In some of my customer service speeches, I joke that some customers aren’t worth doing business with. The way I position it in the speech is funny, but in reality, it’s pretty serious. Sometimes, a customer isn’t worth doing business with because they are truly a bad customer. The result could be choosing to say, “Goodbye,” and sending them to the competition.
While there are many reasons you might end your relationship with a customer, I came up with six obvious ones to get you thinking:
Customers who repeatedly return products. This is often the result of a liberal return policy that some customers abuse. Repeated returns cost money – sometimes more than the profit from the sale.
Customers who make unwarranted complaints about service. You’ve heard the recording: “These calls are recorded for quality assurance.” Not only are recorded calls great for training, but they can also become evidence of a customer who has an unwarranted complaint about the company’s customer service – or any other situation.
Customers who demand unreasonable solutions to problems. If the customer’s demands are unreasonable and they won’t accept the solutions or compensation an employee is offering, it may be time to let them go.
Customers who take up too much time. For example, customers who repeatedly send back products, which takes up too much time and costs the company money.
Customers who are argumentative. Some customers will argue, and nothing will make them happy. When they realize you are about to “fire” them as a customer, they sometimes recognize that they are being unreasonable. But, when they don’t, it’s time to consider saying, “Goodbye.”
Customers who are abusive toward employees. This is more than an argumentative customer – it is taking rude and argumentative to another level. The customer curses, insults or threatens the employee. While we always want to be polite to our customers, sometimes it’s okay to politely transfer them to a manager or, if empowered to do so, politely say goodbye and hang up.
Keep in mind that it’s our job to take a negative event or abusive customer and turn the situation around. Another way of saying it is to turn rants into raves. Yet, in some cases – hopefully very few – the customer may truly not be worth doing business with … today. That could change in the future. Keep that in mind. Remember one of my favorite sayings:
The customer is not always right, but they are always the customer.
Consider that saying before slamming the door on an abusive customer. If you feel it can’t be worked out – today – close the door quietly, but consider leaving it open, ever-so-slightly, just in case they realize the error of their ways. Maybe they will come back, apologize, and become a great customer – one that is well worth doing business with!
Image Credits: Pexels, Shep Hyken
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Your Guide to Elevating the Customer Journey and Future Proofing Your Business
by Braden Kelley and Art Inteligencia
As a customer experience professional it is always surprising when I encounter a flawed experience that would have easily been caught if the experience had been walked by someone that’s distant from the experience design process – an auditor. To oversimplify things, think of it as secret shopping on steroids informed by the expertise and methods of customer experience professionals that map, compare and improve different experiences for a living.
Companies are in the habit of hiring an auditor for providing an external perspective on their financial reporting, but most (if not all) fail to engage in a similar annual audit for their customer, partner or employee experiences. Given that companies exist only as long as their customers permit them to, this seems short-sighted and incredibly risky.
To explore this situation in more detail, it only makes sense that we should first look at some of the basics of the customer experience and then the equally important customer experience audit.
Understanding the Basics of Customer Experience
At its core, Customer Experience (CX) is the culmination of all interactions a customer has with your brand. Whether it’s a visit to your website, a call to your support team, or the experience of using your product or service, each touchpoint contributes to how your brand is perceived. A robust CX strategy is not only a competitive advantage but a requirement in today’s market. This is where the Customer Experience Audit comes into play.
The Importance of a Customer Experience Audit
Conducting a Customer Experience Audit helps you identify gaps, inconsistencies, and opportunities in your current customer journey. This systematic approach allows you to enhance interactions, fostering loyalty and driving growth. A well-executed audit provides insights that guide innovations and improvements, ensuring that your brand is always delivering value and delight to your customers.
Six Key Components of a Customer Experience Audit
Customer Touchpoint and Journey Mapping: Identify all the points of interaction between customers and your organization across the different phases of the customer journey.
Feedback Analysis: Gather and analyze customer feedback through surveys, reviews, and direct communications.
Performance Metrics: Review key performance indicators (KPIs) such as Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT).
Competitive Benchmarking: Evaluate your CX against industry peers to identify best practices and areas for improvement.
Customer Journey Step and Touchpoint Walking: A lot can be learned by having an outsider walk the key touchpoints and steps in your customer journey, especially those connected to your moments of truth. These are the critical touchpoints in a customer’s journey that significantly impact their perception and relationship with your brand. These moments are pivotal in determining customer satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy, and addressing them effectively can create lasting positive impressions and drive meaningful engagement – and revenue!
Journey Analytics: Use analytics tools to track customer behavior and identify bottlenecks.
Pro tip: Involve cross-functional teams and outsiders in the audit process to gain diverse perspectives and insights.
Six Steps to Conducting a Successful Customer Experience Audit
Define Objectives: Clearly outline what you aim to achieve with the audit.
Gather Data: Collect quantitative and qualitative data from various sources.
Analyze Findings: Identify patterns, pain points, and opportunities from the collected data.
Implement Changes: Develop a roadmap to address identified issues and enhance the CX.
Monitor and Iterate: Continuously monitor the impact of changes and refine strategies as needed.
Rinse and Repeat: Conduct a customer experience audit at least once a year to track your progress and the success of your improvement project pursuits, while also creating an opportunity to identify new deficiencies that have been introduced as your customer experience continues to evolve.
Conclusion
By undertaking a Customer Experience Audit, you’re not only future-proofing your business but also prioritizing the needs and expectations of your customers. Remember, a remarkable customer experience is not a one-time effort but an ongoing commitment. As you embark on this journey, keep in mind that customer-centric innovation is the cornerstone of sustainable success.
Commit to a culture of continuous improvement, and you will see your brand not just meet, but exceed customer expectations. Let’s create experiences that are not only memorable but transformative.
If you are interested in conducting a customer experience audit of your business, please contact me.
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Content Authenticity Statement: The core premise and structure for this article was created by Braden Kelley. The OpenAI Playground, taking on the role of human-centered change and innovation thought leader Braden Kelley has helped to flesh out the content of the article with supplementary content added by Braden Kelley – including the creation of the downloadable PDF flipbook.
Managers make the difference. Middle managers especially play a crucial role in employee engagement and performance. However, many managers lack proper preparation for their role, and companies often fail to invest in robust leadership training. Great managers understand that their actions have a direct impact on their team’s success. In particular, great managers improve their team through four daily actions.
In this article, we will explore four things that great managers do daily to separate themselves from poor bosses. By implementing these daily practices, they not only improve team performance and development but also create a positive and trusting work environment.
Run Smooth Meetings
The first thing great leaders do daily is run smooth meetings. And whether they’re in meetings daily or just planning future meetings, great managers know that meetings can either be a waste of time or a productive forum for collaboration. They ensure that meetings run smoothly by having a clear purpose, inviting the right people, and having a plan of action.
Having a clear purpose for each meeting is essential. It helps everyone stay focused and ensures that the meeting is not just a gathering without any tangible outcomes. Great managers also invite the relevant people based on the meeting’s purpose. This ensures that the right expertise and perspectives are present in the room.
Furthermore, great managers create a plan of action for each meeting. They outline specific topics to be discussed and attach relevant questions to guide the conversation. This helps keep the meeting on track and ensures that all necessary points are addressed.
Give Fair Feedback
The second thing great managers do daily is give fair feedback. Great managers understand the importance of providing fair feedback to their employees. They know that feedback should be proportionate to employees’ actual performance and should balance praise and constructive criticism.
When giving feedback, great managers avoid fixating on areas that need improvement and instead acknowledge employees’ strengths. They understand that recognizing and appreciating employees’ accomplishments motivates them to continue performing at their best.
Moreover, great managers maintain a proper proportion of praise and constructive criticism based on performance. They provide specific examples to support their feedback and offer guidance on how employees can further enhance their skills or address any areas of improvement.
Check Capacity
The third thing great managers do daily is check their team’s capacity. Great managers understand the importance of checking the work capacity of individuals and the team as a whole. They know that overloading employees can lead to burnout and decreased productivity. Regularly assessing capacity is crucial to ensure a healthy work-life balance and optimal performance.
Great managers check individuals’ energy levels and offer support if needed. They are attentive to signs of stress or exhaustion and provide resources or assistance to help employees manage their workload effectively.
In addition, great managers assess the team’s commitments and goals to avoid overloading. They ensure that the workload is distributed evenly and that everyone has the necessary resources and support to accomplish their tasks.
Holding regular huddles is another practice great managers adopt to check capacity. These huddles provide an opportunity to discuss the team’s focus, review completed tasks, and identify areas where assistance may be required.
Build Trust
The fourth thing great managers do daily is build trust on their team. Great managers understand that trust is the foundation of a successful team. They prioritize building trust by creating a sense of psychological safety and fostering a culture of trust and vulnerability.
Encouraging open communication and diverse perspectives is a key aspect of building trust. Great managers create an environment where team members feel comfortable sharing their ideas, concerns, and feedback without fear of judgment or reprisal.
Great managers also celebrate failures and extract lessons for the whole team. They understand that failure is an opportunity for growth and learning. By openly discussing failures and encouraging team members to share their experiences, great managers create a culture that values continuous improvement.
Furthermore, great managers reciprocate trust by being vulnerable and responsive to employees’ needs. They actively listen to their team members, provide support when needed, and ensure that everyone feels valued and respected.
Great managers play a vital role in driving employee engagement and performance. By running smooth meetings, giving fair feedback, checking capacity, and building trust, they create an environment where employees can thrive and contribute their best work ever.
Image credit: Unsplash
Originally published on DavidBurkus.com on September 25, 2023
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Once upon a time, in a lush forest, there lived a colony of industrious beavers known far and wide for their magnificent dams, which provided shelter and sustenance for many.
One day, the wise old owl who governed the forest decreed that all dams must be rebuilt to withstand the increasingly fierce storms that plagued their land. She gave the beavers two seasons to complete it, or they would lose half their territory to the otters.
The Grand Design: Blueprints and Blind Spots
The beaver chief, a kind fellow named Oakchew, called the colony together, inviting both the elder beavers, known for their experience and sage advice and the young beavers who would do the actual building.
Months passed as the elders debated how to build the new dams. They argued about mud quantities, branch angles, and even which mix of grass and leaves would provide structural benefit and aesthetic beauty. The young beavers sat silently, too intimidated by their elders’ status to speak up.
Work Begins: Dams and Discord
As autumn leaves began to fall, Oakchew realized they had yet to start building. Panicked, he ordered work to commence immediately.
The young beavers set to work but found the new method confusing and impractical. As time passed, progress slowed, panic set in, arguments broke out, and the once-harmonious colony fractured.
One group insisted on precisely following the new process even as it became obvious that they would not meet the deadline. Another reverted to their old ways, believing that a substandard something was better than nothing. And one small group went rogue, retreating to the smallest stream to figure it out for themselves.
As the deadline grew closer, the beavers worked day and night, but progress was slow and flawed. In desperation, Oakchew called upon the squirrels to help, promising half the colony’s winter food stores.
Just as the first storm clouds gathered, Oakchew surveyed the completed dams. Many were built as instructed, but the rushed work was evident and showed signs of weakness. Most dams were built with the strength and craftsmanship of old but were likely to fail as the storms’ intensity increased. One stood alone and firm, roughly constructed with a mix of old and new methods.
Wisdom from the Waters: Experiments and Openness
Oakchew’s heart sank as he realized the true cost of their efforts. The beavers had met their deadline but at a great cost. Many were exhausted and resentful, some had left the colony altogether, and their once-proud craftsmanship was now shoddy and unreliable.
He called a final meeting to reflect on what had happened. Before the elders could speak, Oakchew asked the young beavers for their thoughts. The colony listened in silent awe as the young builders explained the flaws in the “perfect” process. The rogue group explained that they had started building immediately, learning from each failure, and continuously improving their design.
“We wasted so much time trying to plan the perfect dam,” Oakchew admitted to the colony. “If we had started building sooner and learned from our mistakes, we would not have paid such a high cost for success. We would not have suffered and lost so much if we had worked to ensure every beaver was heard, not just invited.”
From that day forward, the beaver colony adopted a new approach of experimentation, prototyping, and creating space for all voices to be heard and valued. While it took many more seasons of working together to improve their dams, replenish their food stores, and rebuild their common bonds, the colony eventually flourished once more.
The Moral of the Story – (just in case it isn’t obvious)
The path to success is paved not with perfect plans but with the courage to act, the wisdom to learn from failures, and the openness to embrace diverse ideas. True innovation arises when we combine the best of tradition with the boldness of experimentation.
Image credit: Pixabay
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The practice of change management is a relatively young discipline. It got its start in 1983, when a McKinsey consultant Julien Phillips published a paper in the journal, Human Resource Management. His ideas became McKinsey’s first change management model that it sold to clients and set the stage for much that came afterward.
Phillips’ work kicked off a number of similar approaches such as Kotter’s 8-step model and the Prosci ADKAR model and an industry was born. Today, hordes of “change consultants” ply their craft working to communicate transformational ideas to inspire change. The results, unfortunately, have been rather dismal.
The simple truth is that change rarely fails because people don’t understand it, but that it is actively sabotaged by those who, for whatever reason, oppose it. That’s why any change strategy that depends on persuasion is bound to fail. The truth is that if you want to bring change about you need to identify those who believe in it and empower them to succeed.
1. Create A Sense Of Urgency Around Change
One of the basic tenets of change management that dates back to Phillips’ original paper is that you need to create a “sense of urgency” around change. So change leaders work to gain approval for a sizable budget as a sign of institutional commitment, recruit high-profile executives, arrange a big “kick-off” meeting and look to move fast and gain scale.
That may work for a conventional project, but for something that’s truly transformational, it’s a sure path to failure. The problem is that if a change is important and has real potential to impact what people believe and what they do, there will always be those who will hate it and they will work to undermine it in ways that are dishonest, underhanded and deceptive.
Starting off with a “big bang” can often unwittingly aid these efforts. Large scale change of any kind, even if the net effect is overwhelmingly positive, always causes some disruption. So appearing to work to overpower, rather than to attract, others can feed into the atmosphere of fear and loathing that opponents of change want to create. It also gives the opponents of change a head start to kill change before it really even starts.
A much better approach is to work to empower small groups, loosely connected, united by a shared purpose. For example, when Wyeth Pharmaceuticals began its shift to lean manufacturing, it started with a single team at a single plant, but led to a 25% reduction of costs across 25 sites encompassing 17,000 employees.
2. Start With A Quick, Easy Win
Another thing that change consultants regularly recommend is going for a “quick and easy win” in order to build momentum and establish credibility. The problem is that if the “win” isn’t meaningful, it will do little to drive change forward. In fact, touting a meaningless and irrelevant pseudo-accomplishment can make change leaders look out-of-touch and impractical.
A much more effective strategy is to start with a keystone change that represents a concrete and tangible goal, involves multiple stakeholders and paves the way for future change. That’s how you can begin to build real traction. While the impact of that early keystone change might be limited, a small, but meaningful, success can show what’s possible.
Consider PxG, a process improvement initiative at Procter & Gamble. It started out when three young executives set out to improve a single process. It wasn’t quick or easy. In fact, it took months of hard work. Nevertheless, they were able to transform a bottleneck that held up projects for weeks into a streamlined procedure that is completed in mere hours.
In a similar vein, when the global data giant Experian sought to transform itself into a cloud-based enterprise, it started with internal API’s that were much less risky than those that allowed access to outsiders. These weren’t really that much simpler or easier than public API’s, but showed the potential of cloud technology.
The truth is that sometimes you need to go slow in order to go fast. Transformation is not a linear process, but accelerates as it gains momentum. It pays to build your change effort on solid ground, rather than trying to lurch forward. Nothing slows you down more than a setback.
3. Prepare A Stakeholder Map
In any change process, a variety of stakeholders will have concerns. So consultants often suggest mapping the various stakeholders in terms of their level of enthusiasm, engagement, power to influence and other parameters. The idea is that by categorizing and cataloguing, you can better understand the forces at play.
This type of approach makes for impressive looking PowerPoint decks and intellectually appealing reports, but does little to achieve real change. The truth is that what most influences stakeholders are other stakeholders. Slicing and dicing them eighteen different ways isn’t going to do much more than confuse the situation.
However, for decades social and political movements have used tools such as the Spectrum of Allies and the Pillars of Support to change entire societies and they are just as effective in organizational transformations. Essentially, the idea is to divide stakeholders into two categories: constituencies and institutions (or those who wield institutional power).
So to transform education, you might mobilize support from parents, teachers and students to influence school boards, administrators and teachers unions to make changes. In a corporate context, you might want to mobilize groups of employees, customers and other constituencies to influence internal and external institutions such as senior leaders, the media, professional associations, regulators, labor unions etc.
The point is that you are always mobilizing somebody to influence something. Pure mobilization is nothing more than rabble rousing. Working quietly behind closed doors leaves you vulnerable to an uprising among the rank and file. Building support among constituencies can not only influence those with institutional power to act, it builds change on solid ground.
Focusing On The 25% That Matters
There is an inherent flaw in human nature that has endowed us with a burning desire to convince skeptics. So it shouldn’t be surprising that change consultants focus on persuasion. Nothing validates a high fee like some clever wordsmithing designed to persuade those hostile to the ideas of those paying the bill.
Yet anybody who has ever been married or had children knows how difficult it can be to convince even a single person of something they don’t want to be convinced of. To set out to persuade hundreds—or even thousands—that they should adopt an idea that they are inherently hostile to is not only hubris, but incredibly foolish.
It is also unnecessary. Scientific research suggests that the tipping point for change is only a 25% minority. Once a quarter of the people involved become committed to change, the rest will largely go along. So there is no need to convince skeptics. Your time and effort will be much better spent helping those who are enthusiastic about change to make it succeed.
That’s what the change consultants get wrong. You don’t “manage” change. You empower it by enabling those who believe in it to show it can work and then bringing in others who can bring in others still. The truth is that you don’t need a clever slogan to bring change about, you need a network. That’s how you create a movement that drives transformation.
There are some questions in life which can be answered quickly, no real thought required, simple yes/no options. Others might involve a longer period of time, perhaps a pleasant exploration of the possibilities. Philosophical enquiries, searching for meaning in life, the universe, everything….
But there’s one set of questions which brook no hesitation, which demand instant application to the task in hand. Those are concerned with ‘helping with daughter’s homework’ and which usually extend to occupy most of the available evening. Which is how I’ve found myself pondering the big question of ‘how can maps help us?’, as an accompaniment to trying to create with her a schematic map of our house and garden….
It’s easy to take maps for granted — but we’d be pretty stuck without them. Maps have been one of the most important human inventions for millennia, allowing humans to explain and navigate their way through the world. They seem to have been — independently invented by many cultures across the globe, and they’ve been around a very long time. Fragments etched on tusks or scratched on stones, dating back 25000 years or more all point to maps as something important. Which makes sense from an evolutionary point of view — it would help our survival a lot if we were able to chart where to find food, mark dangers, settle boundary disputes. Especially if we could share that knowledge with others.
And it’s not just maps of where we’ve been and how to get back there. Maps also drove exploration and enabled trade. Phoenician sailors way back 3000 years ago were managing long trips like discovering a way round Africa and the explosion of global trade and imperials expansion owes much to explorers like Magellan, Columbus, Drake and da Gama. Their voyages showed us that (a) the world isn’t flat with an edge you can fall off and (b) that there were impressive profits to be made if you could reliably head for (and more importantly come back from) exotic destinations like the spice islands. Maps were at the heart if this — and one reason why the Portuguese lost their early advantage to the Dutch East India company was the acquisition (by fair means or foul) of the key maps ….
Maps aren’t just passive guidebooks either. They can certainly help us get from (a) to (b) reliably and repeat the trick. But they also act as warnings, signposting where to go but also what to avoid and why — from ‘here be dragons’ markings on medieval charts through to today’s detailed lines of demarcation around danger areas.
And maps can set the rule of the game. Much of the work of early cartographers was charting not only the physical layout of land and sea but the political and economic one. Wars have a nasty habit of involving incursions into territory ‘owned’ by someone else. And maps continue to play a role in the political landscape — for example redrawing electoral boundaries isn’t simply a psephological exercise, it’s a power game.
So maps matter — and (as my daughter’s homework underlines) we need to learn to work with them, even in an age of GPS and automated guidance.
What has all this to do with innovation? Quite a lot in fact: maps and map-making provides a powerful metaphor for much of what we do when we try to manage the uncertain journey which innovation involves. There’s probably hundreds of applications of the idea but here are five which spring quickly to mind:
1. Navigating uncertainty
Innovation is all about uncertainty, it’s not simple planning but a probe into unknown territory. When we think about radical innovation we are certainly in the realm of high uncertainty, trying to feel our way through the fog. Even incremental innovation — doing what we do but better — has its surprises, like the diversions we might need to make on a well-used route because of road works or repairs.
So making even the crudest of sketch maps for ourselves might help, and using charts begged, borrowed or stolen from other voyagers would be a recommended strategy. After all someone else may have made a similar journey and there might be clues in their codified experience — a sort of ‘trip advisor’ resource, or (for those not yet familiar with the classic ‘Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) a guidebook plus maps with the important reassurance ‘Don’t panic!’ scrawled across the front cover.
Maps can warn of topographical challenges like rivers to be crossed or mountains to be climbed and in similar fashion making maps of the wider context in which our innovation is going to emerge will be helpful. For example, a healthcare start-up needs to map regulatory challenges, market demands, and technological barriers. Understanding these “elevations” and “obstacles” helps the company prepare strategies to overcome or navigate through them.
Maps come in many flavours, including exotics like ‘heat maps’ which can be useful in terms of analysing energy consumption for example (I got that one from Lara’s homework book). Same thing with innovation — sometimes ‘heat maps’ can help focus attention on key areas for development, for example in identifying market trends, customer preferences, and areas ripe for innovation.
Starbucks uses heat maps to analyze customer behaviour and preferences in different regions. This data helps the company identify hotspots where certain products or services are more popular, allowing for targeted marketing and product offerings. For example, Starbucks identified a growing trend in mobile ordering and payment, leading to the successful rollout of their mobile app, which has significantly enhanced customer convenience and engagement.
And, especially in service innovation, journey maps can help visualize the customer experience, detailing each touchpoint and interaction a customer has with a product or service. This helps in refining and improving the innovation to better meet customer needs.
Airbnb uses journey mapping to enhance the user experience for both hosts and guests. By mapping out every interaction a user has with the platform — from searching for a property to post-stay reviews — Airbnb identifies pain points and opportunities for improvement. This customer-centric approach has led to features like the Superhost program and streamlined booking processes, significantly enhancing overall user satisfaction.
2. Sharing the message
Innovation is a process, and anyone might get lucky once. The real skill lies in being able to repeat the trick, to recognise that it can be a managed process which depends on more than just luck. For which we need a map, some codified representation of what we’ve learned about how the process works and what to do about it.
Which is good news for people like me — our role has been to try and make sense of the hundred plus years of research and the reported experiences of tens of thousands of people to detect patterns — make maps — of how the process could be managed over time. What to do — and what not to do, much in the manner of early ‘here be dragons’ guidance. We’ve come a long way; our maps of the process are well-documented in text books, consulting offers and even at the heart of an International Standard (56001) for innovation management.
3. Forecasting and back-casting
Smart players of the innovation game don’t just grope their way through the fog and hope; they make use of futures tools to help develop a strategy — a map of where to go and what to do next, which steps to take. It’s a two-step process — forecasting involves looking forward, imagining and engaging the help of others to make more than random guesses, weaving them into coherent pictures of future scenarios. But it also involves back casting — working out how to get ‘there’ from ‘here’. Where and how to start?
That process is called road-mapping for a reason — it’s all about making relevant maps to guide our journey (and our resource commitment) into the future. You don’t get to launch a major new piece of software or a radical alternative product by simply pressing the ‘go’ button — it involves careful planning of each key stage from exploratory research through to prototype development, beta testing, market launch, and post-launch support. Each stage has specific goals, timelines, and checkpoints, helping the team stay focused and aligned with their objectives.
4. Simulation and pivoting, updating our maps
Drawing a map in the abstract, without understanding the conditions on the actual ground itself, is not a good approach to navigation. On account of the fact that maps are not the actual territory, they are a representation of that reality. Plenty of people have commented on this problem, from Prussian general von Moltke with his famous ‘no plan survives the first contact with the enemy’ through to boxer Mike Tyson’s more succinct version, ‘everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face!’
So we need the ability to revise our maps en route, improve them and press forward in a mode which Rita McGrath calls ‘discovery driven planning’ — map-making on the fly. These days this principle lies at the heart of ‘agile innovation’ and the ‘lean start-up’ model. Innovation involves testing assumptions , learning from feedback and course correcting — the innovation equivalent of GPS saying ‘off route, recalculating’.
For example, Netflix leverages real-time data analytics (akin to a GPS) to continuously adjust its content strategy. By monitoring viewer preferences and engagement in real-time, Netflix can quickly pivot its content offerings, invest in new shows, and even decide on canceling underperforming series.
The good news here is that we have a rich set of tools to help our adaptive cartography — simulations, FMEA, pre-mortems, etc. — which allow us to explore and change course before we actually hit the iceberg emerging through the fog.
An extreme variant of such map -making is the idea of ‘escape maps’ — escape routes developed to navigate out of a crisis. For example Toyota’s response to widespread recalls due to safety issues back in 2010 was to develop a crisis management plan to address the problems, communicate transparently with customers, and implement quality control improvements. This escape map helped Toyota navigate through the crisis, restore customer trust, and enhance its safety standards. But it also provided a resource on which they could build in the face of future challenges , like the supply-chain disruptions caused by earthquakes.
5. Co-operative cartography
Innovation is a multi-player game and in todays’ borderless digital world that’s become more relevant than ever. Open innovation is all about collaboration and consortia, finding or building an ecosystem in which all players bring something to the party and when well orchestrated can create emergent properties. The whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts. And a key piece of this puzzle lies in the shared maps which they use for their collective journey.
Such maps may be built around something abstract but compelling — a vision into which people can buy, something which focuses their collective energies and points the way towards Treasure Island with enough for everyone. Platform businesses offer a good example of such collaboration, where platform owners orchestrate the players across a multi-sided market. Such arrangements depend on having clear maps of where and how shared value is created.
But a big part of the shared value ecosystem story is the fact that the ‘rules of the game’ are made explicit and become the boundaries and geography of the game. In other words the map of where and how the game will be played out. That’s often an underestimated aspect of the innovation story but it highlights the key role of cartography. Who is making the maps which set out the context within which shared value might be created?
Malcom Mclean’s revolution in world trade catalysed by his containerisation innovation might have run aground at an early stage. His voyage might have involved ships stuck in port if he hadn’t managed to find a way of working alongside the unions who were key cartographers in that context.
Mobile money across Africa is nothing special, it’s just how things work in that world, even as we still marvel at the power of smart transactions on our phonies. This leap-frogging to a new financial world connecting millions of people has been enabled by innovations like M-PESA and its lookalikes and has ushered in a quiet revolution. Over half of Kenyan GDP runs across M-PESA’s platfrm) — but this massive social innovation, bringing banking and financial services to the unbanked, wouldn’t have been possible without the active support and smoothing of the pathway played by the central bank. Their role as cartographers, supporting and promoting the innovation has been central to its widespread adoption.
Uber uses a topographical map approach to understand the regulatory, market, and technological landscape when expanding its services globally. Each city and country had unique regulations, market demands, and infrastructure challenges. By mapping these out, Uber can try to tailor its strategies to navigate through regulatory hurdles, optimize its technology for local conditions, and address market-specific needs effectively.
So maps matter in innovation — and the skills of working with them seem worth developing. In particular three key skills ought to be at the fingertips of anyone working in the innovation space:
Map reading — if there’s one thing we’ve learned in an era of GPS and navigational accuracy measured in millimetres it’s that the best maps in the world can still lead you into trouble if you don’t know how to use them properly. GPS has an enviable track record of leading strangers on to rocks or to other unexpected places, one of which Ulysses’ sirens or the Lorelei Rhine-maidens would be proud.
We need to learn to use maps intelligently, checking our position and adjusting, correcting course, pivoting with the map as a guide. But maps are not a substitute for thinking about and actively managing our journey.
We know a lot about the innovation process so whether you’re a start-up entrepreneur or a team inside an established organization, the journey to create value from ideas doesn’t have to be a random one. Importantly we have maps for many different contexts — it’s not a case of one size fits all — so there is guidance for innovators working in the public sector or not for profit world as much as the commercial world
Map making — we also need the skill of constructing storylines, roadmaps into the future which provide us with the key information at key stages on the journey. We can use maps which others have prepared but it’s also important to develop our own skills , just as our ancestors would have found ways to communicate what they were learning. Embedding key questions around which we need to explore and chart is a key stage in the evolution of any business model — it’s a story which sets out where we’re trying get to and what we’re learning on the way. We need this to engage others and recruit their questions, experience and insight — and if we succeed we can offer our maps for others. After all there’s a booming market in offering templates for business models which can be adapted and configured to suit…
But standards are only one part of the story. It’s not just committee work, it’s about engaging with cartographers on many levels, drawing them in, getting their support, buy-in, insight and influence. Think of an ed-tech solution which could transform the learning experiences of millions of children in rural Africa — and then try and introduce that without the support of the relevant Ministry of Education.
Or try and fight some of the powerful interests in trade unions or professional associations. Maybe wrestle with the regulatory thickets associated with trade bodies or government departments. Battle with the rules and those employed to make sure things are done by the book. Doesn’t take long before you realise that most changes don’t take place on a blank canvas — they involve negotiating a way through all sorts of obstacles. For which geography it would be helpful to have a map — but even more helpful to have a guide, someone who could help smooth or clear a path.
Learning to identify and recruit cartographers to your value network is increasingly a key skill in scaling innovation for impact.
So (back to our homework question) can maps help us ? In plenty of ways; we’d literally be lost without them. But the real question isn’t so much about whether they can help us but rather how we can best equip ourselves to create and use them….
Two important questions to help you grow your business:
Is the problem worth solving?
When do you want to learn it’s not worth solving?
No one in your company can tell you if the problem is worth solving, not even the CEO. Only the customer can tell you if the problem is worth solving. If potential customers don’t think they have the problem you want to solve, they won’t pay you if you solve it. And if potential customers do have the problem but it’s not that important, they won’t pay you enough to make your solution profitable.
A problem is worth solving only when customers are willing to pay more than the cost of your solution.
Solving a problem requires a good team and the time and money to run the project. Project teams can be large and projects can run for months or years. And projects require budgets to buy the necessary supplies, tools, and infrastructure. In short, solving problems is expensive business.
It’s pretty clear that it’s far more profitable to learn a problem is not worth solving BEFORE incurring the expense to solve it. But, that’s not what we do. In a ready-fire-aim way, we solve the problem of our choosing and try to sell the solution.
If there’s one thing to learn, it’s how to verify the customer is willing to pay for your solution before incurring the cost to create it.
Image credit: Pixabay
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Many years ago, I sold a home. My real estate agent made a value proposition for me. If I hired her to sell my home, I could walk out of the house and never come back. She would manage everything related to maintaining the home and keeping it “showroom ready.” That included lawn care, cleaning and much more. If anything broke, she would take care of. If a painter needed to touch up a wall, she would hire “her painter.” Other than showing up at the closing to sign papers, my only responsibility would be to reimburse her for any expenses she incurred.
She explained that she had a network of preferred vendors who gave her preferential pricing, and she would pass only the actual costs onto me. In addition to her stellar reputation, what she promised to do—make selling my house easy and hassle-free—was the reason I hired her.
At the time, I wondered, “Why don’t other real estate agents do this?” Another question was, “Why don’t more businesses, regardless of the industry they are in, do this?”
It turns out there are people, companies and brands that do. However, many struggle to put together a program like this and find out it’s harder than they thought. Furthermore, what if a company could profit from these recommendations and referrals? What if the referrer received a commission or finder’s fee for recommending the right vendor?
Meet Mikhail Naumov, the founder and CEO of Paylode, a company that helps his clients do exactly what my real estate agent did for me. Naumov says, “If you’re a car company, you’re selling cars. If you’re a pet adoption agency, you’re helping people adopt a new puppy. For the most part, that’s where your job begins and ends. However, the moment the customer buys a car or adopts a puppy, they suddenly have a dozen other problems or pain points they now must solve due to the purchase.”
Naumov’s version of my real estate agent story is that he moved from California to Miami, rented an apartment, and the moment he signed the lease, he thought, “I now need to find renter’s insurance, moving trucks, a storage unit, furniture, appliances, food and more.” His entrepreneurial mind kicked in and he realized there was an opportunity to help apartment rental companies (and now companies across many other industries, including travel, hospitality, and insurance) create a system to take care of their customers’ secondary and tertiary needs. His company, Paylode, was born.
Paylode helps its clients find companies and vendors that their customers need. Sometimes the clients get a referral fee. They typically negotiate discounts that get their customers better rates, and even with the referral fees, the customer still saves money.
While this offers Paylode’s clients an alternative revenue stream by monetizing the products and services they recommend, Naumov quickly realized that it was not the most important reason. The No. 1 reason is making the client’s life easier by helping them with what they need, related to but outside of what their actual business does. This ultimately creates a better customer experience, which in turn drives core business metrics (i.e., retention, engagement, LTV, repeat purchase, and more).
In a sense, the Paylode program is like offering a perk to the customer. Naumov says, “We live in an incentive economy.” Customers love to be rewarded with a perk for doing business with a company. That perk could be, as mentioned, a negotiated discount with a secondary business. But what if you took that further and offered other perks? For example, an apartment rental company could offer six months of free internet with popular streaming channels like MAX and AppleTV. A perk like that becomes an incentive behind a customer’s buying decision, which is why Naumov has named this feature of his platform “Paylode Boost,” focusing on a perk that incentivizes a customer to take a desired action, or choose one company over another.
Companies and brands spend most of their time focused on their own business. Naumov says they have tunnel vision and makes the case for companies from all industries—both B2C and B2B—to step outside of that tunnel and think about their customers’ needs beyond the core product or service they offer. It starts by asking the question, “What new problems show up in my customers’ lives as a consequence of buying from me?”
Sit down with your team and work out the answer, and consider Naumov’s suggestion to “Help customers solve those secondary and tertiary problems in a way that creates loyalty, engagement and gratitude from your customers for life.”
Accountability begins with a voluntary commitment to put yourself in service to bringing about an outcome. To frame this effort for you and your team, I have found Salesforce’s V2MOM management system to be an invaluable tool. In that context:
Vision describes the outcome you are all in service to.
Values shape the approach you will all take to bringing it about.
Methods present what each one of you will do to achieve the outcome and are assigned to single accountable leaders.
Obstacles call out the challenges the leaders anticipate having to deal with, and
Measures are the objective signals that everyone will use to assess your degree of success.
Performance management begins with securing each individual’s voluntary commitment to the outcomes associated with their jobs to be done as well as to the values to be honored while doing it. It then moves on to review their methods, obstacles, and measures to test them for coherence, feasibility, and credibility, and to ensure each person is confident they are set up to succeed and that they want to be held accountable for that success. The day-to-day work of performance management consists of inspecting, detecting, dissecting, course-correcting, and resurrecting the stream of work to keep it on track. Most of this effort consists of self-management, supported by regular check-ins with the team leader and quarterly reviews with the higher-ups. The majority of the work is focused on the near term, but this must be balanced with investments in the mid and long-term for sustained success.
That all said, that is not what most people think of when you bring up the topic of performance management. Instead, they associate it with a mandate to manage out under-performers. The word under-performer has unfortunate connotations, and this has cast a cloud over the entire effort.
To set things straight, begin by realizing that everyone is an under-performer at something. If you are unsure about what you personally under-perform at, just ask your spouse or your children, and they will let you know. The point is, there is no shame in under-performing per se. We just don’t want to persist in it.
When it comes to the workplace, under-performance shows up as a series of repeated shortfalls in our measures despite our best efforts to overcome our obstacles by course-correcting our methods. To ignore these signals without taking remedial action is to fall prey to Einstein’s definition of insanity, namely, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Instead, one needs to intervene by invoking the “horse, rider, trail” principle. The horse is the offering, the rider is the person accountable for its success, and the trail is the target market. Changing any one of these factors will materially alter the dynamics of the situation such that you can expect a different result. Just understand that you probably won’t get to do this more than once, so choose wisely.
Finally, understand that while everyone is an under-performer at something, they are also likely to be an overachiever at something else. As a manager, you should act as a steward of your team members’ careers. If they are not the right fit for the job they are in, then both they and you need them to move on. Under-performing in this context is just nature’s way of telling us we are playing the wrong position, perhaps even playing the wrong game. Nobody likes to under-perform, and nobody is served by it. Meanwhile, our world is a needy place, so the sooner we can get people into their right roles, the better we all shall be.
That’s what I think. What do you think?
Image Credit: Pexels
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