Book Review: Effortless Experience [Matt Dixon, 2013 Penguin Books, CEB]
Delighting your customers are you? Waste of time. Focusing on First Call Resolution? You don’t get it. Worrying about what channels customers prefer to communicate in? Don’t be silly.
I couldn’t put this book down; read it in two chairs and one plane.
And what’s not to love with another Matt Dixon book (think The Challenger Sale) that is steeped in research from Corporate Executive Board and real life company examples of what you could truly do in the world of Service that improves loyalty, advocacy and profitability.
Dixon says and I believe him; “Service is the crucible of customer experience where all the companies’ claims, missions and values are tested.” Gulp.
The secret though has nothing to do with service levels, getting higher satisfaction scores or striving for legendary service experiences (ya know, like the Nordstrom folks).
It’s simpler but not nearly as sexy; Reduce the effort. Don’t aim for delight, aim for relief. Don’t dazzle customers, just fix the darn problem. Reduce the customer effort before and after and you mitigate the rampant disloyalty that exists today.
Dixon and co. dismantle some beliefs for us too: We have this illusion that our service departments are moments where we can inspire great trust and deeper loyalties with customers, yet data shows ANY customer service action is four times more likely to drive disloyalty than to drive loyalty.
A lot of the book focuses upstream before a customer even gets to you the service department, and delves into systems, websites and the need for simplicity. Focus on Customer Effort Scores (CES) and not satisfaction scores. Do that and you’ve mitigated the ease to jump ship.
Arguments and research abound about how incentivizing self-service vs. discouraging live service makes more sense. How new hires should start their day 2 searching your websites and FAQ’s for jargon that confuses them and therefore complicates the customer experience. How focusing on First Call Resolution misses the point that service issues are usually far more than that call but are “events” that may have begun weeks before ( like the purchase of a new service) and could continue weeks after. How Delight based on corporate data, does not pay and how opening new ways for clients to reach you isn’t a real advantage as people will go wherever they get the best help.
I loved the robust chapters on teaching people to use “carefully crafted and thoughtful language” to engineer an experience that “actively guides a customer through an interaction”. There is much neuroscience research there as well as in- the-trenches proven tactical applications that will have you rethinking your customer call approach.
I can’t do the book justice in less than 500 words but more than that and this post becomes an Article and not a blog.
Go get the book. Take notes, highlight and/or export. Study and then apply accordingly. Here is a link to the book on amazon.
Till next time,
Grow The Business.
Mark
Mark McCarthy's Blog 