The Strengths Zone

Forrester's Customer Experience Pyramid One of the best books I have read related to Customer Experience is by Harley Manning and Kerry Bodine, both with Forrester Reserach,  The book, Outside In , outlines the positive results when companies place customers at the center of their business. They introduce a simple diagram called the Customer Experience Pyramid .  The three levels of the pyramid represent perceptions which customers have every time they interact with a product, a service, a person or an automated system.  At every level, people judge how well the interaction helped them achieve their goals, how much effort they had to invest in the interaction and how much they enjoyed the interaction. I was so inspired with the simplicity of this diagram, I based a customer service questionnaire off of each level; "Did you get what you needed?", "Did we make it easy for you?" and "Did our team member make a positive impression on you?".  Less

Win a StrengthsFinder "All 34" code! This past March, I committed to reviewing each of the StrengthsFinder Talent Themes by the end of the year .  I am on final approach with just a few to go (check out the archives).  Each unique Talent Theme provides perspective on how we get things done.  Given the opportunity to fix something, each of us leverage different talents, skills and behaviors to arrive at a solution. Today, I will focus on the Talent Theme Competition.   In honor of those who have this as a Signature Talent Theme, I will be "gamifying" this edition.  See details below. People who get things done leveraging their Competition talents love playing games - and winning them.  They have a deep aspiration to be the best and will work hard to excel - especially in comparison to others.  They need to compare.  When they can compare, they can compete and if they can compete they can win.  This is what drives them to succeed. People driven by Competiti

This past Saturday, I had the pleasure of attending a fundraiser for the Rosen School of Hospitality in Orlando.  The namesake and major benefactor of the school, Mr. Harris Rosen, had the opportunity to address the crowd.  He spoke of how quickly this college had become one of the top Hospitality institutions in the nation, and praised the founding Dean of the school, Dr. Abe Pizam, for his vision and dedication. Dr. Pizam is retiring and gave a moving farewell address to the audience.  Of Jewish decent, he quoted the "Spiritual Father of the Jewish State" Theodor Herzl (see quote above).  The reference had much to do with Dr. Pizam's own ability to get things started and make things happen. My list of remaining Talent Themes to blog about this year is down to 6.  I had already decided on Activator before attending this charity event.  As soon as I heard the Theodor Herzl quote, my Ideation (#2), Futuristic (#3) and Achiever (#5) kicked into gear. I researche