Transform Your CX by "Breaking All the Rules"
In 1999, I read a book entitled, First, Break all the Rules, by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman. As some of you know by now, I like re-reading business books from years past. It gives me the opportunity to assess what progress we’ve made in addressing our day-to-day business challenges. This book is primarily about leadership and “what the world’s greatest managers do differently”. It was based on interviews conducted by the Gallup organization of over 80,000 managers in over 400 companies. I found meaningful nuggets in this book. From an overall standpoint, the concept of breaking all the rules when transforming your customer experience can be exhilarating. Specifically, two caught my attention as I reflected on today’s customer experience practice compared to 20 years ago when this book was written. Let me explain.
The first is a section entitled, Rule of Thumb #4: “There are no steps leading to customer satisfaction”. Required steps only prevent dissatisfaction. They cannot drive customer satisfaction. In the Gallup study, while they found that customer needs do vary by individual and industry, they also found four common hierarchical expectations of what customers really want. These are:
• Accuracy – get it right!
• Availability – being accessible to your customers!
• Partnership – listen and be responsive
• Advice – help me learn and grow
As much as things change, they remain the same. Aren’t these 4 elements still true for our customers today? Despite all the various iterations of how we address a customer’s experience with our products and services, these elements need to be addressed. They are foundational to any experience a customer has with us. Today, we call it journey mapping, voice of customer and design thinking, but in my opinion, these four are at the heart of what the customer experience is meant to be. Working with us should be easy!
Another section that was applicable to our CX efforts is entitled, “What do you get paid to do? How do you know if the outcomes are right?” The authors challenge readers to understand “of all the things your people could be doing, how can you know which are the few things they should be doing”. They ask 3 questions:
• What is right for your customers? Regardless of what we think or believe, the customer ultimately determines what value your organization brings to them. Seeking out the voice of the customer can help achieve this understanding.
• What is right for your company? Is everyone in the company aligned to the same strategy? Most importantly, has the strategy been linked to how employees are to perform when seeking to execute on that strategy?
• What is right for the individual? Everyone brings a unique set of talents and skills to the job they perform. Understanding this uniqueness helps define the right outcomes. Designing outcomes that play to an individual’s strengths will ultimately help deliver a better customer experience.
As professionals, aren’t we looking for ways to balance these three questions as we strive to convince leadership that CX is a worthwhile investment? While it’s noble to always put the customer first, it’s reality to understand that businesses exist to make a profit. Therefore, balancing the needs of customers, the company and employees is a means for achieving both profit and a great experience. Too often, I hear from practitioners that it’s one or the other, that it can’t be both. I don’t ascribe to that thinking. As professionals, it’s our role to demonstrate how we can achieve all three.
While I called out sections of this book that seemed to support our efforts to improve the customer experience in our organizations, it’s worth re-visiting the other lessons for leaders that the authors found in the Gallup study. As effective leaders first, our responsibility is to sell the need for an effective CX strategy to our colleagues, employees and executives within our organizations. Then, let’s break all the rules!