How customer insights events can transform corporate culture
Nothing is as powerful as hearing from the customer's own lips the impact that the company has on their life.
One of the most powerful things a company can do to strengthen its culture is to expose its employees to its customers.
Most employees have very little facility to translate market research numbers, graphs, focus group reports, and customer journey mapping into a story that helps people understand the essence of their customers experience. An effective marketer can help to communicate this, but nothing is as powerful as hearing from the customer's own lips the impact that the company has on their life.
One way of bringing these stories to life for a company is to record customer stories in video format and presenting them at company events and on the company intranet. But even that feels polished. It feels like “marketing material.” Employees suspect stories were cherry-picked and edited, that they are quite real.
A far more powerful tactic is to bring customers to a live company event and interviewing them, on stage, in front of everyone. Employees see their customers’ body language, hear their voice intonation, and can even ask questions of their own.
Leading a consumer discussion at the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C.
This type of high wire act can feel risky to an executive team. What if they say something wrong? How do you control the narrative? What happens when answers are unexpected?
There is a process that I have perfected after conducting these very events in front of conference audiences for industry professionals, at the Capitol building in Washington D.C. for congressional staffers, for state lawmakers, and a company events. These are scenarios where the stakes are very high. And in every single instance the events had a powerful influence on how people considered the customer and their experience.
Customers discuss their experience with subprime lending products at the Emerge Conference.
At all of these events, we were talking with customers about the highly personal and sensitive subject of customers’ personal finances and their experience with high interest lending products. I was able to draw from them candid responses and honesty about their situation. I was able to build trust with them that their stories were safe and that their audiences would appreciate hearing from their experiences. Many of these people had never been asked their experience before. They found great comfort knowing that people cared about what they had to say. People wanted to understand their experiences. And they understood they would not be judged or patronized.
If you would like to schedule a customer empathy event to strengthen your understanding of the consumer and to infuse your corporate culture with meaning and value contact me.