Customer Experience

The Last Mile

Of all the challenges a service organization faces, completing the “Last Mile” is easily where most fail in their engagements:

  • You spend hours running hundreds of feet of cable, but don’t terminate the end point. Net effect dead in the water.
  • You spend thousands of dollars on infrastructure, but don’t charge classroom devices overnight, making lesson plans useless for the day. Net effect: dead in the water.
  • You do all the work to correct a service call, but don’t communicate what what you did, or that you are finished, to a customer. Net effect: dead in the water; or, might as well be.

No one will remember the regular season the Mets had this year; only, how they finished. No one will remember “Deflategate” – but they will remember all the Superbowls that the Patriots won.

The same is true for those of us in service occupations – customers are interested only in how well you finished, not the herculean effort you expended to get there. 

To finish strong, one must complete all the last mile work. This makes all the difference in how successful – or unsuccessful – you will be perceived.

Because if you don’t finish the last mile, you may as well not begin the journey at all.

Advertisement
Audio

Customer Experience

Customer Experience

From a talk given in 2014, on Customer Experience.

Customer Experience is a major filter I use in my decision making process, in order to justify new acquisitions.

If I’m looking at new software, if I’m looking at new hardware, if I’m looking to make a new hire, I always pass those [decisions] through the filter of customer experience.

Ultimately, if I can’t succinctly and forcefully describe how those [new] acquisitions will positively impact customer experience, then I have failed; and that’s a huge [stop] sign that tells me I need to stop and reconsider.

Conversely, if not making those new acquisitions, if not making those new hires… if that will have a significant negative effect, that’s also important in my decision making process; not only for describing to my constituents why I’m making particular decisions, but also [in order] to frame my story to my colleagues, and more importantly, to my President, [in order] to say “this is where this decision fits within our larger strategic initiatives.”

Because, you’re always dealing with competing forces within your organization.

If I can show the value made to student experience, to faculty experience, to staff experience, I stand a much better chance at being funded, and supported, and ultimately, sustained over the long haul.

Go, and be you.