Watching the IMF former leader scandal unfold followed by other public figures succumbing to undispicable behavior, I was amazed. What were they thinking? Many leadership gurus have responded to this question. Pages were filled with theories about the stress and loneliness of the leader at the top of the pyramid and their need to escape. The truth however lies in a simple truth: ego.

Reaching a position and power transform ambitious leaders into proud and sometimes over confident people. They start believing their own success and assume that they are invincible. The regular rules do not apply to them. Their success and power granted them a free pass to be above the law. They trust their success to a point where they ignore simple truths.
So why am I writing about it in a section dedicated to customer experience and customer centric organizations? Because this is the same root cause that transform companies who started on a path to delight customers and ends...

Here is a quick question to ponder: “What percentage of claims from sales people do you trust?”

Is it 100% (just kidding)? 80%? 70%? 50%?

Hopefully your comfort zone is somewhere between 0% and 100%. Did I mention this was a tricky question?
Trust, like pregnancy is not subject to percentage. You’re either pregnant or not. You either trust someone 100% or you don’t trust that person at all. Similarly with sales people, you either trust their claims fully or you do not trust them at all.

If customers do not trust your sales people then it is time to reconsider their role. If the role of your sales force is to engender trust and confidence in prospects so that they are willing to purchase products and services, then why send untrustworthy individuals to sell? When we consider the fact that customers trust faceless and often anonymous individuals on Yelp and Amazon for recommendations, it’s high time to seriously reconsider who it is that we trust to serve...

So here is how the story goes. The client is asking to conduct a benchmark of their customer experience and compare it to their top 5 competitors. Alternatively we will be asked “so how does our NPS compare to others?”. “What is the First call resolution of telecommunication companies of our size located in the southern part of Vermont with customers over 50 years old?”.

Customer experience practitioners as many of their customer service or marketing counterparts are obsessed with benchmarking. And certain market research companies actually feed this obsession with expensive studies that graph your performance just few inches below your competitors from Florida and somewhat above your competition from Idaho. Now what?

Let’s be honest, when was the last time benchmarking actually mobilized your organization to act, let alone act faster? Over time I realize the truth. The request for benchmarking is not stemming from a sincere interest in creating greater value...

Imagine a husband who tries really hard to listen to his wife. He watches What Women Want, reads Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, and sets aside dedicated “quiet” time each week where he listens to his wife as she pours her heart out and tells him whatever is on her mind. He would appear to be the quintessential husband. The problem is that our quintessential husband does nothing with these conversations. He simply listens, nods his head, files what he’s heard in that back of his mind, but doesn’t act upon anything he’s heard to improve the situation or comfort his wife. He asks but will not act. His wife now calls him “idiot.”
I know that many vendors and CE practitioners may take offense to this article’s title. Yet as the saying goes “the truth will set you free.” A Voice of Customer (VoC) program is but one important component in a customer experience management strategy – but it’s only a component. Too many executives see VoC as something they need to do, but...