When you first write down your Customer Experience Score, it’s likely to be very like a recipe – a set of detailed, step-by-step instructions to create a very specific outcome.

That’s great.   Recipes can be a great way for you to get stuff out of your head, and for people to build confidence.

But they can also become a trap that undermines confidence.   If people have never learned the basic techniques and methods that underly any recipe, its easy for them to become reliant on having exactly the right ingredients, the right pots and pans, the right equipment and the right actions, in the right order…

That makes for a lot of work, a lot of shopping, a lot of planning and a lot of anxiety too, which makes cooking a joyless activity for many.

Cooking doesn’t always have to be ‘fun’, but there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be relaxed, exploratory, and sometimes, surprising.   By understanding the patterns hidden in recipes, we can start to play with them, tasting and learning as we go, until eventually, we can improvise a nourishing meal out of whatever we happen to have in the kitchen.

The same is true for your Customer Experience Score – recipes can be a great start.   But results will get better if you allow people to tweak and experiment and improvise a little.   Just make sure to ‘taste as you go’ and things will be fine.   Eventually, people won’t need the recipes, they’ll be able to improvise a great customer experience with the resources around them and the customer in front of them.

Who knows? One day, their Bara Brith will be even better than yours.

 

If you’d like to become an effortless cook, my friend Katerina is running a workshop next weekend.

I did this and it honestly changed my life.