn more.  How can we help? Click here to learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services.

Imagine that you own a well-known car brand during a global pandemic. No one is coming to the show room to see your dealer’s cars, nor are they bringing them in for service. No one is really driving them around, either. What do you do? For Nissan’s Hussein Dajani, General Manager, Digital and CX Transformation, this wasn’t hard to imagine since he lived it for the past 18 months. He and his Customer Experience Steering Committee came up with a virtual version of the traditional car-buying and service experience and implemented it in record time. The results? Double-digit growth.  I learned about this story on a CX Network Live event. Fascinated with the story and the success, we invited Dajani to this episode of the podcast to share what he learned with you.  Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience Digital experiences are much more prevalent today than they were even a couple of years ago. The virus accelerated the emphasis on digital transformation of formerly analog experiences for all industries, even one like buying a car. The COVID-19 Pandemic also forced organizations to take more risks than they would have otherwise. Nissan’s Shop@Home program is widely successful, producing double-digit growth at a time when many people weren’t even driving their cars much. Dajani shares what he learned during the project and the practical tips he has for other organizations that have a similar journey ahead.  Here are a few key moments in the discussion: 03:56  Dajani shares his story about how he ended up at Nissan and what he wanted to change even before the pandemic disrupted business-as-usual.     08:22  Dajani talks about how the day he thought he was getting fired was the day the organization called upon him to deliver.     11:53  We learn about Shop@Home and what it was designed to do for customers.     15:29  Colin asks Dajani if COVID helped get the internal team on board; Dajani’s answer might surprise you.     17:59   Nissan’s plan is to transform the business, not just get through the pandemic, and Dajani explains why.  22:47  We learn about some of the ways that Nissan changed the service experience to a virtual one and why it fixed some friction points for the business. 29:51  We ask Dajani the practical advice he has for organizations on a similar journey, and he leads with empathy, empathy, empathy.   Artificial intelligence and predictive customer experience can transform customer experience initiatives by identifying and shaping customer intent. As a result, it has the potential for businesses to increase engagement, retention, and long-term customer value. Want to know more? Attend CX Network's Online Live Event on January 25th and 26th, 2022.  Click here to register today. Please tell us how we are doing! Complete this short survey.  Customer Experience Information & Resources LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 289,000 followers of his work. Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy LLC as one of the best management consultancies for the last two years. Follow Colin on LinkedIn and Twitter. Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University.  Why Customers Buy: As an official "Influencer" on LinkedIn, Colin writes a regular newsletter on all things Customer Experience. Click here to join the other 22,000 subscribers.  Experience Health Check: You already have an experience, even if you weren't deliberate about it. Our Experience Health Check can help you understand what you have today. Colin or one of our team can assess your digital or physical Customer Experience, interacting with your organization as a customer to define what is good and what needs improving. Then, they will provide a list of recommendations for critical next steps for your organization. Click here to learn more.  How can we help? Click here to learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services.

Fernando has a problem that he wants our help solving. In his industry of branding and packaging fast-moving consumer goods, his clients often tell him to do whatever the competition is doing. However, Fernando knows that while imitation is the highest form of flattery, it’s a less than ideal customer strategy when you want to win customers from the competition.  In this episode, we explore Fernando’s business problem, aka Pickle, for our, “I’m in a Pickle” segment of the podcast. We discuss the challenges surrounding competitive differentiation as well as the psychological theories from the behavioral sciences that can help guide the customer strategy. Not surprisingly, it takes standing out from everybody else to fit in with customers.  Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience Human beings are social. From an evolutionary point of view, our social natures is tied into survival. Those that were part of the pack had a better chance of living out the day than individuals going it alone.  Without the same threats today that we might have faced in the past, our social nature persists. Sometimes, this natural inclination is a good thing. However, when the need to fit in influences our decisions in the marketplace, it becomes a problem. Moreover, things like “best practices” can get in the way of creative approaches to deliver experiences. A critical part of any organization’s customer strategy and competitive differentiation is to find a way that you are different from the pack and communicate it. The behavioral sciences explain why this is challenging—and also why it works.   Here are a few key moments in the discussion: 03:54  Ryan kicks off the discussion of three influential concepts, Risk Aversion, Loss Aversion and Social Proof, that describe why differentiation can be challenging for Fernando’s customers.     07:06  We explain why adopting best practices and following the leaders in the marketplace is not a great long-term strategy.     08:29  Colin shares a story demonstrating a concept called optimal distinctiveness about buying a popular car, but ensuring that his was “just a bit” different, so his car stood out from the others.     15:56  We bring it back to Fernando’s problem to talk about how to balance the need for conformity with the desire to achieve optimal distinctiveness.     18:49  Ryan explains where we got the term for Top-Shelf liquor and how that relates to Fernando’s problem.   21:48  We explain that appealing to customers requires a practical understanding what those target customers want, and using those values in the experience design.     24:35  Colin shares his advice on what Fernando, and anyone else having a problem with competitive differentiation, can do to overcome their risk aversion and employ a winning customer strategy.     Please tell us how we are doing! Complete this short survey.  Customer Experience Information & Resources LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 289,000 followers of his work. Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy LLC as one of the best management consultancies for the last two years. Follow Colin on LinkedIn and Twitter. Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University.  Why Customers Buy: As an official "Influencer" on LinkedIn, Colin writes a regular newsletter on all things Customer Experience. Click here to join the other 22,000 subscribers.  Experience Health Check: You already have an experience, even if you weren't deliberate about it. Our Experience Health Check can help you understand what you have today. Colin or one of our team can assess your digital or physical Customer Experience, interacting with your organization as a customer to define what is good and what needs improving. Then, they will provide a list of recommendations for critical next steps for your organization. Click here to learn more.  How can we help? Click here to learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services.

Fred Reichheld, inventor of the Net Promoter Score® (NPS), sees customers recommendations as an act of love. Recommendations are a chance to provide an experience to someone they care about.  Reichheld’s new book, Winning on Purpose: The Unbeatable Strategy of Loving Customers, shows tracking the actual referrals is the next level, what Reichheld describes as the “gold” in the business—and the future of your customer strategy.  Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience Andy Taylor, Executive Chairman of Enterprise Holdings, once told Reichheld there is only one way to grow.  Taylor told Reichheld, “You've got to make sure your customers are treated so well, they come back for more and bring their friends.” Reichheld says that's the basic flywheel that drives all great business.  Reichheld thinks that the right way to determine growth is to measure that flywheel. He would like accounting teams to know how much of their revenue came from customers they have had for a year and all the business of that customer’s referrals, called Earned Growth Rate. Earned Growth Rate separates referral growth from the other growth strategies organizations implement, that can include acquisitions, sales and marketing, or new store locations, among others.  Reichheld sees the Earned Growth Rate concept today as where Net Promoter was 20 years ago. In the next 10 to 20 years, he thinks there won't be a serious business person that doesn't know about Earned Growth Rates. He says his new book shows people how to do that. Here are some key moments in the discussion: 03:05  Reichheld explains why his frustration with NPS inspired his book and what he is trying to accomplish with it.     09:09  Reichheld makes the argument that there is only one class of purposes that work in business, and explains why.    13:18  Reichheld shares the one way to grow a great profitable business, and how it drives his decisions to invest in companies.    20:18   Colin asks Reichheld what advice he would give an organization that doesn’t know how to use NPS properly, the way Reichheld intended when he invented it.   21:31  Ryan asserts that culture dictates how NPS plays a role in an organization, and asks Reichheld to give advice on how to focus organizations on culture. 24:44  We learn the difference between good profits and bad profits, per Reichheld, and how to use NPS better moving forward.     Please tell us how we are doing! Complete this short survey.  Customer Experience Information & Resources LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 289,000 followers of his work. Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy LLC as one of the best management consultancies for the last two years. Follow Colin on LinkedIn and Twitter. Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University.  Why Customers Buy: As an official "Influencer" on LinkedIn, Colin writes a regular newsletter on all things Customer Experience. Click here to join the other 22,000 subscribers.  Experience Health Check: You already have an experience, even if you weren't deliberate about it. Our Experience Health Check can help you understand what you have today. Colin or one of our team can assess your digital or physical Customer Experience, interacting with your organization as a customer to define what is good and what needs improving. Then, they will provide a list of recommendations for critical next steps for your organization. Click here to learn more.  How can we help? Click here to learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services.

I love when listeners write in with their business problems. I don’t love that they have problems, but I love that they share them with us so we can all work through them together. In our latest submission for our “I’m in a Pickle” feature of the podcast, Janet explains that even though their customer comments are overwhelmingly positive, their Net Promoter Score® (NPS) is not where they need it to be. Without any complaints to speak of, Janet and the organization don’t know what the problem is, and they asked for our help.  In this episode, we explore the practicalities and pitfalls of using NPS as a metric for your customer strategy success. We also look at the tactical and practical things that Janet and her organization can do to get the score where they need it to be.  Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience Our first advice to Janet was to remember that NPS is a lot of things, but it isn’t a diagnostic tool. It is a score for how well you already did. If the score is low, it won’t tell you why. Likewise, it can’t tell you why you scored well. It is a way to measure the success of the efforts you have made and, of course, how likely it is that your Customer Experience efforts will lead a customer to recommend you to their family and friends. Here are a few key moments in the discussion. 02:42  We read Janet’s email and explain what her business pickle is.     05:42  Ryan kicks off our discussion by explaining that NPS is not the entire picture of what you need to know about your company’s performance.     10:21   Colin shares a tactical mistake Janet’s company is making with how they ask the Net Promoter Question, “How likely are you to recommend our product or service?”     13:39   Colin gives Janet’s organization questions to consider as they address the need for improvement to hit their goals.  16:38   Ryan agrees strategy to get detailed about why customers aren’t happy enough to recommend them, so they can find their opportunities to improve.   18:09  We kick off a discussion about customer behavior and the differences between what people say and what they do, as well as how to overcome that. 26:49   We summarize all our recommendations for Janet’s company to improve their NPS, from the tactical to the practical.   Please tell us how we are doing! Complete this short survey.  Customer Experience Information & Resources LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 289,000 followers of his work. Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy LLC as one of the best management consultancies for the last two years. Follow Colin on LinkedIn and Twitter. Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University.  Why Customers Buy: As an official "Influencer" on LinkedIn, Colin writes a regular newsletter on all things Customer Experience. Click here to join the other 22,000 subscribers.  Experience Health Check: You already have an experience, even if you weren't deliberate about it. Our Experience Health Check can help you understand what you have today. Colin or one of our team can assess your digital or physical Customer Experience, interacting with your organization as a customer to define what is good and what needs improving. Then, they will provide a list of recommendations for critical next steps for your organization. Click here to learn more.  How can we help? Click here to learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services.