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The Effortless Experience: Conquering the New Battleground for Customer Loyalty Kindle Edition

by Matthew Dixon (Author), Nick Toman (Author), Rick DeLisi (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 738 ratings
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Everyone knows that the best way to create customer loyalty is with service so good, so over the top, that it surprises and delights. But what if everyone is wrong?

 


In their acclaimed bestseller The Challenger Sale, Matthew Dixon and his colleagues at CEB busted many longstanding myths about sales. Now they’ve turned their research and analysis to a new vital business subject—customer loyalty—with a new book that turns the conventional wisdom on its head. 


The idea that companies must delight customers by exceeding service expectations is so entrenched that managers rarely even question it. They devote untold time, energy, and resources to trying to dazzle people and inspire their undying loyalty. Yet CEB’s careful research over five years and tens of thousands of respondents proves that the “dazzle factor” is wildly overrated—it simply doesn’t predict repeat sales, share of wallet, or positive wordof-mouth. The reality: 

Loyalty is driven by how well a company delivers on its basic promises and solves day-to-day problems, not on how spectacular its service experience might be. Most customers don’t want to be “wowed”; they want an effortless experience. And they are far more likely to punish you for bad service than to reward you for good service.


If you put on your customer hat rather than your manager or marketer hat, this makes a lot of sense. What do you really want from your cable company, a free month of HBO when it screws up or a fast, painless restoration of your connection? What about your bank—do you want free cookies and a cheerful smile, even a personal relationship with your teller? Or just a quick in-and-out transaction and an easy way to get a refund when it accidentally overcharges on fees?


The Effortless Experience takes readers on a fascinating journey deep inside the customer experience to reveal what really makes customers loyal—and disloyal. The authors lay out the four key pillars of a low-effort customer experience, along the way delivering robust data, shocking insights and profiles of companies that are already using the principles revealed by CEB’s research, with great results. And they include many tools and templates you can start applying right away to improve service, reduce costs, decrease customer churn, and ultimately generate the elusive loyalty that the “dazzle factor” fails to deliver. 

The rewards are there for the taking, and the pathway to achieving them is now clearly marked.

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  1. Print length
    330 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Portfolio
  5. Publication date
    September 12, 2013
  6. Reading age
    18 years and up
  7. File size
    14826 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“This is what every business book should be like: stuffed with practical advice, wellsupported by research, and written to keep you eagerly flipping the pages.”

—DAN HEATH, coauthor of Decisive, Switch, and Made to Stick, from the foreword


“Most current customer support and customer experience improvement programs are merely replays of age-old concepts with some new terminology thrown in. The customer effort research and approach recounted here is different. It is truly the first really novel idea that I’ve heard—and implemented—in a long time. This is an approach that drives innovative, significant improvement within my teams . . . actions grounded in solid data . . . actions that yield measurable, customer-visible results that we just couldn’t achieve via other means. It really has changed the way I think about the support my team delivers.”

—DAN ROURKE, director of software support, HomeAway, Inc.


“A must-have for any true customer experience leader’s library. Matt, Nick, and Rick are the ‘MythBusters’ of customer experience, dispelling many commonly held but inaccurate beliefs around the drivers of disloyalty and delight and what will really drive true value to your business.”
—LYNN HOLMGREN, vice president, customer experience strategy, Frontier Communications


“If you are looking for one resource to keep on your desk that will bring you back to the right focus for delivering a better customer service, this is that resource.”

—CHRIS HALE, vice president, reservation services, Hyatt


“Every business is looking for the secret to creating loyal customers. This book not only builds a compelling case for effortless customer experiences being the key to loyalty, but also provides a clear road map for any business to achieve that goal. It’s a must-read!”

—DEB OLER, vice president and general manager, Grainger Brand, W. W. Grainger


“What’s brilliant about The Effortless Experience is its pragmatism, illustrated by the observation that we can easily make things worse for customers and often do more harm than good. Here is real, practical, implementable guidance to help avoid those pitfalls.”

—RICHARD JOYCE, operations director, Home Retail Group Customer Services


“The Effortless Experience provides a well-researched foundation for customer experience transformation. Reducing customer effort links the work of the service organization to the business-wide goal of increasing customer loyalty. The concepts themselves are pragmatic and actionable and this book will get you under way.”

—SUE ATKINS, head of service experience, Telecom NZ Ltd

From the Author

We are proud to offer a host of additional materials, including practical tools that can help any company get a jump-start on their "low-effort journey."

We invite you to visit our Effortless Experience website at no additional cost:  
effortless-experience.com

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00C5R73I8
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Portfolio (September 12, 2013)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 12, 2013
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 14826 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 330 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 738 ratings

About the authors

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  1. Rick DeLisi

    Rick DeLisi

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  2. Matthew Dixon

    Matthew Dixon

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    Matt Dixon is one of the world’s leading experts on sales, customer service and customer experience. He is a Founding Partner of DCM Insights, The Customer Understanding Lab.

    Prior to co-founding DCMi, he served as the Chief Product & Research Officer of Tethr, an AI venture in Austin, TX, that helps companies mine customer voice data for insights. And before that, he spent time as a Senior Partner and the Global Head of Sales Force Effectiveness Solutions at Korn Ferry Hay Group and as Group Leader of the sales, service and customer experience practices of CEB, now Gartner.

    Matt is a sought-after speaker and advisor to corporate leadership teams around the world on topics ranging from sales effectiveness to customer service and customer experience and is also a noted business writer.

    His first book, The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation (Penguin, November 2011), was a #1 Amazon as well as Wall Street Journal best seller, selling more than a million copies worldwide. He is also the co-author of the customer experience bestseller The Effortless Experience: Conquering the New Battleground for Customer Loyalty (Penguin, September 2013) and the follow-on book to The Challenger Sale titled The Challenger Customer: Selling to the Hidden Influencer Who Can Multiply Your Results (Penguin, September 2015). His latest book is The JOLT Effect: How High Performers Overcome Customer Indecision (Penguin, September 2022).

    Matt is also a frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review with more than 20 print and online articles to date, including many that have appeared in HBR's "Top Ten Must Reads." Among his most-cited pieces are "Reinventing Customer Service" (November-December 2018), “Kick-Ass Customer Service” (January–February 2017), “Dismantling the Sales Machine” (November 2013), “The End of Solution Sales” (July–August 2012) and “Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers” (July–August 2010).

    Matt holds a Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh as well as a B.A. in International Studies from Mount Saint Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Maryland. He lives in Silver Spring Maryland with his wife and four children.

    Visit DCM Insights at https://www.dcminsights.com/ and visit Matt on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/profile/edit?trk=hb_tab_pro_top or follow him on Twitter at @matthewxdixon

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  3. Nick Toman

    Nick Toman

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    Nick Toman oversees the CEB Sales Practice supporting over 800 sales organizations globally. For the past decade, he has conducted numerous research studies in the space of customer service and sales effectiveness. Nick has been published numerous times in the Harvard Business Review, is a co-author of The Effortless Experience (Penguin, 2013), The Challenger Customer (Penguin, 2015), and a principle contributor to The Challenger Sale (Penguin, 2011). Nick is a frequent contributor for a number of blogs, including that of the Harvard Business Review and Freakonomics. Nick currently resides in Northern Virginia, with his wife and son.

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Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
738 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

David A. Brock
5.0 out of 5 stars Too Often We're Solving The Wrong Problem
Reviewed in the United States on September 12, 2013
Verified Purchase
Too often, we're solving the wrong problem! We think customers want a delightful customer service experience. We design our processes, train our people, measure them on delighting the customer. We implement self service tools, web conferencing, provide the latest in technology all in the spirit of serving the customer.

At the same time, we are trying to make our customer service organizations as cost effective and efficient as possible. So our customer service strategies are constrained, rightfully so, by our business strategies.

But is this really the right problem to be solving? Is this what customers really want. Yes, they absolutely want to be treated well, by skilled and polite people. But more then anything else, they want their problem solved---as quickly and effortlessly as possible.

And that's where we go wrong in so many cases. We are solving for the wrong problem. If we started focusing on effortless customer service experience, we would probably change everything we do. We would possibly reduce the cost of service delivery, more effectively drive customer loyalty, and so on.

This book turns much of our traditional thinking about customer service upside down. It provides data challenging old thoughts about a "delighted customer" is a loyal customer--both spending more and recommending you more.

This is a must read and think book for anyone in Customer Service. It's a must read book for every sales and marketing executive. It should stimulate everyone to question their assumptions, reframing what they do to create effortless experiences.
9 people found this helpful
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Mommy of Many
5.0 out of 5 stars There's some good stuff in here!
Reviewed in the United States on November 16, 2015
Verified Purchase
My manager "recommended" (ahem!) that I read this before my first meeting with the new "director". I went into it with a so-so attitude. I'm always happy to learn and I am really and truly invested in improving our customer experience but I get so tired of corporate games. I'm only halfway through but there's actually some good stuff in here! I've said for years that customers don't want to be "delighted"...they just want one less hassle in their day. Make their lives easier somehow and they don't care about rainbows and unicorns. You can "wow" one customer in a hundred or you can satisfy 90 in a hundred. If the opportunity to "wow" arises, great, jump on it, but there are so many things we can do every day to reduce customer effort and we need to! (I'm the QR lead at a startup software company...reviewing our CS interactions and TRYING to train agents and improve the customer experience)
17 people found this helpful
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Manuel Hernandez
4.0 out of 5 stars Intuitive read, mostly focused on call center customer experience
Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2023
Verified Purchase
As I entered a new role to kick off the Customer Success function at our company, I picked up this book. I got lots of nuggets of wisdom from it, but most of the insights it provides revolve around the customer experience in call center settings.
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Scott E Wallin
5.0 out of 5 stars Great customer service book
Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2022
Verified Purchase
Great read. Study of what customers currently need from a business through customer service interactions. Results from actually studies of call centers supervisors, reps, and the customers themselves. Actual practical advise on how to use the information in this book in real business settings.
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Tina
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for leaders focused on customer retention and engagement
Reviewed in the United States on December 21, 2021
Verified Purchase
Very helpful perspective and tips in retaining and engaging your customer base through low effort service experiences. Really appreciated the way the author leveraged data to springboard in to what is important to customer
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Tara Schaefer
3.0 out of 5 stars Pretty good read
Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2019
Verified Purchase
Overal, this is a good book on the customer experience. It focuses on how to improve that experience in a mostly call center environment. My only real issue is that it the author takes an inside out approach to improving the customer experience.

In our modern day and with our technology, we should be looking to take an outside in approach to improving the customer experience. Meaning, let us go through what the customer goes through to get to a person to help, so we can see where we need to make improvements that our customers will appreciate.
10 people found this helpful
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John
5.0 out of 5 stars Must read for anyone in the industry
Reviewed in the United States on March 27, 2021
Verified Purchase
This is a great book for anyone who cares about customer service. It’s ironic that as consumers we all complain about how bad customer service but at work we often think the things we hate as consumers are what are best for customers. Anyway, give it a read!
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Butts Hamstring
5.0 out of 5 stars Essential Reading for Modern Businesses
Reviewed in the United States on November 15, 2018
Verified Purchase
It doesn't get any more inspiring and imperative than this. Effortless Experience contains indispensable insight into the world of customer service and customer loyalty. There were some shocking statistics and results in the book that completely changed the way I think about running my eCommerce department. I highly recommend this book to any manager or rising star in any department that needs to keep customers happy (hint: EVERY department does!)
3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Luan Vieira
5.0 out of 5 stars Must read for founders and Investors.
Reviewed in Brazil on February 21, 2023
Verified Purchase
If looking for a book that will help you better understand how to enhance your client experience, this one is definitely a must.
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dave
5.0 out of 5 stars you must read this book if you are going down the CX journey
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 2, 2021
Verified Purchase
There are so many books around about CX nowadays. Depending which one you read and follow go into delighting, wowing, creating fans, super satisfying etc etc. But at the end of the day what a lot of customers want is an effortless experience done right first time. this book is exactly that, about ease of doing business backed up by overwhelming statistics and research.
yes the book is rather focused on the customer service side of the customer journey, but you can't avoid or neglect the importance of being easy to do business with.
if you read around the CX topic you will find this book is referenced time and time again and for very good reason
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Despontin Nicolas
5.0 out of 5 stars Le CES, le nouvel indicateur
Reviewed in France on February 11, 2021
Verified Purchase
Excellent livre, qui remets en question la manière de juger de la loyauté d'un client.
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Rio
3.0 out of 5 stars Muy obvio pero bien
Reviewed in Spain on January 3, 2018
Verified Purchase
El libro es bastante obvio en muchas de sus afirmaciones. La lectura es rápida y sencilla pero no esperes grandes descubrimientos.
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Guidance FS
3.0 out of 5 stars Valuable
Reviewed in Australia on September 7, 2022
Verified Purchase
Their assertions are supported by quality data, which I appreciated. Wasn't as relevant to my small business as I had hoped though, but still a worthwhile read.
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