Navigating the Paradoxes of Customer Science: Measuring and Rewarding Customer Experience to Boost Business Success.

In today’s interconnected world, customer feedback has become a powerful tool that can have significant impacts on businesses. Examples like Snapchat losing $1.3 billion in market value and US companies losing $1.6 trillion in 2016 from customer switching due to poor service demonstrate the importance of meeting or exceeding customer expectations. However, there are paradoxes in the journey towards customer science, such as the organizational paradox of not having someone in the enterprise with the authority to ensure every interaction meets or exceeds expectations, despite the common saying that “Customer is King.”

To resolve this paradox, Glenn Laverty, former president and CEO at Ricoh Canada, tied every employee’s compensation to customer experience/satisfaction metrics. This approach highlights the importance of measuring and rewarding certain behaviors to drive desired outcomes. For example, at Boeing, production throughput compensation metrics were prioritized over safety considerations, leading to unintended consequences.

Claes Fornell, founder of the American Customer Satisfaction Index, points out another paradox in customer science – the data paradox. Despite the vast amount of customer data collected by organizations, they seem to know less about how to satisfy their customers. This disconnect between data collection and customer satisfaction needs to be addressed in order to truly understand and meet customer expectations. In conclusion, it is crucial for businesses to embrace customer science and take actionable steps towards improving customer experience and satisfaction.