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Lean CX – The Emperor And The Wise Man

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By now you may have heard about the Lean CX Score, and are wondering to yourself “What’s all the fuss about?” So let’s cut to the chase. Below are the six separate, actionable steps in the Lean CX Score. Each one by itself can create incredible growth, profit and scalability in your team, your startup, your business and your life. But together, they are truly the greatest secret to creating disruptive products and services in any industry – new or old.

The six Lean CX Score steps can be remembered with the acronym ROVE CP (at least that’s how I remember it).

Repeatable Process
One Step Flow
Visual (and Audio) Management
Error Proofing
Check and Stop
Problem Solve for Exponential Growth

The steps also become six questions, which you can use to get your point for that step. The questions look like this:

Is my customer experience the same great experience every time?
Did it take only one step for my customer to get what they wanted?
Can my customer understand what to do first time, without having to ask?
Is it impossible to make a mistake?
Is there a check to see if my customer got what they wanted?
(How) do we use feedback?

If they don’t make much sense now, don’t worry. By the time you’ve been through the stories and real life research in this book, you will be an expert on them.

Which brings us to a quick note on reading this book. Some people may be tempted to think that they know all about these steps just by seeing the headings, or to skip ahead to the last chapter and see how their business measures up. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – different people learn in different ways, and sometimes getting an overview (such as in Chapter Seven) can help you learn more quickly.

Just remember that each chapter has the finer details you’ll need to take things to the next level, and in skipping ahead you may miss some of those things. Also remember that these are not the same tools you may have seen before. I’ve made the process simpler, faster, and easier to use with a few adjustments – adjustments I’ve made by seeing the results on the actual front lines of customer service and CX over many years. If you approach this book with an open mind, you will see some amazing things begin to happen.

You may have heard the story of the Emperor who asked the advice of the wisest man in his kingdom. When the wise man appeared he did not speak, and instead asked for a cup, together with a saucer and some tea. He poured the tea into the cup with great poise as the court watched with amazement, but even when the cup was full he kept pouring until tea was spilling down the sides and onto the table.

Finally the Emperor could take it no longer and yelled “Stop, stop you crazy old man! Can’t you see that the cup is full?”

It was then the wise man stopped pouring and said: “You are like this cup – I cannot pour my wisdom because your cup is already full. If you truly seek my council, your cup must first be empty.”

Your cup must first be empty.

If you genuinely want incredible results, start this journey with a “beginner’s mind”, where you leave your pre-conceptions at the door and your cup is able to be filled. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s there are few.

So read the chapters to get a full understanding, read the stories of people who have done it before, and read how they used it to win. At the end of the book you’ll see how to rate your own business or team, and start to see the incredible rewards that good CX can bring.

Let’s do it!

More chapters from The Lean CX Score book: