Customer Experience

Customer Experience, Insight and Innovation

Showing the Plumbing

When you’re stuck in the inner processes of an organisation, being a customer can feel a lot like trying to complete a level of Mario.

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…

You Get What You Pay For

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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…

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.

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.

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…

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…

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…

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?

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

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…

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…