The Customer Experience Remotevolution

i've got some bad news
i've got some good news and i've got
some great news
the bad news is that 93 of customer
initiatives fail customer initiatives
the kind of projects and plans that
customers like you and i really look
forward to
the kind of things that brands do to
make our lives easier
the kind of things that make us go god
that was a seamless experience must use
them again
initiatives come in all shapes and sizes
they come really large like
transformation programs
the bad news is that 70 percent
of those also fail the problem is that
often organizations don't win the hearts
and minds
of the people who need to change and
transformation programs mean wholesale
change
70 now the
interesting thing is that actually
emotional connections are on the rise
because it would appear that people are
developing the skill of emotional
intelligence
and when people develop the skill of
emotional intelligence
not only do they create greater
connections between staff
and customers they develop greater
connections between
colleagues which means that those
initiatives
and those transformation programs are
more likely to succeed
there's also great news that established
remote working skills
enable people to make greater
connections
the thing is that people who work in
remote spaces
have had to learn how to communicate
effectively
they communicate with intention and they
do it
really well the amazing thing
is that when we bring all these random
ideas together
i think there's just a chance that
customer experience might just get
better in the future
there's just a chance that those
transformation programs and those
initiatives
might just succeed so what i want to do
now is just share a story with you
i want to share a story with you that's
actually kind of been
brought together to develop a model a
model that organizations might consider
developing
which might just change the way we do
customer experience
it started with a fridge freezer i was
buying a fridge freezer
because actually what was going on is it
was may 2020
we were six weeks into the coved
lockdown and i was
stressed i was anxious
at the scenes i was seeing in
supermarkets of people fighting over
scarce goods
i was scared because i was seeing
hospital staff nhs staff fighting for
people's lives
and it was scary out there and every
time we went out to shop
every time we pop to the supermarket
every time we went outside our front
door
there was a risk and i needed to know
how i could protect
the people in my household from this
deadly disease
the fridge freezer was due
to arrive one month after
i actually ordered it i ordered it in
good faith and i thought it was coming
one week after i received an email
the email basically said sorry
we've got some operational issues it's
not coming next week
we don't know when it's coming but ring
our customer services line if you'd like
to
the email arrived when the customer
services line
wasn't open and so that was friday
so two days on an emotional roller
coaster
i was anxious i was frightened i was
angry i was frustrated so then
monday comes and i call
i call the customer services line and i
speak to neil
neil couldn't care less neil was sat i
imagined
probably with a headset on looking at a
screen
reading from a script and the thing is i
think i was probably one of
maybe a couple of thousand people who
were on that phone that day
complaining anxious nervous wanting to
know what was going on
neil didn't really know what to do he
kind of told me i had two options
one option was to wait
no another option was to
perhaps make a complaint
maybe or another option was to buy
something else
and so i told neil perhaps this wasn't
the best way to deal with the customer
but that was that not to worry off we
trot
so i was back to square one two days
later after searching and finding a
fridge freezer that didn't cost five and
a half thousand pounds and one that was
available that might come within two
weeks
it finally happened i placed the order i
sent some questions
and then jane rang
jane was a customer services agent for
this new fridge freezer
jane listen to what i had to say she
listened very carefully
because when i described the situation i
had with neil
she said i imagine you probably want
that device a bit sooner if you can
music to my ears she said i don't know
if i can but i will try
i felt supported i felt like she had my
back
she seemed so calm and relaxed and the
funny thing is
that in the background i could hear a
dog barking and i could hear cars
passing
she was working from home but not only
was she working from home
she was actually a remote worker she'd
worked from home for quite some time
and she loved it she loved the fact that
she didn't have to commute
she felt like she was doing her bit for
the planet she felt that she was doing
her best for her family her aging
parents and the dog
and she had some time for leisure
pursues
she said if only she could just do one
thing what was that i asked
well my life would be perfect if i could
just make sure i could get the dog to
stop barking at the squirrels that do
acrobats in the garden
we had a good laugh because we stopped
we swapped some pet stories at that
point
so sure enough the fridge freezer
arrived
and it arrived three days ahead of
schedule
it all ran to clockwork and two days
after it arrived
jane gave me a quick call just to check
everything was all right
i thanked her profusely because the
thing is
it really seemed like she cared it
really seemed like she had been
listening
she was interested and it also seemed
like i might just use that brand again
it really was quite a different
experience to the one that i had with
neil
so what struck me as i began to relax
and i started to reflect on this
experience as a customer
was the fact that what she's shown were
skills of emotional intelligence
what she'd done is she'd not only
listened
she had empathized she had
used her organizational awareness
to know exactly who she needed to speak
to
within the organization she knew exactly
how to influence
those people in the organization and she
used all sorts of other skills
within the competence to actually pull
this off
so this kind of got me thinking i'd been
an emotional intelligence coach for
about a year at that point
so i knew that there was a model that we
were using that i've been taught
this model had 12 competencies within it
and it was the goldman
emotional intelligence competence model
and really what i was looking for
was whether or not there was any proof
that people who worked
in remote settings had more emotional
intelligence than those people who
worked in offices
the aspiring academic in me went
searching
and actually what i found was a report
by a mother and son team who'd gone off
to search around a whole variety of
workspaces co-working
spaces co-working living spaces and they
had done some research on the essential
qualities of effective remote workers
and i couldn't believe it's like my
dream had come true
what had happened there is that the
skills that were
recommended for remote workers some of
them matched the goldman model
and others fitted very well so things
like
adaptability empathy
and what also came were two additional
skills
the skills of being trustworthy and
autonomy and all of that was brought
together
with communication now the funny thing
is
that i was getting to understand a bit
more about remote work i've actually
been remote working without even
realizing it for quite some time
but there seemed to be a number of
organizations that were really
established and doing exceptionally well
a company like automatic for example
automatic
run 48 of all websites
across the globe they have high
productivity with their staff
they have high customer retention high
staff retention
they're making a lot of money and their
people love them
so there seemed to be something going on
here i had the emotional intelligence
with emotional connections
where people seem to be understanding
that customer experience was in the mind
and the heart of the customer
so actually my experience with jane
was very much about reassurance and
trust and actually having a bit of a
laugh
and my experience with neil was one of
frustration and anger
there was no emotional connection with
neil but there's definitely
an emotional connection with jane so
there's my emotional intelligence model
here's me overlaying the remote working
model
but there was one other thing that could
be missing
and the thing that i think has been
missing since this remote working
experiment started
earlier this year and that's the
investment in people
the investment in people to learn the
skills of emotional intelligence
and also the investment in technology
there's no question that the actual
technology
that exists right now can enable us to
communicate
hugely effectively and it can enable us
to collaborate
incredibly well too we're running
workshops right now with people who are
across the globe
16 different countries on a workshop we
ran a couple of weeks ago
all tuned in all adding post-its to one
particular
big board it was quite incredible
so what does all of this mean if we do
bring together
emotional intelligence which brings
about emotional connection
then we have people who are working in
establish remote who seem to
have learned how to develop those
emotional connections
and then we have technology that brings
it all together
to enable people to work so i guess my
challenge for people
who are looking to up their game with
customer experience
why don't you dump your head offices why
don't you give some people
that work for you the opportunity to
learn the skill
and the technology to have the kind of
life that jane has
because believe you and me she sounds
like she's having a bit of fun
and she's doing some work why don't
people
invest in individuals to get that work
life going on
to have the kind of life where they
enjoy the work they do they have the
autonomy
and the managers who work with them
support them
take down the barriers rather than just
present more
so here's the question if we think about
it
if we think about customer experiences
right now
why can't we turn them the other way
around why can't we turn those numbers
around
why can't we get 93 of customer
initiatives to be hugely successful
why can't we get 70 of those
transformation programs to work i would
say 100
but hey we've got to be practical here
the fact is
organizations might consider this
customer experience
remote evolution model they might think
about
how they can build greater emotional
connections between their staff
and between their customers because when
they happen
customers are loyal loyal customers are
profitable
at the end of the day that's really the
thing that matters
so that's my invitation to you is to
consider
the customer experience remote evolution
model
try it today in the meantime we're about
to buy a tumble dryer
so watch out for the next installment
thank you