The Intuitive Customer - Helping You Improve Your Customer Experience To Gain Growth

This Podcast produced in partnership with Zuper™. You are probably underestimating the importance of a vital part of your Customer experience. Most organizations do. However, neglecting to address it can have negative impact on your customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and customer advocacy. Dying to know what it could be? Well, the area that is often underestimated in importance is the impact of your field service engineers. Often the face of your company, these team members deliver a critical part of your customer interaction. Underestimating the significance of this part of your experience is a critical mistake. Field service is a term not everyone is familiar with. However, you are familiar with them even if you don't know what they are called. Field service describes the people that install, repair, and upgrade your equipment. Their ubiquity is such that they are a part of everyday life. In fact, you probably saw a few at work in some capacity today; you just didn't know what they were called. In this episode, we host an expert in Field Service on our recent podcast, Michael Israel (MichaelIsrael@Zuper.co), Head of Field Service Evangelism at Zuper. Israel has worked in customer and field service for over 50 years. He has managed domestic and international field service operations, including 12 years at IBM. He's also been in management and executive roles with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) providers and field service software applications with Oracle and SAP. Here are some other key moments in the discussion: 02:05 Colin introduce Israel, and Israel shares some of his related experience that led him to becoming an expert in Field Service, as well as what the area entails. 10:11 We get into a discussion of the changing attitude for the service side of a customer experience, from viewing it as a cost to seeing it as profit center. 20:38 Colin asks why more organizations don't embrace adopting software to manage this part of the experience; Israel's response might surprise you. 24:23 We discuss the opportunity for a lot of companies regarding training and who does a good job with leveraging performance in this area. 27:29 Israel gives us a glimpse into the future of field service and what technology will do to enhance this critical area. 30:37 We all share our key takeaways and practical applications for organizations that want to address field service in their experiences. _________________________________________________________________ Did you know we have a YouTube Channel too? Check it out here. Connect with Colin on LinkedIn HERE. Follow Colin on Twitter HERE. Click HERE to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University. To learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services Click here.

A lot of the behavioral sciences can feel intimidating. However, it doesn't have to be. The Five Rules Podcast Series is our attempt at giving you an easy entry point into the complex and messy world of Behavioral Science. This podcast is full of bad advice. If you do follow the five rules we present, we guarantee you will fail. We realize this might be different than our usual Five Rules episode content. However, we think that presenting the way to fail might be the way to help you succeed. (How's that for a different kettle of fish?) For example, if you want to fail, we have the rules that will help you do it. They include doing any or all of the following: Not understanding the marketplace. Ignoring customer feedback. Failing to adapt to change. Not being authentic. Overlooking diversity and inclusion. In this episode, we explore why our five rules, otherwise known as what not to do in business, lead to failure for many brands you know, and in some cases, remember from before they crashed and burned. We share what we have learned by watching brands make silly mistakes (and hope none of you will make the same ones.) Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience The critical thing to remember here is that we don't want you to do these things. Instead, we encourage you to learn from these mistakes. So, if anything, we are telling you to break these five rules instead of following them. Here are some other key moments in the discussion: 04:07 We kick it off by explaining how if you don't understand the marketplace, you are sure to blow it with them, hastening your descent into failure. 10:53 We abandon all pretense of being organized, and share all five rules at once and then fit our examples under the various rules. 12:08 We discuss business guru Charles Handy's S-curve from The Empty Raincoat about how things ebb and flow in performance, and when is the best time to change. 19:50 Colin relates the five rules back to an article he read, "15 Famous Brands Who Failed to Innovate," and how hubris plays a role. 23:46 Ryan explains how Victoria Secret might have fared better over time if they had more diversity and inclusion built into their leadership. _________________________________________________________________ Did you know we have a YouTube Channel too? Check it out here. Connect with Colin on LinkedIn HERE. Follow Colin on Twitter HERE. Click HERE to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University. To learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services Click here.

Fads come and go. From Tamagotchi's to fidget spinners, we have seen plenty come and go. However, one fad that will never go out of style is treating your employees as the valuable resource they are. So, to answer our own question, Employee Experience is not just a fad and is definitely the future of a successful organization. We are fired up about this today because one of you, Praveen Kumar is in a pickle and he asked for our help. He wanted to know how to build an excellent Employee Experience. Not surprisingly, we had plenty of advice about it. You see, so much of what we talk about on this podcast applies to customers. However, it also applies to employees. People are people, whether they are buying or selling. So, until your employees are robots, you should be managing both experiences. In this episode, we explore the question of how to build an excellent Employee Experience. We also share some advice on how to implement the advice practically and successfully, which is more than we can say for bringing back the Thighmaster. Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience One thing that might be a fad is what we call this area. For our part, we like Employee Experience because it goes with Customer Experience, and it uses alliteration. So, we don't think the idea behind it will fade, but the terminology might. And we are okay with that. Here are a few key moments in the discussion: 06:23 Colin explains how we are all experiential animals, so it is essential to ensure that experiences work for us, or there are negative consequences. 10:46. We discuss how the Customer Experience and the behavioral science theories that we relate to it also apply to the Employee Experience. 13:26 Ryan explains how Reference Points are essential in the conversation about Employee Experiences. 20:56 We address the various ways you can use Customer Experience advice to manage your Employee Experience efforts. 26:10 Colin gets into how a previous podcast about the 5 Rules of Leadership are essential here also. 29:11 We both offer our last bits of advice for Kumar and anyone who wants to build an excellent Employee Experience. _________________________________________________________________ Did you know we have a YouTube Channel too? Check it out here. Connect with Colin on LinkedIn HERE. Follow Colin on Twitter HERE. Click HERE to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University. To learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services Click here.

I have been watching the American Customer Satisfaction Index for over 20 years. Many years, there wasn't anything too surprising in the report. However, recently there has been, and it isn't good news for most organizations. After nearly two decades of investment in customer experience, only 20 percent of organizations have managed to improve their customer satisfaction scores—leaving the vast majority, 80 %, having failed to do so. One has to wonder, has it been worth it? We have been working on delivering experiences that surprise and delight customers for years. So, why aren't they surprised and delighted? Why, despite all our best efforts, are the numbers going the opposite direction? Before you blame COVID for all this, it is important to note that these trends began long before that, although the pandemic did nothing to help matters. Nor is it a problem of customers having unreasonable expectations. Research shows that as satisfaction declines, so do customer expectations. It turns out that there are a number of variables that could be contributing to this decline in customer satisfaction, which offers a lot for organizations to learn. We invited an expert, assistant professor Forrest Morgeson, from the marketing faculty at the Broad College of Business at Michigan State University and the director of research at the Customer Satisfaction Institute to share his insight. In this episode, we explore what this means to customer experience then, now and in the future. Where we are going with experiences, might surprise you. Here are some other key moments in the discussion: 02:41 We introduce our guest, Forrest Morgeson, assistant professor of marketing at the Broad College of Business at Michigan State University and the director of research at the Customer Satisfaction Institute at Michigan 05:53 Morgeson answers my question about how satisfaction can be down at this point in time with two salient reasons. 15:46 Colin shares a story about apathy and how what he saw 20 years ago might be happening in C-suites all around the world as we gape into the void of a recession. 22:44 We ask Morgeson to explain what the data shows about satisfaction within industry, and what he tells us might surprise you. 26:59 Morgeson shares his predictions for what will happen next regarding customer satisfaction and changes in experiences. _________________________________________________________________ Did you know we have a YouTube Channel too? Check it out here. Connect with Colin on LinkedIn HERE. Follow Colin on Twitter HERE. Click HERE to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University. To learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services Click here.

One of our listeners, Clive Hearst has a bit of pickle he needs our help with today. He wants to know whether he should invest the time and money in getting his MBA. He wants to know what the true value is of an MBA, and whether it is a must-have for his career. The answer depends on a few things. It might surprise you to know I don't have an MBA. (Or maybe not). However, I have experience, and much of it leading teams and driving experiences for people, but I didn't pick that up in a classroom or an internship. I learned it on the streets, and in interactions with clients, bosses, and subordinates. I probably won't get an MBA. I am closer to getting a fishing boat and a new tackle box than a degree at this point. However, I still say probably because there is a part of me that says, "never say never." Part of me is interested in an MBA and I have to wonder why… So, does an MBA have any value or is it just a piece of paper? In this episode, we try to help Hearst answer these questions for himself and shed some light on the current state of the MBA in today's business environment. Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience There should always be deliberate goals for everything we do in business, and that includes post-graduate education. Post graduate education in this case is an MBA, but the same goes for a Ph.D., law school, or medical or dental school, any other programs too. Part of the decision should always be one's plans for what they will do with the education in which they invest. Here are a few key moments in the discussion: 04:53 We start with one of the most important questions a person should ask themselves when considering getting their MBA, and the rest of everything will depend on the answer. 06:27 Ryan explains how MBA programs are structured and how long a person can expect to be in one, depending upon the program they choose. 09:54 Colin asks Ryan to explain some of the key advantages of getting an MBA, and the answer might surprise you. 13:04 We discuss the increased earning potential that can occur from getting an MBA, and how it sometimes doesn't, and why. 20:20 Ryan explains how the most prestigious MBA programs tend to require several years' experience before getting one and why that is. 24:50 We discuss how MBA programs are changing and what type of MBA might be a good investment for today's business employee. _________________________________________________________________ Did you know we have a YouTube Channel too? Check it out here. Connect with Colin on LinkedIn HERE. Follow Colin on Twitter HERE. Click HERE to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University. To learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services Click here.

Time is our most valuable resource. It's a resource that you aren't able to get any more of, no matter what you do, and you are losing more of it every second. When you look at it like that, asking people for their time a much bigger deal than you might have considered at first. Therefore, when you are spending it with them, you should make the most of it. Moreover, you are competing for customers' time. So, when they do give it to you, they are going to evaluate whether that was a good move afterward. If you are careful with it, you can end up on the bad side of an evaluation and a losing side of the battle for their attention in the future. Joe Pine, co-author of The Experience Economy, writes about this battle for customer attention and how they evaluate time given to you in a recent article about 'Competing for Customer Time'. Check it out here. We also hosted him on a recent podcast where he shared his three categories for customers' evaluations of time given to your organization. They include time well saved, time well spent, and time well invested. In this episode, we discuss these three categories and what they mean to organizational experiences. We also talk about how some organizations do it well, and some waste our time unapologetically. Here are some other key moments in the discussion: 03:22 Colin explains how the three categories of customer evaluation of time as Pine explained in the article and on the recent podcast created an Aha! Moment that rivals some of the most significant in his career. 08:10 Colin shares a story about calling his health insurance company and how they did not respect his time, how that could result in his finding a new provider, and how they will never know why. 12:39 We share an example of a company that takes their service and elevates it with the theatrical to create a time well spent evaluation. 22:44 We get into time well invested, and what expectations customers are likely to have before they would give an organization a positive evaluation in this area. 25:33 We share our final thoughts on what is happening here regarding the battle for customer's time and how you can leverage this insight for your organization. Did you know we have a YouTube Channel too? Check it out here. Connect with Colin on LinkedIn HERE. Follow Colin on Twitter HERE. Click HERE to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University. To learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services Click here.

Price increases are part of today's business environment. Unless you live on the moon, you are experiencing them from your suppliers, too, and will pass those on to your customers also. However, if you handle the price increase the wrong way, you will also likely be losing some of those customers, too. One of our listeners, Alan Flower, has a pickle regarding the need to increase his prices without losing his customers. Since our advice not to raise prices or to decrease prices instead will end up with him going out of business, we came up with a few other, more practical, ideas. The fact is no one wants a price increase. So, on its face, it seems like an impossible scenario. However, it might surprise you to learn that there are ways to increase a customer's price, maintain your company's margins, and keep most of your customers. In this episode, we explore the many ways you can soften the blow of a necessary price increase to retain as many customers as possible while doing what you need to do for your bottom line. Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience Communication is the underlying theme of this exercise. Many of the suggestions we make during this podcast relate to the "how" of communicating. However, the why of it is just as essential, so be sure that you pay attention to both when you inform your customers of an impending price increase—or face their wrath instead. Here are a few key moments in the discussion: 03:51 The first suggestion we make is to set proper expectations, which includes giving people time to adjust to the news; upping prices without warning will not get this price increase process off to a very good start. 07:25 Ryan explains how using framing is an essential way to manage the outcome of the price increase conversation, and that without it, you can make a mess of this process pretty fast. 11:06 Colin shares some things not to do, deceptive practices that you might get away with, until you don't, and then the consequences can be severe, like Shrinkflation. 17:35 We explore sweetening the offering with companion products or services that add value, a situation that make a price increase much more palatable to customers. 19:34 We look at the value in delaying a price increase or taking it incrementally instead of all at once. Did you know we have a YouTube Channel too? Check it out here. Connect with Colin on LinkedIn HERE. Follow Colin on Twitter HERE. Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University. Please tell us how we are doing! Complete this short survey. To learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services Click here

How long does it take to choose a craft beer at a big box liquor store? Four hours. That's what it felt like anyway. Why did it feel so long? Too many choices. In fact, when I was done, I needed a beer to recover from the exercise of choosing a beer. Of course, if there had only been a few, I would probably complain that there hadn't been enough options for craft beers. The fact is, we like having choices, until we don't. There is a point where not enough choices becomes way too many and the end result is the same, a negative experience and sometimes a lost sale. In this episode, we explore the negative effects of too many choices on your bottom line. From overwhelming customers to elevating their expectations, what you offer has a significant effect on what people buy—or don't. Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience There are two ways choice affects customers psychologically. First, too many choices can make people give up on deciding and wander off. Second, the plethora of options can increase the expectations for what a customer wants out of the transaction, and often keeps them on the hunt longer for the perfect choice. Neither is an outcome that is doing great things for an organizations bottom line. Here are some other key moments in the discussion: 05:52 Ryan shares the results of research conducted at a Grocery Store in California that tested how many jam options was too many (Spoiler alert: It was more than six). 09:14 We discuss whether there is an optimal number and what considerations would go into determining that. 12:22 Colin explains how his TV shopping has increased his knowledge about TV offerings while also making him feel more anxious about choosing one. 21:33 Ryan uses dating opportunities to explain how more choices can change what you expect out of a date and Colin explains how he ends up in the matrimonial doghouse because of his lack of romanticism. 24:25. We share what firms can do to make decisions easier for people and maximize their decision potential in different offering scenarios. Did you know we have a YouTube Channel too? Check it out here. Connect with Colin on LinkedIn HERE. Follow Colin on Twitter HERE. Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University. Please tell us how we are doing! Complete this short survey. To learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services Click here

I have written seven books, countless articles, and tons of keynote speeches, not to mention thousands of emails. As a writer, through and through, I know how difficult it can be to stare at a blank screen watching that blinking cursor wondering where to start. But a new AI-powered chatbot might make my life a whole lot easier, and yours, too. It's called ChatGPT, and it has the potential to change how we create things and make the power of AI accessible to everyone. It is a conversational chatbot that can process requests and, if you want, write things for you. It has written poetry, code for applications, the copy for a Ryan Reynold's MINT mobile company commercial, and more. Unfortunately, it also means ChatGPT is accessible to high school students that need to write a five-paragraph essay about Romeo and Juliet. If there is one group where ChatGPT is unwelcome, it's the teacher's lounge at any high school or college. In this episode, we discuss how ChatGPT might change the way organizations do things moving forward. Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience We also discussed what some of my readers on LinkedIn think of the AI technology in ChatGPT. Igor Rodrigues likes how it handles context. Sergei Liashenko thinks it could be useful for staff training. Graham Hill worries that if too many people leverage the technology, we will lose the distinctions between organizations that often provide a competitive edge. We would love to also hear your insight. To subscribe to the newsletter and weigh in, please click here. Here are some other key moments in the discussion: 02:41 We introduce what ChatGPT is and how we have been working with it, and how it differs from what other technology we have encountered. 07:54 Colin shares some of the ways he thinks it will serve as a writing assistant for him moving forward, and Ryan explains how it has completely wrecked the educational essay. 16:51 Colin shares some of the responses he got from readers of the newsletter on LinkedIn. 22:53 We share what the 8th imperative would have been for our book, The Intuitive Customer, if we had leveraged the AI, and it was surprisingly good. 24:32 We share our insights about what you should take away from this topic and apply it in your organization. Did you know we have a YouTube Channel too? Check it out here.

If you have customer segments that read like the drink sizes on a fast-food menu, then this podcast is one you really need. The fact is many organizations get customer segmentation wrong. So, we came up with some critical questions that can get it back on track. One of our listeners is in a pickle and it has to do with their firm's segmentation. Vijay Patel's sales haven't been what he hoped, and he wondered if the problem might be targeting the wrong customers. We think they might be, too, but probably not for the reasons Patel thinks. Many organizations use databases to segment their customers based on easy-to-collect data, like demographics, industry vertical, or total annual sales. While this information is useful, it is incomplete. We discuss what needs to be included to make these numbers mean anything for targeting. In this episode, we explore what are critical questions an organization should be using to create customer segments that lead to effective targeting. And to be clear, they don't use the words "small," "medium," or "large." Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience I have had a terrible time with UPS recently. I sent a package 2-day priority international and ten days later, I still don't have it. Plus, I have had no luck getting answers about what happened to it. In part, I am to blame because I don't have a lot of experience with shipping things via UPS. However, part of the problem is UPS because they don't have a targeted experience for inexperienced shippers like me. Here are a few key moments in the discussion: 05:12 We share a pickle from Vijay Patel who asks us how to ensure that their customer segmentation is correct. 07:27 Colin talks about one of the best segmentations he has ever experienced in Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta, where they separate leisure and business travelers. 11:42 We lead into the first question about segmentation and how it should serve your organization. 14:25 Colin poses the next question about the data used to segment customers and whether it is meaningful for this exercise (spoiler alert: if it involves small, medium, and large, then it isn't). 18:18 Ryan explains selection bias and how it can doom your efforts by missing an enormous opportunity for your business. 21:04 We explain how using databases can lead to stereotyping and how that is sloppy marketing. 25:18 We discuss psychographics and how it applies to segmentation, and why it might not work either and what we know will work better. Subscribe to our YouTube channel HERE. Do you have a business pickle? Tell us about it here. Please tell us how we are doing! Complete this short survey. Customer Experience Information & Resources LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 290,000 followers of his work. Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy as one of the best management consultancies for the last four years in a row. Follow Colin on LinkedIn and Twitter. Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University. Why Customers Buy: As an official "Influencer" on LinkedIn, Colin writes a regular newsletter on all things Customer Experience. Click here to join the other 35,000 subscribers. How can we help? Click here to learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services.