What customer experience mistakes do you avoid?

🙅♂️ Failing to actively listen to customer feedback 🕵️♀️ Neglecting to understand your customers' needs and preferences 💬 Lack of clear and timely communication 🤐 Impersonal or uninspired messaging and interactions 🤕 Ignoring customer complaints or negative feedback 🏃♀️ Lack of speed and efficiency in addressing customer issues 🚪 Difficulty accessing customer support or assistance

The first pitfall to navigate is the trap of not fully understanding your customers. It's not sufficient to only know your customers' demographics or purchase habits. True understanding requires a deep dive into their emotions, needs, aspirations, and life context. A comprehensive, human-centered experience can only be designed when we truly understand the humans we're designing for.

One way that I’ve been able to overcome this pitfall is to actively listen to the customer. Be empathetic. Realize that your customer is a human. A human that is more than a dollar sign or a statistic on a piece of paper. Personal experiences speak volumes in today’s age of social media. If the company is unwilling to listen to the human’s (aka customer’s) needs, then they are setting themselves up to drive customers away. Don’t just assume you know your customer, simply based on numbers. Listen to their voices. Listen to their words. They are telling you exactly what they need from your company, to feel valued and important. That is what will drive your customer loyalty.

A great way of getting to know your customers is creating a community. A community where they can provide feedback but also network with their peers. This near real-time data is key and is not just online but if successful can be turned into in-person meetups or customer advisory boards.

Understanding your "customers" is certainly important, but it's also relevant to remember that you're focusing on the piece of the puzzle, and not the entirety of it. What need or desire are you trying to fulfill? Are you targeting a specific instance or a broad range of people? It's easy to say things like "listen, empathize, understand", etc. Depending on your industry and your goals, there are a plethora of different tactics to utilize. The basic journey remains the same...but the enhanced journey needs to be tailored to your personas.

The next pitfall is the failure to set clear and transparent expectations. This can create a rift of confusion and disappointment. Setting clear expectations is an act of honesty and fosters trust. An upfront conversation about what your customers can expect from your product, service, or brand can make all the difference. Promise what you can deliver and then deliver more than you promise. This is how we Surprise Me principle comes to life.

It's very tempting to under promise/over-deliver. Telling your customers that they can have their service in 2 weeks and then providing it in 1 may seem like a great plan, but the under promise is extremely risky. Transparent, realistic information really sets the proper tone. If speed bumps along the journey present themselves, it's important to pass that information along and manage the expectation going forward. Honesty and humility go a long way towards brand loyalty.

Being too quick to judge customers' pockets by their looks or appearances. You set yourself up for a big fail! Also, not active listening to what your customers are saying or interrupting them while they speak.

I have learned that being transparent and honest with the customer even if the update or response is not what they want to hear leaves you in a better spot then avoidance or not updating them at all. They will appreciate a straightforward answer than a run around response and this type of communication establishes trust. And when customers trust your word, they trust your business and are less likely to leave.

I avoid over-promises and assurances beyond my resources. I make it a point to mention about what can go wrong with orders, products, returns, exchanges and how its planned to resolve ,by being precautionary. Customers love to hear what you have thought out in advance and that brings in a sense of assurance.

When we fail to listen, we miss out on vital feedback and insights. Remember, customer feedback is a gift, even when it's a critique. Listening is a crucial part of empathy and is at the heart of design thinking. So let's take the time to truly listen, build relationships, and improve.

The overlooked pitfall is not empowering your employees. They are the face of your brand, the frontline in daily customer interaction. If they are not empowered to make decisions and solve problems, we are adding unnecessary friction to the customer experience. 'Make It Easy For Me' applies to your employees too. When employees feel trusted and empowered, they can provide outstanding service to your customers.

In my experience, your frontline employees are your customer experience analysts. Empower them to make good choices and trust them. The frontline workers are the ones that are listening to the customers experience, both good and bad. Listen to your employees when they say that they’ve recognized a pattern that could be an area of improvement or acknowledgment of an issue. It’s helpful to ask what your employees need to feel empowered, rather than just assuming you know what they need. Clear expectations and guidelines up front help employees feel empowered to make the right choices for the business, while improving the overall customer experience.

Defining the level of empowerment is a crucial cog in the machine. Give your employees guidelines, not borders. Talking points, not scripts. Methodology instead of hard verbiage. If they have signing privileges or credit powers, supply them with calculators to use and an escalation path that's clean and easy should they need one. Being too strict and limiting to your employees inadvertently contributes to a "not my problem" mentality and culture.

In order to be innovative, you have to have an agile mindset. With the constant improvements with technology, you have to be adaptable. Transitioning from the waterfall mindset to an agile mindset makes a huge difference. Gone are the days that you just do it because that’s what has always been done. Creating an agile work environment is key to innovating your customer experience.

Complacency, the enemy of innovation, can be a significant pitfall in CX. In our constantly evolving world, a static CX is a stagnating CX. Keep surprising your customers with fresh, improved, and delightful experiences. Innovation is not just about technology; it's a mindset of continuous evolution, curiosity, and creativity.

A sustainable experience needs to be connected. From a pure store centric to any channel approach would enable the customer to choose channels they prefer and get the full power of discovery, product trial, purchase, personalisation, delivery and more. Sustainability and net zero targets will mean brand experience for the lifetime of usage. Not just one purchase experience. There may be more than one customer for the same product thus resulting in better utilisation of materials. For companies in the hardware domain, customer experience will mean imagining the integration of hardware + software + cloud or custom components for experience gains. The key to success is how we connect to get the insights and services that matter.

The final pitfall we need to overcome is a lack of alignment within your organization. Every member of your team, from top to bottom, should be dedicated to delivering a remarkable customer experience. This means breaking down silos, fostering cross-functional collaboration, and building a shared vision and commitment to the customer experience.

Despite the growing awareness of the significance of CX, some organizations remain stuck in the "CX Department" mindset. By relegating CX to a specialized group, these companies inadvertently create silos within their operations. This approach often results in a disjointed customer experience, with each department focusing solely on their own objectives instead of collaborating to deliver a seamless and consistent journey for customers. The most successful organizations understand that customer experience is not a department but a mindset that should permeate every aspect of their operations.

Yes, a CX vision mandated from the top is important but it also should be a part of the culture. One area that is often missed is hiring. When you hire, you need to be looking for employees that can either believe in your vision or can learn quickly how to apply it in everyday work.

There you have it, six common pitfalls to avoid in crafting exceptional customer experiences. By identifying and overcoming these challenges, we can turn them from threats into opportunities for growth, innovation, and relationship-building. So let's stay transparent, love our people, and build organizations that genuinely put the customer at the center of everything we do. The power of YES! is in your hands. Let's change the world, one customer experience at a time.