Team GB didn’t achieve its incredible success in Rio by chance. There’s no doubt they’re all hugely talented individuals, but skills alone didn’t get them to second place in the medals table. A big part of the success, especially for the cycling team, was the introduction of the marginal gains approach.
For those that haven’t heard about marginal gains, it’s all about making small incremental improvements that, when added together, make a big difference.
What marginal gains allows us to do is break up any plan or process and look at how all the individual parts can be optimised. It delivers small improvements almost immediately. These changes are quick wins for the organisation and can add up to create a major success. These enhancements can be hugely influential because everyone can clearly see the impact as they cascade throughout the organisation.
When applying the marginal gains methodology to customer experience, there are four steps that you can do to see its impact.
#1 Execute on your plan
Most (if not all) organisations will have a plan for customer experience.
So the first step is to execute on that plan. It’s about taking the plan that is in place and ensuring everyone knows their roles and responsibilities, so they can all act on what you are trying to achieve.
It isn’t about spending months working on a strategy; it’s about getting on with it and seeing what works and what doesn’t work. And this approach is hugely positive for an organisation. It gives momentum and purpose, aligning everyone with your overall goals and vision.
#2 Use customer and employee feedback to understand the biggest areas of frustration
The second step is to use feedback to understand the greatest areas of frustration for your customers. Then use this to start to prioritise areas of improvement.
Sometimes this will take the organisation to an uncomfortable place. But having insight from customers can give you the impetus to face the difficult situations that feedback can bring to your attention.
This insight also come through your people.
More and more we see, the voice of the employee and the voice of the customer coming together to inform decisions and drive organisations forward. The Frontline is an excellent source of insight and, sometimes, a better place than anywhere else within your organisation to tell you how customers are feeling.
#3 Embrace failure as part of the improvement process
When the voice of the customer is coming through to you, and clearly saying to the organisation "you're not getting this right", you have to be able to act quickly and make changes.
Brands that learn from their mistakes are the ones that constantly evolve; they have that thirst to learn within the organisation, and they see the opportunities in knowing what works and what doesn’t.
And, naturally, we don't just focus on failure. We want to focus on success as well. It’s powerful to see when customers tell you you're getting your plan right, and you're making changes that benefit their experience.
Hold these stories up within the organisation and celebrate them.
#4 Continue to make improvements along the customer journey
The final step is to make continual improvements along the customer journey. Once you've done that 1%, 2% or 3% increase, what can you do next to make another change? What can you do to make things even better?
While it’s tempting to try and fix everything at once, realistically this isn’t going to happen.
There's no point in trying to fix the whole customer journey in one go: we have busy lives and other priorities. Instead, we need to take this iterative approach along the customer journey, as this will allow us to get to our goals. From a customer experience point of view, we should be aiming to move from satisfaction to loyalty and then from loyalty to advocacy.
The whole marginal gains methodology is about understanding how you can iterate along the customer journey. But it’s also about learning from your mistakes, embracing failure within the culture of the organisation and also celebrating your voice of the customer successes.
To learn more about the impact of marginal gains check out our latest on demand webinar where Dean Ballard (Head of Performance Excellence, Orbit) and Yiannis Maos (Head of Digital, Rant & Rave) discuss emotion in CX and how to create the right environment for your employees.
