#3 | DCX - Perspectives and insights on digital customer experience
Introducing the DCX Podcast; The Frictionless Organization; DCX Summer Reading Recommendations; Poll: Organizational Structure Is Top Challenge For Businesses Implementing Digital Customer Experiences
Introducing the DCX Podcast
Today, I’m excited to share with you the launch of the DCX Podcast - where I am interviewing leaders in the Customer Experience space about how digital is changing the landscape, and how you can leverage these changes for success in your business.
DCX Podcast #1 - The Frictionless Organization
When customers feel like there is something the the way of them experiencing the product or service they purchased, friction is the cause. It's when they have to make several attempts to accomplish something that should be simple, or have multiple people tell them the same thing in different ways. Friction is when things break down and get stuck, confusing, or just plain hard to use. But it’s also caused by the organizational structures. Even with the best of intentions, companies create friction in their journeys.
In this, the first DCX Podcast episode, I talk with Bill Price and David Jaffe, about friction and their new book The Frictionless Organization. Deliver Great Customer Experiences with less Effort. Bill and David explain how frictionless organizations cut costs, grow revenue, and create loyal fans by creating products and services that work so well for their customers that they never have to contact them for the wrong reasons.
Enjoy!
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Planning for the holiday season rush starts now.
Most CX leaders will go through rapid, costly seasonal hiring periods to accommodate the influx of tier 1 and tier 2 support tickets–But they don’t have to.
Learn how this Director of Customer Success reduced seasonal hiring by 68% and delivered fast, personalized customer support at scale without sacrificing quality.
DCX Summer Reading List Recommendations
There have been a lot of really great books written about Customer experience through the years. Here are a few that have had a lasting impact on how I and the teams I have led approach building great experiences.
Loyalty is driven by how well a company delivers on its basic promises and solves day-to-day problems, not by how spectacular its service experience might be. Most customers don’t want to be “wowed”; they want an effortless experience. And they are far more likely to punish you for bad service than to reward you for good service.
Digital Customer Service
Digital Customer Service traces the evolution of customer service - as well as the evolution of customer expectations and the underlying psychology that drives customer behavior - from the days of the first call centers in the 1980s all the way to today's digital world.
Nordstrom believes that the employee experience determines the customer experience and that when you attract and reward people who are comfortable in a service-oriented culture, then everyone succeeds - both individually and collectively. No wonder Nordstrom is one of only five companies to make Fortune's "Best Companies to Work For" and "Most Admired" lists every year since those surveys have been taken.
Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon
Working Backwards is a practical guidebook and a corporate narrative, filled with the authors’ in-the-room recollections of what “Being Amazonian” is like and how it has affected their personal and professional lives. They demonstrate that success on Amazon’s scale is not achieved by the genius of any single leader, but rather through a commitment to and execution of a set of well-defined, rigorously-executed principles and practices
![Outcomes Over Output: Why customer behavior is the key metric for business success by [Josh Seiden]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb7071f06-b141-4cd6-8c6d-748f5e46d9fb_328x500.jpeg "Outcomes Over Output: Why customer behavior is the key metric for business success by [Josh Seiden]")
Using outcomes creates focus and alignment. It eliminates needless work. And it puts the customer at the center of everything you do. Setting goals as outcomes sounds simple, but it can be hard to do in practice. This book is a practical guide to using outcomes to guide the work of your team.
Poll: Organizational Structure Is Top Challenge For Businesses Implementing Digital Customer Experiences
We’re halfway through the year - amazing how fast time flies. I asked Linkedin members how they were approaching H2.
It was so great to see the responses to my poll about what challenges you're facing as we enter H2. It takes a lot of courage to share that kind of information in a public forum, and I really appreciate everyone who participated.
The results of this poll are pretty telling—according to respondents, the biggest challenge to success in 2H is Organizational Structure.
I've been through more than my fair share of organizational restructuring, and I can tell you that this challenge manifests in myriad ways. Here are just a few:
Too many teams: Having too many teams can create confusion over who owns what and who is responsible for what. It also makes it hard for teams to communicate effectively with each other or share their expertise across groups.
Multiple teams working on similar projects in different groups: When multiple teams are working on similar projects but don't know about each other's progress or efforts, it can lead to unnecessary friction between them and confusion around priorities and ownership.
Language/definition differences: The way people think about things can differ dramatically, and it can be difficult to align on definitions of terms like "accountable" versus "responsible."
Tactical vs. strategic priorities: It's not always clear where your team's priorities lie. If you're focused on building out a feature or release and don't have time for anything else, that can cause issues when another team needs your help with something they consider their priority.
Misaligned expectations: You might expect that others will do X for you, but they don't feel that way about it—or vice versa! This can lead to frustrations when one side feels like the other isn't pulling its weight.
Reliance on other teams for key milestone deliveries: Teams rely on each other all the time, but if they aren't aligned on what they need from each other, you're going to run into trouble down the line. This can also cause problems when one team needs another's help with key milestone deliveries—if those other teams aren't aligned on priority or resources, then the whole process becomes a mess!
The results of unsolved Organizational Structural issues are that it can kill morale and hurt productivity, ultimately impacting the customer experience.
Etc.
Links to Industry news, thought leaders, and ideas of interest
Identifying Unmet Needs in a Digital Age (hbr.org)
Innovation is all about finding and filling people’s unmet needs. But even innovators and organizations renowned for their scanning capabilities often have trouble perceiving and correctly interpreting those needs. Drawing on their work as researchers, teachers, and consultants, the authors outline a four-part framework to help innovators diversify how and where they look.
What Customers Expect Out of Their Digital Experience (entrepreneur.com)
Why do customers expect a personalized experience? What can businesses do to effectively deliver personalization, and what are the consequences if they don't? Read on to learn how to get personal with customers.
Unlocking the Metaverse: New Opportunities in Games Infrastructure | Future
The final layer of retooling for the metaverse involves creating the necessary tools and services to actually operate a metaverse itself, which is arguably the hardest part. It’s one thing to build an immersive world, and it’s quite another thing to run it 24/7, with millions of players across the globe.
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