Herding Rhinos: Handling Sceptics of Customer Experience
When I first got into the business of influencing, my manager at the time advised me to plot my key stakeholders on a matrix that measured their level of power against level of support for our cause.
Where individual stakeholders fall on this matrix defines, at a high level, how you treat them:
- Low power, low support: Everyone with low levels of both power and support require minimal effort, but don't annoy them in case their position changes.
- Low power, high support: Your supporters are your friends and may help get things done -- especially if you can think of a way to big them up and make them more powerful.
- High power, high support: Your advocates are a fantastic resource: communicate with them often, use them to spread your message and deliver great things -- reciprocate by helping them achieve their goals.
- High power, low support: Then you've got your rhinos. These are the highly influential people who, for whatever reason, don't buy your message. Or don't help you deliver on it. Rhinos are hard to move. They need influencing, or you need to get around them.
The first thing you need to figure out is why each stakeholder is a rhino in the first place. Chances are, there's a good reason -- and it's not that they are just idiots. Here are five questions that have always helped me decide what to do next:
- Do they see the problem that you're trying to solve? Something that's blatantly obvious to you may not stick out to some of your senior stakeholders, who have a different view of the business. You need to get them to see where you're coming from. My advice is to decide which is a more convincing wake-up call: the numbers from your research or an immersion exercise. This could include going through the experience themselves, watching an actual customer journey, or a journey map that follows a made-up customer through the process.
- Is your argument the problem? Being a manager means having to prioritise competing demands for time and resource. If your argument in support of your cause isn't strong enough, you might not get very far. Saying customers hate the colour of the website might trigger alarm bells for you, but you need to show that this reduces conversion rates or has some other tangible impact on the business. If it doesn't, then why are you spending time on it? If it means a lot to you, include it in a wider project that will have an impact. Remember: the purpose of improving the customer experience is all about increasing profitability.
- What is this person's top priority? They've admitted it: they see the issue. You've presented a viable solution, but they're still not budging. What is it that they want? Maybe they have tunnel vision when it comes to their own goals: if you really need this person, find a way to help them. If they are all about sales figures, maybe you need to spend time thinking about how your customer experience plan can help them deliver this. Be flexible, make sure your argument is solid - and cater it to your stakeholder's needs.
- Do they believe in customer experience? You've presented the best argument you can prepare without actually trialling your solution, but they just don't buy it. This happens a lot with CE projects -- there are a lot of finger-in-the-air estimates based on research and customer feedback -- but some rhinos just don't believe it will deliver real business results. A tough problem if you don't have the resources to fund your own projects. If you have support in other parts of the organisation, put this project on hold until you have successfully delivered real results from another initiative, maybe in another part of the business. Your past successes will create a compelling argument in your favour.
- Is the organisation a barrier? Often, product development teams being measured heavily on time-to-market, acquisitions, and cost to build. Loyalty, satisfaction, word-of-mouth -- building a great experience will not be top of the agenda. If you're in this situation, the best bet is to work closely with the senior leadership team (hopefully the ones who hired you are in your corner) to start a culture shift -- including business-wide customer experience targets.