Customer Experience = Operations Plus Human Relationships

Customer Experience usually falls under Marketing, but in order for the initiative to be successful, it must be implemented throughout an organization.  How can this be accomplished?  By changing the mindset of an organization.

Think about it – more time is spent in the use of a product, beginning the use of a product, ending the use of a product, dealing with problems of the use of the product, than anything else, and none of that is Marketing.

A customer’s experience with a product (and an organization) is dependent on the Operations department more than any other.

The Operations department is the link between so many departments within the organization.  Operations connects Sales with Customer Service; it also connects Product Development with Sales and Customer Service.  Operations connects Sales and Finance, Sales and the C-Suite, Sales and IT, Sales and IT and Marketing.  If an organization is functioning effectively, the Operations department is the glue between them all.

But all of that is overlayed by the human relationship aspect of business.  At the end of the day, business is still a human-to-human interaction, whether you are a brick and mortar or an online business.  Regardless of if you are a B2C or a B2B, you are still working with human beings.

Successful organizations need to not only understand efficient and effective business processes that keep the machine moving, but also they need to understand humans and their reactions.  In order to thrive, a business needs to know how to uncover their customers’ wants and needs.  It needs to anticipate their next expectation and truly grasp their priorities and values.

I could give a cat a $5 bill and tell him how much value it has.  I could tell him all the things he could buy with that piece of paper.  But to him, it holds no value.  The things he could buy have value to him, but not the piece of paper itself.  Value is only determined by the person receiving, i.e., your customers.  You can’t tell your customers how much value you are giving them, value doesn’t work that way.  They will tell you what they value and then it is up to your organization to give that to them.  The cat isn’t going to be happy with that $5 bill no matter what I tell him.  And it’s up to me, as the giver of a product, to understand why he’s not happy with it.

Most customers, at the basic level, want to be treated fairly.  If you offer a quality product and a quality experience, that can be interpreted as “being treated fairly.”  But one often overlooked area of customer relations or business development is in the area of Talent Acquisition.  When a potential candidate for a role within the company interviews or interacts with your business in any way, you must see it as potential business development – because it is.  That candidate could be a future customer or know people who might be.  That candidate could have a large social media following.  The truth is, you don’t know.  Not that you should treat them any differently because of what might be in it for you, but you should treat everyone with respect because everyone you meet could help move your business forward in some way.  

Recently, one organization hired an outside consultant to help with customer operations.  He was experienced in the industry and knew what the business needed to grow, including the type of skills, experience and mindset that a new employee would need to have.  However, one of the current employees saw the opening in the organization as an opportunity for himself.  He wanted the role and would do anything to get it, including undermining the outside consultant, involving candidates in his power struggle with the consultant, either by not responding to emails from candidates or by responding in offensive tones and negating everything the outside consultant had told them.

Dysfunctional internal operations?  Yes, but also terrible human interaction skills.  Meaning, zero human interaction skills.  And the employee’s role was in customer relations.  The future doesn’t look bright for this organization if they keep this particular employee in such a customer and potential customer facing role.  You can lose customers by treating them so disrespectfully and, at the same time, demonstrating to those potential customers how badly your organization is in need of some customer service training.  Why would they want to get involved with your business on any level, whether as a customer or an employee, if that’s the case? 

Operations plus human interaction skills.  Process and people.  Streamline one and enhance the other.  Streamline one in order to enhance the other.  But don’t think that by streamlining your processes that the people part will take care of itself.  It won’t.  Attention must be given to it otherwise examples like the ones above will occur.

Remember, people are the ones with the credit cards ready to buy your product, or not.  People are the ones who write online reviews.  People are the ones who tell their friends, families and social networks about your products and your organization.  People are the ones who write articles… 

People and process.  Fix your processes, so that you can pay more attention to the people.