How do people experience you?

 Hi everyone.  Today, I want to apply the concepts of customer experience to career progression.  "Experience" has been a heavily used buzzed word for the past decade.  Corporate functions and consulting offerings have been built around customer experience.  The idea is that a customer's experience heavily influences purchase decisions.  As an Omni-channel consumer (catalog, online, app enabled, and in store), I wholeheartedly agree.  If I am frustrated by my experience at a store, a website or an app, then I will less likely complete my transaction or shop there again. 

I had conversation recently with a retired executive.  We discussed how people's experience of an individual greatly influences his or her career progression, especially at the executive level.  Most executive development programs include psychiatric and 360 assessments to help participants benchmark themselves against behavioral models and explore observation and feedback from others.  The first time I participated in these assessments, I was humbled to find out that people’s experiences of me were different (in good ways and bad) than my own perception.  

So let's explore five major customer experience metrics and apply them to career progression:

1.) Net Promoter Score – This is arguably the most important metric when it comes to customer experience.  It is a score that answers the question, "Would you recommend this provider, product or service to someone else?"  

Executives will make sure their peers are comfortable with their protégés before recommending them as successors.  They will build the “net promoter score” case for promotion by allowing the other executives to "experience" their protégés’ capabilities.  It is important for the protégés to come off  as equals with the other executives with the right tone and presence.

2.) Response time – Another key metric to customer experience is response time.  Like me, you can probably think of a few people at work that you turn to regularly because they respond quickly.  You can probably also identify a few people that  you have reservations about because they only responds when you CC the right person or name drop, or never respond at all.  This is a very interesting metric to crowd source because while you may think your response time is appropriate, others may disagree.

3.) Problem resolution and reliability – Obviously, the more positive experiences people have around your problem resolution skills and reliability, the better.  I have had some hard lessons learned here.  At a certain level, you become the face of quality issues.  This is true even if there are legitimate reasons and other parties that were directly responsible for the issues.  Problems are sticky, especially for people who have a tendency for having blind spots.  They will recall their experience of you for all the wrong reasons for a very long time.  It is important to resolve issues quickly and rebuild trust by delivering issue free experiences going forward.

Keep it real – if you ever had the experience of receiving a cheap imitation of the product advertised online, then you know that people will share negative reviews of you with others if they discovered that you were not authentic.  

4.) Contact volume – Are you interacting enough to develop a "relationship" with your customers?  The depth of people's experience of you will depend on the frequency with which you have had meaningful interactions with them.  I have heard positive feedback about leaders who are known for spending the effort to interact with their constituents.  I have also heard negative experiences from employees who felt their supervisors only came around once in a while, usually with one-sided constructive feedback.  It is important for you to strategize and plan meaningful interactions that will improve people's experience of you.

5.) Relationship economics – Who are you focused on when you are interacting with others?  Clearly, people's experience of you will be much more positive if it results in something of value to them - business benefits, reputation, advice, information, connections, job opportunities, etc.   Information is an interesting one.  I have had some very frustrating experiences when I cannot quickly find the information that I needed to make a purchase decision.  Think about how others experience your ability to provide useful information to them.  Are you articulate?  Do you respond with the right information with the right level of detail?

As I took you through this analogy, I found myself gravitating to the importance of having an open dialog about how others experience you.  In the past, I have made the mistake of leaving a lot of things unspoken.  Why make waves?  Why force uncomfortable dialog?  Unfortunately, when there is no open dialog, all the bad experiences end up festering and sticking to our brand.  All of our bad habits become more solidified because they are not being called out as areas needing improvement.  So, it is good idea to schedule self-assessments and solicit feedback from your own board of advisers.  

That's it for now, thanks for reading.  Go out there and get your 'likes' and '5 stars.'  Please comment with your thoughts and share with your networks if you found this post to be helpful.

Stay cheesy,

The Rambunctious Rat