Listen to Customers, Grow Your Business

Are you using what you learn to actually design a better experience?

Published: Thursday, October 15, 2015 - 14:14

Are you listening to your customers? Do you understand what they’re trying to achieve? Are you using what you learn to actually design a better experience for them?

I was thrilled to be interviewed by Leah Berry and to a be part of her 30 Experts in 30 Days series; she asked me questions about employee experience and customer experience, of course, but from a variety of different angles.

We really covered a lot of territory in the interview, but the main questions Leah posed were based on some previous blog posts that I’ve written.

Please have a listen to our interview; it was a fun conversation. I enjoyed answering all of the questions, and as I mentioned, Leah pulled her questions from some previous posts I wrote. I’ve linked to the relevant post for each of the topics we covered below. Check out the links/previous posts for more details around our conversation, but watch the interview first! (It’s about 35 minutes long.)
• Transforming your current customer state to a desired future customer state
• Doing the real work, not busy work
• How to engage employees and create a better customer experience
• Common mistakes to avoid when creating customer journey maps
• The benefits of raving fans
• Strengthening our customer’s memory of our brand
• Innovating to fit our customers’ needs
• How to understand the customer’s perspective
• Improving the employee experience

To accompany this interview, Leah provides some great resources for you. I love that she prepared a tip sheet (in addition to the tip infographic, above) for you to download and use to put your learnings into action. In addition to our Google Hangout interview, you'll find
• An audio recording of the interview
• The transcription of the interview (for those who prefer to read the interviews)
• A “top tips” document (to help you remember the key points from the interviews)
• A “take action” worksheet (to help you put the knowledge into action)

Have a look. Have a listen. And come back and feel free to ask me any questions you might have. Thank you!

“The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them.”
—Ralph Nichols

First appeared Sep. 29, 2015, on the CX Journey blog.

About The Author

Annette Franz

Annette Franz, CCXP is founder and CEO of CX Journey Inc. She’s got 25 years of experience in both helping companies understand their employees and customers and identifying what drives retention, satisfaction, engagement, and the overall experience – so that, together, we can design a better experience for all constituents. She's an author (she wrote the book on customer understanding!), a speaker, and a customer experience thought leader and influencer. She serves as Vice Chairwoman on the Board of Directors of the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA), is an official member of the Forbes Coaches Council, and is an Advisory Board member for CX@Rutgers.