For those of you who have never heard the phrase “The third rail,” here are a couple of definitions to get you started. The Urban Dictionary defines it as: “A dangerous area of discussion, a point at which the mere mention of a subject results in disaster. Commonly used in politics.”
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Wikipedia offers this: “The third rail of a nation’s politics is a metaphor for any issue so controversial that it is ‘charged’ and ‘untouchable’; any politician or public official who dares to broach the subject will invariably suffer politically. The term is most commonly used in North America. The ‘third rail of American politics’ is often said to be cutting Social Security; the ‘third rail’ of Canadian politics is said to be healthcare.”
Let’s return to my question, what is the third rail of customer experience? Or is there one? I posed this to several customer experience experts. Here are their responses.
Shep Hyken: “The third rail in customer service is the loyalty-killing phrases employees use to defend their position to the customer. A couple of obvious ones are, ‘We can’t do that. It’s against company policy,’ or, ‘I’m sorry; that’s not my job.’”
Chuck Wall: “There is a powerful third rail, and it’s staring at both you and me, in the mirror. It’s called the ‘business ego.’ It tends to afflict most of us. Business schools, mentors, co-workers, and bosses have inadvertently conspired to deceive us into believing a kind of divine right of business that says, ‘We're right, and they’re wrong.’ But there’s now ample evidence that proves this is a short-term attitude killing long-term opportunities. We need to take a fresh look at this myopic view and get the big picture from our customer’s point of view. A bit less certainty—dare I say, humility—needs to be present as we navigate our way forward in 2014.”
Jeff Toister: “The customer is a third rail. I don’t think there’s enough discussion about how customers sometimes sabotage their own experience. They occasionally make mistakes, get confused, and have unreasonable expectations. When this does happen, many customers direct the anger, frustration, and embarrassment caused by their own mistakes at the people and companies serving them. It’s our job to help customers succeed, but it’s not always easy.”
Case in point: I once witnessed two women on a hotel shuttle berate and belittle the driver and another hotel associate who tried to assist them. The problem was the hotel couldn’t find their reservation, so the women’s arrival experience was off to a rocky start. It turned out the two women had made a reservation at a completely different hotel! The hotel associates were gracious and professional the entire time, were resourceful enough to call other hotels to find the women’s reservation, and even offered them a complimentary ride to their hotel. Despite these efforts, the women were unsatisfied and ungrateful.
Kate Nasser: “Whether or not there is a third rail of customer experience for business leaders depends on the courage and grit of the top leader. Courageous, visionary leaders don’t have a third rail. They tackle customer experience from every angle. For leaders who want to play it safe, the third rail of customer experience is the concept of ‘leading from the heart.’ They mistakenly believe that heart-based customer experience and profits are mutually exclusive.”
Stan Phelps: “The third rail in customer service is declaring any one metric as the top measurement. Or even just talking about one standard without mentioning others. Can't we all agree that putting our eggs in one basket isn’t prudent? Highlighting or favoring one doesn’t mean you are excluding the others.”
James Lawther: “The third rail for the customer experience is that most executives only care about themselves:
• They care about looking good.
• They care about prestige.
• They care about hitting their targets.
And most of all they care about getting their bonus and the fancy BMW it will buy. They don’t really care about their customers at all. But not one of them cares to admit it.”
Adrian Swinscoe: “It would seem to me that the ‘third rail’ might be that customer service or customer experience don’t matter. However, I’m not sure that anyone has been brave enough to make that stand or that case. Even the airline Ryanair in the UK now seems to be coming round.
Other ‘rails’ might be that most companies are rubbish at customer experience and customer service because they don't care enough; or we care more about new customers than we do existing customers because they are more profitable with respect to our current business model; or we care more about short-term value and the stock market and our bonuses than we do about long-term value and our customers.”
Adam Toporek: The third rail of customer experience is the conventional wisdom that social customer service is crucial to every business. It’s simply not true. For most businesses, investing in social media is an important way to connect with customers. However, in certain verticals, particularly in B2B, engaging in social media for customer interaction is simply a waste of time. The point of social customer service is to be where your customers are; if they aren’t there, you don’t need to be there, either.”
What do you think? I love that these responses are so varied. To me, it means that we still have our work cut out for us.
And me? I’ve been talking and touting for the last 20+ years about how critical the employee experience is to the customer experience. There are still too many execs who don’t want to discuss the importance of the customer experience to business success. The customer experience itself is the third rail, it seems. But assuming it’s not, then I would say, the numbers don't lie: There is a chain of cause and effect running from employee behavior to customer behavior to profits. When we stop avoiding the conversation about how important employees and the employee experience are to the business, then we can hop off that third rail and proceed on a smooth journey.
What do you think the third rail of customer experience is? What topic is so charged that it is untouchable—or should remain untouched?
“The purpose of a business is to create a customer who creates customers.”
—Shiv Singh
First published Dec. 17, 2013, at CX Journey.
Comments
The Truth
I believe from my experience that "THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH and NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH" is the 3rd rail. As they say no one want to see the sausage being made. No one wants to be reminded that the design of the product isn't perfect, that there are tolerances to every part, that the basis of your quality department is the mil standard and that there will be bad or not perfect products leaving the factory and will get to the customer and consumer.
ADA
The"third rail"that goes almost entirely unnoticed by most people. Whether it be in business or as onlooking customers is that of implicit bias against those of us, myself included, who have a disability. It is so divisive that not all but a lot of people in business care about their bottom line then about being decent people, and more about barely meeting ADA guidelines then about tailoring accessibility to the needs of the customer, thereby also growing their bottom line and helping the economy.
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