Tag Archives: Lean CX Score

Lean CX: (un)Complicate

October 21, 2017Lean CXcreate a disruptor, customer experience, disruptor, Lean, lean book, lean customer experience, Lean CX, Lean CX Score, simplify, uncomplicateDavid McLachlan

(un)Complicate – Don’t Be Fooled By Complicated Things

Have you ever had someone explain something to you, but the way they explained it was just too complicated? And no matter how they tried, it just got more confusing, not less.

Here’s some good news – it’s not your fault that it seemed complicated. It’s not uncommon for some people to try and confuse things to make you comply, or to try and make you feel less because you don’t understand. But the real reason something might seem complicated is that if someone doesn’t understand a topic well enough, then they cannot explain it simply.

Einstein Agrees

Einstein wrote: “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” In other words, complicated things, products and complicated explanations are not the result of people being smarter than you – they are actually the result of people not understanding it well enough to make it as simple as it should be. Complicated things are the result of lazy thinking – things that haven’t been thought through well enough to be explained in simple terms.

And the same goes for your business, your products, and your team.

Uncomplicate

The Simple Truth About Complicated Things

It might seem like a paradox then, that in making things simple it actually takes more work, more thinking, and more intelligence initially. You have to do the thinking on where to reduce steps, where to perform steps more concisely, or how to get the outcome more quickly and efficiently.

And that is the kind of thinking that most people either don’t know how to do, or worse, can’t be bothered doing. After all, how many times have you been forced to do something at work in a more complicated way than it should be, or forced to jump through more hoops in getting a product from a company than you needed to? And it wasn’t because it had to be done that way – many times it was simply because it had always been done that way, and the complicated way became the default over time.

The good news is that The Lean CX Score offers you a repeatable framework for making things simple – the opposite of complicated – (un)Complicated. You can improve your work, your business and your products, and improve the opportunity for customers to buy from you as a result, using a simple, step-by-step method.

(un)Complicating Things Also Improves Sales Significantly

Every time a process is more complicated than it should be, and your customer is forced to go through it, you are increasing the chance that they will leave you.

“Breakpoints” are those places in your customer experience where a customer will leave, never to return. The Lean CX Score outlines five of the most common customer breakpoints, and how to solve them. Here are some examples:

By having too many steps in the customer experience – every extra step is another “breakpoint”, that could be a prompt for a customer to leave.

By having too many hand-offs in the customer experience – every extra hand-off is a breakpoint that is an opportunity for a customer to leave.

By making a customer redo things more than once – every extra time they have to redo it is a breakpoint that will frustrate a customer to the point of leaving, and;

By making customers wait too long for something – every minute longer is another reason for a customer to break up with you and leave.

(un)Complicating Things Also Reduces Costs Significantly

Let’s think about simplicity from a cost perspective. By reducing steps in your customer experience you are reducing the work to be done to get the customer what they wanted. By reducing the work to be done you are reducing the cost of the work. By reducing the cost of the work you are improving the profit of your business.

It’s the same principle whether you’re thinking about your supply chain in business, or your value chain in delivering goods and services, or the processes you go through to get the outcomes you want. Every time you reduce steps, reduce hand-offs, reduce waiting and any other Lean CX Waste, you are giving yourself the opportunity to get ahead.

You Don’t Have To Start From Scratch

If you’re ready to (un)complicate your business and your products, and put in the initial thinking required to make things more simple, the good news is that you don’t have to start from scratch.

The Lean CX Score provides you with the exact, step-by-step framework you need to (un)complicate and start seeing the success you deserve. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend you get a copy.

Get "The Lean CX Score" now, and start creating disruptors in your industry that completely annihilate your competition.

Oh and good news! You'll be improving the speed, morale and engagement of your teams at the same time. Get the Lean CX Score now.

#5 Lean CX Comic – Make It Simple (Or They Will Leave You)

October 21, 2017Lean CX Comicbusiness improvement, create a disruptor, customer experience, disruptor, entrepreneur, lean comic, lean customer experience, Lean CX, Lean CX ScoreDavid McLachlan

#5 Lean CX Comic – Make It Simple (Or They Will Leave You)

See all the Lean CX Comics here

News Flash: People Aren’t Buying Your Complicated Products

It’s official. People prefer doing things that are easy. You’ve been in that situation, haven’t you? Something has been too hard, taken too long, been passed along too may times, so you left.

If it’s hard to use, fewer people will use it. Sure, there might be a small percentage who put in the time and work through it – maybe they really like you or your company, or maybe there is another benefit like status or money involved. But keep it complicated for too long, and they won’t stick around forever.

What Does “A Complicated Product” mean?

Saying something is complicated is all very well, but what does it actually mean?

In the book “The Lean CX Score“, David McLachlan outlines five scenarios for complicated products, called the Lean CX Wastes.

Lean Customer Experience means exactly that – the customer experience is streamlined and not full of wasteful things or experiences. Things such as having to redo something over and over, having to perform too many steps to get what a customer wanted, or being handed off between too many people or departments. If you’ve ever had to do any of those you will know what I mean – the experience can be frustrating and every wasteful step you are forced to perform grates on your patience just a little bit more, until finally you leave.

It Works Everywhere

Recent research into online shopping carts by the Baymard Institute found that the average online shopping cart experience had 14 fields, when they really only needed 7 for an ideal checkout flow. They also found that 35% of abandoned online orders were recoverable solely through a better checkout flow and design. The research is there, and it happens everywhere. Online checkouts are one thing we can simplify, but what about the work your teammates or employees do when delivering a product or service?

All the way through the value chain your business is making things more complicated than they have to be, which increases cost, increases the likelihood a customer will leave and reduces your profit as a result.

After all, in chasing the latest gimmick or management fad it is tempting to forget about the lifeblood of any business – your customers – and the money they bring by buying your product or service.

Reducing complexity in your product prompts more people to buy, and reducing complexity in the value chain that delivers your product lowers the cost of delivering it.

The Lean CX Score Is The Step-By-Step Framework For Making Things Simple

If complex products or services are the enemy of good customer experience, then it makes sense to use the Lean CX Score framework as a step-by-step guide to making things simple.

One of the Lean CX steps is called “One Step Flow”, where a customer can get what they want in one step, instead of many different steps over many different people.

You will absolutely love the Lean CX book, because it gives many different real-life examples of One Step Flow – from signing up to watch Game of Thrones in one step, getting the best Energy deal in one step, a hospital getting cancer scans and diagnoses in one step, posting a job ad in one step, and much, much more.

That is just one part of the Lean CX Score – imagine what you could do with the rest of it too?

If you want to improve your business, team, or job prospects, I highly recommend you read it today.

See all the Lean CX Comics here

Excerpts From The Lean CX Score Book

October 21, 2017Lean NewsLean CX Score, Lean CX Score book, lean cx score excerptsDavid McLachlan

Like the book or want to share it with others? Share this page and get the book on Amazon.

Lean CX Score Book

Preview chapters from The Lean CX Score book:

This is an excerpt from "The Lean CX Score." Get your copy now and start creating disruptors that completely annihilate your competition.

Oh and good news! You'll be improving the speed, morale and engagement of your teams at the same time. Get the Lean CX Score now.

Lean CX Infographic – 27% Of Checkouts Are Too Long Or Complicated

October 13, 2017Lean CX Infographicbaymard research, complicated process, customer experience, infographic, Lean, lean book, Lean CX, Lean CX Score, online business, online shopping cart abandon, shopping cartDavid McLachlan

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Your Complicated Process Is Driving Customers Away

Have you ever tried to buy something online recently? With online business taking off like never before, there is a good chance that your answer is “Yes”.

And just like 69% of people, there’s also a good chance that you’ve tried to buy something online but abandoned your shopping cart before you were able to buy.

Did you know that 27 percent of those people who abandoned their online shopping cart, and who weren’t just browsing, abandoned it because the checkout was too long or complicated? That’s a lot of people leaving you at the most critical time, and the good news is “long and complicated” is actually something we can fix.

The Lean CX Score Fixes “Long and Complicated”

What would it mean to you if you had a proven, step-by-step framework for reducing that time and complexity in your checkout experience? For one (as we’ve just seen), you would have a good chance of improving the online sales to your business by up to 27% or even more, which would mean a very tidy jump in profit for you too.

The Lean CX Score is that proven framework. Revealed in the book of the same name by David McLachlan in 2017, the step-by-step framework of Lean CX combines the most important asset of your business (your customers, who pay your bills by buying your product or service, remember?), and Lean or the Toyota Production System, which is one of the most incredible customer-centric improvement methods of the last century. Lean CX has modified both in a ground breaking way to suit Customer Experience and white collar jobs, reduce time and improve ease of use.

Reducing Waste Improves Speed and Happiness

The Lean CX Score outlines five Customer Experience “wastes” – common scenarios that when you fix will have customers clamouring to buy from you. Just a few of those wastes that you need to remove are:

Waiting
Extra Steps
Extra Hand-offs, and;
Rework

While reading the book will give you the full outline of those Lean CX wastes and how to remove them by using the Lean CX Score, you can get an idea of them just with the list above. Let’s take a look:

Rework, or having to redo things, can easily happen on an Online Shopping Cart experience when you have to enter your payment details more than once, or after making a mistake, or having to refresh a form that times out.

Extra Steps could be extra form fields that aren’t really necessary, or that could easily be reduced. In fact Amazon got rid of its form fields completely with its “One Click Buy”. How is that for reducing extra steps?

Excessive Hand-offs could be too many online screens to travel through, where further mistakes can be made.

Are You Ready To Improve Speed and Make Things Easy?

The Lean CX Score is the first book of its kind, that completely outlines an exact step-by-step framework for improving the speed and simplicity of your customer’s experience, helping them buy easily and buy more often.

When you’re ready to profit more, enjoy more happiness and easier work, then I highly recommend you get the book.

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#3 Lean CX Comic – Be The Disruptor, Not The Disrupted

October 4, 2017Lean CX Comicamazon, borders, customer experience, disruptor, facebook, how to create a disruptor, lean book, Lean CX, Lean CX Comic, Lean CX Score, myspaceDavid McLachlan

#3 Lean CX Comic – Be The Disruptor, Not The DisruptedClick to Enlarge – or – Right Click and “Save As” to save.

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You are either becoming a disruptor, or you’re about to be put out of business by one. So many industries have already been completely changed in the past 10 years, and the disruption is not going to stop. If you don’t discover a formula now for creating disruptive products and services yourself, there’s a good chance your team or business won’t be around to see the next 10 years.

But what exactly is a disruptor? A disruptor, as we see it, is something that changes the rules of the game, so that it is seen as better, can scale and grow faster, and sell more than anything in its industry. As a result, other brands and products fall by the wayside, and ultimately disappear, often within a matter of only a few years.

The good news is, the Lean CX Score is an exact framework for creating disruptors out of normal products or services. In other words, you can be the Amazon, instead of the Borders. You can be the Netflix, instead of the Blockbuster. You can be the Facebook, instead of MySpace. And using these steps actually improves your team speed, morale and engagement at the same time. The rewards are incredible. It’s time to get your copy of the Lean CX Score today.

See all the Lean CX Comics here

Introducing The Lean CX Score by David McLachlan

September 22, 2017Lean CX Book Excerptcustomer experience, David McLachlan, disruptor, how to create a disruptor, lean book, Lean CX, Lean CX Research, Lean CX Score, Lean CX Score book, Lean CX Steps, Lean CX WastesDavid McLachlan

“I am absolutely thrilled to introduce the Lean CX Score, and an excerpt from the Introduction of the book below. The book starts with a bang and never lets go, and even within this short piece of the Lean CX Score you will hear stories and see research with the power to help you create disruptive products and services. I hope you enjoy it!”

– David McLachlan

Introduction

Tom Corley woke up early one morning and realised something incredible.

He had spent the past five years following more than 300 people with the aim of answering a very specific question, and he finally had the answer. You see, Tom had always wanted to know if our habits – the things we did every day – really did have an effect on our lives.

More specifically, Tom wanted to know if there were certain habits that separated the country’s wealthiest people – with a net worth of $3.2 million or more, and those who were just getting by, with a net worth of $5,000 or less.

Was the difference to do with their family? Was it where they lived? Or where they went to school? No, it wasn’t any of those things. In fact, when Tom finally found it, it surprised even him.

The number one habit of the country’s wealthiest people was something that anyone could do, although most people don’t. It was reading. But not just any reading. It was reading for self-improvement *¹.

It was something that you are doing right now.

I told you this story because I believe by reading this book you are doing something special. After all, how often is it that someone picks up a book like this? It could have been that person you work with, the person browsing the books next to you or maybe someone else in your family. But it was you.

Reading for self-improvement was also what I was doing, before the discovery of the Lean CX Score. I was searching for answers, and I was searching for improvement just like you. I read hundreds of books on ways to improve life and business, and in fields such as strategy, team building, personal psychology, business improvement and project management.

It’s no accident that this number one habit makes such a difference. It works because the more you learn, the more people you can help. And the more people you can help, the more you, too, are rewarded – with a better business, happier team-mates, more paying customers, a better income, and a happier life.

The most successful companies provide a service to thousands (if not millions) of people, and are rewarded with millions (or billions) of dollars in return. Apple, Uber, Amazon, Zappos, Microsoft, Google, Netflix – the names may change but the principles stay the same. It was in studying these companies that were a success that I discovered the six key things anyone can do to make their own lives a success.

These six key things not only created businesses that completely outdid their competition, but they also improved the morale, speed and productivity of normal teams and tasks as well. It was something that needed to be revealed so all could benefit, instead of just a chosen few.

It was something that needed to be shared.

The Customer is Always Right… Right?

It needed to be shared because most people aren’t getting the full story, and even then, the information is often conflicting.

Take just two recent examples, both from first class institutions. The Harvard Business Review revealed that while “delighting customers” was the focus of many CEOs and leadership teams, it wasn’t the key to keeping customers coming back. Reducing their effort – the work they had to do to get their problem solved – was the real solution to repeated sales *².

But research by a firm called Ebiquity took the opposite view, where they found in 2014 that 75% of customers who received a “delightful” customer experience were willing to spend more with the companies that gave it to them *³.

Which one is right?

You’ll have to read on for the answer. But when you do, you will see exactly how this research works, and how you can use them both to seriously improve your own results. We will use real life stories and research, and it will be a handy resource to keep and have all this information in the one place.

If you’re curious to learn more about it, let’s reveal a little piece of the Lean CX Score to get started.

What is the Lean CX Score?

The Lean CX Score is a set of six separate, actionable steps, all equally important to your CX. Each step in the Lean CX Score has one question. If you answer the question positively you get a point, but if you answer the question negatively you have some work to do to improve. Five out of six points means you are delivering an outstanding customer experience. Anything below that means you have an opportunity for greater profit by improving – or face the threat of your competition stealing your customers. It’s that simple.

Here are the steps…

To see the rest of the Lean CX Framework, its research and stories, you can get the full Lean CX Score on Amazon now, and be the disruptor, not the disrupted!

More chapters from The Lean CX Score book:

Lean CX Score – Someone Can Always Make A Better Burger

September 22, 2017Lean CX Book Excerptcompeting on price, customer experience, lean book, Lean CX, Lean CX Score, McDonalds storyDavid McLachlan

Someone Can Always Make a Better Burger

Let me ask you a question. Can you make a better hamburger than McDonalds?

If you’re anything like me, I’m hearing a resounding “Yes!” You might be a master of the barbeque, or a culinary queen. You know all the pieces – choice of patty, lettuce, tomato, maybe onions, sundried tomatoes or vintage cheese – and you can put them all together and create a masterpiece to outdo the creations of even the best teenagers working under the golden arches.

You see, most people can make a better burger than McDonalds. But here’s the kicker. Can you SELL a burger, better than McDonalds?

For most people when I tell this story, the penny starts to drop. And it doesn’t hit the floor completely until they finish the last step of the Lean CX Score, when they have an exact formula for “selling a burger better”, and continuing to give a better experience every time they interact with a customer. But by that time they are out the door in a rush to put it to use, with barely even a goodbye.

It is all those parts that go into “selling the burger” that make the difference between success and failure. After all, iPhones and Apple products make up 43% of the mobile market in the U.S *⁴. Yet a factory in China could easily make a phone that looks very similar to an Apple iPhone, for a fraction of the cost. So why don’t they, and what’s the real difference? Hmmm… it might have something to do with our burger example above. Their patented software, their app store, their Genius Bars and ease of use all contribute to the Customer Experience, and you will see exactly why they work by the time you reach the end of this book.

Could you drive a car, better than some Uber drivers out there? Considering 85% of American drivers on the road today believe they are a better driver than others *⁵ (we’ve all thought this at some point, haven’t we?) I’m again imagining that the answer is yes.

You, or someone like you, could do all these things. Of course you can. But can you scale a business and sell a car ride better? Can you deliver the same complete customer experience that keeps people coming back? Not without the right framework, and that’s where the Lean CX Score comes in.

Simply being able to do something isn’t enough to bring you success, because the world is on the verge of the greatest time in history. Global trade has opened up like never before, and someone in England or any other country can sell someone in America exactly what they want and have it shipped there in record time. Many of the old-world businesses are becoming crowded as new people enter the market, and it seems that no one is safe.

Yet there are always a small few businesses, teams and individuals that make it – the ones that buck the trend and not only survive, but thrive in the face of competition. The unique pastry shop with lines around the block. The outstanding painters with a high demand for their work. The latest phone or gadget people have to have, the ice cream store, the energy provider, the bank. All of them fit the Lean CX model and are examples we will see.

What is it that makes them succeed where others fail?

Let’s start with a simple view of it. In many cases you have two choices:

Compete on Price (and put yourself out of business)

– Or –

Compete on Customer Experience (and stand out and become world-class)

What happens when you compete on Price?

Well, this is where most people start. And it’s most often the easiest thing to do – after all, if you drop your price, maybe more people will buy your product. The only problem is, your competition can drop their price too, and so the outcome of this scenario usually looks like this:

Competing on price is often done because a business doesn’t have the imagination or the know-how to create a remarkable Customer Experience. Luckily with the Lean CX Score, that’s simple to remedy, but it can also just be a mistake made by people who would usually know better.

Driving service Uber did a lot of things right when creating its business – so much so that it was able to scale and grow with lightning speed around the world. When it entered the Chinese market, it was able to do so with hundreds of millions of dollars behind it, and it went into China in a large way competing on price where ride subsidies, cheap promotions and more the order of the day.

Uber lasted three years before having to retreat completely after losing close to one billion dollars a year, selling their market share to local driving app Didi Chuxing *⁶. Understanding the customers you serve, whether it’s an individual, a society, government or country, matters. When you compete on price, no-one wins. The customer may get a better price, but at what cost? A sub-par product, an average customer experience and a company that won’t be around long enough to make a difference.

If products can be copied, price wars aren’t the answer and the world of trade is coming closer together, where does that leave us? It leaves us with a future where the only thing separating the bad from the good, the good from the great and the great from the remarkable is Customer Experience, otherwise known as CX. CX is the next and last great frontier, where the real battles will be fought and won. This is great news, as creating an amazing Customer Experience can be comparatively cheap to do (as opposed to developing a new smart phone from scratch, for example). And the steps in this book will show you how to keep it simple, and how to know when you’re winning. They lead the way to taking an ordinary product and creating an industry disruptor – something that is truly world-class.

More chapters from The Lean CX Score book:

Lean CX Score – 80% of CEOs Believe They Provide Superior Service: Just 8% of Customers Agree

September 22, 2017Lean CX Book Excerptceos believe superior, Lean CX, Lean CX ScoreDavid McLachlan

80% of CEOs Believe They Provide Superior Service

Remember how 85% of people think they are above average, and better drivers than everyone else on the road? This effect extends to companies and CEOs too. Bain & Co surveyed 362 companies and found that 80% of those companies’ CEOs believed their company provided a superior customer experience to their peers. *⁷

However, when customers of those companies were asked the same question, only 8% believed that the company provided a superior customer experience. CEOs versus customers. 80% versus 8%. That’s quite a difference!

The Lean CX Score will actually help you get an 80% score from your customers (who ultimately pay your bills by buying your product or service), and not just your managers at the next board meeting.

More chapters from The Lean CX Score book: