What's CEXy: 10 "WOW" moments that leading CX companies have delivered 😲

Hello and welcome to another week of What's CEXy.

Every week I try to think of a funny opener and come up short. But mama didn't raise no quitter.

So from now on, we're going to start the weekly newsletter with a JOKE!

• Q: What's the best thing about Switzerland?

• A: I don't know, but their flag is a big plus 🇨🇭 ha ha

And now onto the #CEXy content for this week... 🥁🥁

Earlier in the week, I had the privilege of joining a fireside chat with the inventor of NPS; Fred Reichheld. Fred has authored numerous books, with his most recent one called "Winning on Purpose" and I was inspired to read it after listening to him speak.

His book was jam-packed with great insights and customer stories focused around how certain organisations are creating loyalty by consistently "wowing" their customers.

The 10 best stories are below. We hope you enjoy!

📙 Enriching The Lives Of Customers & Employees 😍

#1: Caliber Collision: investing into CX through COVID

Throughout COVID, revenues in the smash repair industry decreased by 55%, forcing a large majority of businesses to temporarily or permanently shut down.

Conversely, Calibre Collision decided to sail directly into the COVID headwind:

• They drew a portion of their $300 million credit line to ensure all staff kept working

• They used excess capacity in their stores to focus on delighting their customers

• First responders had up to $500 of deductibles covered by Calibre

• Insurance carriers began to notice the great service and started referring more customers to them; creating a flywheel for organic growth

The result? Calibre has generated a 52x return for the private equity firm that bought them 10 years ago, increasing their market value from $165million to $10 billion!

#2: Apple: celebrating feedback via the "daily download"

Each day before Apple stores open for business, you are likely to see small teams congregating together for their "daily download".

This huddle is not focused on financials. Instead, it is focused on issues relevant to enriching the lives of customers and employees.

Each day, the team will review the Net Promoter feedback received from prior days's customers. This will initiate a discussion where team members can share ideas for solving a range of customer problems, with the team leader being responsible for summarising the ideas and turning them into action points for that day.

Once the feedback has been reviewed, there is several minutes of formal recognition for team members who received "Promoter" comments from customers who were delighted with the experience they received on the previous day. This recognition creates energy and motivates employees to continue providing those "wow" moments that enrich the lives of customers on a daily basis.

#3: Enterprise Rent-A-Car: generating 'good profits' by treating customers right!

The Rental Car industry is a low-margin, low-growth industry, with companies like Hertz & Avis better known for their questionable revenue tactics i.e. late fees, exorbitant fuel re-fill costs etc.

The CEO of Enterprise Rent-A-Car (Andy Taylor) attacked this industry with a different methodology;

Unlike their competitors, Enterprise stays away from nuisance fees such as additional driver fees for your spouse, exorbitant late fees and abusive markups on petrol they use to refill your tank. Whilst these tactics boost a companies bottom line in the short-term, they diminish customer happiness and damage the company's reputation in the long term.

By creating a company which disrupts the industry norms, Andy has managed to generate customer loyalty, ensuring repeat purchases and free word of mouth advertising.

The result? Rent-A-Car has over 7600 branches and does not rely on abusive customer tactics to generate a profit. They focus on good profits, not bad profits!

#4: Chick-fil-a: allowing employees to "be remarkable"

Operators working at a Chick-fil-a store are encouraged to think creatively about how they could go from merely satisfying customers to delighting them. It is often referred to as the "Be Remarkable" initiative, and has yielded some phenomenal results;

• Chicken nuggets (an incredible success) came from this initiative

• Dog biscuits are now handed out to pet owners in the drive through lane

• One store regularly sells out their Saturday breakfast as they have partnered with Home Depot for a parent-children arts & craft morning

• A restaurant operator dressed in a tuxedo for a special reservations-only dinner service on Valentine's Day. He laid out tablecloths, put vases with red carnations on each table and serenaded each couple with his violin to help them celebrate the special night.

• One store operates a monthly Daddy-Daughter Date Night and equips the fathers with a sheet of thoughtful conversation starters just to avoid any awkwardness.

• Another store created the Teddy Bear Overnight Experience. Historically, the store faced low traffic on weeknights and subsequently decided to offer a story-book reading hour on one of them which was enjoyable and educational for both parents & children. Whilst the children went home, their Teddy Bear was left to sleepover at Chick-fil-a and parents returned in the morning to pick the bear up (but not before having breakfast). A genius way to provide a great experience and generate more revenue!

The result? Chick-fil-a has grown to become the world's third-largest restaurant chain in revenue (trailing only McDonald's & Starbucks). Phenomenal!

#5: Marriott Hotels: making difficult moments easier for cu

When business collapsed as Marriott properties after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, many employees could not work enough hours to qualify for health insurance.

Marriott's executives extended coverage to these employees, using the rationale that employees were like family - and you wouldn't let family members lose their health insurance for reasons completely beyond their control.

The Executives made a similar decision after two devastating hurricanes hit Puerto Rico in 2017. Local disaster relief funds were quickly depleted, so the company stepped in to cover the shortfall.

Employees then reciprocate this level of appreciation when interacting with customers. For example, Marriott employees are trained to think about innovative ways to entertain children who are being a nuisance around the pool deck.

Instead of asking the parents to control their children (a recipe for disaster), they brainstorm innovative ways to solve the problem that makes the parent & child feel good about the situation. A common trick is offering to hold the baby for Mum so she can pay more attention to the older children!

Such a simple but effective way to "wow" the customer at a critical moment that matters to them.

#6: Chewy: building a "wow" team to deliver thoughtful solutions

Chewy is an online pet supply retailer. It operates without stores and subsequently has no face-to-face interactions. Yet they claim to "view pets as family and are obsessed with serving pet parents by meeting all of their needs and exceeding expectations through every interaction".

How do they do live up to their lofty vision?

• The Contact Centre is staffed 24/7/365. These interactions are not viewed as costs to the business. Instead, they are viewed as opportunities to "wow" the customer.

• Chewy has also built an internal "wow team" who are responsible for dreaming up and executing remarkably thoughtful and kind solutions. For example, the team will often send flowers to a bereaved owner when a pet passes away.

The result? A company with a market cap of $13bn! Not bad for an online pet store!!

#7: Costco: delighting customers with transparent pricing

Costco's annual membership fees essentially lock in the firm's required profits at the beginning of each year. With that foundation in place, every subsequent decision can be taken with an eye toward maximising love for customers.

The story about Calvin Klein jeans exemplifies Costco's approach to customer love:

• Costco's buyers negotiated a great deal on Calvin Klein jeans

• The retailer followed it's long-standing pricing policy of marking up everything by 14%

• This policy not only minimises complexity in store operations, but also earns trust from customers who believe that Costco will always give them the best price

• The standard 14% mark-up translated to selling the Calvin Klein jeans at $29.99 which was $30 lower than the same pair of jeans at other retailers. They quickly sold out.

• Costco then learned that an additional one million pairs were available which Costco managed to negotiate a retail price of $22.99 which included the 14% mark-up

• Analysts on Wall Street caught wind of this story and began complaining that Costco's management was acting irresponsibly for selling the jeans for such a low price - "they were leaving at least $7 million on the table"

• Jim stuck to his guns and later explained - "our members trust us to pass along every saving to the customer. Any exception to this - well it would be like taking heroin. Once you start it, you can't stop doing it".

The result? At a time where stock prices are crashing globally, Costco has seen a 7% increase in their share price across the last 12 months! Costco typifies what it means to put customers before profits!

#8: Discover Financial Services: changing the way customers think about credit cards

Discover operates in an industry which is well-known for hidden fees, late fees and dishonour charges. Since 2011, they have been on a mission to change this:

• Discover was the first major card company to completely do away with annual fees on every card they offered.

• All customer service interactions are handled by employees based in the US after "discovering" ( pun intended 😉) that quality of service declined just as much as costs did.

• Contact centre reps are encouraged to spend as much time as possible with customers to resolve their concerns. They are not bound by time-related metrics. Discover prominently displays contact numbers on their website, ensuring customers can call 24/7.

• Discover sends an email to a customer the day before they incur a late fee so customers can avoid a penalty for simply forgetting to pay. Late fees accounted for over $200 million in annual revenue.

• Discover automatically waives the first late fee for new customers.

• Discover proactively monitors the dark web and offers free alerts to customers whenever fraudulent activity is detected.

• FICO credit scores are provided for free without impacting a persons credit score. The credit score is also readily available within self-serve portals. Customers do not need to trawl through multiple pages to find it.

The result? Roughly 20% of US Households now own a Discover credit card. But the impact is far greater than this, best explained by Discover's CEO;

#9: Pure Insurance: rewarding customer loyalty in the Insurance industry

Pure Insurance operates in a highly regulated and highly competitive industry - insurance.

It is common knowledge that most insurers attempt to offer discounted premiums in the first year to "hook you in" and then shock you at renewal time with a significant increase in prices. But don't worry - they've made it "convenient" for you to auto-renew the policy. God help you if you need to speak to someone to cancel it! 🤬

Pure Insurance realised that they should think about things differently. Whilst the company's pricing team were probably tempted to follow the industry practice of overcharging loyal long-term customers in order to subsidise below-market prices that would bring in new business, they decided not to do so.

Instead, they published their pricing philosophy online, explaining how they reward customer longevity:

• Pure provides a cost reduction once members reach their fifth renewal

• They also offer cash distributions after ten years of membership

• Their pricing philosophy states that they will never charge a new member less than they charge a renewing member with the same risk characteristics

The result? Pure's member retention is 96% and was recently acquired for $3.1 billion!

#10: T-mobile: making phone plans easy to understand & use

Who remembers the days where we were all locked into lengthy phone contracts, with sim cards that were locked to certain mobile devices? T-mobile was a pioneer in bucking this trend.

Since 2013, T-Mobile radically changed the way that they operated, with a reignited focus on loving their customers better than anyone else;

• T-Mobile radically simplified their rate plans - including simple & unlimited plans on all devices

• They dropped contracts that locked customers into carriers

• They offered no-contract family plans

• All international roaming charges were removed (wooooo!)

• They began to augment their plans with additional freebies i.e. music streaming & in-flight calling

• T-Mobile implemented automatic rollover of unused data and eliminated the "resort fee" which ballooned a "$40 plan" closer to $50 once taxes & additional charges were included

The result? T-Mobile's stock return has been 133% between 2014 to 2019 which was 2x greater than their closest competitor!

Graph of the week 📈

Ever wondered why it's so hard to manage large teams? Fostering alignment becomes exponentially harder each time you add a new stakeholder into the mix.

Be mindful of this when building out your teams, or managing a project!