As a customer experience professional, you are a connector by nature. You connect your organization, your brand with its customers. You act from a listening mindset: the willingness to listen, even if what you are going to hear might not match your ideas, your values, and beliefs. You know that what you are going to hear might even hurt. Yet, you listen. Because you know that what you are going to hear, will not kill you but will make you stronger. You listen because you know it will help you make the world a better place for your customers and your company.
How about non-commercial organizations like local, regional, national governmental, and semi-governmental bodies? Citizens consider themselves as tax-paying customers of their services. If they are not happy with the service provided, they do not have the alternative option to go somewhere else. They cannot go to a competitor. That makes it even more important to make them feel seen and heard. When citizens feel unheard, their shared sentiment forms a fertile breeding ground for rebellion, revolution, violence, or even anarchy.
Society could benefit from the listening mindset on which CX strategies are built, including Voice of the Customer. Therefore more CX professionals like you should find their way into organizations even more than they already do. In companies and local, regional, national, and international governments and institutions. These are the organizations that often operate at a far distance from their customers.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could take your professional listening skills to the next level by using them to infect your family, your neighbors, your colleagues, and your customers with this listening virus?
[00:00:02] You are listening to Kissing a Cactus. The podcast where experienced professionals share their insights to help you successfully capture the voice of your customer in order to improve the customer experience. Here's your host, also known as the customer listener Frans Reichardt. Have patience. The sun will return.
[00:00:41] Midsummer night's dream will be performed again. We will be able to meet and hug each other again. King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands said in his Christmas speech, he gave his audience a message of hope for the future.
[00:00:57] It's good to look ahead, although if you forget about the past you might lose the future. As a customer experience professional, you know how important it is to look back when you aim for a better future. You are curious to know what is your customer's pain.
[00:01:16] You analyze the root cause, you learn from it and you make improvements. When you look back at last year, the first thing you will see is the COVID-19 pandemic.
[00:01:29] We are actually in the middle of it as the numbers of new cases, confirmed cases and deaths are still rising. The good news is many countries have started vaccinating their citizens.
[00:01:42] Further on I will give you more good news for a brighter future and you can play a vital role in it. This pandemic is new to all of us. How many of us have ever been in a lockdown before?
[00:01:59] People have lost their business, their shop, their job and their income. The pandemic has also amplified social unrest that has been around for much longer. We have seen Black Lives Matter protests all over the world that in some cases were accompanied by eruptions of violence.
[00:02:19] The American election showed us unprecedented clashes of Democratic and Republican voters, with protesters invading the capital as a temporary low point in the first week of this year. We have seen surrealistic images as if we were watching a Steven Spielberg movie.
[00:02:38] We live in a time where reality keeps going beyond our imagination. In their struggle for survival, people tend to have stronger opinions. These strong opinions have a higher chance of clashing with other strong opinions.
[00:02:56] On social media those who are pro-vaccination fight those who are anti-vaccination and vice versa. Many feel they should have an opinion on this and they flee in the apparent certainty of their firm's standpoints. It reminds me of Simone's Euglis quote, opinions are like assholes.
[00:03:17] Everybody's got one and everyone thinks everyone else's stinks. No one seems to listen anymore. What we see in the world around us is an instinctive human response to uncertainty. Human nature resists to what makes us feel insecure and to what might even feel life-threatening.
[00:03:39] Our brain resists to what might hurt us and our reptile brain, the part of our brain that always responds first, tells us that something or someone might want to kill us. This whole brain is always in survival mode. A judge's situations and people in a split second.
[00:04:00] Is this going to hurt or even kill me? Can I eat it or can I screw it? Our instinctive response is to freeze, flee or fight. Although we do not live in caves anymore and we do not go out to hunt,
[00:04:17] our old brain has not adapted to that new reality yet. It's still focused on survival and it keeps responding accordingly. In his Christmas speech, his Majesty King William Alexander of the Netherlands also said, and I quote,
[00:04:35] Sharp debates about outspoken views or radical ideas are part of a free society. They are necessary and take us further. Those who see guidance in those views or ideas should not be excluded. But the hallmark of a free society also has space for nuance,
[00:04:57] for reason and gentleness, for curiosity and research, for irony and self-perspective and forgiveness. Forgiveness is almost an old-fashioned concept but one which is still beneficial. We humans were not created to hate each other. Unquote. Listening without judgment cannot exist without forgiveness.
[00:05:21] You can compare it to caring for a cactus. You can choose to judge the cactus for its sharp spines and ignore it. Or you can treat the cactus with attention and care, forgive it its spines and listen to what it needs. It needs light, water and food.
[00:05:38] Not too much and not too little. Enough to ensure that the cactus stays healthy and with a bit of luck will bloom for you. As a customer experience professional, you know the power of the voice of the customer.
[00:05:52] Listening to the customer helps you find out what your customers feel, think, want and need. You know that listening to the customer will show you who is happy about what and who is not.
[00:06:04] You know that your colleagues will sparkle with joy when they see the compliments customers give. At the same time you know customer feedback might hurt sometimes. But you know their feedback will help you. That is why you have learned to embrace negative feedback.
[00:06:22] Our reptile brain resists but our rational brain has managed to overrule and say, it's okay no one wants to hurt you. You have learned that customer feedback is a gift that tells you which customer feels pain, what caused it and how you can act on it.
[00:06:39] Customer feedback helps you soothe your customers pain if necessary. It helps you improve your products, your services, your processes and your people. That is what you get out of it. This coin also has another side, the customer who feels listened to.
[00:06:58] This feeling will contribute to their loyalty to your brand more than any loyalty program will ever do. General Richardson once said, people start to heal the moment they feel hurt.
[00:07:12] If customers feel unseen and unheard they are unlikely to climb the walls and stairs of your business and storm the entrance. It might be even worse. They will ignore you and silently go to your competitor. How about non-commercial organizations like local, regional, national, governmental and semi-governmental bodies?
[00:07:35] Citizens consider themselves as tax paying customers of their services. If they are not happy with the service provided they do not have the alternative option to go somewhere else. They cannot go to a competitor that makes it even more important to make them feel seen and heard.
[00:07:54] When citizens feel unheard their shared sentiment forms a fertile breeding ground for rebellion, revolution, violence or even anarchy. Society could benefit from the listening mindset on which customer experience strategies are built including voice of the customer.
[00:08:15] Therefore more customer experience professionals like you should find their way into organizations even more than they already do. In companies and local, regional, national and international governments and institutions. These are the organizations that often operate at a far distance from their customers.
[00:08:36] Customer experience professionals are connected by nature. You connect your organization, your brand with its customers. You act from a listening mindset. The willingness to listen even in what you are going to hear might not match your ideas, your values and beliefs.
[00:08:55] You know that what you are going to hear might even hurt. Yet you listen because you also know that what you are going to hear will not kill you but will make you stronger.
[00:09:06] You listen because you know it will help you make the world a better place for your customers and your company. King William Alexander also said and I quote, The soft voices also deserve to be heard. Unquote.
[00:09:24] Wouldn't it be great if we could take our professional listening skills to the next level by using them to infect our families, our neighbors, our colleagues and our customers? With this listening virus, Happy New Year's.