Satisfying Customers is the Path to the Business Graveyard w/ author Jon Picoult

John, you got quite a provocative sentence in the book. Tell me what that means.

Customer satisfaction is a one way ticket to the business graveyard.

Hello, I'm Adam Durrell and I'm the host of the Account Experience podcast. And you know, my work is to fish for knowledge between the deep salty ocean of CX and the freshwater river of account management in the fertile tidal delta that I call Account Experience. And every week on the podcast I get to spread out my net and talk to an industry leader. We hope they can share best practices and tips to help you develop your B2B account experience program. On a personal note, I'm also the father of four, the founder and I'm fanatically interested in human relationships and I love anything that furthers the quality of business relationships. And in this episode, well, we're going to get deep, we're going to talk about obsession, but in a healthy way. My guest today helps companies go way beyond just impressing their customers. He is John Pico, the founder of Watermark Consulting and a leading expert in customer and employee experience. John's been featured by frankly dozens of media outlets including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, NBC News and Forbes. And well, he's advising C suite leaders at some of the world's foremost brands, just making sure that companies can really capitalise on that power of loyalty. And he earned his bachelor's degree in cognitive science at Princeton and he's got an MBA from Duke, so he comes with quite a lot of academic credentials here. Today John's going to join talk about his fascinating new book which I just finished. It's great and it's called from impressed to obsessed 12 principles for turning Customers and Employees into Lifelong Fans. Here's the book. Welcome John Picot. Hello.

Hey Adam, it's good to be here with you.

Thank you so much for joining me. I got to be honest, I really enjoyed the book. But before we get into it and customer session, what's your background? How did you get into the whole customer experience world?

Oh gosh. Well, you know, my entree into business was back in college selling radio ads door to door. The radio station on my campus was not university supported. It didn't get any money from the university. It was actually a commercial station, self supporting through ad revenue. And sophomore year I went into the station and I said to the station manager, I'd like to be a dj and and they said, well sure, but if you want anything but the graveyard shift, you need to bring money in. And that's when I started selling radio ads and Actually I realized I was pretty good at it and even became sales director of the radio station the next year. But I mentioned that because that's really where I got my first glimpse into the power of every interaction and every touch point to really influence the likelihood that somebody's going to do business with you initially or continue doing business with you, you know, and back then, I mean it wasn't really even a term customer experience, but I was just astounded how something as simple and nuanced as the formatting of our rate sheet had a significant impact on the likelihood of people to do business with us. And so that's kind of where I got the business bug. And so out of college I got my MBA and then worked in the corporate world for about 15 years across sales, marketing, service, IT distribution, and then set up my own shop in 2009.

What an amazing story. So you really had to pay to play to be a dj, right? Back in the day, I guess.

Well, if you didn't want to get up in the middle of the night and do a show when nobody was listening. And I'll have you know, I got a prime slot in the end because I was bringing in the ad revenue. So I was the host of the Sunday night oldies show which ran from 11pm to 1am Sunday nights, which actually was a prime slot for, you know, an on campus college radio. And it was fun, it was a good time.

That's amazing. I'm also, you know, college radio DJ 40 years ago and here I am doing it with a big microphone in front of me again. So maybe times change, it stays with you. He said what. But what led you to, what was this spark that led you to write the book? Because it's, I mean it's an incredibly well researched book, John. I was really impressed with it. How did you get on that journey? And you know, was there a spark that made that happen?

Yeah, well, I mean, thank you also for noting how well it was researched. Now it's something I'm very proud of is just the endnotes alone, I think are 30 pages because I really wanted to dive in and provide hard evidence for people around the concepts that I was trying to teach in the book. But you know, I'd have to say I had this book kicking around in my head for like a decade. Something that always bothered me was just sort of like all the incivilities that companies subject their customers and their employees to. Long queues, unhelpful staff, hidden fees, hard to understand communications. And what struck me is that there were so many simple, straightforward things that companies could do that would elevate the quality of the experience that they were delivering. And, you know, instead of sort of exploiting customers, really enriching them. And so I wanted to put that down on paper so that a broader audience than I get to work with just in my role as a speaker and consultant, would be able to benefit from it. And, yeah, I mean, I just had the book kind of cooking and marinating in my head for a decade, but just didn't have the time carved out to sit down and write it. And then when the pandemic came and lockdowns ensued In March of 2020, live events ended. So, you know, there was no more speaking per se. That part of my business, even my consulting clients kind of pulled back. And I really said to myself at that point, hey, now or never. You know, I mean, this is the opportune time to sit down and write the book. And that's when I did it. And, yeah, spent like the next nine months just. Just writing.

Well, I'm impressed that you managed to do it in nine months for me, as I read the book, I thought it was an excellent companion work to the books by Fred Reichelt, which I. Which I really love, but you really turned it into a practical handbook, if you don't mind me saying. I don't know whether you even realize this, but as I. As I went through the 12 chapters and their ideas, I counted more than a hundred practical ideas that accompanied into action. We'll get into some of those and because I'm also obsessed with things like fonts and things like that. But first of all, I got to ask you, John, Maggots on a plane. What the hell is that?

It's a very memorable story as. And I guess it caught your attention. You know, there's a story in the book. One of the 12 principles that is described in the book is the notion of recovering in style. And it's the idea that every company experiences failures in their interactions with customers at one time or another. But what really sets the great companies apart from the not so great is that they recognize that when there is a failure in the customer experience, that if you overcorrect on the recovery, you can actually create a more loyal customer after the recovery than what you had before the failure. And the Maggots on a Plane story is sort of the antithesis of that. It's one example that I use of, you know, exactly how not to recover. And it had to do with a flight that I was on, on US Airways, the now defunct airline in the US and it was a flight from Atlanta to Charlotte. And we get on board and we leave the gate and we're taxiing to the Runway. And suddenly there's this commotion a few seats behind me in the, in the middle of the plane. And then I turn around and people start screaming.

It's not what you want on a plane. Is it anything to do?

Yeah, no, no, this is not what you want if you're on a plane, Right? Yeah. And so what becomes apparent is that there are things that are spilling out of the overhead baggage compartments, falling onto the unsuspecting passengers below. And it turns out that they're maggots. And you could imagine why people were freaking out. So the plane returns to the gate and they evacuate the whole plane. Everybody who was seated in the rows behind where the maggots were falling actually had to leave their carry on baggage on the plane. And, you know, the bottom line is they discovered that some passenger brought a canister of rotting meat in their carry on luggage that was infested with maggots. And I mean, who doesn't like to bring along some rotting meat with them on their air travels, right? But to have not packed it in a well sealed container, what were they thinking? And so we get off the plane. But what's interesting about this story is US Airways was obviously not at fault. I mean, there was just a really dumb passenger that came on board and did something stupid. But people are going to judge you as a business based on how you respond to a situation like that, even if the situation wasn't of your own making. And US Airways just made a whole bunch of unforced errors in their response. The gate agents, when we deplaned, didn't give you any meal vouchers or anything. You know, they didn't give you any sense of how long it was going to be, whether the flight was going to be canceled once the plane was finally back in the air and headed to its destination. The worst part is it landed in Charlotte and it took them 10 minutes to get the ground crew to actually attach the jet bridge and the plane. You know, which is just unacceptable given the circumstances. It took nine days for them to send an apology letter to customers. And in the apology letter, they offered a measly $25 to $100 voucher for the luxury of flying on that airline. Again, like anybody would want to do that. And so there were just so many other things that they could have done to orchestrate that recovery. In a much better fashion. But it's a great example of how when something goes wrong, it can sear a memory into people's heads in a very negative way or potentially in a very positive way. And in this case, US Airways just, you know, they missed the boat.

Sounds like such a terrible story. And I was reading it last night, and, you know, just before dinner, and I was thinking, how am I, you know, putting myself in your shoes? I don't. I can't imagine what that was like. It was. Must have been awful. But it's a really good story.

Imagine being back on that plane, though. That was like the. That was the worst part. And the gate agents were trying. You know, I remember them on loudspeaker. They were like, this is the cleanest plane in our fleet. It had been completely cleaned and fumigated. You know, the hazmat team was on board and. But still, you get on the plane and you're like, there's got. You know, there's probably still a maggot here somewhere. It's gonna find its way on me or in my bag.

Oh, no, it's just terrible.

There's no. Air travel was bad enough. Right.

I agree. But you contrast that with some really good stories about recovery, and I love that because I'm always looking for sort of what I call dinner party conversation when people go, you will not believe that this company actually responded and reached out to me. You've got some great examples in the book, and you talk about the Ritz Carlton chain. Any others that spring to mind that you're really fond of good recovery stories?

Yeah, you know, it's. I mean, it isn't just about recovery, I would say more generally, it's about memory making, which, as, you know, having read the book, is really a central theme in the book. This notion that what's most important is not so much the experience that you're delivering to customers, but it's how they remember it, because it's those memories that are really going to drive the repurchase and referral behavior that's the lifeblood of any company. The example that actually comes to mind, which, you know, you'll probably recognize from the book, it's not a recovery per se, but it was something that I found, you know, was just a very unique part of a service offering that left an indelible impression on me. And it's from a company called Framebridge that basically sought to revamp the framing industry. The framing business of having pictures and memorabilia framed. And the story is that my son he is a budding photographer, and he goes to school in the Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts, and he took some really beautiful pictures of the mountainscape there. And he had them printed, and he was having them framed to give as a holiday gift to his grandparents. And so he sent these off to framebridge to be framed. And it's very clever the way they do it. If it's a digital photo, you can upload it, and it's very easy and effortless to choose the frame and whatnot. But here's the kicker. What came back when he got the package back with the framed photo, there was a typewritten note in it on a postcard, and it was a personalized note addressed to him. And the amazing thing was, it was so clear it was personalized because it actually spoke about what the picture was taken of, talking about the majestic mountainscape. And, you know, how they could almost, like, you know, smell the clean, fresh mountain air. And it was just like, when we opened it up, we were both floored. Like, you know, this is a company that frames hundreds of thousands of things every year, and here somebody took the time to write a personalized note based on the photo he had taken. And to me, it was a great example of it's a company that nails the basics. Because let's say, you know, if it came and the frame was, like, misaligned and everything, it wouldn't matter that there was a personalized note, but the frame was beautiful, and the note was just this icing on the cake that really became the defining component of the experience. And it's the thing that I talk about when people ask me about, you know, where should I get something framed? And I'm immediately like, frame, bridge. Go there and wait. You're not even going to believe what they did, you know, when we worked with them. So, yeah, I think that the important lesson for people is you've got to nail the basics. You can't just rely on being clever with a gimmick like that and think that it's going to eclipse any negativity that's created. If you're not nailing the fundamentals consistently, but presuming you are nailing the fundamentals consistently, you really want to think of those opportunities to create something surprising, a moment of delight, something that sort of deviates from the script, because that's what people are going to remember, and that's what's going to shape their perception of the entire encounter.

This podcast is sponsored by CustomerGage, and they're the experienced leader in the CPG market. And let me tell you why. They're contacting more people in the independent trade and modern trade than any other customer experience company out there. And you'll know the brands that they work with. We're talking Coca Cola AB and Bev Heineken. Just e takeaway. They're literally pulsing millions of contacts around the world in more than 60 countries multiple times a year, delivering those insights to thousands and thousands of frontline employees in those companies. But you know, it's not just the CPG business customer gauge is famous for. They're ranked number one for B2B customer experience by Gartner. However, if you're in the CPG business and you have not contacted Customer Gauge to understand what is going on in your business, you're seriously missing out, because we know there are other people out there just doing it once a year. Well, CustomerGage gives you customer insights 52 weeks a year, right to the front line in real time. It's going to absolutely transform your business like nothing else. But don't take our word for it. Listen to the podcast and they'll tell you exactly why.

I was really struck by this, by the phrase on stage and backstage, and also magical experiences. You talk a lot about how to create that. You know, I'm in the B2B business. For us, process, getting things right is table stakes. But I was really inspired to, to make some magical experiences. And the phrase that came to my mind was something a little bit like the way that you described Disney, where they, you know, I think they use the phrase imagineering. But there was something that I took away which was like engineering experiences. And I was, I thought this was a really good fertile ground to that you can. You were speaking about John, I just want to give you that.

Yeah, I do think that's how people should, should view the exercise of creating a product or service experience, whether you're in a B2B business or B2C. And the reason I say that is because there's a science to this and that's what the 12 principles that are described in the book are all about. I mean, that was my attempt to really take a career of studying companies that did this well and to really distill down what are the engineering principles that they are using to really choreograph those interactions with their customers. And I think that it is an engineering exercise because there are distinct techniques, proven techniques that these companies are just using over and over again in order to cement loyalty with their customers and create experiences that people don't just Enjoy in the moment, but remember fondly long into the future. And I think that's the key, not viewing this as sort of a haphazard exercise. It's one that requires thoughtful and intentional.

Approaches and really worth investing in it. I mean, even in your introduction, you said about how the rate card formatting affected your ability to sell at the radio station. And I'm really married to that idea of having beautiful design and typography. It's that for me, it's also that attention to detail that says a lot more about how you're doing things behind the scenes. I was really struck by that. You even have an example in the book about that, about how using a different typeface makes a difference. Can you elaborate a little bit on that for the listeners? Because I was really fascinated by that.

Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. I think this is one of the most fascinating pieces of research that I talk about in the book. And the headline here is just the formidable power of Fonts. You know, you cannot sort of underestimate the formidable power of fonts. What the researchers, who are from Yale, Stanford and University of Michigan did is they actually gave two groups of consumers marketing material for a product. And the marketing material, it said exactly the same thing, totally identical content. The only difference was one group of consumers got the material written in a hard to read font, and the other group got it in an easy to read font. And when they went back to the two groups after they had a chance to read the material and they asked them, are you ready to purchase this or do you want to, you know, delay the purchase and look at alternatives, the people who got the material in the hard to read font were two and a half times more likely to say that they didn't want to buy the product or they weren't ready to make that decision. They wanted to delay it to, you know, a tomorrow that never comes. And what the researchers concluded is that consumers were. People were basically taking the complexity of the font and subconsciously they were using that as a cue to indicate how complex and difficult the purchase decision was going to be. And so merely by seeing the marketing information, the product information presented in a difficult to read font, made a lot more people recoil from the decision because they felt, you know, this is going to be hard. This is a tough decision to make. And I was just shocked by that finding, you know, but when you think about it, it's not surprising if you think about how, you know, the gears in your head seize up when you look at a piece of paper or a website that is visually unappealing. When you're. You're met with a wall of text where things are not broken out into paragraphs with clear headings and borders, you don't really think about it consciously, but subconsciously, that is a bad experience that is basically making you run for the hills. You know, it's disengaging you. And if you're a business trying to engage a new sales prospect or an existing customer, that's the last reaction that you want. So, yeah, a detail as simple and nuanced as the font that you use can have a very significant impact on the quality of the experience that people have and their likelihood to do business with you.

Yeah, that was really a good eye opener for me as I went through it, but a verification of my own beliefs. Also, good design allows you to put a premium price on stuff. So it makes sense, really, that this is the case.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, I come from a business where we frankly send out a lot of surveys. This is what we do at CustomerGage. You have also some thoughts about survey interactions. I mean, this is a way of interacting with customers. What have been your findings about what's been successful and not successful in this area?

The biggest thing that I see companies missing when they choose to embark on any kind of customer feedback solicitation exercise, whether it's focus groups, live interviews, surveys, anything like that. What I find organizations miss is that they neglect to realize that the mere act of soliciting feedback itself is part of their customer experience. You know, one of the things that I talk about in the book is the notion that there are a whole host of unsung touch points that many organizations sort of gloss over. They never think that, oh, that's part of our customer experience, whether it's a proposal that they send out a contract, a bill, an invoice. You know, they think, oh, these are administrative interactions. But in truth, or another example I use in the book is just the act of opening up a package that you get. You know, all of these things are bona fide parts of the customer experience. And what I find many companies overlook is the idea that when you're doing surveying of your customers, that's not just a measurement exercise. That is actually part of the customer experience itself. And how you choreograph that feedback solicitation is actually going to either elevate the brand in the eyes of your customers or detract from it. You know, separate and apart from the feedback that they give you. In essence, it is an opportunity to not just measure the quality of the customer experience, but to actually influence it, to elevate it. And, you know, a very simple example I'll give you here is just the notion of following up on survey responses. I mean, Adam, I know that I'm preaching to the choir here.

I'd love to hear it.

You all are all about this, but, you know, in my, in. In probably the last. I mean, I respond to surveys all the time just because I'm curious. I like to give feedback, but I'm also curious, how's the company going to respond? And so in about 10 to 15 years of responding to surveys, in many cases providing rather negative feedback, I have only had two companies reach out to me after providing negative feedback. And the two that did it, I know exactly who they were, and I was impressed that they took the time to reach out. And this is what I mean about how surveys are an opportunity to actually shape the experience itself. Because if you're sending surveys out to people and then they provide feedback and then they never hear from you again, well, that's it. Game over. You know, they're just. It's going to reinforce their negative opinions. Like, well, clearly they don't care about anything I have to say. But conversely, if somebody actually picks up the phone and reaches out, particularly if it's someone in management, to say, hey, you know, we got your feedback. I just wanted a chance to talk to you more about it, better understand your perspective, see how we could improve. I mean, right then and there, you're going to start turning the tide of people's negative impressions, because that's going to be surprising to them. They're not going to expect it, and it's going to show them you care. And so, yeah, that's. I think the biggest thing about survey programs is you got to realize it's not just a measurement mechanism. It's actually part of the customer experience. And so you should shape it as intentionally and thoughtfully as any other interaction in your customer experience.

Yeah, I think call this memory shaping. Is that right? Which is a wonderful expression. It's a really great way of thinking.

Yeah. I mean, it is the opportunity to use every interaction to really cement in people's heads this indelible impression, ideally a positive impression, but it can, of course, be negative as well. But that positive impression, because once you shape their memories, then, you know, building loyalty is a lot easier because loyalty, if you think about it. Think about the net promoter question. When I answer the net promoter question, am I answering that question relative to every interaction that I had with your firm? No. What's actually shaping my response to that question is what I remember about the interaction I had with your firm and the way our brains are wired. That actually won't be every single interaction point. You know, it's going to be the peaks, it's going to be the valleys, and it's going to be the last part of the interaction. That's how our memories work. So engineering, going back to that word engineering, engineering the customer experience is really having a healthy respect for the brain science behind this and making sure you are choreographing the customer experience in a way that's going to lead people to leave the encounter, Remembering the high points, remembering the good stuff while the neutral stuff or the not so good stuff kind of evaporates from their recollection.

Yeah. I love the way that you. You even put a graph in the, in the book to show how this, how the peaks and troughs work really caused me to. To have a lot of thoughts about it. And again, to come back to your point about follow up. Oh, that is the number one thing I always tell our clients to do. You got to follow up the feedback. And by the way, I've got 15 years of longitudinal research that says when you do that, your NPS will go up. You know?

Exactly. Yeah. I mean, that's the amazing thing. I mean, it's such a lost opportunity because it's almost like even if you didn't improve the underlying experience. Right. Based on the feedback, I'm willing to bet that you would see that the NPS would still go up. Just because your customers see, wow, they actually care about what I have to say. And, you know, once you start shifting their perceptions that way, it's a lot more likely they're going to give you the benefit of the doubt in the future and they're going to entertain the opportunity to continue doing business with you.

Yeah. There's so much we could talk about in the book. I want to sort of get to the last bit, which I really appreciated in the book, which was something you write about, which you call radar on, antenna up, and you talk about a hotel chamber. I thought this was a really good metaphor for being on. And maybe you can elaborate a little bit on how you see that that's a good philosophy for customer experience.

Yes. So what that the mantra, antenna up, radar on, on. And it actually comes from the Ritz Carlton hotel chain, obviously, a company that's renowned for its customer experience. And one thing they're really renowned for is the personalization of the guest experience at their properties and what they tell people is they're basically encouraged them, encouraging them to always be in the moment, to have your radar on, your antenna up, always be looking, watching and listening for something that the guest is doing or saying that can help you to personalize the experience at that moment or to personalize it better in the future. And the reason I love that concept is because, let's face it, there are a lot of mechanical ways that companies go about trying to personalize the customer experience through mining data and algorithmic approaches. And that all has merits. But I always stress to companies that you want to make sure you don't forget about the human element. Because every time you as an individual are interacting with a customer, whether it's over the phone, over a chat, via email, as long as you stay in the moment and you're listening and watching carefully, it's very likely you're going to come across things that you're going to be able to remember and record that will allow you to personalize the experience in the future. And oh, by the way, a personalized experience is also a more memorable one. This gets back again to the brain science behind this. And so if you're working like with a B2B account, just thinking in terms of, okay, what are they telling me that they, that they like, what are their preferences? Do they like to have this report delivered to them at the beginning of every year? Well, if so, let me make a note of that. And then in the December, December later this year, I'm actually going to send that report proactively to them. That is a more personalized customer experience. And the only way that you figured that out was because you had your radar on and your antenna. You know, similarly, you might hear about certain hobbies or interests that your clients have. You can take note of that and it gives you an opportunity in the future to maybe send a link to a relevant article to them, which again is surprising. Then somebody gets that and says, wow, this, you know, my account rep really gets me. They understand, you know, what my interests are, what's important to me. So yeah, radar on and antenna up I find is a very, is a decidedly low tech but highly effective way to create a very personalized, relevant experience that people are going to enjoy more in the moment. And because it is personalized, they're going to remember it over the long term.

I think it's a really, as you say, low tech way of thinking about it, but surprisingly effective. And I was really struck by it, John. I'd like you to now get your crystal ball out and imagine for a moment you're able to see into the future. What is the future of customer obsession going to look like? What can we expect in the next few years?

Wow. Well, you know, I always joke about people that predict the future because nobody goes back and look at the looks at the predictions to see if they're right. So like there's no culpability. But you know, what I would say is I think that there is this, this inexorable march towards greater empowerment among the customer base. You know, this notion that as time goes by, I think you see over and over again in any industry that customers are enabled through the provision, the availability of greater information at their fingertips, the ability to switch providers more easily. And just the notion of increasing empowerment of customers in my view really underscores how critical it is for companies in the future to focus on customer experience and focus on earnings, their customers loyalty, not counting on inertia to deliver loyalty. You know, there are a lot of ways that you can retain customers and not all of them are good. A retained customer is not necessarily a loyal customer. You can retain customers for a whole host of reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of the experience you're delivering. But I do think over time that those kinds of business models are really going to erode and you're going to have to earn people's business by creating a very engaging experience again that they don't just enjoy in the moment, but they remember fondly long into the future. That's going to help them spread that positive word of mouth about you and going to make them want to come back and do business with you again.

Great. That's a really good way of thinking about how we can evolve in the future. I just want to make sure that everybody gets a chance to read this. I'm going to hold up the book here and we can take a photograph of it. The book is called From Impressed to Obsessed and it's got 12 principles for turning customers employees into lifelong fans. And as I said, there's at least a hundred really good ideas in this. If you are a CXO thinking about your customers, this is the book to have by your desk. I was, I've. I'm working through some of the ideas in this John, and I really appreciate it and thank you so much for joining us today. If people would like to reach out to you and get more information, how do they do that? John?

Yeah, so best place to go is, is my website which is jonpico.com that's J-O-N p-I c o u l t dot com. From there they can jump to my company website, the book's official website, all of that. And you can also find me on social media at John pico and on LinkedIn, of course.

John, thank you so much for doing today. I hope we can get you back in the future to check on your prediction, but I really appreciated this and I really look forward to the chance of putting these things into action. Thank you so much, John.

Thank you, Adam. It was great fun. I appreciate being here.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Account Experience podcast. It was really great to have Joel Pico talk about his book. I really enjoyed the book. I've got so many good ideas, really sent out so many ideas to people in my business about it. They're probably going to regret the fact I ever bought the book. But there you go. Anyway, if you like what you heard, be sure to check out some of our other episodes. I think some of my recent highlights included an episode of the Four Factors of Trust and also the Jolt Effect. Who Great books that I can definitely recommend to people this year. And you can get all these in your inbox when you subscribe to the Account Experience podcast. And you know, if you give us a net promoter 9 or 10, then recommend us to your friends. We do really appreciate it. Thanks and catch up with you next time.