For quite a while, I’ve been intending to write about motivation and customer experience, but never quite got to it. Why write now? More on that later.
With customer experience, there has been much research that has highlighted a mismatch between what companies believe they deliver and what customers think they get. And other research has shown a mismatch between how customer-focused we believe we are as individuals versus how customer-focused we believe our company is. The common thread is that while we believe being customer-focused is critically important, we are not sufficiently motivated to invest enough in improving the customer experience.
Megan Burns at Forrester highlighted this in her blog article at the end of last year. This neatly frames the problem as being like eating healthily and taking exercise: we know it is good for us, but we still don’t manage to do enough of it. The answer from Megan is to look at making it easier to take action, by addressing the problem in smaller, more digestible chunks. This addresses the how, but not the underlying motivational problem.
Dan Pink highlights the intrinsic drivers for motivation in his excellent presentation “The surprising truth about what motivates us”, nicely brought to life in this RSA Animation. In essence, there are three pillars to motivation: Autonomy (the desire to be self-directing), Mastery (the desire to take on new challenges) and Purpose. Why are your executives not motivated enough to put the right level of focus on customer experience? Why am I not eating healthily enough or doing enough exercise? As Dan Pink points out, the stick approach (for example, you will die or your business will die if you don’t invest time in this) will probably not work. Nor will the carrot, as monetary rewards for resolving complex issues actually drive down performance.
There needs to be a strong sense of purpose alongside challenges that will be fulfilling. Perhaps your business should see the challenges of mastering new ways of reaching and reacting to customers, using new technologies such as mobile and social, as key motivators for delivering a better customer experience. And alongside this, you will need to have and to communicate a clear sense of purpose for improving the customer experience. Not a profit motive, as Dan Pink warns, but a purpose that has real meaning for your executives, your employees and your customers.
As I am about to embark on a new role heading product management at voice-of-the-customer specialist Confirmit, I personally have a new sense of purpose to communicate and seek feedback on my thoughts and observations from over 30 years in technology businesses. I think aligning everyone with the same sense of purpose has real power, and is key to delivering an improved customer experience. Do you agree?
Terry Lawlor 
Voice of the customer! Perfect post. I used to work in quality control. The number times I saw specifications that were written with a bias towards what the company felt they could deliver, rather than what the customer wanted was astounding. Now with instant feedback via twitter and blogging, we CANNOT AFFORD NOT to touch base with our customers. What do they really think? What do they want? Take amazon forums for example. Before buying, you read the customer reviews. This approach by the customer, researching what the product is really like by asking other customers, is a normal part of buying these days. If companies don’t get on board, don’t listen to the customer’s voice, don’t encourage feedback with forums, and by researching blogs and online reviews, well then they are at a serious disadvantage and better hope that their product is fantastic!