It’s summer reading season. Today, I will share seven books that are an essential summer read for anyone in business. I hope that these books will make the same impact on you that they did on me.
We shared these books on a recent podcast, chosen because we liked them a lot or, in some instances, because they changed our lives. While we can’t predict they will do the same for you with certainty, we feel that they will be helpful in the pursuit of your career goals for yourself and your Customer Experience management goals for the organizations.

The Seven Books That Changed Our Lives:

• The Experience Economy: Competing for Customer Time, Attention, and Money by B. Joseph Pine and James H. Gilmore
• The End of Average How We Succeed in a World That Values Sameness by Todd Rose
• Who Moved My Cheese? by Dr. Spencer Johnson
• Uncontrolled: The Surprising Payoff of Trial and Error for Business, Politics, and Society by Jim Manzi
• The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
• The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success by Megan McArdle
• The Intuitive Customer: 7 Imperatives For Moving Your Customer Experience to the Next Level by Colin Shaw and Ryan Hamilton

 

Let’s take a closer look at each of these, shall we?

I am learning to play guitar. However, I am not playing guitar for people. So, except for my good lady wife, no one gets to hear my latest Pink Floyd cover. That’s because we do some things in private that we don’t want other people to see. 

However, when it comes to privacy, we have very little of it these days. Someone is watching every move we make online, in our conversations near AI, and even from the patterns of our robot vacuums. The more you know, the creepier it is, from a personal perspective. So, if you collect data about your customers that they assume is private, there will likely be poor implications for your Customer Experience. 

We discussed privacy, or rather our lack of it, on a recent podcast. Many of you might know that I am a proponent of using the data you have on customers. We often encourage organizations to use the information they have collected about customers to profile their preferences and anticipate their needs using Customer Science. In short, we think profiling customers based on their data is excellent from a business perspective. 

Sometimes your Customer Experience requires you to outsource a portion of it to a third party. Maybe it’s an installer or a tow truck service, or even an entire call center, but whatever or whoever it is, this part of the experience is not under your control. Today, we will examine whether this is a good idea or not.

We discussed this topic of outsourcing on a recent podcast, where my co-host shared a story about his friend who ordered a trampoline. However, the trampoline required assembly. Since assembling things was not in her or her husband’s skill set, they hired the trampoline vendor’s installation option. Unfortunately, after the trampoline arrived, the installation did not go smoothly, and my cohost’s friends spent the next few weeks managing a series of problems with it. When they called the vendor about the issues, the trampoline vendor was not as responsive as they had hoped since the installation was the third-party company’s responsibility.

What do the European Super League failure, vaccine passports, and businesses trying to dodge taking political sides have in common. They are all part of three news stories that, believe it or not, give you insight into improving your Customer Experience.

There are many news stories that don’t seem to be about Customer Experience, but, upon second glance, really are. Each of these stories highlights some of the consequences of not being deliberate enough about the details of your Customer Experience. We discussed these stories in a recent podcast, starting with the European Super League.

What tactics do you use in your pricing strategy? There are various ways, such as running promos like “buy one, get one free,” or branding it into your customers’ minds like “everyday low prices.” Some coupons discount 20% off any item in the store or offer subscription discounts versus buying one-time that you submit at the online checkout. However, I learned that organizations make a common mistake in pricing, and you can use science to correct it.

We discussed the tactics and pitfalls of pricing strategy in a recent podcast. At first glance, the general pricing strategy seems basic: get the highest price possible that sells enough widgets to make an excellent profit. However, it turns out that there is more to pricing than that, and no surprise here, some of that extra bit is psychological.

In my early career, I never thought I could fire a customer. I felt like if a customer wanted to be a customer, I should let them. However, I have changed my opinion over the years. Now, I believe that the customer relationship goes both ways and customers that aren’t treating your organization or employees well should get sacked.

In my global Customer Experience consultancy, I have refused to work with some organizations.  I skipped their project because I didn’t feel like they were serious, and, in my experience, if an organization isn’t serious about their Customer Experience program, then it won’t be successful. I didn’t want my organization to be associated with a failure that was because of lack of commitment to the concept.

We discussed firing customers in a recent podcast. I was inspired by Frederick Reichheld’s article, “Firing a Bad Customer in 2021.” Reichheld is the author of many books on customer loyalty and invented the Net Promoter Score (NPS). Reichheld believes that taking feedback from the wrong customers makes frontline employees feel more alienated from the system of the NPS. Your frontline employees, Reichheld argues, should be empowered to choose the customers from whom they receive feedback.