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Outside In: The Power of Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business
What simple innovation brought billions in new investments to Fidelity? What basic misunderstanding was preventing Office Depot from achieving its growth potential? What surprising insights helped the Mayo Clinic better serve both doctors and patients?
The solution in each case was a focus on customer experience, the most powerful—and misunderstood—element of corporate strategy today.
Customer experience is, quite simply, how your customers perceive their every interaction with your company. It’s a fundamental business driver. Here’s proof: over a recent five-year period during which the S&P 500 was flat, a stock portfolio of customer experience leaders grew twenty-two percent.
In an age when customers have access to vast amounts of data about your company and its competitors, customer experience is the only sustainable source of competitive advantage. But how to excel at it?
Based on fourteen years of research by the customer experience leaders at Forrester Research, Outside In offers a complete roadmap to attaining the experience advantage. It starts with the concept of the Customer Experience Ecosystem—proof that the roots of customer experience problems lie not just with customer-facing employees like your sales staff, but with behind-the-scenes employees like accountants, lawyers, and programmers, as well as the policies, processes, and technologies that all your employees use every day. Identifying and solving these problems has the potential to dramatically increase sales and decrease costs.
The solution in each case was a focus on customer experience, the most powerful—and misunderstood—element of corporate strategy today.
Customer experience is, quite simply, how your customers perceive their every interaction with your company. It’s a fundamental business driver. Here’s proof: over a recent five-year period during which the S&P 500 was flat, a stock portfolio of customer experience leaders grew twenty-two percent.
In an age when customers have access to vast amounts of data about your company and its competitors, customer experience is the only sustainable source of competitive advantage. But how to excel at it?
Based on fourteen years of research by the customer experience leaders at Forrester Research, Outside In offers a complete roadmap to attaining the experience advantage. It starts with the concept of the Customer Experience Ecosystem—proof that the roots of customer experience problems lie not just with customer-facing employees like your sales staff, but with behind-the-scenes employees like accountants, lawyers, and programmers, as well as the policies, processes, and technologies that all your employees use every day. Identifying and solving these problems has the potential to dramatically increase sales and decrease costs.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published August 28, 2012
459 people are currently reading
1294 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 68 reviews
June 11, 2014
An odd combination of (1) good, energetic writing, (2) a few very interesting models (3) lousy examples. Over and over again, I said "reall? That's an example of creating good service?"
July 11, 2013
This was a book I read for work, and I have to say it inspired a lot of ideas, which is probably the best metric for a this kind of book. The idea of approaching business from a customer's viewpoint seems obvious, but is fairly novel in the workplace. My company is taking baby steps in this direction, so sitting down and doing some of the thinking about what that mindset entails opens up huge avenues. The book is well set up to pass the message on, detailing the why first, then the hows. Even if the company doesn't really take on the goals of the book, it's enough to explore on a local level.
November 9, 2013
This should be required reading for anyone who cares about customer experience. The book is overflowing with excellent examples of what companies are doing to become more customer centric. In addition, there's fantastic commentary from the authors, along with their insights and best practice recommendations. Great handbook on experience.
January 31, 2015
This was a very good book about the benefits of focusing on and improving the customer experience. I like how Manning goes through the six disciplines of customer experience: Strategy, Customer Understanding, Design, Measurement, Governance, and Culture in a systematic way. He helps you understand that the customer experience must be viewed from a holistic perspective in order to get it right. He includes several relevant examples of how various companies used these disciplines to improve the customer experience.
The six disciplines of customer experience provides a great framework for establishing a methodology that will permeate through the whole organization and make it stick.
The six disciplines of customer experience provides a great framework for establishing a methodology that will permeate through the whole organization and make it stick.
September 16, 2015
Fantastic book on customer experience and the necessity for customer centered businesses. This is the first book I recommend to anyone looking to become educated in the customer experience arena.
July 17, 2024
By Paul Laughlin · August 11, 2014
This book has a dull cover and lacks any colour graphics within its pages. So, if you spot it, you might not be enthused. However, persistence is rewarded, as there is much customer experience and customer insight leaders can learn from this book.
Written by a couple of leaders at Forrester Research, it provides the reader with an overview of everything to consider in order to improve customer experiences. As anyone who has worked in this area will know, that’s a tall order.
Peppers & Rodgers “Managing Customer Relationships” is usefully comprehensive but at 481 pages, it’s not a quick read. So, to provide this overview in only 224 pages is an achievement for Harley Manning and Kerry Bodine.
A book of useful frameworks
As I worked my way through this book, two things became the major benefits. The first is a set of frameworks to act as guides or checklists for action needed in different areas. First up is their definition of a Customer Experience Ecosystem Map, a useful term for ensuring you consider not just processes but also people, perspectives, culture, etc.
Another is the structure of identifying six essential customer experience disciplines each with their own required practices (strategy, customer understanding, design, measurement, governance and culture). This risks “motherhood and apple pie”, but provides some sensible customer insight advice especially on measurement.
A book of case studies
The other major benefit of this book is a large number of case-studies contained within it, as examples of frameworks being put into practice. Given my background and clients within the Insurance industry, it was good to see 5 of these alongside the many other sectors covered.
Their analysis of the threats to Allstate in the US and opportunities for Progressive is interesting and backed up by Customer Experience Index scores to date. Aviva’s focus on mapping customer journeys in China is also interesting, with the chance in emerging markets to start with customer experience strategy at an earlier stage.
Outside In leadership roles
Given I will be speaking at a conference in London soon, on the role of Customer Insight leaders in more senior positions than ever before, their chapter on ‘The Rise of the Chief Customer Officer‘ is also interesting.
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Book Reviews to cross post to Amazon & Goodreads
Redesigning Customer Experiences from the Outside In
Their research in the US echoes my own experience in the UK, that CCOs (or CKOs – as I am more interested in customer insight leaders) are disproportionately common within Financial Services firms. Their findings of a bias toward COOs for B2B businesses also makes commercial sense.
Does that help you look Outside In?
I hope that review was useful, I share such a book because I believe the only point of generating customer insights is to act on them. This can sometimes be to deliver shorter-term commercial returns, but longer- term the real prize is for customer insight to be guiding the transformative work outlined in this book. Delivering and then sustaining significantly improved customer experiences,
This book is a relatively easy read, although at times resembling someone who talks too quickly at you. The volume of human interest stories included really helps, as does the use of short chapters. Bite-sized chunks for reading each day is one way to look at them. I hope you find it useful.
August 28, 2019
The premise seems almost too simple: the only way to survive and thrive in any business is to put customers at the center of your entire business model. But what does that mean? How do you do that differently from the competition? And does it ensure success?
Well, if done properly, it will all but guarantee success. That's the core of this book, but the reason this book is important is because most people don't know what it means to work around your customers. For example, there's a pyramid diagram of how to win over a customer: the base is how you meet their needs, the middle (and next most important level) is how you make your product or service easy to use, and lastly, the capstone, is enjoyment. What emotional reaction do they have to your product or service? That part is usually the least thought about, but if you can do it and repeat it, you'll build customer loyalty.
That's just one of the great insights in this book. Some of the other things they cover are things like how do you build customer service into your governance practices, how do you fully map out a customer experience journey, and why is it crucial for corporations to hire Chief Customer Officers. There's a lot more here, but while even some of the points made in this book are either obvious or somewhat common, there's more than enough here to provide insights you may have never even considered.
Plus, there are real world examples of these theories in action. My favorite would have to be FedEx, and how even though they have a long history of good customer service and shipping packages timely, they used to have an issue building customer trust. In short, at the FedEx office, they used to take the customer's package and put it on the "leaning tower of packages." This gave the customer a visual cue of being disorganized, and planting doubts that their packages would arrive on time. The solution? They built walls with windows through which packages were deposited for delivery so customers would see their packages in motion. Behind that wall -- the "leaning tower of packages." Their service was fine. Customers just has an issue with perception.
There's so much more great stuff in this book that I'd say it applies to just about any business, big or small. I wouldn't so far as to say this is a book for everyone, but I found myself not only asking smarter questions at work about why we do what we do, but I've also become a more savvy customer in my personal life.
Well, if done properly, it will all but guarantee success. That's the core of this book, but the reason this book is important is because most people don't know what it means to work around your customers. For example, there's a pyramid diagram of how to win over a customer: the base is how you meet their needs, the middle (and next most important level) is how you make your product or service easy to use, and lastly, the capstone, is enjoyment. What emotional reaction do they have to your product or service? That part is usually the least thought about, but if you can do it and repeat it, you'll build customer loyalty.
That's just one of the great insights in this book. Some of the other things they cover are things like how do you build customer service into your governance practices, how do you fully map out a customer experience journey, and why is it crucial for corporations to hire Chief Customer Officers. There's a lot more here, but while even some of the points made in this book are either obvious or somewhat common, there's more than enough here to provide insights you may have never even considered.
Plus, there are real world examples of these theories in action. My favorite would have to be FedEx, and how even though they have a long history of good customer service and shipping packages timely, they used to have an issue building customer trust. In short, at the FedEx office, they used to take the customer's package and put it on the "leaning tower of packages." This gave the customer a visual cue of being disorganized, and planting doubts that their packages would arrive on time. The solution? They built walls with windows through which packages were deposited for delivery so customers would see their packages in motion. Behind that wall -- the "leaning tower of packages." Their service was fine. Customers just has an issue with perception.
There's so much more great stuff in this book that I'd say it applies to just about any business, big or small. I wouldn't so far as to say this is a book for everyone, but I found myself not only asking smarter questions at work about why we do what we do, but I've also become a more savvy customer in my personal life.
May 16, 2023
Useful book to help give a framework to Customer Experience management.
Six disciplines of CXM:
1) Strategy - this defines the intended customer experience. This isn't one-size-fits-all. Wal-Mart's intended customer experience is very different than that of the Apple Store.
2) Customer Understanding - The research practices one executes to learn customers' desires, needs, biases, etc. Personas are a good artifact coming from research, and this should be shared internally.
3) Design - This is where the strategy and understanding come together and manifest into a (or many) journeys
4) Measurement - You gotta have KPIs for the journeys you design so you can determine measure the success or failure of your customer experiences. Through measurement, one can see what's working, find the pain points, glimpse where your intended experience no nothing like what customers actually do.
5) Governance - Things like giving CXM tasks to specific roles with an org and creatine op mechs across groups that share responsibility for a given experience. This is basically a documented process for what we do when we see things need adjusting.
6) Culture - You can be customer obsessed all you want, but if your company isn't, then good luck. The culture of customer obsession must be top down.
Six disciplines of CXM:
1) Strategy - this defines the intended customer experience. This isn't one-size-fits-all. Wal-Mart's intended customer experience is very different than that of the Apple Store.
2) Customer Understanding - The research practices one executes to learn customers' desires, needs, biases, etc. Personas are a good artifact coming from research, and this should be shared internally.
3) Design - This is where the strategy and understanding come together and manifest into a (or many) journeys
4) Measurement - You gotta have KPIs for the journeys you design so you can determine measure the success or failure of your customer experiences. Through measurement, one can see what's working, find the pain points, glimpse where your intended experience no nothing like what customers actually do.
5) Governance - Things like giving CXM tasks to specific roles with an org and creatine op mechs across groups that share responsibility for a given experience. This is basically a documented process for what we do when we see things need adjusting.
6) Culture - You can be customer obsessed all you want, but if your company isn't, then good luck. The culture of customer obsession must be top down.
August 7, 2023
I am a customer, so I know what they want.
Right? Wrong. You are just one customer out of many your company has, hence thinking that you know what your customer wants is an inside - out approach. And knowing what your customer wants - is the preferred - outside in approach. It's not one practice, it's six as suggested by the authors.
The book explores many examples, bjt also gives very simple guidelines to follow, step by step, to implement outside in approach to customer centricity.
It's a brilliant book.
So, what did I take from this book to myself?
You have to be able to very clearly answer a simple question: how do you know if your customer is happy and satsified with what you do.
If can't answer that - whatever you do, most probably does not bring the best possible value.
Right? Wrong. You are just one customer out of many your company has, hence thinking that you know what your customer wants is an inside - out approach. And knowing what your customer wants - is the preferred - outside in approach. It's not one practice, it's six as suggested by the authors.
The book explores many examples, bjt also gives very simple guidelines to follow, step by step, to implement outside in approach to customer centricity.
It's a brilliant book.
So, what did I take from this book to myself?
You have to be able to very clearly answer a simple question: how do you know if your customer is happy and satsified with what you do.
If can't answer that - whatever you do, most probably does not bring the best possible value.
January 14, 2022
Very well written book with useful insights from real customer cases (despite some being outdated in the version that I've read).
The chapter on "measurement" provides a good overview of the type of metrics that could be relevant for measuring the customer experiences. However I would have liked to see more concrete examples of the commonly used solutions or products in the market for capturing metrics, building surveys or doing text mining. Or perhaps that is the call-to-action for the reader in terms of reaching out to Forrester?
The chapter on "measurement" provides a good overview of the type of metrics that could be relevant for measuring the customer experiences. However I would have liked to see more concrete examples of the commonly used solutions or products in the market for capturing metrics, building surveys or doing text mining. Or perhaps that is the call-to-action for the reader in terms of reaching out to Forrester?
August 17, 2022
I read this for a career development program at work. It’s pretty obvious that companies who don’t focus on their customers’ experiences will lose revenue, but this book shows us how using their “customer experience ecosystem” can help you to better pinpoint the problems in a customer’s journey which are not always tied directly to employees who deal with customers directly. They also give data evidence to prove how implementing this model and investing more in the customer is absolutely worth it and leads to positive, measurable results.
November 26, 2017
Customer experience is customer's perception of their interaction with your company.
According to the book, mediocre customer experience is the norm and hence, it advocates strategic focus on Customer Experience to turn it into a source of competitive advantage to positively impact core business metrics.
The book starts by explaining the customer experience pyramid and describing the customer experience ecosystem and it's significance to establish a context for company wide action to improve the customer experience.
Subsequently, book advocates practicing six disciplines of customer experience and a path of corporate evolution of customer experience maturity to gain competitive advantage.
The book contains ample case studies to make it easy for the reader to understand how companies across industries are applying the concepts recommended in the book.
Though the book attempts to cover many concepts, it lacks in exploring each concept in depth.
According to the book, mediocre customer experience is the norm and hence, it advocates strategic focus on Customer Experience to turn it into a source of competitive advantage to positively impact core business metrics.
The book starts by explaining the customer experience pyramid and describing the customer experience ecosystem and it's significance to establish a context for company wide action to improve the customer experience.
Subsequently, book advocates practicing six disciplines of customer experience and a path of corporate evolution of customer experience maturity to gain competitive advantage.
The book contains ample case studies to make it easy for the reader to understand how companies across industries are applying the concepts recommended in the book.
Though the book attempts to cover many concepts, it lacks in exploring each concept in depth.
January 5, 2018
Putting customers at the center of a business should be almost natural. But through the different journeys provided, you discover ho distant this approach is from many common practices and how deep the change needs to be to enact real customer centric strategies. The ideas presented are simple and well outlined, with many examples. Only issue, as usual with business books that are based on real business examples, is that some of these age pretty fast. But a definite good read.
November 11, 2021
Customer Centric
Placing the customer at the center of your business is not a fad - though the execution is often difficult and the rewards slow to transpire. The case studies in the book help illustrate the approach, and the book itself is incredibly insightful, if a bit ponderous at times to read. Any business strategist needs to know how to manage their customer relationships, and this book is a useful resource in climbing that learning curve.
Placing the customer at the center of your business is not a fad - though the execution is often difficult and the rewards slow to transpire. The case studies in the book help illustrate the approach, and the book itself is incredibly insightful, if a bit ponderous at times to read. Any business strategist needs to know how to manage their customer relationships, and this book is a useful resource in climbing that learning curve.
July 12, 2024
I found Outside-in interesting with some valuable takeaways. However, 90% of the content consists of stories about companies implementing customer experience (CX) programs. I wish it delved more into the data behind these implementations.
This is a good book for beginners or those who want to learn a bit about CX. It's likely why Jim Tincher recommended this as "CX 101" and Do B2B Better as the more advanced "201" level book.
This is a good book for beginners or those who want to learn a bit about CX. It's likely why Jim Tincher recommended this as "CX 101" and Do B2B Better as the more advanced "201" level book.
October 12, 2017
Good step by step guide on creating a customer experience program for your business/department.
Very dense, but not especially deep. For someone who is a beginner in the realm of CX, it was a great introduction and will be revisited early and often.
This is a great place to start if you're interested in a road map. Would recommend to a friend/colleague!
Very dense, but not especially deep. For someone who is a beginner in the realm of CX, it was a great introduction and will be revisited early and often.
This is a great place to start if you're interested in a road map. Would recommend to a friend/colleague!
Read
April 12, 2022(read for work, so I'm not rating it, but if you want a decent dissertation on why customer experience is important, yeah, there it is. cool. lots of case studies keep it upright and valuable but I would have liked some more concrete examples of front line staff work, since much of this is from a supervisorial or executive level)
February 22, 2024
This book is great for business owners that want to grasp the concept and understand what CX is all about.
I am a CXPA registered Customer Experience Professional who has run my own CX business since 2015. The real life anecdotes in this book bring to CX life.
Highly recommended.
I am a CXPA registered Customer Experience Professional who has run my own CX business since 2015. The real life anecdotes in this book bring to CX life.
Highly recommended.
December 11, 2024
What can I say? It's a boring business book I had to read for work. Not saying it's not well-written or informative if you're new to the topic of customer experience. But it's a lot of stuff I've been exposed to many times before and I didn't learn anything new.
October 5, 2017
A good overview of the discipline and great inspiration
It got me answers to many questions as well as made me come up with more questions. Great read! Highly recommended
It got me answers to many questions as well as made me come up with more questions. Great read! Highly recommended
December 15, 2018
Aligning your organizations optimized processes from the outside in remains the backbone of CX
July 4, 2019
High level but a great book to challenge some of your thoughts, strategy and execution of customer experience.
February 1, 2020
Nothing really new to be learned in this book, but lots of good reminders that customer experience is King.
April 26, 2020
Taka trochę biblia w moim zawodzie.
May 19, 2020
Some good stuff. Outdated and definitely designed with larger companies in mind, but a good “thinking” point for leads of smaller teams.
June 24, 2022
More entertaining than the average business book, "Outside In" uses stories of customer service successes and failures to illustrate how to best serve a user base.
October 24, 2023
Good CX framework for work reference.
September 7, 2024
A little dated (my bad not checking that :)). Some good case studies and generally easy to follow (I listened the audiobook).
October 12, 2024
Great solid advice on customer experience. The examples are a bit dated and case studies haven’t stood up to the test of time, but the fundamentals are still true.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 68 reviews