How Amazon Surprises Customers and Transforms the Experience

Bite-Sized Delight From the Episode:

• Expand your competitive set beyond your direct competitors.
• Why gaining valuable insight into customer’s habits and behaviors means playing with the fun tools and devices they use at home.
• Check in on any systems you’ve previously automated to make sure they are still functioning as well as they could and should.

Required Remarkable – The Changing Face of the Customer [01:00 – 10:57]

Tweetable Quotes

Customers apply more engaging and personalized customer experiences to other brands and industries.#CX http://bit.ly/2xE1aJO Click To Tweet
I don’t know why ANYONE charges for shipping anymore. #CX http://bit.ly/2xE1aJO Click To Tweet
Your competition is EVERYONE your customer is interacting with! #CX http://bit.ly/2xE1aJO Click To Tweet

Takeaways

Your customer is having remarkable experiences – with or without you (but hopefully with you). This is changing their expectations. As a result, you must:

1. Expand your competitive set beyond your direct competitors
2. Sample the “experience” brands for yourself – try out the brands that are doing well with their customer experience so you know what it looks
3. Re-Sample the “experience” brands – these companies are evolving and innovative around customer experience so keep sampling them (i.e., it’s not enough to have tried them when they first launched, you need to keep going back for more)
4. Take your learning from these “experience” brands and incorporate it into your own business

THIS JUST HAPPENED: Kids Talking to Alexa [10:57 – 18:16]

Tweetable Quotes

It's important that those of us creating customer experience get some of these tools and devices and play with them. Click To Tweet
Alexa and others like it are creating entire new ecosystems. #CX http://bit.ly/2xE1aJO Click To Tweet
We all should try to experiment a little with AI technologies. #CX http://bit.ly/2xE1aJO Click To Tweet
Brands need to understand what these new ecosystems mean for their business. #CX http://bit.ly/2xE1aJO Click To Tweet
All too often senior leaders and companies get that shiny object syndrome. #CX http://bit.ly/2xE1aJO Click To Tweet

Takeaways

1. Household AI is fundamentally changing how customers interact with businesses and what they expect in customer service.
2. Before rushing to participate in a new technological ecosystem, first, figure out if it will actually drive business results for you.
3. Sometimes the best way to earn a customer’s trust and long-range business is to send them elsewhere for a product.
4. Technology is changing at a rapid pace, and it’s vital for companies to stay current and knowledgeable about the latest tools and how they are put to use.

CX Press – Three Ways Companies Can Simplify Customer Service and Make People Happier [18:16 – 24:40]

Tweetable Quotes

If you’re going to record your customer’s emotion, then you need to do something with it! #CX http://bit.ly/2xE1aJO Click To Tweet
Representative, Representative, REPRESENTATIVE! (Shouting never works) #CX http://bit.ly/2xE1aJO Click To Tweet

Takeaways

1. Use AI to make frequently encountered customer issues easier to resolve. Don’t forget to update your CRM afterwards.
2. Develop better customer frustration detection and then make sure to record your customers’ emotions in a single database.
3. Make sure your automated systems (like phone trees/IVR) function as well as they could and should.
4. Read the article yourself (even though we read it so you didn’t need to) here.

Be a Part of the Show!

We’d love to hear about your great customer experiences, which segments you like, and your ideas for future episodes!

Are You Looking for Things We Referenced?

• Are Your Customers Cheating On You? by Shep Hyken
• Three Ways Companies Can Simplify Customer Service and Make People Happier by Mary Shacklett
• Digital Transformation: The Three Areas of Customer Experience to Invest in Right Now from our friends at Oracle CX Cloud – thanks for sponsoring the show!
• Giordano’s Chicago Style Pizza

See you next week!