Podcast Episode #6: The Power of Your Customer’s Story

Hi and welcome to the Key Customer Growth Podcast. My name is Jermaine Edwards and I have become obsessed with customer behavior and how people and organizations win with their best customers long term. After starting, failing, and growing my own companies, 30 customer growth projects, hundreds of strategies, and the study of 50 years of customer service research, I've seen firsthand how and why organizations win, lose, and win again with their most important customers. This podcast is my way of sharing those insights, failures, principles, and strategies so you can become what I call an Irreplaceable Advisor, someone so valuable your customers never want to leave. In an increasingly competitive world, how do you continue to deliver unrivaled value and deepen those most important customer relationships? Join me as your customer growth guide, your Your journey starts here. Hey, welcome to the Key Customer Growth Podcast. My name is Jermaine Edwards, your customer growth guide, and this is episode 6.

Now every week I get to explore some really interesting, difficult, topical, controversial, undervalued customer topics today, and I really like exploring those things, and I hope you get value from it as well. So this week, what I want to explore are some elements really that sit under the customer experience story, that UX story, but take it from a different vantage point. And I want to speak about the power of understanding and shaping your own customer story.

So we hear a lot about story.

We understand that within the context of our world, there are a number of different books being written about it. The brain and our study of the brain, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and so many different disciplines give us new rich context to understanding why it fits so well into our world at so many different levels, both at a familial level, a business level, and particularly with our customers. So let's just take a moment just to really think about story and why that matters before we get into the context of our customer story. So we know that stories have, what some people would say, a primal form of communication. I'd say really it's something that transcends our own communication, taps into the really core of how we've really engaged with each other throughout history, and that historical context of those links to tradition, those links to myth, symbols, and experiences, those larger self and universal truths that we connect with, all form and come from those narratives, those stories that connect and collaborate and move us into particular directions. They transcend generations. And that emotion that comes with those stories help us to really communicate, share, understand meaning and purpose. They find that stories really help us to meet common ground, allows people to communicate on a universal level. So stories help us to think and we make these connections in terms of meaning of life and we call them schemas, scripts, cognitive maps, mental models, metaphors, narratives. We talk about story in the those forms. And so with that, we can know that the whole epicenter of story is something that every human being on the planet has a shared experience of, meaning it's something we can rely on, we can trust, we can evidence for, that if we apply it and think about story proactively in the context of the people we want to serve, it can aid us in being able to make deeper connections, move people emotionally, draw people together, and communicate something profound. So we can use it to do all of those things. So in everything that we write, we say, rather serving our customers in their story and their map of the world and how they view things and how they want to experience things, or how they at least are desiring for that to be the case, we can either serve them in their story, or we can try to draw them into ours and connect them to it as long as it's shared in their own values. So that's what we're going to cover in this podcast. We'll explore, you know, the customer stories that impact all business relationships, and there are really only two that we really need to influence. We're going to look at some strategies to help us reshape our customer story and really walk through some case studies to help inspire your own thinking and then take away a single action. A shift that you can make with every customer relationship. So let's get started. So there are two, I believe, more prominent and more evident stories that we can look at that influence almost every single business relationship we have, and I call them Story 1 and Story 2, just to be really easy. Now, Story 1 is the story in the head of our customers of their experience of our service and product. That's Story #1.

It's the story in their head about their experience of our service and product.

We'll give some examples in just a second. Story #2 is the story of our relationship to them and the value and impact and relevance of that story, of that, you know, service or product. So #1 story, Story #1 is about their experience of our service and product. #2 is about the relationship between us and the customer in regards to value, impact, and relevance of that service or product. So I'll give a really simple example, then we jump into how can we think about these two stories, how do we activate what these are to really get benefits from the engagements we have, how do we deepen customer loyalty, how do we accelerate trust through these areas, how do we create deeper connection. So Story Number 1, the story in their head of their experience of your service or product. So here's what it is. Oftentimes, the experience that we have with our customers and what our customers have of us aren't necessarily congruent, aren't necessarily always aligned. When they are, it's fantastic, and we get that specific feedback from the customer which evidences that the experience was exactly what they wanted or exceeded what that was. So let's give an example. Let's just say for a moment that A customer has just bought a product from a retail company of a lamp, and this lamp they've bought, and they have an expectation of the type of way in which it will make them feel. You know, the result of the lamp is that it will light the places that they want lit, and it will provide the right kind of ambiance for them to either read well, to, you know, watch their favorite movie, whatever that might be. The experience of that product is what they're after, and immediately that starts to fade or that isn't necessarily aligned, we start to lose trust with that customer and credibility. The experience of that service or product isn't there. Then we have the relationship between us and the customer, which is Story 2. And that often forms the context of their relationship with us in terms of how we've treated them. So they can have a great experience of the service or product that they've just bought, but have a really poor experience with the relationship between them and our customer service department, or them and our finance department, or them and our sales professionals, or them and the CEO, or them and the VP of Operations. That relationship is the second story that takes place. One is the experience, the second is the relationship between us and what that perceived relationship value will be, not just now but also in the future. So it's the value, impact, and relevance. Hey, will it still be something that I would want to invest in, this relationship, 6 months from now, 3 months from now, even a week from now, based on what the interactions are looking like, what the interactions are giving me right now. How does that fit in? And these two stories are being played over and over again. Every single time we get in contact with the customer, every single time they are using our product and service, these two stories are running in the back of their minds. The story of their experience and the story of their relationship. Those are really important to hold on to. So how do we ensure that we can get consistency in ensuring that our customers have an accurate story of the thing that we want them to experience that elevates the thing that they're trying to get? So what is that story that they have? How well do we really understand the experience that a customer wants to have and the kind of relationship they want in regards to value, impact, and relevance between you and them. This is why these 5 strategies I'm about to share with you will help us to navigate and really eliminate the biases around that relationship, the perceived relationship we may have with customers, so we get a much more clear view of where we could go next. So strategy number 1, We need to pay attention to what our customer isn't saying. Now, very rarely is what we promise what our customers actually expect. So, the promise in which we say we give to the customer and the expectations a customer has of what that relationship, what the product and service should do, often isn't the same. So, the reason why you sell and the reason why somebody buys is very rarely the same thing. That's a really important concept to understand. So, I was working with technology company recently. They were selling a beautifully designed visual architectural software that could be used easily by architectural design teams. Now, the team, the architectural team expected the service of that company to be Immediate and detailed, because they have really specific requirements that require high levels of detail and specification, because these are high-level projects that these architectural teams are working on. So the visual elements of the software, if there was something incorrect, even by a meter, or measurements weren't quite correct on screen in terms of how it materialized, they needed to have those things fixed immediately. It needed to be prompt, it needed to be detailed. Now, the company promised beautifully designed visuals that was easy to use for an architectural person, but the expectation of the service was completely different. We need immediate and we need high levels of detailed support. Now, this particular company, they had some great customers, people who love the product and service, but they were consistently getting pushback from the customer on renewal based on this whole idea of service. And so it took them a year, not too sure why, to figure this out. But this is what it is. They didn't recognize it because the customer hadn't said it. They were bearing with it. The service was just about okay, and therefore they were bearing with the kind of service that they had. Until we went into those companies and spoke to some of those customers, and we asked the most dangerous question you could probably ask a customer, is, "How would you rate the level of service that we are giving you based on what you need to effectively use our product or service?" Now, that is a very dangerous but powerful question. What is How would you rate the level of service today of our product and service based on what you need the service or product to do for you in your business? That is a really powerful question. Now, the answers we got naturally surprised my client but didn't surprise me, because what the customer came back to say was, we need faster delivery of service with much more detail on when things will be fixed, closed, and how we'll be able to reconcile some of these areas which were listed. The promise was clear. They were happy with the promise— beautifully designed software that was easy to use— but the expectation of the service needed to be more immediate and detailed. They were missing the behavioral cues for the customer because they were afraid to ask the hard questions, the ones that reveal, that open up vulnerable places in the relationship. And if you're unwilling to ask those questions, those vulnerable questions, you're probably then unwilling to see the truth that will help you to move the relationship forward. So it's really important that we pay attention to what our customer isn't saying. That's number 1. Number 2, we need to create space for meaningful, high-value conversations. So every time we're in in front of our customers, we're in, you know, the ideal position to reinforce something, to reshape something, to reignite or release something new in our customer relationships. So the conversations we have daily, weekly, biweekly with our customers are opportunities for more meaningful and high-value conversations. And so companies like Zappos really fascinate me, and they aren't the only company. Organizations like Sweetgreen, Ritz-Carlton, you know, and others have similar stories. Whatever you accept as the norm in your organization around customer success and customer engagement, customer experience, is what your organization will acclimatize to. And organizations like Zappos and Sweetgreen and Ritz-Carlton have designed a culture that honors the two customer stories, the story of experience and the story of relationship between them and the company. And so they understand the power of conversation. With customers. In fact, if you look closely at some of the feedback that you see from these organizations, you see it's— they, they have some of the most detailed customer feedback that you would ever see of any organization. Customers are highly specific, and you can tell that the conversations and responses to these customers have been highly personalized for that specific moment. And there's no customer scripts that you can write internally for that. That is a cultural mandate that reshapes and informs the value in which your people place on every customer interaction. And if you can tap into that, that space, and figure out where are those spaces in our conversations that we have the most conversations with, or the least conversations with our customers, and how can we raise the impact of those conversations, how can we personalize them them even more? How can we create more value for our customers through those conversations so that we increase the engagement and increase the storytelling ability, the story of that customer, of their experience and relationship with us in those moments? That's a really powerful thing to consider. So create space for meaningful, high-value conversations. I know there's so many ways to do this, you know, maybe creating an executive board and with your customers, a customer advisory board. Maybe it's having more specific conversations outside of a QBR that's more specific to highly personalized areas, innovation, uh, areas of clarity. Whatever those things are for you, you can discover that with your customer. So number 3, we need to get feedback from the clients we don't see. Now many organizations will miss the fact that powerful customer stories have context. It involves the experience and opinions of multiple people interacting together using your products and services. So we get caught up with the buyer and we miss the other stakeholders involved. And what I mean by the stakeholders are not necessarily those people that we see or have particular, you know, very important titles. Sometimes it's the non-obvious that is the one that we need to speak with the most. So we can use things like observational customer research, or today we call this voice of customer, and that isn't new, but it is still novel in the sense that it isn't done very often with many organizations, and it isn't done very well. So we use terms like end-user research and focus groups, and we, we miss a more fundamental insight. Through these activities and these engagements. It's the power of the customers we don't see. And I'd actually heard a story once about Sam Walton, founder of Walmart, and he would literally change clothes and walk out of his office and head to a local diner. And he'd sit at this diner and order a piece of pie and coffee for passersby, locals in the town, and he'd ask some questions about their life and family and what they engage in and, you know, how How they buy their goods, who buys it, who makes the decision in the house. So many different questions that helped him to understand his local community, and he beat the naysayers who said you couldn't build big stores in small towns, but he went straight to the end user. He went to the customer's customer, and even before, even after that, the end customer, meaning the children or the wife or the wife's mother-in-law, whoever that might be. He understood who those people were, the real user of the product he was selling, or the people who would influence that purchasing decision. And he knew that that would be important to the way Walmart should be run to really now become obviously the largest retail chain in the world. So he mandates every manager to spend 4 days every week on the shop floor. So what he had done So by connecting to and inviting our users and other potential customers within our client's business to, you know, understand their challenges and the way in which they use our products and services, the story now becomes part of a much more compelling and dynamic picture of the impact of our relationship and the experience that they get. We can't possibly have a rich enough experience in detail of the customer unless we begin to look for feedback and garner that feedback from the clients we don't see. Those people on the shop floor, those people who perhaps are reciprocants to people who use the service, who communicate up to those people. What is that actual chain in your service or product actually look like? What is the residual impact of the use of your service and product in their business? Track that, figure out who else is using or is being impacted by that product. And get their feedback. Number 4: Always look to differentiate, fulfill, and connect. Now, there was this wonderful article written by a guy named Ben Hinson, and I guess I'd call him an author and somebody who writes on marketing and customer loyalty. And he had put together this particular model that he had as differentiation plus fulfilled customer expectations plus positive emotional connection equals customer loyalty. Now, I'll say that again. So he has differentiation plus fulfilled customer expectation plus positive emotional connection equals customer loyalty. Now, this equation seemed pretty simple when I looked at it, and I thought to myself, "Huh, well, he's absolutely right." He distilled customer loyalty into its exact components. Now, there are things that sit underneath these things he's discussing. However, this is really important for us to understand that if we want to shape the customer story and our engagement engagement in their experience of us and the value they receive from us, we need to look to differentiate, fulfill those customer expectations, and connect emotionally. So what do we mean by differentiation? Well, really clearly, differentiation is why your customer chooses you first.

That's it.

Fulfilling customer expectations is the promise you keep consistent with what your customer actually wants. And positive emotional connection is the intentional care and personalized attention you give to the customer. So, the intentional care and personalized attention you give to the customer. So, if you can figure out why your customer chooses you first, be consistent with the promises you make in line with what your customer expects, and be intentional with your care, personalized with your attention, You're likely, more likely than not, to get much deeper, much richer customer loyalty and big advocates. That's something you want to shape the customer story. Do those 3 things: figure out why customers choose you first, they really choose you first, understand what you need to be consistent in those promises, align with what your customer expects, and look to be much more intentional in your care and personalized attention with customers. Number 5 strategy: create the moments you want your customer to talk about. Create them. Now, there's a guy named Jan Carlsson. He's former CEO of Scandinavian Airlines, and he was brought in during the '80s to help really run a big turnaround. The company was in a lot of trouble, and what he had recognized in his exploration and there's so many stories to tell within the book he wrote. He found out, and in his discovery, that Scandinavian Airlines, they have 10 million customers, and these 10 million customers that they meet every single year are in contact with 5 Scandinavian Airlines employees, SAS employees, and each of those contacts on average lasts about 15 seconds. So that meant in his mind that for every 15 seconds Scandinavian Airlines was being created 50 million times. Now that is profound to think about, that in every moment that you have with a customer, you actually can reshape, or what he does, what he says is create a moment of truth for that customer that reshapes their experience and relationship with you forever. In fact, he was so adamant and so convicted by this observation of these 15 million moments of truth where they would ultimately determine whether the company succeeded or failed He communicated this to each of his employees, and just imagine an employee, CEO saying to each employee that every 15 seconds a customer meets you, you get the opportunity to completely change their experience of who we are. That's the kind of power he gave, and gave them the autonomy to go and act and to create those moments with those customers in the very mundane and simple of transactions, and particularly if you have any airport experience, experience, you know those experiences can be very transactional, very cold, and not very warming at all. But that particular intervention led to them getting the highest number of repeat customers, and after reporting a loss the previous year, they made a profit of over $20 million. Now, that is a phenomenal phenomenal feat for one simple act of deciding to create a true moment and a moment that a customer would want to talk about. And that reshaped and completely changed the trajectory of that company. So those are the 5, 5 big things, but we actually covered 7 really big ideas. So number 1, we want to pay attention to what our customer isn't saying. We want to create space for meaningful, high-value conversation. We want to get feedback from the customers we don't see, from those clients. We always want to look to differentiate, fulfill, and connect. And we want to create the moments that you want your customers to talk about. But we also, in my mind, within this, we want to think about being consistent. We want to think about the consistency of the work that we do in exploring these specific areas. And although I've given you all these 5 different strategies, these different approaches, what I want you to do is to pick one. Pick something to do, whether that's to think about how are we going to pay attention to what our customer isn't saying? Are we willing to ask the hard questions? Are we going to create space, more space for meaningful, high-value conversations? Are we going to get feedback from the clients we don't see? Are we going to think about differentiation and fulfilling and connecting and deepening customer loyalty and changing that story, are we going to look for those, those seemingly mundane and trivial moments in our customer conversations? And are we going to make those moments that the customer will want to talk about? We get to choose that. We get to decide how our customer engages with us. In fact, I'll go, I'll go a step further and say we get to design every experience that our customer gets with us. If we choose to be intentional, if we choose to try to be consistent, to seek after consistency, we'll eventually get to excellence. In all areas that we feel are really important to serving our customers. So these are all the ideas. This is how we think about our customer story, how we shape that, how we make it part of our traditions, how we seemingly drive it inside our business. And, you know, most people would speak about culture. I'm not going to speak about that because once you begin to define these activities, once you empower people by telling them, employees and staff and departments alike, that every moment you have with a customer actually reshapes everything that they experience of us. It will change the way that they think. It will change your internal story, those stories that eventually you'll move from very difficult and frustrating into collaborative and cooperative. You'll eventually find that people will begin to see things the way the customer sees and to behave in a way that helps the customer win. So I hope you get some value from that, and I want you again always to be moving forward with your best customer relationships and to become the advisor your organization and your customers never want to leave. And so if I could be of any value, you know, just, you know, hit subscribe, you know, I'll see you in the next podcast, obviously, but I want you to share this. I want you to re-listen to it as well. There's always going to be some things that you may have missed, things you need to hear again. So I look forward to hearing from you, and I'll see you in the next episode.

Hey, thanks for listening to the Key Customer Growth Podcast. Hope you enjoyed the episode and got some great value. If that has been your story today, Please share, comment, and subscribe so we can reach more people with the message and impact them also. Most importantly, I want to hear your feedback on what you liked or what you would like to hear and see in the future. Look forward to hearing from you, and you can find all the show notes below. Wishing you success in becoming an irreplaceable advisor.