German fairy tales are terrifying – much like how some leaders react to ‘bad’ CX news
This article is part of our Customer Experience Hub — a collection of articles that explore the architecture, practices, and mindset behind great CX, all grounded in real-world teaching and consulting experience.
Fairy-Tale CX Data
Rick Parrish at Forrester recently highlighted a phenomenon he calls ‘fairy-tale’ CX data—where organizations deceive themselves with inflated feedback scores and misleading operational metrics.
It’s a comforting illusion, but it’s also a dangerous one, masking the true quality of the Customer experience.
You can read Rick’s original article on his LinkedIn profile. I recommend it.
This concept struck a chord with me because, as someone who frequently delivers bad CX news to Clients through Mystery Shopper research, I’ve seen firsthand how stark the contrast can be between the comforting myths and harsh realities.
Senior leaders, often distanced from Customer realities, may find bad CX news contradicts their perceptions of what Customers go through.
We’ve seen many leaders react well when problems are uncovered. They unite people across the organization to take action to ‘fix’ what they’ve learned.
On the other side of the spectrum, you have leaders react in ways that probably hold their organizations back.
Here’s a true story from one of our Mystery Shopper programs.
Your House of Customer Research Should Have Many Windows
I like to say that when it comes to Customer research, your house should have many windows. Because the more windows your house has, the more light that shines in. Brightly illuminating what Customers want and need from you.
Qualitative research, quantitative research, smartly selected listening posts and a propensity for analysis & action.
All of these are basic elements needed to help us all see your Customer’s world more clearly.
In one of our Mystery Shopper programs, a national postal service asked us to assess a number of their Customer-facing channels including phone, email and postal mail.
For the postal mail channel, the plan required us to drop 100 letters into various mailboxes around the country on staggered dates over a 3-month period. And evaluate the replies received.
Within the first couple of weeks, our Program Manager came to me said, “Dan, we haven’t received a single reply to any of our postal mailings – just so you know.”
By the end of the 3-month research period, we had not received a single response to any of our postal mailings from the Client’s correspondence unit.
Letting the Client Know
If you’re wondering why we didn’t alert the Client earlier there were two key reasons
The point of the Mystery Shopper research for many Clients was to capture a true picture of performance in a moment of time – whether that moment was a week, month or even six months.
We learned early on to always sign an agreement with our Client, up front, about what and when to tell the Client if something cropped up that was particularly ‘bad’. Such as the use of vulgarity by one of their Team Members.
Secondly there was always consideration of what could be happening to ‘real’ Customers during the research period.
If we determined that real Customers were being negatively impacted by what we had found, we would immediately alert the Client.
One example was when a tech company’s website was found to be forwarding Chinese language emails sent from China based Customers to the U.S. for handling due to an incorrect setting in their online portal.
They fixed that within an hour of us telling them about it.
What Truly Matters
What truly matters is how leaders react when faced with these hard truths
I love Mystery Shopper – it’s where you can see if the rubber meets the road for Customers.
Did the website work? Was the salesperson helpful? Did the bank meet its regulatory requirements? Was the upsell offered? Did the car dealership have all the necessary documentation?
The list of possible scenarios to study is endless.
But I don’t think that Mystery Shopper research should ever be the only or most heavily weighted window into the Customer experience.
What we’ve seen most is that Mystery Shopper provides rich insights that can be explored more deeply using other research methods such as Customer interviews, surveys and data analytics.
This organization’s Mystery Shopper research was considered a key window into their Customer Experience. I think largely due to the fact that the overall sophistication of their Voice of Customer program – at least at that time – was relatively low.
Which meant that the Mystery Shopper program took on outsized importance for them internally.
So when we were invited in to present results, the CEO and nearly every major Department Head were there to learn how it went.
As a suggestion, you don’t present everything you learned in a lengthy face to face meeting with senior leaders.
Sometimes you only get 20 or 30 minutes to present for example.
So we would cover the highlights in person and provide a more detailed report that covered the findings and, where appropriate, the recommendations.
In our presentation, when we got to the postal mail channel and shared that we had not received a single reply, the CEO erupted, standing abruptly and berating everyone in the room.
The folks around the table looked stunned.
I think you get the drift. The fear in that conference room was palpable.
Comments On The McKinsey: The Evolution Of Customer Care Article
German Fairy Tales Are Terrifying
German fairy tales are not warm and fuzzy. They are often quite terrifying.
For example, “The Robber Bridegroom” depicts murder and cannibalism, combined with the horror of realizing that your fiancé is a serial killer.
We’ve worked with 400+ Clients to date and have seen a lot of ‘great’, ‘good’ and ‘less good’ cultures. And that leader’s reaction to the postal channel’s performance was also terrifying.
Fear at work stimulates all sorts of unhelpful reactions in people. Including denial, blame and holding back.
I don’t think fear has any place in CX.
Fear Has No Place In Delivering A Customer Experience
To be in the CX game, with an ambition to win, takes leaders with the perspective and authority to unite functions to develop and implement relevant solutions. Because only then can we make things better for Customers.
In whatever way you define and aim for ‘better’.
Then I Got an Email
A few days later I received an email from the Client
In that email, our Client contact wrote that the mistake on the postal channel must have come from our side. So they had decided to let us go from the program.
Of course as a business owner, it’s never easy to be dismissed from a program. But there was no blame to be allocated within our Team or sad heads to shake in our office.
Not every Client out there wants to know the truth of what their Customers go through.
Or as Rick Parrish tells us, they prefer the fairy-tale version of events that makes them feel better. Even while Customer problems continue to accumulate.
When You Start to Let More Light Shine In
We’ve run dozens of Mystery Shopper programs around the world. And the reaction in this particular case was definitely extreme – an outlier.
But there’s a lesson here.
As you let more light shine into your house of Customer research, prepare for what it might reveal. Resistance is inevitable, but how you handle it will determine your success.
One of the questions I learned to ask potential Mystery Shopper Clients early on was this one – Are your leaders truly ready to face the realities that more light will reveal?
Are We Becoming The CX Police?
Thank You for Reading
I regularly share stories, strategies, and insights from our work across Contact Centers, Customer Service, and Customer Experience. If this resonates, I’d love to stay connected.
You can drop me a line anytime, or subscribe via our website.
Daniel Ord
[email protected]
www.omnitouchinternational.com
