“I charge dead people.”
Ok, with a headline like this, I took a double take on what I was reading. The Financial Services Royal Commission continues. One Commonwealth Bank financial adviser was found charging fees to a client who died more than a decade ago. Sounds incredulous but it actually happened.
So the question is how and why did this happen? Was this not intended or fraud? Would tighter policies to govern behaviour be the answer to preventing fraud? Would fines and reduction of remuneration benefits curb unwanted behaviours? Would processes need to be fixed to prevent such errors? There is no easy answer for large organisations that risk losing control over staff and daily business activities. The Moments of Truth (MOT) for customers in this case have turned into miserable experiences.
What are Moments of Truth (MOT)?
- Moments of Truth are a Process Diagnostic
- They occur anywhere a customer “touches” a process
- They can be people-to-people, people-to- system, systems-to-people, system-to-system, and people-to-product
- Any interaction with a customer is a Moment of Truth
- Moments of Truth are both process Points of Failure and Causes of Work
The trust and purpose for MOT are destroyed for customers when organisations do them wrong. An organisation is an eco-system that delivers experiences to customers everyday. It can be positive or negative experiences. Think about certain organisations where you would dread calling the contact centre because of the experience you’ve had in the past. But what if customer experiences could be transformed, not from an ‘inside-out’ approach, but from an ‘outside-in’ perspective.
Global thought leader, BP Group founder, Steve Towers wrote a book called ‘Outside-In: The Secret of the 21st Century Leading Companies’. He says that customer-centricity is not new but how we look at customer-centricity to drive ‘successful customer outcomes’ in all business and customer interactions can shape the transformation from within. It’s about stepping into the shoes of the customers and anticipating the customer’s true need, not just the perceived want. That drives how the business will be organised from tasks, activities, outputs to outcome impacting the customers positively. It’s about looking the ‘cradle to grave’ customer engagement but from the customer’s view.
The inside-out approach may be “doing things right” but not necessarily “doing the right things”. An outside-in process is one which has been created to successfully deliver a customer outcome and has been OUTSIDE designed from the customer’s perspective. This process is likely to reduce the number of MOTs or interactions with the organisation and focus on “doing the right things”, in terms of delivering the process as part of an overall customer success strategy.
An inside-out process may be thought of as one which also provides the goods or services to the customer, but the process to provide these are viewed from the organisation’s perspective. It may be “doing things right” but not necessarily “doing the right things”. It may seek to improve the customer’s experience, but not necessarily aligned with delivering a successful customer outcome, or what the customer really wants.
A customer centric journey must be developed holistically and take a whole of business approach from strategic development and alignment; customer insights; experience design; human behaviour, motivation and performance; Centre of Excellence; and metrics.
Steve has worked with many blue-chip organisations. He has come across many organisations that claim they are customer-focused, but most fail to really put themselves in their customers’ shoes and deliver real solutions for their customers’.
The time to step to into the customers’ shoes is now. It will define the business landscape and set competitors apart simply because they could anticipate the needs and wants of the customers. Balancing their business and customer objectives.
In the coming months, IQ Group will be bringing certified Customer Experience Management (CEMMethod™) courses developed by the BP Group as part of its new learning services division, HIQ Learning Services. The CEMMethod™courses rapidly uncovers design improvements that enhances customer experiences using collaborative, adaptive and innovative methods that help organisations to be agile in change and sustaining growth.
For more enquiries about our learning services, please contact hiqls@iqgroup.com.au, or visit www.iqgroup.com.au/hiqls.
Written by Cynthia Cheong, Practice Leader for Learning and Change, HIQ Learning Services
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