Your Call is Important to Us -- Please Hold

Sparks, the 1970s synth-based pop duo (remember "This town ain't big enough for the both of us"?) have been performing a series of London concerts where they play a different album from their back catalogue, each night, in full.
I was reading the set-list in a magazine review of one of these gigs and noticed that one of their songs is called "Your call is important to us -- please hold". Three things immediately struck me:

• The phrase, which has always slightly annoyed me when I've heard it, is completely oxymoronic. How can my call be important if you won't answer it?
• Many organisations create hidden problems in the space between their intent of a great customer experience and their execution of it
• It often takes a completely fresh perspective -- such as seeing the phrase as a song title -- to spot these issues.

In his book, 'Big Think Strategy', Bernd Schmitt tells how he worked with Vodafone to help deliver a step-change in their customer experience. Rather than using focus groups or field surveys, Schmitt and the Vodafone team involved customers in role-plays, detailed phone-cam diaries, in-store interaction and also observed them outside the stores to understand how different stages of the customer experience linked into other elements of their daily lives.

So how can you uncover your hidden customer issues on an everyday basis? Here are seven steps you can take today to give you a fresh perspective:

1. Visit and talk to at least one customer each week, asking about their experience with your business. Mix your visits so that you see some 'good' customers and some 'bad' customers.
2. Every year take a few days off to undertake an intensive tour of your most active customers and ask them open-ended questions about the future of your industry and what's important to them.
3. Invite customers in to speak to your team directly about how your business stacks up against other suppliers they use.
4. Spend at least one week each year working on the frontline of your business.
5. Invite your top customers onto your project teams, involving them in the creation of new product and service ideas.
6. Each month simply spend a day as a customer of your business and being treated in the same way as your other customers.
7. Run an internal -- or external -- competition under the title, 'The biggest thing that gets in the way of a great customer experience around here'. Have prizes available for the best ideas and insights.