“I have some ideas on bringing value-add to our customer experience,” Sean reported.

I nodded. “Two questions,” I said, “How well are you delivering the core elements of your customer experience? If you add elements, will they add cost and are your customers willing to pay for it?”

“Well, value-add,” Sean stuttered, “means the customer will perceive greater value for the experience we provide.”

“And, why are you doing this?”

Sean stopped. “The customer survey scores have been sagging, and I wanted a way to boost those scores. I get a bonus on improvement in customer satisfaction.”

“When you lay out your customer experience system on a piece of paper, do your customer satisfaction scores lead you to a specific segment in the system?” I asked.

Sean’s turn to nod. “Yes, we get a customer complaint, we usually troubleshoot the problem accurately during the phone call, but there is a delay in actually fixing the problem. That’s why I wanted to create some value-added services, so the customer would perceive greater value in our efforts.”

“What if? And, this is just a what if,” I smiled. “What if you focused on the delay between understanding the problem and fixing the problem? Would your customer satisfaction scores go up?”