KYC / KYM – Know Your Customer / Know Your Market .. “we are not sure we deeply understand who our customer is anymore” – 7 CX Leadership Action Items From Last Night

One of my fave quotes “it ain’t what you know that will git ya’, it ain’t what you don’t know that will git ya, it’s what you know that ain’t so” Mark Twain

Last night was one of the best examples of this quote since .. well .. Brexit … a few months ago.

One of our key partners, MCorpCX (www.mcorp.cx), one of the leading lights of Customer Experience Strategy, Experience Bluprinting, Personas and Customer Journey Mapping, has initiated 50% of their new clients in 2016 with a client calling and saying something like “we are not sure we really deeply understand who our customer is anymore and how to be really relevant to and engage them” .. Kerching !

So here are some thoughts and actions from last night as we all figure out what is next

1. Take a look at your customer personas and journeys – It doesn’t take much .. just a quick review .. make sure you look really hard and brutally .. sometimes you are the last to know when things have changed .. but you may want some external help outside your team or outside your company .. see #2 below.
2. Take a look at your team – do you have diversity .. is diversity what you think it is .. you may want to inject some different views ..… permanent or from external consulting resources .. can you really know your customer if your customer experience and marketing team is based in Manhattan (78% Clinton vs upper NY state 69% trump) or San Francisco / San Mateo county (76% Clinton vs Glenn County, CA 68% Trump) and your customers are in NC, Ga, Tn, Tx, Fl (all the fastest growing states and Trump territory)   http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/president
3. Make sure you are playing the right game – decades ago an old mentor told me anyone trying to play cricket on a rugby field is bound to get run over (Donald lost the popular vote 47.5% to 47.6% to Clinton but Trump will win the electoral college 60% (300 and something votes) to 40% (200 and something).  And don’t be afraid to look outside to change .. eg “WallMart buys Jet.com after investing ~$1b in wallmart ecommerce over 10 years”
4. The winners don’t need everyone to win any battle – 55% of the USA eligible voting population actually voted this year or 129m of 232m eligible voters, Trump secured 48% of that vote .. or Donald, got 48% x 55% = 26% of the eligible voters. How do your data insight tools work? Are they giving you the right data and insights for the right game? Do you know who to target?
5. There are winners and .. winners – I will leave that to Donald’s “The Art Of The Deal” .. winning is winning is winning. When you face a hardcore sales person who is focused on winning  at all costs you must understand and adapt. In 1993 when I was at Cap Gemini and they had just launched in the USA we had a big layoff after the 1991 recession and an external consultant analyzed our business model .. they told us we were often “Dead Right” .. right about risks and strategies with our clients’ projects 70% of the time and felt good that we shared .. and lost / dead 70% of the time .. their advice ..  know your buyer and what they want to know (hey ! don’t shoot the messenger . just saying !)
6. Change is good – usually, eventually, if you look at it deeply and hard enough. Get yourself a t-shirt.
7. Act –  Create A Plan – Do Something  – Think about yourself, your company strategy and your leadership team. Did you prepare for this ? what are you doing ? are you responding ? Do you have a risk / change mitigation plan ? One of my favorite conversations of the past year was at an offshore tech services company “C suite” with 70% of business (and 90% of business growth) in N. Europe and USA who was shocked at Brexit at end Q2 2016.. Who knows what they are thinking today about USA Nov 9th 2016 .. Europe leaders didn’t forecast Brexit (USA leaders were discounting Trump) .. If your market leaders had no idea this might happen and don’t have a plan all ready to go to address possible changes you might have the wrong folks in charge, what other fundamental things don’t they believe will happen?  Personally I would be doing something in December to prove to my CEO that I am doing something different as we prepare for Presidential Inauguration in January and an interesting 2017 .. just saying .. oh my CEO is me .. let me go talk to myself !)