I hope you've got your hat and sunglasses ready -- today we're going undercover!
How Can We Evaluate Without Influencing?
If you like Chemistry as much as you like Customer Experience, you're familiar with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
First articulated by the physicist Werner Heisenberg, the principle says that "any attempt to measure the velocity of a subatomic particle will affect its velocity in an unpredictable way, invalidating the measurement."
In basic terms: The very act of evaluating something can change the outcome.
Even those of us who
don't wear lab coats see this in our work environment. How can you evaluate employees, systems, and experiences without the very act of evaluation affecting the results?
As you've likely sorted out by now, the answer is to obscure that any evaluation is taking place.
Today's Mission
Go undercover. Evaluate the early experiences that new customers or leads may go through in the early stages of engaging with your organization. The specifics may vary, but some options include:
Calling your reception desk or hotline to see how you're greeted and how common questions are answered.
Asking to be connected to sales and asking questions typical of the salesperson.
Sending an inquiry via email or form on your website (via a non-work email address, of course).
Don't be afraid to ask difficult questions or create a tough scenarios. This doesn't mean you need to be a complete sadist, but presenting a nuanced and potentially difficult interaction can provide much more growth than lobbing a few softball questions out and being reassured that everything is just peachy.
One more note: This isn't about tricking anybody or trying to "catch them in the act" of providing a less-than-ideal experience. It's just a chance to get as true of an evaluation of your customers' experience as possible.
You don't want your undercover work to betray your coworkers' trust in you. To combat this, find specific things you can point to in your experience as positive and reflect those back to your team.
In doing so, you can make sure they know that what they bring to their work is recognized and
appreciated.
PS - We're almost one third of the way through the challenge! Tomorrow's mission is designed to be an easy one to give you a bit of a breather while keeping your momentum going. How are you feeling so far?
