Customer Experience, Insight and Innovation

CX Case Study – Apple
What happens when it doesn’t just work?

Track, Trace, and Race
Managing expectations well can relieve a lot of worry and stress. But the best companies do it in a way that creates fun and excitement, too…

Time to Say Goodbye?
One kitchen, several builders, and a reminder that organisations should be saving customers time, not demanding it.

End As You Mean to Go On
My list of impulse lockdown purchases is impressive, and one reminded me that if companies make it too hard for customers to leave, then they’re unlikely to ever come back.

Stand By Me
Before lockdown hit, I went shopping with a customer to see whether how she said she shopped actually had any correlation to how she behaved. Spoiler alert: it didn’t.

An update from the CEO of every company you know
Hello I’m Martin, Mike, Dave, Roger, and David, and I’m the CEO of a company you’ve used occasionally in the past. I’m sorry I’ve not been in touch before. I thought you’d prefer to read our automated emails about our latest offers on all the things you can buy from us. And who wants to…

Own it, Explain it, Solve it: What Swiss Rail teaches us about exceptional problem resolution
A delayed train in Switzerland, and the response of staff, show how an understanding of a customer’s emotions is as important as delivering on the promised function.

Being Customer-led During the Covid Crisis
Through the deluge of emails from corporate CEO’s, one thing has become clear – the best businesses put humanity first.

You Get What You Pay For
What the British fascination with queueing can teach us about the changing nature of ‘premium’ customers

Big Little (Brand) Lies
Telling people what your brand will deliver is important. But delivering it is even more so.

It’s The Thought That Counts
Complaints aren’t a gift. They’re a massive inconvenience for everyone involved.

Money to Burn
A good experience is great for customers and a cost-saver for organisations – whereas bad customer experience can be expensive to provide.

Everything Changes But… Everything
We’re all obsessed that everything is changing – when really almost everything is staying the same.

Stand and Deliver
Stringent policies and procedures frustrate your colleagues and customers alike. Often the best customer experiences come when employees feel they can stand in front of the rules.

The Two Headed People Challenge
Getting people to like your brand doesn’t always start with a flashy advert. In fact, it could start with their CV.

Move Fast And Break… The Law
Throughout history, the close relationship between innovation and illegality has created great progress – and a great headache for the incumbents and regulators.

Scooters, Stomachs, and Screentime: Welcome to the World in 2019.
The future’s already here… with a summary of the best (and worst) of the 2019 trends reports.

Show Me The Money
Good customer experience leads to commercial success. And that means making it easy for customers to join you.

The Human Touch
Companies spend huge amounts of time and money stopping their people from being human – yet being human is exactly the thing that makes for a great customer experience

The Myth of Customer Loyalty
As soon as a company stops being useful, customers leave. And that’s why customer loyalty is a myth.

Sorry Seems to be the Easiest Word
We’re in the midst of an epidemic of apology – and the result is that customers are losing respect for big companies.

Welcome to the age of DIY customers (guest post)
Self-service checkouts, airport check-in, customer feedback requests… why is it so hard to be a customer nowadays?

Things can only get…worse?
We live in a world that is perfecting the functional experience at the expense of the emotional experience.

Customer Experience – WARC interview
I really hope you enjoy this article. If you did, I’d love you to subscribe to my blog at johnjsills.com/subscribe to get new thoughts sent to you on an infrequent basis, and find me on twitter @johnJsills. The lovely team at WARC (@WARCeditors) recently asked me for my thoughts on Customer Experience. It was part of their 2018…

Inevitable Innovation
If you want to keep up with your customers, stop delaying the inevitable and instead do something about it.

The Lost Art of Aftersales
Want your customers to recommend you? Maybe stop ruining their experience with your incessant feedback requests…

The Human Compass
How do you find real human insight? Explore what people say, do, search for, and shout about…

Design for the 99(%)
Want to give your customers a better experience? Maybe take a leaf out of Amazon’s book and stop treating them like criminals.

Power to the People
Want your customers to love you? Then start by making sure your employees at least like you…

Back to the Future
Looking for great customer insight to help come up with better ideas? It’s all in the…
timing.

(It’s not) All About the Money
Giving customers money when they complain will make them go away, but might also mean they don’t come back…

See No Evil, Hear No Evil… (guest post)
A good friend of mine shares his story about how his company lost touch with their customers, and are now reaping the rewards of finding them again…

‘The Great Acceleration’ by Robert Colvile
There are many books written about new technology, and there are many books written about human nature. But this book manages to be one of the few that successfully combines both…

Doubling the Dots
Want to come up with better ideas? Get more parts on the table…

The Effortless Economy
I was recently reminded of how crucial effortlessness is in creating a brilliant
customer experience, whether that company be an old dog, or a Silicon Valley pup full of new tricks…

The Thick End of the Wedge
What can a failed newspaper teach us about the importance of truly understanding what customers want?

Unpredictable individualism
People will choose the most useful option for them in that moment – and may choose differently every time. Welcome to the world of customer divergence.

One step back, two steps forward
It’s never been more easy to be techno-dazzled, and so never more important to understand the things that won’t change…

Teaching new dogs old tricks
Think slick Silicon Valley start-ups always trounce the analogue old guard at customer experience? Think again…

If I only had a heart…
With the rise of the robots imminent, a return to Oz can remind us about what’s at the heart of great customer experiences…

It’s Not Me, It’s You
If a customer makes a mistake, it’s the companies fault for making it possible for a mistake to be made. Welcome to Customer Experience in 2016…

Trends Reunited
So Friends Reunited is no more. But it leaves us with lessons in social networking, online stalking, and the importance of keeping an eye on the trends shaping the world we live in.

Goggles, Heartbeats, and Novelty Socks. Welcome to 2016.
The future’s made of Virtual Reality, surrounded by beard-less Hipsters and colourful socks. Here’s my summary of the 2016 trends reports…

The Descent to Average
Why do so many great ideas disappear into nothingness? The dreaded descent to average…

In Search of Certainty
I recently ordered a large plate of nachos. And that got me thinking about the need for certainty in our lives, whether as a customer, a career-planner, or a commuter…

The Way You Make Me Feel
If it’s true that the only thing that matters in life is how you make people feel, then what does this mean for a purposeful career and a customer-led company?

Design With The End In Mind
Once you see it, you can’t un-see it. Another example of the importance of certainty in the world of customer experience…

Three Lessons From the Future of Travel
What will travel look like in 2025? I’m placing my money on month-long holidays, entertaining airports, and try-before-you-fly…

The Shifting Balance of Power
As customer-led becomes the norm for companies, what does that mean for the balance between customer and business? Clue: the customer isn’t always right…

You Know You’re a Child of the 2010’s When…
This week, the future finally crash-landed into the present. So here’s a few sure signs that you grew up in the 2010s…

The Unexpected Brilliance of Cash-Only Experiences
How is it that a cash-only restaurant in the middle of London can be so successful? It’s all about the customer experience…

Next Generation Innovation
Three things I learnt about next-generation innovation from watching successful student start-ups…

Stop, Look, and Listen
What happens when you take your headphones out and listen to the world around you? If you’re on a Chiltern Railways train, quite a lot, it seems…

Scarcity by Sendhil Mullainathan & Eldar Shafir
17 reasons why life is great, remembering a time before Google, and making the most of what we’ve got…

Smarter Insurance
Customer expectations of insurance are being shaped by their experiences in other sectors. Here’s how…

The (Christmas) Tipping Point
In amongst the Mariah, Macaulay, and Mistletoe madness in the lead up to Christmas, one thing is rarely mentioned – giving a little extra to the men and women who bring things to our houses when we’re too lazy to stand, walk, and get it ourselves.

An Evening of Behavioural Science with the ITC
On Thursday night, I had the pleasure of attending a small event in a delightful Art Gallery, hosted by the Independent Transport Commission – how can we use Behavioural Science to inform transport policy?

The Made-up Theory of Structured Flexibility
How do you create great experiences for customers, colleagues, and yourself? Have a direction, but give yourself freedom…

The Greatest Taxi Firm the World Has Ever Seen
Dealing with those small human moments that provide stress or worry will have a big impact on your customers’ experience…

Human content in a digital world
The best content needs to not only be good, but human. That’s possible by being interesting, positive, and relevant…

There’s No Time Like the Future
It’s easy to predict that the future will arrive, but it’s far harder to predict what it will look like. So why should we try guess what’s going to happen – and how can doing so help us be, well, better?

The Power of Perspective
Understanding the other person’s perception is vital, whether you’re serving customers, running a team, or just trying to be efficient. So why do so many people find it so hard?

The Future’s Bright, The Future’s Human
So the world has changed, life has changed, we’ve all gone digital and we don’t know why we make most of the decisions we do. But the experience is increasingly what people pay for, with the best experiences retaining a human element

The World According to Trailfinders
Trailfinders are the best Travel Agents in the world – because they understand the importance of the human touch…

The trouble with Treating Customers Fairly
Why are we so obsessed by treating customers fairly? Does it matter? And what is ‘fair’, anyway?

Why I Love Chiltern Railways
Ok, I admit it. I love Chiltern Railways. But when you read why, you’ll want to move to Buckinghamshire and travel with them too…

How to Solve a Problem Like Innovation
People love talking about innovation, but often get lost in a myriad of post-it notes and white-walled workshops. Here’s how to do it better…

The Paradox of Choice – Barry Schwartz
We all want more choice, but we all hate making decisions. So what’s the answer? Read on…

Great Expectations
Remember how disappointed you were with that Oscar-winning film? Maybe if it hadn’t have won, you’d have enjoyed it more…