Welcome to “Let’s Talk Loyalty” – an industry podcast for loyalty marketing professionals. I’m your host, Paula Thomas and if you work in loyalty marketing, join me every week to learn the latest ideas for loyalty specialists around the world. The loyalty industry continuously evolves. One area I keep hearing so much about is CX or customer experience. And it’s been such a huge talking point in all of the interviews I’ve done in the last year or two that last year I decided to go ahead and do a certificate in CX with the CX Academy.
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And then I liked that so much. I decided I needed to do a whole show about it. Michael Coleen is the founder and CEO of the CX Academy. So last year he joined me on the show to explain the origins of the discipline and really how fundamental he thinks it is for the future of almost every business. The first insight that Michael shared was a massive expectations gap, where research is showing that 88% of CEOs believe they are delivering an exceptional customer experience in their businesses. But actually when you ask customers just 8% of them agree.
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So there really is this massive expectations gap that businesses need to understand and to address. He explained to me the whole concept of CX as an advanced business discipline, very separate to loyalty marketing, but has he described it? The two disciplines are almost joined at the hip. So while we in loyalty, marketing are usually associated with things like points or stamps or prizes CX takes commercial relationships to a whole other level and focuses simply on how customers feel after they’ve interacted with the company. So what are their experiences in the context of their initial expectations?
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Michael shared his view that marketing and loyalty professionals these days are often not even invited to sit at the boardroom table, but because CX is such a beautiful discipline, it’s firmly focused on driving a return on investment for both acquisition and retention, and therefore is getting a whole different level of awareness and respect. Having initially offered consulting support around customer experience. Michael’s team ended up in fact pivoting to focus on customer experience education, really because there was just so much demand in this whole area. He explained to me that CX actually emerged from research around the whole area of NPS or net promoter score, which we all know and love.
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And from research with over two and a half million customer interviews, it really gave some clarity around what are the key drivers that customers want to feel in order to recommend your business to their friends and family. So there are six drivers that were identified and I’ll quickly mention them here for you. Obviously you can listen to the full show to understand them in more detail. The first is I trust you. Secondly, you know, me, thirdly, how easy is it for me to do business with you? The fourth driver is whether I feel like you really actually get me the fifth one is whether I think you deliver on your promise.
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And finally, and perhaps most importantly, how well do you fix things when they go wrong? Now, Michael, I had a lovely phrase around this whole area, which I really thought was a lovely insight. Michael basically said that this area of complaints is where a company has an opportunity to be heroic. In closing, Michael explained that actually when customers are upset or disappointed, in fact only one in eight are likely to complain. Seven out of eight are more likely to leave and not even tell you so as loyalty professionals or in this case, CX professionals, there are huge opportunities to ensure that customers can in fact end up feeling more loyal after you’ve sorted an issue out for them than perhaps they ever felt to your brand.
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Before there really are so many lessons that I learned from Michael in this episode. So if you like this whole idea of CX, I really recommend you listen to the interview. It’s episode number 22 on let’s talk loyalty. This show is sponsored by The Wise Marketeer, the world’s most popular source of loyalty marketing news, insights, and research
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The Wise Marketeer also offers loyalty marketing training through its Loyalty Academy, which has already certified over 170 executives in 20 countries as Certified Loyalty Marketing professionals. For more information, check out thewisemarketeer.com and loyaltyacademy.org. Paula Thomas (43:44): Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty. If you’d like me to send you the latest show each week, simply sign up for the show newsletter on letstalkloyalty.com and I’ll send you the latest episode to your inbox, every Thursday. Or, just head to your favorite podcast platform, find Let’s Talk Loyalty, and subscribe. Of course, I’d love your feedback and reviews, and thanks again for supporting the show.
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