Category Archives: Lean CX Comic

#6 Lean CX Comic – Complicated Work

October 27, 2017Lean CX Comiccomic, complicated work, customer experience, cx, David McLachlan, lean book, lean comic, Lean CX, make it simpleDavid McLachlan

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The Cycle Of Complicated Work

There’s a vicious cycle damning your business to mediocrity, and it’s the cycle of complicated work.

Whether it’s a product you sell, a website or app User Experience you are guiding people through, or a task that your team needs to complete, you are wasting some of your most precious resources and losing money as a result, if it’s more complicated than it needs to be.

But the worst part about it is if your work is complicated, there’s a higher chance that you will be so busy putting out fires, and not have the time to actually improve the work itself. Many managers don’t even know how to design their team’s work for happiness and engagement, but more on this in a moment.

Not only does unnecessarily complicated work take more time, but time costs money, and the increased complexity also drains the attention and focus of your customers and staff. Research has shown that “cognitive load”, or the brain cycles required to complete a task seriously impacts the likelihood of a person continuing to do something, or making mistakes and setting it aside.

Forming Habits and Complicated Products

That means that complicated things also damn the products you sell into a quagmire of mediocrity. In his book, “Hooked”, Nir Eyal describes one of the key things necessary for forming a habit. It is the action your customers need to take, and it should be as easy as possible for them to learn and engage in quickly.

Sure, some customers might put in a larger amount of effort than others, and they might stick with you when something isn’t immediately obvious, but the majority of people – both team mates and customers – are more likely to leave if the work is unnecessarily complicated.

“Unnecessarily complicated” can actually be quantified, and it has been quantified in the book The Lean CX Score by David McLachlan. In that book are outlined five key scenarios that contribute to complicated work. If you remove them, you are many times more likely to enjoy the benefits of happier employees and returning customers.

They are:

Rework, or having to do something more than once to get the required result,
Waiting, or having to wait too long for something to occur,
Excessive Hand-offs, or passing things around between departments, pages or applications,
Excessive Steps, or having to perform too many steps that may not add value, and;
Not getting what they want, or not receiving the actual outcome that was intended.

Lean CX is absolutely the key to designing your work in a mindful way that improves employee engagement, improves customer retention, reduces customer friction and seriously reduces cost.

That means that if you are one of those leaders who wants to improve their results and their team’s engagement and outcomes, but doesn’t know where to start, the absolute best place to start is with the step-by-step process of the Lean CX Score.

I highly recommend you check it out today.

See all the Lean CX Comics here

Get "The Lean CX Score" now, and start creating disruptors in your industry that completely annihilate your competition.

Oh and good news! You'll be improving the speed, morale and engagement of your teams at the same time. Get the Lean CX Score now.

#5 Lean CX Comic – Make It Simple (Or They Will Leave You)

October 21, 2017Lean CX Comicbusiness improvement, create a disruptor, customer experience, disruptor, entrepreneur, lean comic, lean customer experience, Lean CX, Lean CX ScoreDavid McLachlan

#5 Lean CX Comic – Make It Simple (Or They Will Leave You)

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News Flash: People Aren’t Buying Your Complicated Products

It’s official. People prefer doing things that are easy. You’ve been in that situation, haven’t you? Something has been too hard, taken too long, been passed along too may times, so you left.

If it’s hard to use, fewer people will use it. Sure, there might be a small percentage who put in the time and work through it – maybe they really like you or your company, or maybe there is another benefit like status or money involved. But keep it complicated for too long, and they won’t stick around forever.

What Does “A Complicated Product” mean?

Saying something is complicated is all very well, but what does it actually mean?

In the book “The Lean CX Score“, David McLachlan outlines five scenarios for complicated products, called the Lean CX Wastes.

Lean Customer Experience means exactly that – the customer experience is streamlined and not full of wasteful things or experiences. Things such as having to redo something over and over, having to perform too many steps to get what a customer wanted, or being handed off between too many people or departments. If you’ve ever had to do any of those you will know what I mean – the experience can be frustrating and every wasteful step you are forced to perform grates on your patience just a little bit more, until finally you leave.

It Works Everywhere

Recent research into online shopping carts by the Baymard Institute found that the average online shopping cart experience had 14 fields, when they really only needed 7 for an ideal checkout flow. They also found that 35% of abandoned online orders were recoverable solely through a better checkout flow and design. The research is there, and it happens everywhere. Online checkouts are one thing we can simplify, but what about the work your teammates or employees do when delivering a product or service?

All the way through the value chain your business is making things more complicated than they have to be, which increases cost, increases the likelihood a customer will leave and reduces your profit as a result.

After all, in chasing the latest gimmick or management fad it is tempting to forget about the lifeblood of any business – your customers – and the money they bring by buying your product or service.

Reducing complexity in your product prompts more people to buy, and reducing complexity in the value chain that delivers your product lowers the cost of delivering it.

The Lean CX Score Is The Step-By-Step Framework For Making Things Simple

If complex products or services are the enemy of good customer experience, then it makes sense to use the Lean CX Score framework as a step-by-step guide to making things simple.

One of the Lean CX steps is called “One Step Flow”, where a customer can get what they want in one step, instead of many different steps over many different people.

You will absolutely love the Lean CX book, because it gives many different real-life examples of One Step Flow – from signing up to watch Game of Thrones in one step, getting the best Energy deal in one step, a hospital getting cancer scans and diagnoses in one step, posting a job ad in one step, and much, much more.

That is just one part of the Lean CX Score – imagine what you could do with the rest of it too?

If you want to improve your business, team, or job prospects, I highly recommend you read it today.

See all the Lean CX Comics here

Lean CX Comics

October 17, 2017Lean CX Comicbusiness, comic, create a disruptor, customer experience, cx, David McLachlan, disruptor, entrepreneur, Lean, lean book, lean comic, lean customer experience, Lean CXDavid McLachlan

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#4 Lean CX Comic – Remove Rework

October 13, 2017Lean CX Comiccustomer experience, disruptor, how to create a disruptor, lean book, lean comic, Lean CX, Lean CX Waste, lean waste, reworkDavid McLachlan

#4 Lean CX Comic – Remove Rework

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Have you ever had to do something, and then do it over again? Maybe the first time wasn’t too bad, but by the third or forth time you have to redo something you might be just about ready to rage-quit. This kind of thing is happening to your customers – and guess what? When it happens they are ready to leave, and when they leave they are neither buying your product nor likely to return.

There are certain scenarios and behaviours that drive your customers away, and they have been captured in the five Lean CX Wastes within the Lean CX Score Framework.

“Rework” is one of those Lean CX Wastes – wastes that drive your customers and your team and employees crazy. Having to redo things is also a huge cost to businesses every year – in many cases simply by reducing the amount of times you have to redo something by one can cut a company’s cost and improve its speed by 30 to 50%.

Rework – Has It Ever Happened To You?

More importantly, you and I can most likely relate to Rework because it has happened to us before. Has your boss ever asked you to redo something thirty times, with micromanaged “improvements” that don’t actually move the needle of improvement that much? Or have you ever had to call a company back three, four, five times or more just to get what they should have been able to give you the first time?

Or what about a website, where is wasn’t clear what you needed to do to get what you wanted, so you had to click a dozen different places before you discovered the “right” thing?

All of this adds up to wasted time, wasted effort, which is why it is one of the Lean CX “Wastes”.

Lean CX Removes those Lean CX Wastes

If gaining and keeping customers is important to you (and if you’re in the business of making a profit, it should be), then removing the Lean CX Wastes will definitely be important to you. The Lean CX Wastes are:

Rework
Excessive Steps
Not getting what I want
Excessive Hand-offs
Waiting

They can be remembered with the acronym: RENEW (or NEWER). The five Lean CX Wastes are outlined in the book: The Lean CX Score, by David McLachlan, but this comic and article should give you a basic outline of one of the most important ones: Rework.

See all the Lean CX Comics here

#3 Lean CX Comic – Be The Disruptor, Not The Disrupted

October 4, 2017Lean CX Comicamazon, borders, customer experience, disruptor, facebook, how to create a disruptor, lean book, Lean CX, Lean CX Comic, Lean CX Score, myspaceDavid McLachlan

#3 Lean CX Comic – Be The Disruptor, Not The DisruptedClick to Enlarge – or – Right Click and “Save As” to save.

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You are either becoming a disruptor, or you’re about to be put out of business by one. So many industries have already been completely changed in the past 10 years, and the disruption is not going to stop. If you don’t discover a formula now for creating disruptive products and services yourself, there’s a good chance your team or business won’t be around to see the next 10 years.

But what exactly is a disruptor? A disruptor, as we see it, is something that changes the rules of the game, so that it is seen as better, can scale and grow faster, and sell more than anything in its industry. As a result, other brands and products fall by the wayside, and ultimately disappear, often within a matter of only a few years.

The good news is, the Lean CX Score is an exact framework for creating disruptors out of normal products or services. In other words, you can be the Amazon, instead of the Borders. You can be the Netflix, instead of the Blockbuster. You can be the Facebook, instead of MySpace. And using these steps actually improves your team speed, morale and engagement at the same time. The rewards are incredible. It’s time to get your copy of the Lean CX Score today.

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#2 Lean CX Comic – Are You Checking Off, Or Checking In?

September 28, 2017Lean CX Comicchecking in, customer experience, jidoka, lean book, Lean CX, Lean CX Comic, The Lean CX ScoreDavid McLachlan

#2 Lean CX Comic – Are You Checking Off, Or Checking In?Click to Enlarge – or – Right Click and “Save As” to save.

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It’s tempting to forget about our team and our customers, and just assume they are getting what they want or doing OK. But studies have shown that Leaders who check in with their team at least once a week see increased engagement scores of up to 27%.

Engagement also has an effect on company revenue and profit, with companies in the highest quartile for engagement seeing twice the revenue on average as those in the lowest quartile for engagement.

And of course, “checking in” with our customer to see if they got what they wanted has been proven to show remarkable rewards. You may have heard of a little thing called the Net Promoter Score (unless you have been travelling through a remote desert). Well the Lean CX principle behind the Net Promoter Score is – you guessed it – Checking In.

Want to see the other five Lean CX Score steps, that create disruptors and improve speed and morale? Get the Lean CX Score book on Amazon now.

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Get the Lean CX Manifesto here:

#1 Lean CX Comic – Don’t Keep Them Waiting

September 22, 2017Lean CX Comiccustomer experience, Lean CX, Lean CX Comic, Lean CX Waste, The Lean CX Score, WaitingDavid McLachlan

#1 Lean CX Comic – Don’t Keep Them Waiting

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Waiting is one of the Lean CX Wastes. Remove it and you are one step closer to giving both your customers and your team an incredible experience that makes them beg for more. And you can remove waiting with the Lean CX Score.

The Lean CX Score is a set of six separate, actionable steps that will help you create disruptive products and services, instead of fearing them. Gandhi said be the change you wish to see in the world, well I’m saying be the disruption you wish to see in the world! And do it before it is too late.

See all the Lean CX Comics here

Get the Lean CX Manifesto here: