Mission RECONNECT!

The campaign to reconnect your employees and your customers.

Customers are getting more savvy around service - whether it's at a restaurant, over the phone or even as they pass through security…they expect an authentic experience…and to be treated as an individual

If every team member saw the world through your customers’ eyes and felt their own judgment was truly trusted, what would they say and do that would transform each customer’s experience?

The opportunity is to CONNECT

The journey so far – we’ve come a long way, but we’ve veered off in the wrong direction

• 5-7 years ago…..We wanted customer service to be exceptional… every time. So we systematized it and invested in awesome training to teach employees how to ‘deliver’ the system – basically a set of rules.

• But that felt clunky and formulaic after a while…

• So we decided we needed to empower and inspire employees to deliver a personal service (e.g. at Café Nero, baristas are invited to “put their unique personality and creativity into every cup “

• And though the principle is sound, we’re still executing it using a voice and toolkit that controls and disempowers rather than releases.

We’re missing a huge opportunity – to release the extraordinary and memorable service unique to employees who truly ‘get’ their customers and feel trusted to do what they think is right.

What’s more….Service rules, delivered accurately, create ‘quality’Employee-led service creates BRAND.It’s unforgettable.

TWO IDEAS THAT HELP US THINK DIFFERENTLY

BLINKERED1

1. Are you focused or blinkered?Most companies only look for those parts of its customers’ lives that it has some direct interest or control over.

PROBLEM: By framing its business, product, competitors so narrowly, it discourages its employees from stepping out of the company arena to

understand what REALLY matters to customers, wherever it may appear.

PARENT CHILD2

child

adult

parent

child

adult

parent

2. Customer Service frameworks can easily feel like straitjacketsFew companies get beyond ‘parent / child mode’ – but an organisation and its employees need to move to ‘adult to adult’

PROBLEMThe parent / child dynamic is amplified by events, frameworks, shiny comms which tell employees to ‘be themselves’

The outcome is employees who are told to ‘be empowered’ but actually feel they are not trusted to use their judgment – at best they’ll comply, at worst they’ll find a way round the rules.

The opposite – adult to adult – creates an environment of strong trust – the foundation for exceptional customer experience.

Add to employees' own visibility of customer needs, with insight they don't otherwise get to see. Show them “The Real Customer Journey”.

Reconnect your employees to what matters. Create an environment of unexpectedly high trust and de-risk this through “Clean Communication”.

The new way we should be doing it:

Find out the end-to-end experience that really matters to the customer “The Real Customer Journey”

• Explore how customers feel about your marketplace, competitors and brand – ALL the touchpoints that matter ‘from long-before to long-after a purchase is made’

• Get under the skin of the customer, and experience all the joys and frustrations that they do – the ‘Lifeline’ of their experience (what they want to happen vs. what actually happens)

• Pinpoint the things that will make a customer ‘faithful’ – the superior experience they value and will come back for, again and again. This is “The Real Customer Lifeline”

Reconnect your employees at the heart of this experience and show an unexpected high level of trust

• Tap into the collective ‘front line employee’ wisdom

• Use the customer journey audit as an opportunity to engage in its own right and enable as many employees as possible to put some ‘skin in the game’

• Create energy and action, without screaming ‘I’m your parent!’

• Use “Clean Communication” as your empowerment toolkit and de-risk the rebalancing of control

• Catch people doing great things for customers and reward them / thank them

• ‘Hardwire’ the Voice of the Customer, by using

• Senior Management

• Culture of stories

• Celebrating metrics

• Listen and act on feedback from employees who are delivering actions for customers

In practice – what does this look like?

Our vision is to reconnect a nation of service employees to their customers.

World-class customer experiences are built on totally engaged, empowered employees.

And that only happens by capturing quality customer insight, providing it to employees in a compelling and applicable way, and giving them permission to express themselves.

IN THE REAL WORLD

: just one rule

“Welcome to Nordstrom.

We're glad to have you with our Company. Our number one goal is to provide outstanding customer service. Set both your personal and professional goals high. We have great confidence in your ability to achieve them.

Nordstrom Rules: Rule #1: Use best judgment in all situations. There will be no additional rules.

Please feel free to ask your department manager, store manager, or division general manager any question at any time.”

Case Study:

Loews Hotels created the YouFirst loyalty scheme: a fast-track route through airport securityfor its highest value customers

“We are dedicated to improving our guests' complete travel experience from airport security checkpoints to hotel check-ins.To be the first hotel brand to offer this service demonstrates that we understand the needs of travelers, especially those who travel frequently for business."

Paul Whetsell, CEO & President of Loews Hotels & Resorts

Loews found that lengthy airport immigration and security procedures remain the biggest single negative stage in their guest’s experience.

So Loews reached out to US Homeland Security, and provided its loyalty card guest data to Airport Immigration, enabling pre-screening and fast-track entry.

Case Study:

PizzaExpress: stripping away the shackles

• Ignite – the major service revolution

• Stripping back all the service criteria

• Transformed recruitment

• Emphasized the history

• Very stylish, very forward thinking,

• Took layers of operational rules out and freed ops managers to do the real work that really mattered

• Still growing – new openings all the time

Case Study:

LET’S TALK ABOUT HOW TO TACKLE THIS

Conversations you might find interesting to have with us

• The Real Customer Lifeline – how can you trace what’s truly important to customers in their journey of experiencing your brand, product and service? How can you go way beyond the narrow framing most companies currently view their customer feedback?

• Employee / Customer engagement and reconnection – how might you reframe and recreate some of your current initiatives out of parent-child and into adult-to-adult space?

• Clean Communication – what is it and how does it rebalance control whilst safeguarding performance in large organisations?

Mission RECONNECT!

The campaign to reconnect your employees and your customers.

The Mission RECONNECT! campaign is led by two companies passionate about engaging brands, employees and customers.

To find out more, contact either carrie@onefishtwofish.co.uk or rick@customerfaithful.com

@MReconnect