The financial and human resources needed to fulfill the mission of any initiative - be it one that pertains to customer experience or to some other area of the organization - are always in short supply.  Even if they aren't, the problems of time and attention still remain.  For example, just because you have the money to do something doesn't mean you have the time or the organizational "bandwidth" to do it.  Attempting to juggle multiple initiatives - even just a few - significantly affects employees throughout the organization.

- Roy Barnes and Bob Kelleher, Customer Experience for Dummies

Requiring others to define relative words is just as important as asking them to explain specific pieces of jargon.  Relative words are nonspecific, descriptive words that only have meaning in relation to something else. 

-Michael C. Donaldson, Negotiating for Dummies

Let's say you work as a manager in a software development firm where dozens of software engineers write mountains of code every week.  The products are so complex that the overall design is divided among several teams.  After years of your employees bringing in projects late or riddled with bugs, you discover that the key to consistent high-quality performance is getting them to practice two vital behaviors: (1) admit when they have problems, and (2) immediately speak up when they won't meet a deadline.  When your software designers do these two things consistently, products get completed correctly and on time.  When they don't, they don't. 

-Grenny, Patterson, Maxfield, McMillan, and Switzler, Influencer

How do you make your customers fall in love with your business? A crucial part of any business is building and nurturing the relationship. However, today an unhappy customer has a very powerful weapon to voice their opinion- it's called social media and the web. This is why it's even more critical to create memorable experiences so that they can fall in love with your business. 

Focusing on creating excellent and memorable experiences for your customers is a business opportunity everyday. Too many businesses today fall short of this, which gives you the perfect opportunity to court and nab new customers. 

Our last couple of articles have been about some extraordinarily sad service mishaps. Service mishaps that should not have gone the way they did ~ and in some cases are still going on! They were not hard things to fix or manage, by any means. So the question remains, why do some companies/businesses understand the basic fundamentals of producing good customer service exchanges, while others struggle with these basics? 

Unless the reason for a rule is understood, it is difficult to learn the rule, and it is still more difficult to apply it successfully in practice.

-George C. Crocker, Crocker's Principles of Procedure

 It can be very tempting to give the reason "because I said so"  because it's so quick and easy, but it is seldom a compelling explanation for the person who hears it.  It may make a toddler follow instructions for a brief time, but rarely does it lead to lasting change (anyone who has ever tried to get a four-year-old to stop jumping on the couch or bed has experienced this). And even more importantly, it fails to teach the child anything and does not give him or her the ability to apply the same concepts to new situations.