Bruce Barchus, Author at Vizability.net

Author Archive

Marketing, Customer Experience (CX), and Growth

Posted by Bruce Barchus on March 17, 2016

It is natural to think that marketing (as a function across an organization) is tightly connected with the customer. Sadly, this is not the case. Most often, marketing is focused on internal goals. For example, how much the organization wants to accomplish and what the organization wants to sell (independent from how the product or service adds value to the customer). Most businesses have lost meaningful touch with the customer. In order for an organization to connect with its customer, it needs to have outside-in behavior. The following factors (at a minimum) need to be in place within the organization to truly engage a customer:

Active customer listening
- What are their pains?
- What do they hope to gain?
- What words do they use?
End-to-end marketing across the organization
- Is messaging consistent across tactics?
- Do the sales channels even know about the offer?
- Do the sales channels reflect the marketing message?
- Does the customer get from the operation what was promised by
  marketing:
  - Product features
  - Pricing
  - Timing/delivery
Segmented messaging based on differences in the customers’ profiles
and behaviors
Planned and measured customer experience (CX)

If these things are not true in an organization, then marketing is operating on an inside-out basis. On the other hand, if these things are true, then marketing is working on an outside-in basis and is likely to drive significant growth.

Are your marketing efforts truly engaged in an outside-in customer experience (CX)?

Tags: Customer Experience, CX, Growth

Posted in: Customer Experience, Growth, Uncategorized

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How to Thrive: The Vizability Ecosystem

Posted by Bruce Barchus on December 6, 2015

What does it take for an organization to thrive? Like other forms of life, it takes an ecosystem where all the elements work towards a well-defined set of goals. In our experience, the organizations that are thriving are those that include the customer as part of the ecosystem right along side the growth and operational elements.

Customers: Customer experience (CX) is one aspect of a healthy organizational ecosystem. Companies that only focus on increased revenue goals and operational efficiencies open themselves up to competitors who DO listen to the marketplace. And example of this is Uber. Who would have thought that customers would be willing to pay more just to get a clean and convenient ride? Taxicab companies allowed the disruption in their space by ignoring this key aspect of their business.

Growth: But let’s not forget that the organizational ecosystem still needs to generate a profit. This requires effective marketing, sales, and product innovation to drive revenue. Profitability provides for investments in customer experience and operations. Investments are necessary for an organization to grow.

Operations: The operational aspect of the ecosystem needs to run effectively and manage expenses. It needs to deliver its service level agreements. An organization’s ability to execute has a direct impact on customer experience (CX) and profitability. In order to be great, operations need outside-in customer-driven thinking.

TALKING about a being healthy ecosystem won’t get you anywhere near BEING a healthy ecosystem. As a result, organizations need the clearly defined strategy and executional capabilities to make it all happen.

The dynamics of a healthy ecosystem are that all aspects are tended to and nurtured in harmony with the rest of the system. If any aspect of the ecosystem is deprived, that area will fail and the ecosystem will collapse. Typical dysfunctions in the organizational ecosystem include:

Customer/Growth bias leads to Operational stress
Customer /Operations bias leads to Growth stress
Growth/Operations bias leads to Customer stress

While every organizational ecosystem experiences stress in one area or another over time, leadership must be active and accountable to ensure the stress is limited and re-aligned to the goals of the ecosystem.

Posted in: Customer Experience, Growth, Operations, Strategy, Uncategorized

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Systematic Customer Experience (CX)

Posted by Bruce Barchus on November 19, 2015

A disciplined approach to great CX.

One of the things that made McDonald’s famous (initially), was that regardless of the location you visited, the experience was the same. You could expect (and subsequently experience) the same menu, the same taste, and pretty much the same restaurant layout.

In order to pull this off, there needed to be a systematic approach to everything behind the scenes and visible to the customer. Behind the scenes, the great CX required consistent ingredients, recipes, cooking tools and methods. Visible to the customer, the great CX required consistent ordering, pricing, and delivery.

Jeff Haden’s article– “An Almost Foolproof Way to Achieve Every Goal You Set” — features James Clear’s systematic approach to getting things done.

If your goal is to create great CX, a system is required consisting of people, process, technology, and corporate culture that continually listens to the customer. These elements need to be delivered consistently across your channels (web, mobile, social, call center, and face-to-face) or your customers will suffer. Great CX is only achieved with commitment and accountability to the system.

Posted in: Customer Experience, Operations

CX: What’s Project Management (love) got to do with it?

Posted by Bruce Barchus on November 11, 2015

Most organizations we’ve met over the years have trouble understanding their value proposition. This is particularly true of understanding their value proposition in the WORDS OF THEIR CUSTOMER. That makes it difficult (if not impossible) to deliver the right customer experience (CX).

That’s part one of the problem.

Part two of the problem is the ability to execute the value proposition. This takes projects to drive people, process, technology, and culture changes to meet the needs of the customer.

A qualified project manager (PM) fills this execution gap by understanding:

Business strategy
The goals of the improvement initiative
The connection to the customer
The classic management of scope, timeline and budget

Sadly, most PMs we’ve met over time barely have the last one covered. The first three are more important because they help define the right things to do for YOUR CUSTOMER. The last one helps gets things done right (once you know the right things to do). It adds little to no value to execute things that are not aligned to your organization’s value proposition.

Are your initiatives focused on doing the right things or focused on doing things right? You must have both! A great PM does both.

How are your initiatives showing love to your customer? Do your PMs get it?

Posted in: Customer Experience, Program/project Management

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Does Customer Experience (CX) Pay Off?

Posted by Bruce Barchus on September 29, 2015

Nothing is more irritating than a bad customer experience. How many times have you walked into fast food restaurant to find that the self serve counter is arranged: straws | cups | filling station | cover. The customers bottleneck as the ones that forgot a straw now have to cross back through the line. It isn’t hard to see the problem and arrange the line as: cups | filling station | cover | straws. Better yet, why not build the cover and straw into one unit? Why can’t these restaurants solve this simple problem?

We say to ourselves all the time, “when there’s a better alternative, I’m going to that restaurant.” Customers vote with their feet (and keyboards) with less and less loyalty. That’s why companies with loyal customers are more valuable. Checkout this great article by Christof Binder and Dominique M. Hanssens that appeared in the Harvard Business Review on the impact of repeat customers on the value of a business.

When is the last time you talked with your customer? How many times do they complain about your company? Are you listening?

Posted in: Customer Experience

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Do You Think Or Do You Know?

Posted by Bruce Barchus on September 29, 2015

After 25 years of consulting with companies (for profit / not-for-profit, small / medium / large, across industries), we are constantly amazed at how few leaders support their opinions with facts. This is particularly true of opinions about their customers. This is remarkable and risky.

The use of metrics is necessary to support business decision-making. The latest buzz in the industry calls this ‘analytics’. Analytics help a company understand the behavior of its customers across the channels it operates in.

So, the next time you’re in a management meeting talking about your customer. Ask yourself ‘do we think or do we know?’ Then, if you’re brave, ask everyone else too.

Posted in: Customer Experience

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