egyii blog

Today I saw a press release advertising an online course in Customer Experience Management, emphasising its ability to show learners how to measure a set of key aspects of the customer experience.

To me the very concept of customer experience management conjours up images of organisations somehow trying to control the experience the customer has with them. It reminds me of CRM software and operational processes and metrics applied to every aspect of the idea.

Of course, it’s great if an organisation can improve the way its customers experience the process of buying and using their product or service,  but this is a very different thing from a group of executives trying to manage such a thing.

What it comes down to is the way people behave, both in carrying out tasks in the background that support the customer experience and in interacting with customers. Yes, it’ important to have efficient systems and processes. But too often executives focus on these because they are quantifiable and easy to manage, to the exclusion of creating positive change in their people.

This is the hard part. Much easier to install a new Customer Experience Management system. From my 20 years experience of helping people at work learn and change, it seems that three conditions are necessary for this to work:

We must become acutely aware of the need for change

We must look honestly at our existing behavioural patterns and the results they are producing, and feel inspired to give our customers a great experience. This inspiration can come from different sources depending on the nature of the business and its leaders.

We must know how to change

We must be given tools that enable us to change both our thinking and our behaviour in our own special way. Scripted recipes for all to follow will never work. When our individual map of the world is in line with the idea of giving a great experience to our customers, then the behaviour will follow with relative ease.

We must be given the chance to change

Expecting habitual thoughts and behaviours to change overnight is unrealistic. This takes time. We need to be given a plan where we make simple, small changes over a specified time period as we install our new patterns. This means we need reminding and supporting.

So my plea to organisations our there talking about managing their customer experience – help your people first. Help them to be the very best they can be and then let them loose. And stop measuring them!

James Irvine, Team Egyii, Singapore

Press Release! Hot off the wires..

Singapore, May 25th, 2009

Egyii, the Singapore based learning and development consultancy, has announced its launch into the Consumer and Retail Banking space, leading with a new perspective on “customer experience.”

Egyii will continue to focus on its current agenda of Priority and Private Banking but will expand into Consumer and Retail Banking with more thought leadership, web based material and customized, in-house curriculums.

Trip Allen, Egyii’s Director of Sales and Marketing, says “The Consumer and Retail space is a logical choice for us. In fact, the banks have requested that we move into this space. And with customer experience initiatives in banking being a top priority, it makes sense that we link all the different banking programmes together.“

James Irvine, Egyii Director of Programme Development, says “Financial organizations are struggling and it is the customer who is suffering, causing a break of loyalty and trust and a loss of business.”

“Bankers can continue to focus on re-engineering products, systems and policies. Alternatively, they can break the mold and focus on the customer and the customer experience.”

For the “Improving the Customer Experience in Banking” white paper: White Paper

Financial organizations are at a crossroad. They are struggling and it is the customer who is suffering, causing a break of loyalty and trust and a loss of business.

How to address this?

Bankers can continue to focus on re-engineering products, systems and policies. Alternatively, they can break the mold and  focus on the customer and the customer experience.

What is missing from many of  the “customer experience” banking programs today?

For more, click here: Improving the Customer Experience in Banking: Egyii White Paper

Organisations are doing a lot these days to enhance the ‘customer experience’. They are training and motivating employees to engage their customers at a higher level; and they are putting in systems, processes and policies to make doing business easier and more enjoyable for their customers.

We at Egyii ask: how can our employees engage their customers so that they really ‘connect’ with them and leave them feeling great about the organisation?

What actually happens between the employee and the customer as they are interacting with each other makes one of the most lasting impressions. How a customer feels when she walks away from an interaction remains with her long after she has forgotten about the content.

 How can an employee create that customer connection that leaves them with such a great feeling?

First, the employee must be authentic.

This means he must be aware of his feelings when interacting with the customer. He must use this awareness to respond to his customer with his ‘truth’, the genuine emotion that he is experiencing.

Of course, if he is feeling irritated he does not show irritation, but he does acknowledge it himself and deal with it so that when he does respond to the customer the signals he sends are genuine. If he does not acknowledge his feelings he will communicate a ‘false’ persona to his customer which will be picked up, probably unconsciously. The result will be that the customer will leave with a slightly negative impression of the employee. There will certainly be no memorable customer experience.

This ongoing self-awareness on the part of the employee is crucial if the customer is not to feel that he is just ‘going through the motions’. Too many times customers experience employees as ‘superficial’ and ‘insincere’ because they are just acting out and have no connection with their real selves.

Second, the employee must become aware of his customer’s emotions and connect with their ‘truth’.

Often a customer will communicate with a lot of words and gestures, most of which do not represent where they are really coming from.

If an employee wants his customer to feel truly understood, he must pay attention and find the words, gestures and emotion that tell him “I am here.” By acknowledging the customer’s real thoughts and feelings he creates a bridge between them that the customer appreciates. Finding the customer’s ‘truth’ requires paying close attention and using intuition to sense and interpret the signals they are sending.

Connecting with your customer, then, happens when the employee’s ‘truth’ and the customer’s ‘truth’ are in a dance with each other. When an employee taps into his real self and eliminates all the posturing and acting, then he begins to be authentic. And when he takes the trouble to really pay attention to his customer and discover their real self, then he connects and a great customer experience is enabled.

James Irvine, Team Egyii, Singapore

Kare Anderson titles her recent blog ‘Coddle and Keep Customers – Even in a Cold Economy’.  She talks about a cafe near her home in Sausalito, California that now offers fresh-baked pastries and coffee to drive-by customers.

Now let’s transfer this image of ‘coddled customers’ to the experience people have with their banks. My Collins Concise English Dictionary defines ‘coddle’ as ‘to treat with indulgence’. Wouldn’t this kind of experience be the kind of thing that would drive you to a bank and keep you there long term?

Yes, we know that banks are designing comfortable, even luxurious environments where their customers can lounge over a fresh-brewed coffee. But while coffee and pastries are a cafe’s product, coffee and sofas are not a bank’s product. To coddle us, banks must treat us with indulgence, not just provide nice furniture.

It’s time that banks put aside their product innovations and selling tactics and get to know what the words ‘treat us with indulgence’ mean in their context. Here are just three suggestions:

Firstly, treat your customers like the intelligent people that they are. This means knowing your area of expertise backwards and only offering the highest quality, well-considered advice.

Secondly, be one hundred percent present in the presence of your customers. Pay attention to them and respond to what they are communicating instead of your own idea of what you want to say.

Thirdly, get your own attitude sorted out. Make sure that you have a strong purpose and are clear about what your personal values are, so that you come across as sincere, authentic and caring.

Treating bank customers with indulgence means taking them under your expert wing and looking after them. That’s all we really want. We can get the coffee round the corner.

James Irvine, Team Egyii, Singapore

What happened to the old days when you walked around the corner to the local bank with your wad of cash or your cheque…walked in and were greeted by Norm the security guard….then greeted by Esther the receptionist …and then John the banker, who is your neighbor and child’s Godfather?

You sat around, chatted, had a cup of coffee and a curry puff..and actualy enjoyed being in the presence of people you liked and trusted.

In 1969 Chemical Bank in NY stated in its ad campaign: “On Sept. 2, our bank will open at 9:00 and never close again!”

That changed the world of banking.

This was the start of the faceless ATM we see everywhere today. It was the start of automation, which has led to technologies such as online internet banking and more.

Wow! Great concepts! 24 hour banking!…clients loved it..and what a great way to save money for the bank. Remove faces, remove overhead. But this does not work for everyone.

Some interesting statistics from Gallup on banking  preferences show that a high percentage of people still bank at a branch. They want to see faces.

Clearly, the banks need to re-look at how they interface with their clients on a day to day basis. It should be for the  ”convenience of the customer” not the “convenience of the bank.”

Isn’t it time for a change…back to the good ‘ol days?

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore

Private Bankers could do worse than taking a look at the hospitality industry for ideas about how to woo their clients back. Whereas bankers are experts at financial products and the business side of their work, they are less confident about the softer, human relations side. In contrast, hotel people are strong at meeting and greeting, while they are less confident about the business consequences of their actions. To succeed in any service business (or any business for that matter), we need a balance between people intelligence and business acumen.

Hoteliers can teach Private Bankers a lot about clients’ expectations and behaviour. They can also teach them how to create a memorable experience for their ‘guests’ so that they leave the bank feeling delighted. How many Relationship Managers in Private Banks prepare for their client meetings by saying to themselves, “I’m going to make sure my client has an experience he’ll never forget”?

Hotel staff are trained to be client-focused rather than product-focused. This means that they see every guest as a unique individual with special expectations and needs, whether in the type and location of the room or in the kind of help they need from the hotel staff. Each hotel employee learns the idiosynchrosies of their regular guests, and makes sure they find out the special requirements of one-off guests within minutes of greeting them. I fear that many bankers tend to lump their clients together in broad groupings in their minds, without understanding the need to understand the special individuality of each client.

It is amazing how a change in perception can create a change in behaviour. If bankers were to delete the image of ‘Private Banker’ from their self image and insert ‘Guest Relations Manager’, then their minds would produce a whole new set of ideas and priorities about client relationships. This simple step would enable them to move away from an obsession with explaining the benefits of financial products and instead focus on the special human connection needs of each client. Once this new approach leads to trust, then and only then will they find that they have a listening ear for their products.

Try it.

(Post edit: this concept applies to the overall service industry, including the restaurant business as Sharlyn Lauby states in her blog posting A Shout Out from hr bartender)

James Irvine, Team Egyii, Singapore

Your front line, your client facing managers and relationship managers, are the best representation of your image.

You can spend millions of dollars on expensive, un- targeted, wasted advertising to “polish” your image but without your feet on the street knocking on the doors, you are wasting your time.

Your ties and coats and fancy office image can help, but it is not going to bring in the results.

If you are suffering with pain from a tarnished image, wipe off your poker face and belly up to the truth - go face to face with the client. Get your team motivated and confident so that you can stare at your client straight in the eye and re-establish that relationship.

Our research has shown us that banking clients have two main issues. One is portfolio performance (or wealth preservation in today’s interest) and the other is a trusting relationship with the institution and the relationship manager.

Blaming someone or looking for a solution from somebody will probably not work. As Thomas Friedman says “there is no pill  – not for this mess.”

Just get out there and do it. As the old Smith Barney ad said “earn money the old fashioned way.”

Kudos to Thomas Friedman in his always results oriented opinion editorials. Elvis Has Left the Mountain

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore

In his new book Branding Only Works on Cattle, Jonathan Salem Baskin says, “Today’s guerilla branding…(is) about giving consumers the reason and confidence to act, and the best way of doing this is by showing them behaviour that they can understand and trust. It’s all about doing things, not about saying things.”

In the ‘old world’ of business, branding was about communicating images, concepts and messages that will hopefully create an emotional connection with the audience and lead to brand loyalty. In the ‘new world’ business, according to Jonathan Salem Baskin, this just doesn’t work. People are too suspicious of your messages, and they have no interest in just listening to what you have to say. This means nothing to them without action.

In the ‘new world’ of business that we are now entering, brand loyalty rests on behaviour. Prove to your customers that you are real, authentic, and able to deliver what they want. Show, don’t tell.

This line of reasoning has a direct link to Private Wealth Management in banking. If Private Banks ever hope to win back the trust of their clients and hopefully, win over even more from competitors, then they had better shut up. Don’t make grandiose statements about your heritage, reputation and trustworthiness. Nobody’s going to listen.

To win in this new world of business, Private Banks are going to have to behave their way back to credibility. A bit like a wayward husband who has to seduce his wife all over again. Not with promises of fidelity, but with hour-by-hour actions that reveal his true intent. That’s why the future success of Private Banks is in their people, especially the people who interact and build relationships with clients. It’s in these people’s pure intent and concrete behaviours that the seed of new growth lies. It’s time for these venerable institutions to decide what specific new behaviours will win the trust of their ‘new’ clients.

So forget about designing a fancy ad campaign, or delivering a message of assurance from up on high. Get down and dirty with the specific actions your people can take to woo your clients minute-by-minute.

James Irvine, Team Egyii, Singapore 

The Kapuas mud snake (Enhydris gyii) is a native of Borneo, and can change its colour spontaneously… Today’s business turbulence is the greatest opportunity of the last five decades. If today’s business leaders can learn to behave more like the the Kapuas mud snake, we might see nothing less than the passing of the ‘Old World’ of business into a ‘New World’ of business.

The Old World of business may have been saying ‘customer first’ and ‘relationship management’, but the truth is that the approach to winning more business never really changed. Sales executives, relationship managers and leaders are still taught that the key to revenue growth lies in going through a ‘scripted process’ that everyone can apply equally effectively. All you really have to do is find out your customer’s recognised and unrecognised needs, present your ‘tailored’ solution, and hey presto!

This approach to business growth is just one symptom of a general malaise where everyone is at the ‘front line’ (whether in product development, operations or sales) rushing to meet perceived customer needs. This rush to perform means that little real thought is given to other, possible underlying drivers of business success which ultimately determine whether these ’front line’ strategies will work. 

For example, a relationship manager in a bank will have been taught a set of behaviours that are predicted to lead to increased investments from customers. These behaviours will probably include questions to ask the customer, ways to gain agreement, and how to present a product solution. But these ‘front line’ behaviours only scratch the surface of the potential relationship between relationship manager and customer. And so the customer leaves the meeting feeling a bit deflated without knowing exactly why. Certainly, the meeting will have made no progress towards establishing trust.

Now is the time to move into the New World of business success and take a step back from this ‘front line’ thinking. Let’s not rush to be at the front pushing, pushing, pushing. Yes, targets are important, but businesses will never reach them from a position of desperation and impatience. It’s not about facts. Facts about what the customer wants. This is easy. No, today it’s about giving the customer what she wants from the very first second she lays eyes on you. These are not facts which can described. They are underlying drivers of human interaction which are working second by second in a dance as the relationship manager leads the customer through a melody of turn-taking. And there’s no end to this dance. It continues through the end of the meeting and into the conscious and unconscious thoughts of the customer all the while she is walking away and going about her business the next day and the next. And if you want to build a relationship of trust and loyalty, you had better make sure this dance continues on and on and on.

So much for ‘scripted’ behaviour. If you don’t enter this dance as a unique individual with your own way of expressing yourself and your own personal way of responding to every tiny signal your customer sends you, then your authenticity will be lost and your customer will be left in neutral about you. And you’d better treat every customer as a unique individual too. No two dances can ever be the same. Each time you engage with a customer you embark on a journey of exploration and discovery. How exciting!

These are things that cannot easily be reported back to a department manager in a weekly submission. They are not easily listed and analysed. But they are the ‘back office’ of business success at the front line. It’s time that business leaders put more challenging thinking into their behaviours – that they stop and try to really understand what drives people, rather than relying on age-old prescriptions that come to them without any effort.

So, welcome to the New World of business. We’ll never regain our customers’ trust if we apply Old World thinking and practices. Those businesses that take a step back, have some patience, and look beneath the surface will find opportunity in abundance in today’s turbulence. Just pay attention to the human being  in human beings for a change, and watch the results roll in.