10 Practical ideas to get the Senior Executive’s closer to the Customer

I recently wrote a blog on the 5 ways to gain Senior Executive ‘buy in’ to your Customer Experience. Since then I have been asked a number of questions about how you can get senior executives closer to the customers so they can understand their own Customer Experience in more depth.

Here are ten practical ideas I have seen companies implement with their senior executives.

Ask the senior exec member to:

1. Deal with one Customer complaint a week from start to finish.
2. Listen to recordings of calls from the call centre, read social media or customer’s emails each week.
3. Sit with people from the call centre and listen to calls or visit Customers with Account Managers.
4. Take part in ‘speed dating’ sessions with Customers – Speed dating is where you have multiple Customers in a room and all execs. The execs then have 5-10 minutes with each Customer on different topics. They then move to the next Customer. When we do this the facilitation of the discussion after is all important. Also this can be video recorded and used around the organization to show that the senior execs are engaged.
5. Undertake Study Tours – This is something we have undertaken with many senior execs, they have highly valued discussions with counterparts who have been in similar circumstances to them. Visiting with other organizations on a similar journey or visiting great exponents of Customer Experience.
6. Buddying with people on the front line – Exec’s have a call each week/month to discuss key customer issues.
7. Establish fictitious accounts so exec’s can act as a customer of their own organization without being recognised.
8. Record their own personal experiences outside of work and debate them with the Customer Experience team.
9. Phone Customers proactively and ask them what they think of their experience.
10. Phone Customers who have given a low Customer Satisfaction or Net Promoter Score® (NPS®).

Clearly the challenge is all of this takes time and time is the most valuable commodity we have; therefore their willingness will show their real commitment to the Customer Experience. Any further ideas would be gratefully received!