Culture Design in the Customer Experience

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Top Takeaways:

• Culture and culture design are management systems. You must embed the right cultural norms into your organization in order to influence and drive the behaviors you want to see in your employees.
• Think of your organization as a community of people who are tasked with certain outcomes. Help employees understand their purpose and the outcomes they are responsible for; in short, it’s about the employee mindset.
• Shift the focus away from making money to taking better care of your employees and customers. That will drive better products and success for your company.
• Customer service is affected by the mindset and psychology of the people who show up to work each and every day. This includes CEOs, managers and leaders, who must model the beliefs and behaviors they want to see across the organization.
• Culture design is about programming the right mindset that will drive the best customer-focused behavior.
• Leaders are hugely influential over a company’s culture, as people naturally emulate the behavior of those they perceive successful. Unfortunately, negative behavior spreads faster than positive behavior.
• Zappos, for instance, uses their company culture as their brand. This is the biggest differentiator in their experience and what sets them apart from other companies.
• Let customers’ high expectations for service directly inform and drive the experience you deliver.
• Don’t only focus on core values—core values are the destination. You must map out the journey for your employees, which includes the right behaviors and beliefs that will get you to the destination.

Quotes:

“Culture actually is a management system. When you embed the right kinds of cultural norms into your organization, you influence the behaviors, mindsets and beliefs people have as they do the work.”

“The way we will sell more stuff and the way that we will succeed as a company is if we show up caring more about each other every day and caring deeply about our customers. Shift the focus from money to taking care of each other.”

“Customer experience is fundamentally an outcome of employee experience. If you want a great customer experience, you’ve got to create great employee experiences.”

“The customer’s expectation is what drives the experience.”

About:

Jason Korman is the co-founder and CEO of Gapingvoid Culture Design Group. He is a serial entrepreneur who has spent much of his life in the wine business.

Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, New York Times bestselling author, award-winning keynote speaker, and your host of Amazing Business Radio.

This episode of Amazing Business Radio with Shep Hyken answers the following questions … and more:

1. How does the employee experience affect the customer experience?
2. How does culture affect the customer experience?
3. What is culture design?
4. How can I create a better company culture?
5. How can I improve my customer service?