How and why does color coding drive our actions? (Often in the wrong direction)

As I have learned about Customer AI over the last few years, I have come to realize that the way I used to think (and unfortunately still think, most of the time) and they way about 99.99% of my colleagues used to think and act was and is simply wrong. Please let me start to clarify by asking some questions, based on examples.

First, please have a look at this performance table. The question is simple: where should we focus our next actions, based on this table?

The most common reactions and behaviors I have seen with tables like that, including for myself, are "Oh no! More than half the countries are doing badly. I don't know what to do. Let's talk to them all for the next three months so we can decide what to do."

Now, what would you do if you saw this next table?

This time, 99.99% of people I have worked with, including the guy I see in the mirror each morning, would say "OMG, Italy and France are a disaster. We need to act right now! No time to waste. Run to the fire and put it out!" Do you recognize that behavior when you look at yourself in the mirror? At least the fact that only two countries have red status makes us more likely to act.

Now let's look at the next table and see whether or not it changes anything.

Now our reaction tends to be, "Ah, Italy and France are improving, so now we should panic about Canada and Portugal instead."

Now, how about this final table. I have to say it includes a column that I rarely looked at in my lifetime of looking at tables like the ones I have already shown you.

So, what's our reaction likely to be here. Mine used to be "Relax! All the reds are in low-revenue countries. Don't worry too much about it. Let's look at it again six months from now. Please go back to whatever you were doing."

This reaction is wrong. Totally wrong!

For some reason, we humans seem to want to spend a lot of our time and energy on fixing things that are going wrong. This is wrong! In business, we should be spending even more of our time on reinforcing things that are going well. After a few years of observing how Customer AI can improve business performance, I can see that the top countries deserving immediate action are the USA, Brazil, and Switzerland. Can you see why? It's because improving their performance index number by one point can probably have seven or eight times the revenue impact of improving Italy or France by one point.

Things are changing

While it is in our nature as humans to react and give urgent attention mainly to the negative things in our business and personal lives, I am optimistic for two reasons. From a purely psychological perspective, I have seen the general adoption of what is called 'Positive Parenting', replacing the old philosophy, often promoted by preachers, and which was called 'Spare the rod and spoil the child', essentially saying that you needed to concentrate on beating your children when they were underperforming, and good performance should be ignored as it would lead to the sin of pride. That old philosophy has almost disappeared.

The other reason I am optimistic is technological. The tables I gave you above are already quite complex, and they give you no indication at all about what you need to do to reinforce the good countries or improve the bad ones. Working out what precise actions will have the most impact on customer retention and growth, with timeframes, used to be close to impossible. However, this is precisely what Customer AI now does, ingesting your operational, profile, and attitudinal data to tell you exactly on which customers to focus and exactly what you need to do for each one to maximise their propensity to renew contracts and to buy more.

No more need for traffic light tables. The software does it all for you, and describes exactly what you need to do, including determining who needs to do it.

Remember, the most likely way AI will take your job is if a competitor uses it to crush your company. You know who to call.

Notes

OCX Cognition predicts customer futures. Our breakthrough Customer AI solution lets enterprises transform what’s possible in customer experience. Reduce your customer risk, break down walls between teams, and drive speedy action – when you can see what’s coming, you can change the outcome. Building on more than 100 years of CX-focused expertise in our small team and thousands in teams we have led, we’ve harnessed today’s advances in AI, elastic computing, and data science to deliver on the promise of customer-driven financial results. Learn more at www.ocxcognition.com.

Maurice FitzGerald is Editor-in-Chief, Content at OCX Cognition. He retired from HP where he was VP of Customer Experience for their $4 billion software business and was previously VP of Strategy and Customer Experience as well as Chief of Staff for HP in EMEA. He and his brother Peter, an Oxford D.Phil in Cognitive Psychology, have written three books on customer experience strategy and NPS, all available from Amazon.