International Process and Performance Institute

Of course it’s not just the increased value to the customer that drives these companies to do what they do. One of the biggest reasons they do “it” is because improving customer experiences (really improving them) has a double benefit. It decreases the cost of operations while improving the customer experience.

That statement can start some arguments by people who believe that improving the customer experience requires more employees, more work and (heaven forbid) the willingness to give more to customers without increasing what the customer is charged. But consider this, when we are really improving the customer experience we are eliminating the reasons the customer needs to contact us and the Moments of Truth (interactions) that occur when we do. There’s only one way to do that, sophistication.

Sophistication follows from the inspiration by Leonardo da Vinci (“simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”) where he was very intrigued by the challenge of resolving complex matters to their simple – shall we say quintessential – form. It’s like the chipping away of the unneeded parts of a stone to reveal the art form hidden underneath, refining by removing the “dross” if you will.

That kind of refinement will dramatically reduce the work of the processes behind the “customer processes” – and that means they cost less for us to operate and maintain them.

So when we really start improving these customer processes our operating and maintenance costs will also decrease – sometimes as much as 200 or 300% from where we started over several refinement iterations.

How much do you think it costs Virgin Mobile USA to facilitate the sign-up of a new customer? Compared to say AT&T or Verizon? How much do you think it costs State Farm to implement the homeowners small claim process with 3 Moments of Truth compared to the competitor’s process with 13 Moments of Truth?

We are hard pressed to get the return on investment of EITHER of these values that can be derived from innovation on the customer experience let alone both from the same set of actions!