Raising your blood pressure is not generally viewed as a good thing…but there is one area I know you will be happy to see it go up a bit…on a regular basis. It all depends on which side of the 20/5 rule you are sitting on…
The 20/5 Rule is simple to understand and everyone instinctively knows it to be true. It focuses on what people talk about…what they tell others about you. It focuses on “Awesome Customer Experiences” as opposed “Terrible Customer Experiences.” There is far more conversation generated on social media channels and in person of BAD EXPERIENCES than there are of WOW EXPERIENCES.
On average, when people are asked to share their experiences, we find they share 20 NEGATIVE experiences vs. 5 AWESOME experiences…the 20/5 rule. It is much easier for people to remember bad experiences they have had than it is to recall really incredible experiences.
Here is a simple test you can give your own leadership teams sometime in a meeting…it will be enlightening to prove my point. I have given this this test to many groups and here’s how it works and why I find interesting…
- Give everyone two sheets of paper…with the numbers 1 through 20 listed down the left side
- Ask them to take the first sheet and label it “Awful and Ugly Experiences”
- Take the second sheet of paper and label it “Incredibly Awesome and Memorable Experiences”
- Now ask them to start writing about their experiences on both sheets…without lots of detail but some highlights they remember about them
- Give them 20 minutes total time…asking them to complete as much as they can on both sheets
- Collect all the papers and total up the numbers in both columns for the group…the ratio will be very close to 20/5
When you discuss this with the group you find some very interesting comments…primarily focused around two primary areas…
- It was very easy to recall the awful experiences…they jumped to the front of their mind and were usually some of the most recent ones they have had
- They had to really think about the awesome experiences and usually say this was actually quite difficult to recall some that were really incredible and memorable
Let’s go back to the blood pressure discussion for a minute. After this exercise, I can guarantee you that when they were thinking about the negative experiences their blood pressure went up a bit…and not for a good reason. They were tense, stressed, and anxious as they recalled these painful experiences. If you are doing this in a room you can watch their faces grimace a bit and feel the tenseness in the room. But when they are writing about their positive experiences, their blood pressure went up a bit as well…for good reasons. They were happy…you could even see some smiles on their faces when they were writing about their awesome experiences. Both caused it to rise…but only one caused them to smile at the same time.
But the reason you get so few awesome experiences is because they don’t write down or remember their great experiences…it only happens when the experience is awesome, incredible, remarkable, and WOW! Most customers are almost comatose when they interact with businesses because it’s the same old thing over and over again with no reason to perk up and say WOW this is incredible! They might be great…but they aren’t incredible and they aren’t memorable.
The best companies change that…they get WOW from their customers. Today, if you get WOW consistently and deeply you create ADVOCATES… The Holy Grail in today’s commoditized world. Because now these advocates can spread massive WORD OF MOUTH about how awesome you are to thousands thanks to the power of social media. No longer do you need a massive amount of marketing…you just need more ADVOCATES/CUSTOMERS singing your praises and doing it for you!!
Here’s the “64 thousand dollar question”… HOW MUCH WOULD YOUR BUSINESS CHANGE IF YOU WERE ONE OF THESE ELITE 5 COMPANIES THAT GOT A “WOW” FROM YOUR CUSTOMERS…GOT TALKED ABOUT…AND CREATED MORE ADVOCATES?
This is a game changer…stop worrying about tweaking all your efficiency plans. Build a strategy to be one of the top 5 companies your customer can’t wait to tell others about. Let your competition worry about these and they will be in the 20 companies that either deliver bad experiences or they might deliver great experiences but they still don’t get talked about.
If you are in the TOP 5 you have established a solid BRAND and true DIFFERENTIATION. Now you have not only raised your customer’s blood pressure a bit but you have probably raised you’re own as well…in a positive way and for the right reasons! What side of the 20/5 Rule are you on today? Give the test to your leadership team and then create a strategy to be one of the 5 that get their customers to do their marketing for them…CREATE MORE ADVOCATES!
