So you want to grow your business in 2009? This is the first in a sometimes-series at Maximum Customer Experience called Building Your Business. Glad to have you along!

You’re committed to creating a better Customer Experience, because you know that your customers will be more loyal, buy more from you, and spread fantastic word-of-mouth about your company if their Experience with your company makes you one in a million.

Where do you start?

Start with a map

When you want to get to a new destination, you take out a map that shows where you are now, and where you want to get to. You plot out the route, and you start driving.

(I know, I know, you use MapQuest and it does all the messy work for you. Humor me!)

What was that first step? Take out a map. It has to show you where you are now, or there’s no hope of getting where you want to go.

When I work with your company, the first thing I want to do is to create a map of your current Experience. We call this an Interactive Experience map, but hey, you can call it Fred if you like. That’s just our fancy term for “mapping out all the interactions your company has with your customers and potential customers.”

To go where your VisionPoints with great Experience Design, you need to know where you are now.

What goes on your map

For your map, you’re going to write down everything that can happen between you and your customer, start to finish. Depending on your business, this may include:

Pre-Sale (aka Prospecting or Lead gathering)

Advertising/ marketing methods

Telephone, web, in-person service

Sales calls, presentations, follow-up

Sale

Point-of-sale interactions (Cashier or waitstaff, for instance)

Order processing

Delivery (of product or service)

Post-sale

Thank-yous

Follow-up (Gauging/ ensuring customer satisfaction)

Re-sales, cross-sells, up-sells (Encouraging repeat business)

Ways of encouraging referrals/ word-of-mouth

Thanks, Kelly, all done!

No, no. My list tells you what will go on your map. Now you’ll need to write down, specifically, what your company does in each of these areas. What do you do to generate leads? Who handles your telephones or your email? How do you handle presentations, and what kind of follow-up do you do?

All down the list, until you know, start to finish, every interaction an interested party may have with you, from when she’s a lead in your “pipeline” until she’s a joyous Propheteer, spreading the word about you.

You’ll be surprised at how many opportunities to improve your Customer Experience you’ll see through the simple act of creating this map. You may find you’re skipping steps, you may find you’re operating in ways that don’t further your Vision. You’ll discover your strengths, too.

Map the entire Experience: Pre-sale, Sale, Post-sale.

Now you’re ready to drive forward at Maximum speed in 2009.

(And hey, if you’d rather hire VisionPoints and let us do the messy work for you… well, email me!)

Let’s look at it from the customer point of view—when you’re buying, where do you see companies hitting (or missing) the mark? How can you relate that to the map of your own company’s Customer Experience?

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

Adequate, reasonable, sufficient, satisfactory, good, fine, nice, pleasing, lovely, fantastic, awesome, magical.*

Go ahead, describe:

Your last three dining experiences

Your last three shopping experiences

Your last three doctor’s visits

Your last three new hires

Get critical and describe:

Your last three telephone conversations with a customer

Your last three client presentations

Your last three (printed) self-promotions

Your last three blog posts

And just for fun:

Your last three boyfriends (girlfriends)

Your last three rush-hour drives

Your last three vacations

Your last three desserts

Is it just me, or are we not giving, and not getting, good enough?

Grow and be awesome,

Kelly Erickson

*The astute among you will note that I didn’t include any negative terms, just a spectrum from merely “meh” to “wow.” If you need a lower scale to describe your last three rush hours, you probably live near me. Hi, neighbor!

So, there’s the deadline. When you want to be done with the project, so you can get on to the next one. Then there’s The Deadline: When the boss, the client, or even you yourself, says you must be done with the project.

With me so far?

The deadline passed Thursday. I needed to be done. I wasn’t letting the client down, not That Deadline, but there were other projects waiting on this. I wanted to bust it out in case the other things took longer.

Instead, this took longer.

And when I say longer, what I mean is, late weeknights. A week or two of late weeknights had already been put in. All day Saturday. All night Saturday. Around 2:00 Sunday, morning, I finally finished, after every technical glitch possible had plagued me Wednesday-Thursday-Friday-Saturday. On the weekdays, people knew the general direction I was going, but with technical stuff causing steam to come out of my ears, let’s just say people kindly left me alone. Then on Friday night and Saturday, it was me and my sofa.

Sunday morning it was beautiful. The sun was shining, the work looked awesome, I felt brilliant. I expanded on the concept; I tweaked, I puttered, I admired.

Monday morning, someone asked if she could look at it.

“That’s not the direction we agreed on.”

“It’s not? Well, it’s pretty darned beautiful, though, isn’t it? It’s gonna rock.” You may be assured that “darned” is not the word I used. I was feeling a bit defensive.

“It’s kinda, umm, not ugly, but not right for this industry.”

I’ll proudly say that this conversation does not happen very often. In fact, this particular one is a couple of years old now. But as I worked on a project until the wee hours this past Saturday night, I remembered it all too well. When I knew I was getting high on my work, I put it down, unfinished. I’ll work on it after I’ve gotten some distance from it. Even Experience Designers need Perspective now and again.

Don’t fall in love, folks. Get that outsider’s eye. Let someone else fall in love. Then you’ll know.

Have you ever busted your hump to make the best, most incredible [insert product of your industry here], only to discover you’d gotten too close and fallen in love with a dud?

Hmm. Now that I look at it, this one is pretty rockin’.

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

If you enjoyed this post, feel free to link to it, Stumble, Digg, or otherwise bookmark using the “Share” button below. And be sure to subscribe to the MCE Blog, so you’ll hear all about it the next time I fall in love.

Many studies have reported that customers who have a problem resolved to their satisfaction are more loyal than customers who’ve never had a problem at all. Immediate problems with a transaction, you know you need to fix right away—make it easy to register more general complaints, too. Why listen to your customers’ complaints?

• You’ll learn from what they have to say
• They’ll feel a lot better
• You might actually resolve the issue

In-person, by telephone, online form, or email, even *gasp* by snail mail if they’d like to. Make it easy. Give customers the opportunity to tell you what needs fixing, and call it cheap outside Perspective.

Think about how you feel when someone listens to you about the pothole in the parking lot—you know it’s not the guy who’s going to fix it, but the fact that the manager listens, responds, and writes something down makes you respect the company, doesn’t it?

A company that seems unafraid of facing complaints tends to receive fewer, and gets bonus points in the customer’s mind for being willing to take the heat. Customers feel free to say their piece and go on instead of letting resentment build up.

See this as a compliment; the customer cares about your company enough to say something rather than walking out forever.

What do you think about companies who hide their complaint department—How far are you willing to go to get through to them, and does it influence your future buying decisions? Does your company do it better than most?

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

• No rush…
• When you get a chance…
• Do you think you could…?
• Are you busy?
• Would you do me a favor?
• Sorry about [the short notice, adding to your workload, etc.]
• …just…
• …only…

Do you find yourself using these phrases with your staff on a regular basis?

Even (an overused) “please” can sneak up on you, making you look weak, apologetic, and indecisive.

With one supervisor, I fought back against this talk. Did my boss really think I was that incompetent or slow, or was it her own problem? “No problem, right away” was my constant response. I even told her straight out more than once, “I work for you. Not when I get a chance, when you get a chance!”

Most employees won’t be so kind. You think you’re overworking me? Okay! That means I can do less! And you’ve created a productivity-sucking monster. By being “nice.”

“Listen, friend,” I once said, joking with another former boss. He looked at me funny, then very sharply said, “You are not my friend.” At the time, I was offended. I mean, we were kidding around—what a time to go serious! (A few months later I asked him about it. “Remember that time….” Nope. He didn’t recall.)

I never forgot it, and I’ve continued to learn from and teach with that offhand zinger since then. He was right, and I knew it. That’s why it hurt. Your boss is not your friend.

Break free from the Big Suck

So if you’re the boss, how do you get out of this trap?

1. Say it out loud. Here’s the policy, I’ve gotten away from it. You are not my friend.

2. Stop apologizing. You pay folks to do what needs to be done. Period.

3. Grow balls. There’s no other way to say it. If you’re a wimp, your staff will walk all over you, costing your company time and money. It’s human nature to take liberties when we know we can, so end it today. You aren’t running a business to make friends with your staff.

Would you do me a favor? I was wondering if you have “nice” phrases that create a productivity-sucking monster in your workplace? I’m only looking for a comment or two…

UGH! Sound off below. How does “nice”—yours or others’—mess up your productivity? What’s it all about?

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

P.S. If you’re a solopreneur thinking “this one’s not about me,” think again. These same phrases come out in your writing and your conversations with friends, family, and suppliers, and they convince people you aren’t headed for the big time. Because you seem to think that about yourself. You are still the head of your growing company, even if you have only you to manage right now. You’ll never need step 1, if you make steps 2 and 3 part of your day now.

P.P.S. “Just.” It’s the one that I have to watch out for. As in, “I just need,” or “I was just thinking.” When Kelly goes wimpy and waffly, “just” is usually close by. Just don’t point it out, okay?

100% Pure Shoe Leather

One of my goals for the blog this year is to have a more direct connection with what smaller business owners and managers are facing right now in creating Maximum Customer Experience. I recommend a lot of strategic research for clients, including one-on-one interviews with stakeholders, customers, and prospective customers. So on my own advice, I’ve been hitting the road for the 2008 Interview Series. To take part there’s one criterion: you must be a Delaware or Pennsylvania small business owner.

I live and work north of Wilmington, Delaware. Though clients are not always local, this is where I am both a practitioner, and like you, a consumer, of Experience Design. I have my eyes and ears open everywhere I go. If I spot changes within a business, see new signage, or if a whole new business pops up, I’m taking notes and checking into it on the Internet, as a designer and as a curious local. I read the local business paper, the newspapers, I keep an eye on local blogs. Staying sharp on local companies is part of my job.

The first article in the Interview Series is a piece on encouraging word-of-mouth in the real world. Most of the interview subjects I chose because I am a customer and a fan of the company; some, simply because I have followed their story and want to know more about their progress.

In early April, I started (driving and) walking. For every business on my carefully chosen list, I walked in and introduced myself: [Ask for owner by name, then] “Hi, I’m Kelly Erickson. I write a local blog called Maximum Customer Experience, and I’d really like to interview you.”

Why me?

This tickled some folks pink, and made others skeptical. Why me? Easy to answer, since I really meant it. I explained exactly why them. For most that was enough, and they too moved to the tickled pink stage.

Great so far. I’ve done quite a bit of interviewing, and I know most people are happy to be asked their opinions about their work. (How do I do as an interviewer? I’m enthusiastic, friendly, and a nervous wreck. It’s a thrill.) With nothing “in it for me” except a genuine interest in how they do business, most owners accepted the invitation.

So, what happened?

Only one said, “Now’s a great time.” We sat right down and began. Good thing I prepped before each visit!

About two-thirds set a date and a time, and I returned to do the interview.

The other third set a date to get back to me with a time that worked for them, or agreed to email me their responses. I don’t care for the email option because you can’t take a conversation in a new direction as you talk, but I have great respect for the time these owners are taking for me, so of course I said yes.

Having chosen my time of day wisely, only a few owners were not there when I stopped in. For these I left a card with a member of their staff, printed with the Interview Series information, and a handwritten note on it explaining my interest in interviewing them.

Ready to wear out your own shoe leather? Remember these lessons:

All of the people I made an appointment with, were there and ready to go on the day I came back. I told everyone I would take up less than thirty minutes of their time (and had material for only a twenty-minute interview to make sure I respected that), yet each interviewee thought of more and more associations, and every one kept me for longer than the time I’d promised!

Lesson 1: Get brave and get out there. Face-to-face works!

None of the folks who said they would get back to be with a time or an email interview, did so. After the date we’d agreed to had passed, I sent a polite email asking if they were still interested in participating. Still, none of these owners got back to me.

Lesson 2: “Get back to you on that” is probably NO, in code.

Of the owners I was not able to personally meet and express my interest to, not one contacted me. Again, I sent a polite, personal email as follow-up (and in case they’d never been given the information), and still received no responses.

Lesson 3: See Lesson 1! If you need a YES, you need to be face-to-face with the decision maker.

All of the owners who chose the “get back to me” or email-interview option (and then didn’t) were men.

Lesson 4: I don’t know lesson 4. This is the part that has me baffled. If you’re wondering, the introductory conversations I had with these owners were just as warm, they were just as pleasantly surprised, and seemed just as eager to be part of the interviews.

I know, you don’t want to do interviews, you want to interest prospects in your store, your product, or your service. You want to make your company better known. Networking in this personal way will make your company better known. Do your homework, find an engaging way to introduce yourself, and make your first visit to a prospective customer a time for you to find out more about them. Ask for permission to stop back again, and repeat the process. Be knowledgeable, be interested, and be creative. Do not try to sell while introducing yourself; try to learn.

Remembering that this was a small sampling of local business owners and very unscientific—IS there a lesson 4? Do you think there is a reason why male owners (a) mainly chose the “get back to me” option, and then (b) to a man, didn’t? Is it gender or coincidence?

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

Brand Propheteers: 10 Ways to Get the People You Already Know to Rave About Your Firm, first in the 2008 Interview Series, is coming up at the end of April.

Don’t miss the series! Subscribe to the Maximum Customer Experience Blog for free, and get email or RSS updates using the subscription area at top left.

Why do the most common musical chords include three notes?

Because one or two is boring and repetitive, and more than three may be asking for trouble unless you’re a seasoned pro. Too much “noise” for your brain to process!

Yesterday, we talked about letting go of micro-management for an afternoon. Whether you work solo from home or manage a staff of fifty, sometimes the best way to see your business’ needs clearly is to step away, considering your direction in silence, without the distraction of daily tasks.

When you’re fresh from this mini-sabbatical, it’s time to turn up the noise level, but only in the right places.

What three notes should you practice in Experience Design?

1. Always Be Checking. This won’t be a full-blown Experience Audit daily—just keep your eyes wide open for the little details that make a big difference to customers. First impressions last.

2. Prioritize from customer point of view. Listen to your customer, and be responsive to their interests and their concerns.

3. Measure results over time. This is the only way you will know if you’ve Pinpointed the right goals and whether you’re on track to achieve them.

Take a little time with this. Many of your daily tasks already fit in one of these three “notes,” but you may not have been viewing them in this way. When you look at your to-do list in terms of Experience Design, you can approach these tasks more deliberately—and more important in an overcrowded day, you can let go of the tasks that are just pointless noise.

With the noise level adjusted, look at the big picture. For instance:

How does viewing your website affect expectations for your store? [Checking, prioritizing.]

How does a constant parade of discount ads in the local paper affect the sort of customers who call you? [Checking, measuring.]

Do surly staff take care of those little details in your interiors as if they want your business to grow? [Checking, prioritizing.]

Don’t see these as separate interior design, graphic design, customer service, and marketing issues. This Experience Design chord can help you to look at your business as a whole. In a customer’s Perception, the elements of Experience will cross boundaries.

Checking, prioritizing, measuring. 1, 2, 3, strum.

That’s the background noise for your day. After a short while, you’ll be good at playing that chord, but watch out! As any musician will tell you, when you’re overconfident, you can hit a few sour notes. So stay focused.

At some point you may be working on a complete Experience re-Design, in which case there are certainly more than three notes in the chord. Jazz! With professional help, there’s a team to keep things swingin’. On an everyday basis: you’ve got just three notes to look after. Checking the details, prioritizing for the customer’s needs, measuring results. When it gets too noisy, it’s time for another silent afternoon.

Which note do you need to hit harder?

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

What could your Restaurant do with down time?

Could you:

Invite a mothers’ group

veterans’ group

book club

seniors group

to meet?

Could you blindfold yourself to smell your space, and listen to your space, for fifteen minutes?

Could you send staff out to local businesses where staff will really need a stretch in a couple of hours:

lawyers

realtors

insurance agents

financial services

with bite-sized samples?

What could your Office do with down time?

Could you:

Get a list together, and start sending birthday cards to past and present clients

or their spouses

or their dogs?

Could you watch your Mom navigate your website, looking for spots that trip her up, and ask her what’s missing from the Experience?

(No? Could you gather together the team and the information you need, to finally create that website you’ve been meaning to do?)

Could you email four trusted advisors:

your lawyer

your real estate agent

your insurance agent

your accountant

with a story or a bit of news to benefit them, just because you have this down time and you’re thinking of them?

What could your Store do with down time?

Could you:

use a wheelchair for an hour

come with a toddler

do a walkthrough not as the Ideal Customer, but the tired spouse of the Ideal Customer

to really understand how the Customer Experience could be improved?

Could you ask every guest who comes in today, “How Did You Find Us?”

Could you arrange to be a guest speaker at a monthly meeting for

lawyers

realtors

small business owners

women business owners

with information that will make them more successful, and also touches on your specialty?

What if your business is mainly Online (or in a zillion categories I didn’t mention)? See where this is going?

Could you:

get out on foot and get in touch

get inspired by a new Perspective

be of service to other professionals?

Do something fresh with an hour of down time this week. Maybe you’ll shake your head (“wish I’d known that before”); maybe your hands will shake, if the new activity is scary enough. Maybe you’ll make a new habit, maybe you’ll make new friends. Maybe you’ll turn your marketing on its ear and discover whole new ways to grow your business. Try it this week. Then maybe next week, it’ll be harder to find an hour of down time!

What happens when you step outside your comfort zone during down time? Is it better to rock the boat, or twiddle your thumbs? Tell us what you think!

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

In my last post, I said that scent is “… probably the first thing I consciously examine when I am in a new place.”

Why take note of scent first?

First scent impressions are more accurate (before forming a visual impression). For instance, if the space is beautiful (or wretched), the answer to “how did it smell” changes without realizing it.

The nose gets used to a new smell very quickly, so there’s only one chance to notice it vividly.

Scent impressions on your customers are immediate, incredibly strong, mainly subconscious, and make-or-break for your business. Scent is strongly tied to memory; like other first impressions, it’s very hard to change the first impression of scent.

I can take my time to do the rest, but that’s got to be done right away.

You can try it, too, by walking in first thing in the morning and focusing only on your sense of smell, but I have to tell you: “fresh” nose or not, you are used to what your place of business smells like. You have your own associations (hopefully good ones) with the smell. You aren’t going to notice what an outsider does.

Have you ever been to an office, store, or restaurant that smelled like a flower you remember at your Grandma’s house? Like the basement you dreaded when you were six? Like a locker room? How did it affect your purchases?

Has smell ever caused you to linger at a business, or to race out?

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

At VisionPoints, we are huge believers in getting outside Perspective on your business. Plans, individual projects, and all aspects of completed Experience Design deserve a cold, hard look from a disinterested party—someone who doesn’t eat, sleep, and breathe understanding of and passion for your Vision.

Don’t get me wrong. I love your Vision (well, I would if I knew it), and I am the biggest believer in you and your staff being completely immersed in that Vision. It’s just that for you, it’s hard to imagine that anyone doesn’t “get it,” right?

Enter: Your Mom.*

When you were six, she was never afraid to tell you that your fly was undone. You need that more than ever right now. Tell her you’re a big kid and you can handle it. She does not have to like what you offer, whether it’s wine or camping supplies or Internet games or retirement communities. If necessary, tell her you know she’s not your target market, but you want her to try to think like [insert Ideal Customer profile here].

Do not prep Mom too much: She doesn’t know your company workings, just like potential customers do not know you. See? Fresh eyes.

At some point you’ll need professional Perspective, but maybe you’re not at that stage. Okay, then bite that bullet and call Mom, because you need a direct, in-person audit of your Customer Experience.

What Mom’s Going to Audit

Your company’s name

Business concept—Idea and execution

Look and comfort of your physical space (Signage, exterior, interior…)

Look and usability of your Internet presence (Website, blog, other…)

Look and feel of your logo and graphic materials (Yes, how your business cards, stationery, brochures, menus actually feel as well as how they look)

Service and other human interactions (On telephone, in person…)

What she’s seen, read, or heard about the company (not from you)

How would she search for [what she thinks you offer—no prompting with keywords!] on the Internet if she had a need, and does she find you? How long does it take her to find you (without actually typing in the company’s name)?

Mom’s Deliverables

Her understanding of what your company does or provides (Just a few sentences, no more)

Her quick impressions (first thoughts) and final (considered) thoughts on each audit point above

Does Mom think your company is Remarkable—worth talking about?

An easy way to achieve this, without making Mom do a write-up, is just to hook her up to a mic with a portable recorder. Record Mom thinking out loud to herself, to a staff member, or to you as she goes through this process. (For the service audit if your staff doesn’t recognize Mom let her walk around on her own, because—I hope—they do recognize you and will probably treat her differently knowing she’s the boss’ mother.)

Your Takeaways

Does she understand the company?

Can she make use of the company? (Find you on the Internet, find your office or store, make an appointment/reservation/order, find what she’s looking for in the store, get fabulous service… etc.)

How does she think the idea(s) will catch on?

Any other thoughts? Let Mom be free-form here: any thoughts may help you focus your direction

*You had to ask: “Why Mom?” It appears there is heated debate about the phrasing of The Mom Test. I knew I didn’t invent it, so I did a search on Yahoo!, and let’s just say there are believers in the phrase,  (more believers), and non-believers. Much of the discussion centers on the use of the term in the tech industry, where “ask Mom,” to some, is akin to making sure a caveman can do it.

I do not think your Mom is an idiot or a newbie. I do not want you to ask her because she is old, or female, or out-of-touch in any way. I do not know if your Mom is any of these things.  Loyal readers may know that I am a mom myself. I want you to ask Mom because 99% of mothers will not turn you down, like a buddy might; they will put 110% concentration into it, if you make sure you work it into Mom’s busy schedule; and (after you remind them a few times not to sugar-coat) most can give you the truth straight-up, with love and without an agenda. Remember your fly, the tag sticking out on your shirt, the time when she helped you finish your science project at midnight? Mom spots the littlest things, she knows how to pitch in, and she’s not afraid to be blunt, in a good way. For many people, Mom is their most Trusted Advisor.

Can your Dad do this? Yup. Give him the same tasks and he’ll be great. (Even if he thought burping was funny when you were growing up. He won’t think it’s funny when your staff does it.)

Your Mom wants you to succeed. The Mom Test is an audit that can help your company spot opportunities to improve your Customer Experience.

Have you used The Mom Test before? How did that external Perspective help your firm?

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson