a short, hot day or two ago (i live in Phoenix), i remembered a stat that i had heard on many occasions, but each time the numbers were conflicting, maintaining the consistency of snowflakes and fingerprints. confused, as i should be, i decided to google this stat to finally achieve the satisfaction of knowing the true answer. this mind-blistering stat states that “man’s knowledge doubles every X years.” turns out, google produced every number from 50 years to 2 years, so every conflicting number was somehow right. upon closer examination, i determined the numbers were correct, depending upon the date of the estimation. in other words, our knowledge is not only doubling every two years (current estimate), but it is growing exponentially on top of that. in five years, our knowledge will double quicker than now.

there seems to be one exception to the rule: businesses today refuse to double their knowledge on the customer experience, let alone increase it. this is fanatically frustrating to me, as i have devoted my career to improving my client’s customer experience.

how many studies must be done to know that people like things that make them feel happy?

here comes the rant: you can invoke two kinds of feelings when you interact with your customer. just for a second, consider there are no inbetweens, no neutral feelings, because it has been proven that neutral or satisfied customers are not loyal customers, and the goal is loyal customers....um....right?

so, one set of feelings can be likened to a 3 year old blowing their first wobble-bubble (a 6 year old who inspired this blog entry noticed i was watching him blowing bubbles, and he informed me matter-of-factly that the technical term for magic bubbles is now wobble-bubbles...makes sense, now that i think about it. i just wish someone would have told me sooner).

picture this: after a few failed attempts, a wobble-bubble forms after being the lucky recipient of the tot’s mouthwind. it takes flight, angering all the laws of gravity, and the height that that wobble-bubble achieves dictates how far apart the youngin’s dimples grow. happiness, eh? pure ecstasy.

without even moving on, it’s easy to conclude that we should strive to make our customers have these feelings. i probably should have bolded the previous sentence, but i didn’t, and i don’t feel like going back, so read it again.

now, if by some off chance you are still with my airport-induced rambles, take one more mental picture for me: what happens to the cheeky grin on the sub-adult’s face when that bubble pops? sheer devastation. oh, the clouds move in, and it’s as if someone took colors from a rainbow. the future holds nothing. nothing, excluding doom, of course.

why, from Alice’s green wonderland to our conference rooms, do we take our customers and pop their wobble-bubbles? they like wobble-bubbles, and as we discussed earlier every study done has proven that things that people like make them happy. and their expectation is that the wobble-bubbles will continue to rise. is it that hard to make sure that their expectations are met?

simple concept here: people like wobble-bubbles. they don’t like it when their wobble-bubbles pop. you have a choice to give them what they want, or be the biz-grinch and use your ooze-covered needle to *ka-pop* their wobble-bubble. that’s just mean.

ok. this is the second time i have stopped to make sure someone (anyone) was still following. i mean, if you left me, i understand...no blood, no foul. but i’m going to quit writing if you’re not there, ‘cause, what’s the point...

glad you’re still with me. here comes the meat ‘n’ taters.

business would be so much easier if you could hand a card out to every customer that comes through the door that spells out their expectations. “hi Customer, thanks for coming. here are your expectations, and i promise you we will fulfill them in every way.”

but you can’t. you need to find out what your client’s expect so you can put a stop to the wobble-bubble pop. the only way to do that is ask them. don’t just collect their feedback, act on it. at that point you will find out where you’re not meeting expectations. it just doesn’t matter one iota (really, what is an iota?) what you think they should get from you; it only matters what they think they should get from you.

the only way to fulfill expectations is to measure what those expectations are through enterprise feedback.

one last picture for you: rest those eyelids, and imagine your customers in a pretty field with flowers and sunshine. bubbles are flying everywhere. your customers are running around like they have never even seen a cubicle, enjoying their wobble-bubbles. they expect this utopia to end with eternity. and then the goo-covered biz-grinch *ka-pops* them all.

are you the one who creates the wobble-bubbles, or pops them?

if you need to find out what your customers expect, or whether you create wobble-bubbles or pop them, i’m your huckleberry.

jeff