CX Lessons from Ted Lasso

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The wisdom of TV icon Ted Lasso is regularly quoted to teach life or management lessons, but Coach Lasso’s worldview and advice can also be helpful when thinking about employee and customer experience.

“Doing the right thing is never the wrong thing.”

Enough said, Ted! However, this does not mean that the customer is always right. Good customer experience has to be right for both the customer and the business. Doing the right thing and doing it with empathy is important, but you should not let customers abuse your process or policies, and certainly, not your employees!

“I’m not sure what y’all’s smallest unit of measurement is here, but that’s about how much headway I made.”

While Ted was clearly not talking about NPS or customer satisfaction scores in general, too many companies are quick to celebrate nominal improvements that don’t even fall outside of the margin of errors on their surveys. Or worse yet, they set improvement goals and tie them to compensation. If I’ve said it once, I have said it one million times: stop focusing on the score and instead focus on the actions you are taking and the real business outcomes that result.

“We all know speed is important. But being able to stop and change directions . . . it don’t get nearly enough credit.”

Yes, speed is critical in many customer experiences, especially more transactional B2C ones. Back in my rental car days, it was the #1 driver of customer satisfaction. But the ability to listen to customer needs and pivot, or even redesign your processes and customer journey maps, is more important.

“So I’ve been hearing this phrase y’all got over here that I ain’t too crazy about. ‘It’s the hope that kills you.’”

Obviously this quote is more about fandom than customer experience, but it applies to CX as well. The experience delivered has to meet the expectations (the hope) that have been set by marketing and sales. When reality does not meet expectations, we end up with disappointed customers and churn.

“On limbo: Great party game, horrible relationship status.”

Making sure people are informed and know where they stand simply comes down to communication. For the employee experience, it starts during the candidate experience and continues through their day-to-day interactions with managers and other leaders in the company. For customers, communication is just as critical to your customer experience as the actual experience itself. Setting proper expectations, communicating status on a regular basis (or updating status in self-service applications), and keeping customers informed is critical to their perception of whether your experience met expectations.

“There’s a bunch of crazy stuff on Twitter. Heck, someone made an account for my mustache.”

“If the internet has taught us anything, it’s that sometimes it’s easier to speak our minds anonymously.”

Yes, there is crazy stuff on social media, but there is also a goldmine of information from customers about their needs, wants, and expectations as well as how well your company lives up to them. Too many companies still only rely on surveys for customer feedback or have their social media team monitoring and responding to customers, but never sharing or combining that feedback with survey feedback. Very often the feedback shared in surveys is very different than that shared in reviews or on social media; and you can bet the profile of those sharing on those two venues is different.

“It’s not like we can handcuff him to his locker and make him love us.”

Nor can we do this with employees or customers, and yet, many companies have onerous contract terms or termination fees that effectively “lock in” customers. Don’t confuse this with loyalty. If the experience is not up to par, securing a renewal on those contracts will be much more difficult. And given the employee retention issues many companies are having, using figurative handcuffs on employees is certainly not the answer.

“I lost my way for a minute, but I’m on the road back.”

“I think that if you care about someone and you got a little love in your heart, there ain’t nothing you can’t get through together.”

No company delivers a great customer experience 100% of the time. But the lasting Power of Recovery is real. What is the Power of Recovery? It is a well-documented phenomenon across many industries that customers that have an issue that gets resolved quickly and to their satisfaction will have higher satisfaction than customers that had no issues in the first place. So, when things go awry, be ready with an empathetic apology and a quick resolution. It can win you a customer for life.

“Most of the time change is a good thing and I think that’s what it’s all about – embracing change, being brave, doing whatever you have to so everyone in your life can move forward with theirs, and maybe it’s the only way you can truly make [people] . . . happy.”

One of my biggest peeves in customer experience is hearing, “Well this is how we’ve always done it.” So what? This excuse for inaction and embracing the status quo always brings to mind one of my favorite quotes: “If you did what you did, you’ll get what you got.” You have to be able to pivot and evolve because customer expectations are constantly changing, and usually from things happening outside of your industry.

“I suppose the best brand is being yourself.”

Being authentic is the best advice in both branding and customer experience. Behave and speak in a manner consistent with who you are and with the image you want for your company. When you do this, employees, customers, and others know what to expect and can make their decisions accordingly. You cannot be all things to all people, and you cannot please all of the people all of the time. But if you are CONSISTENT and AUTHENTIC in your words and actions, employees and customers will know what to expect and will not be surprised by behaviors or experiences that are in line with those perceptions of the brand. And if the success of Ted Lasso has taught us anything, authenticity is a trait that we all value and are drawn to in all aspects of our lives.

To discuss how I can help your company or to arrange speaking engagements, please contact me at eric.smuda@outlook.com.

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