Maybe I’m too close to my CX work or maybe I’ve just been spoiled by my current provider. In my world, delivering great experiences is more than caring for customers, it’s caring about them.
Bursting at the seams we needed an additional short-term working space to deliver our customer experience management program; unfortunately our current premises were fully leased.
The new co-working space seemed all that we’d come to expect. A large, light foyer, cool aesthetic, communal spaces, breakout rooms, an abundance of meeting rooms, offices with high ceilings and good lighting, 24/7 access – the list goes on.
From day one however, the promise of a contemporary co-working environment was under delivered. Here’s a couple of examples: there was no onboarding the day we bumped in, the offices aren’t sound proof – I can hear every word of my neighbours’ conversations, they’re personal advisors. There’s no hot water in the kitchen and rarely any milk in the fridge; every second day I resupply. There’s no escaping the very loud, grating bathroom door as it catches the tiles and echoes throughout the floor. And we’re still waiting for a replacement table; one leg is 3cm too short.
A fundamental behaviour gap that I’ve observed over and over again in organisations that are struggling to transform their customer experiences is that ‘the standard you walk past is the standard you accept’.
So when I see the service team here tidying the kitchen and not restocking the milk, using the bathroom without thinking to call maintenance about the noisy door or just nodding sympathetically when I’ve asked at least five times to replace the table, this signals a culture of ‘all care, no responsibility’; that these problems are just business as usual.
Great CX requires a business-wide attitude of caring about customers. A culture of caring about customers comes from the top; leaders lead by example, people across the business understand the role they play and actively listen and apply empathy in decision-making to solve customer problems to deliver the promised experience.