CX LEMONADE

The thing about customer experience is it’s not necessarily based on facts. It’s all about perception. If a customer perceives that you are not providing a superior experience, then there’s a really good chance you’re not. Despite what your CX metrics (e.g. CSAT and NPS) tell you, your customers respond to surveys based on what they expect from you. If your customer has low expectations, and you deliver a mediocre experience, there’s a good chance your CX metrics do not reflect reality—you might have excellent CSATs, but your customers show no loyalty or fail to positively promote your business. Likewise, if your customers have expectations that are unreasonable or misguided, despite your best efforts to improve, your metrics might be pointing you in the wrong direction.

Setting customers’ expectations is key to meeting customers’ expectations. In the lemonade analogy, had the sign read: “Ice Cold Sweet Lemonade” the sugar blast wouldn’t have been a surprise. It’s exactly what you expected. Likewise, “Ice Cold Tart Lemonade” would set the expectation that the experience is likely to make you pucker. In the end, if you get what you expected, even if the hands that delivered it were questionably dirty, you’ll be content.

As a Customer Experience professional, it’s your job to work with everyone from the CEO to the frontline employees to ensure expectations are properly set and met. Then, working within those “guidelines” you’ll know if your lemonade is too sweet or if it’s too sour. Your guidelines, or “CX Guiding Principles” should closely align to and be in concert with your corporate Values, Vision and Mission Statements. If you don’t have clear direction on organizational CX Guiding Principles, that’s where you need to start—define the attributes you want your collective customer experiences to reflect. Set those expectations first and then work to consistently meet them. As an example, a CX Guiding Principle could be: “Our technology and automation will be designed to meet customers’ needs first, not ours”. It must be clear, and objective. You absolutely must have a collectively agreed to statement to guide your CX initiatives and ensure accountability.

If you already have clear vision of CX Guiding Principles, you’re well on your way to establishing CX relevancy within your organization by simply adhering to them. As an added bonus, there should be less consternation when you point out deficiencies if an experience falls short. Leverage your Guiding Principles to fuel discussions about organizational improvement, and to discover reasonable paths to exceeding expectations and delighting customers.

The bottom line is to create expectations, meet them, and keep the organization accountable. So long as your CX vision is in accord with your corporate Values, Mission and Vision statements, your CX Lemonade should be the perfect balance of sweet and sour. You’re going to get dirty making the perfect blend, so just be sure to wash your hands regularly.