Improving Customer Experience from the Backroom to the Frontlines with Michael Hinshaw

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

1. What are the challenges in creating a more customer-centric culture? 
2. How can leaders support employees in executing customer-centric initiatives? 
3. What is the key to successfully transforming work culture to better serve customers? 
4. Why must employees in all roles understand how their actions impact the customer experience, regardless of direct customer contact? 
5. Why must organizations facilitate conversations geared towards improving the customer experience across various departments? 

Top Takeaways:

• Customer satisfaction should be a company-wide goal, not just the responsibility of one department. All employees, from the warehouse staff to the legal department to leadership, have a role in delivering a positive customer experience. Everyone must understand their impact on the customer journey and be aligned with the company’s mission and values to ensure consistent results. 

• Break down silos and encourage collaboration to deliver amazing customer experiences. By allowing different departments to work together, companies can address issues and improve processes more effectively, ultimately improving customer experience. 

• Every job is connected to the customer experience, and employees should be aware of how their performance affects the customer’s perception of the company. 

• Customer-centricity should not be just a poster on the wall but integrated into every aspect of the company’s operations. It requires alignment with the company’s values, lived out by every employee, and endorsed by strong leadership that ensures a commitment to customer service excellence. 

• Providing employees with the knowledge, training, and understanding of their role in delivering great customer experiences is critical. It’s not enough to expect employees to prioritize the customer without equipping them with the necessary tools and support to execute effectively. 

• Plus, Michael Hinshaw shares insights for his latest book, Experience Rules! Tune in! 

Quotes:

“Organizations need to have a discipline and a rigorous system to help them deliver better experiences consistently and systematically. This change needs to be top down, bottom up, and side to side to allow companies to make this part of their DNA.” 

“To succeed in customer experience, you must understand your customers better. You need to measure how well you’re doing and have a framework that helps you manage decisions internally.” 

“Everybody in the organization needs to be aligned to a common goal or set of goals. Those goals have to be translated down in ways that are relevant for each part of the organization.”  

“People want to work with each other. Put them in environments that allow them to have conversations around what’s happening to the customer and give them the tools to improve the experience.” 

“One of the challenges with shifting towards a more customer-centric organization is giving people the tools they need. Show them the positive benefits and negative ramifications of an organization not making this shift so that they understand the broader mission.” 

About:

Michael Hinshaw is the founder and president of customer experience consultancy McorpCX. He’s also co-author of the best-selling book, Smart Customers, Stupid Companies, and his latest, Experience Rules!, which he wrote with Diane Magers. 

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