3 Small Steps to Cause a Customer Experience Epidemic

This post is inspired by Malcolm Gladwell's book The Tipping Point.

I recently re-read the The Tipping Point by Gladwell and it got me thinking of all kinds of ways to apply the concepts from the book into day-to-day work.  Instead of applying the concepts to customer directed activities I thought of ways the concepts can be applied to customer experience and getting an entire organization to be concerned about optimizing the customer experience.

1. Get your unique socializers involved

The Law of the Few
According to Gladwell there are three types of extraordinary people that start epidemics.

• Connectors - These people have a knack for meeting people.  They have diverse social circles which makes them uniquely qualified to spread information among a wide variety of groups.
• Mavens - The information collectors.  Mavens become experts on certain subjects and we rely on them to introduce us to new information.
• Salesman - These are the pursuaders and promoters.  They can take a concept and translate into a message that creates a need.

Most of the time, customer experience managers do have a lot of formal power in organization but managers can use specific people to get their message across to a wide audience.  You do not need a large meeting to present your findings a lot people.  In fact, it might better to use the unique people in your organization to get your message out. 
It probably won't take you too long to figure out who these people are if you just sit down and try to think of people who fit these descriptions.  These people can help translate your message to others who may not understand customer experience into something others can use.

2. Fine tune your message to make it stick

Stickiness Factor
This is where it gets a little difficult but crafting the right message to get your point across is important.  In The Tipping Point, Gladwell gives examples of Seasame Street and Blues Clues and how they tested their episodes for stickiness.  What messages gets people in your organization attention?  Fear may not be the answer.  An example in the book give an example of getting students to get a flu vaccination.  The fear message did not motivate people to get flu shots.  Giving a map and hours of when the shots would be available made participation jump.  Your goal is to get people to act not just hear your message.
Having everyone listen to ugly call center interactions may not be the way to get people to act.  Think direct response advertising.  Do you have a call to action?  What do you want people to do?  Are you being clear enough?

3. Communicate in the right context

The Power of Context
The environment makes a big difference in whether a message or idea becomes an epidemic.  People do not act the same in all situations.  Gladwell gave the example of the crime epidemic in New York.  Does your organization have a problem with nothing ever being accomplished in meetings?  Maybe the meeting isn't the right context.  Maybe the meeting setting gives people permission to not follow through because "no one else does it."
Consider the right context for geting people to act. 

By considering these three small steps on how to influence your organization may get your message to spread like a virus.

I encourage anyone who hasn't read The Tipping Point to do so.  If you have read it, read it again.  It's a great book for marketing professionals