The Disappearing Boss - Issue 19

You already know you want your employees to own your business.

How about getting them to run it too?

How about enabling them to do that before you hand it over?

Ask me how .

Capturing Human Feedback

The best kind of human feedback is the kind you don't have to ask for.

The kind you can simply observe, such as a prospect's path through your Promise Process - moving from Qualify to Demonstrate Value, then from Demonstrate value to Enrol, gradually transforming into Clients.

Or what they do afterwards - referring you to their peers, complaining, suggesting improvements, or simply leaving you.

You can count the number of times these things happen. Use them to calculate derived values, such as conversion rates between stages or the percentage of satisfied customers, but you'll get much more from these occurrences if you look for the behaviour that led to them.

Let's look at Client referrals for example. Referrals are great, they shortcut your Share Promise process. But not by much.

You'll save the most expensive part - Showing Up - but you still need to go through the rest of the Share Promise process (Qualify , Demonstrate Value and Enrol) to be sure that you really are the best option for them. And just because they've been referred by a Client doesn't mean that's a given.

So if they drop out of the process at any point, you need to ask why.

This is where your Customer Experience Score will help you.

If you have a systematic way of helping prospects through their buying process, you'll be able to identify why someone dropped out. Or where the Score needs to be tweaked to retain people you are right for.

Qualify

For example, If a prospect drops out at Qualify, it should only be because they don't fit the profile of the people you serve:

• Perhaps they don't share your core values? You'll only be able to tell if the person running Qualify a) knows exactly what your core values are and b) knows how to find out whether a prospect shares them.
• Perhaps they aren't ready for what you can do for them yet? You'll only be able to tell if the person running Qualify a) knows what 'ready' looks like and b) knows how to find out whether a prospect is there.

Once you do know the reason, you can look at improving your Customer Experience Score:

• How can you keep core values top of mind for someone running Qualify?
• How can you help them discover the prospect's core values? What questions could they ask? What behaviours could they observe?
• What defines a prospect as 'ready'? How can you keep that top of mind for the person running Qualify?
• How can you help them discover whether the prospect is ready? What questions could they ask? What behaviours could they observe?
• If someone doesn't appear to fit the profile on paper, but does in the flesh, what does this mean? Is there a way for the person running Qualify to override? Perhaps they record why they've decided to do that, so you know what to change in the Score for next time.

You can also look at improving how Clients give referrals.

It's fantastic that clients refer you, but you can make referrals work even better by giving clients (and even prospects) the best words to use to describe what you do and how you do it, so that in essence, they pre-qualify referrals for you. That way, they get more kudos for a successful referral, the person referred gets a better result, and you get a better conversion rate.

Demonstrate Value

If a prospect drops out at Demonstrate Value, that can only be because they don't see the value.

That is either because you haven't communicated it or because they don't value what you're offering.

Again digging behind these questions will help you improve your Customer Experience Score:

• How could you communicate it better next time? Should that communication happen here in Demonstrate Value or further back in Qualify?
• How can you understand their situation more deeply, so you can improve your Qualify for the next time?
• Or maybe you haven't offered something that they would value?
• If so, should you create a new offer for them?
• If it's consistent with your Promise of Value, and you have the capacity, perhaps you should. If there are enough other people in the same situation as this prospect, perhaps as a client, this person can help you co-create a new way to Package your Promise for people like them.
• Once you've done that you can formalise how you Share and Keep that Packaged Promise in your Score.

Enrol

If a prospect drops out at Enrol, that's either because they aren't motivated enough or able to move forward with you.

There's not much you can do about the motivation, other than improve how you Qualify.

If, on the other hand the barrier is ability, there may be plenty you can do to make your offer more accessible:

• If the block to their ability is time, can you adjust timings to make it work for them? Could you meet out of office hours? Or deliver through shorter, more frequent meetings, or fewer longer ones?
• If the block is being bogged down in the day-to-day, how can you help them protect their time with you? Could you meet offsite? Or out of hours?
• If the block is money, can you adjust how it gets paid for? Can you offer a payment schedule, perhaps even a subscription? Can you split you offer into smaller components that can be purchased seperately? Can you offer a group option?
• Finally, how would these accommodations impact on your Packages, and the way you Share and Keep your Promise? Is that what you want?

By now of course, you've realised that this process of observing behaviour, drawing conclusions and adjusting your Promise System accordingly doesn't just apply to Client referrals.

Every passage through your Customer Experience Score tells you something, no matter where it ends.

Not all of what it tells you should result in changes to what you do or how you do it, but you won't know till you've looked at what's behind the behaviour.

The same kind of thinking applies to Keep Promise. It even extends beyond Clients - to your team members, suppliers and investors.

What people do is a much more reliable indicator of what's really going on than what they say.

The best kind of human feedback is the kind you don't have to ask for.

Observe behaviour, draw conclusions and then, if needed, act to adjust your Promise System.

One final thought.

Data is increasingly easy to collect. Resist the temptation to collect and use it all.

Decide which facts matter to your business and measure those.

As always, thanks for reading,

Ready to leave your business as your legacy?

Let's talk .