The Human Experience: How to make life better for your customers and create a more successful organization

by John Sills

The essential guide to creating a successful organization by making things easier, better and more straightforward for your customers.

Leadership Book of the Year 2023, as awarded by the Institute of Leadership

Across all sectors, organizations' fixation with functionality have meant that the 'human' elements of the customer's experience have become neglected. Strict processes and automated procedures have created organizations full of people who aren't allowed to act in a 'human' way.

As a result, and despite these new technologies, customers are no more satisfied than they were a decade ago (according to the Institute of Customer Service) and, according to Edelman, they now trust big organizations even less than they did in the past.

In The Human Experience, John Sills draws upon extensive research and illustrative case studies to explain that the emotional experience is just as important as the functional one, and, if done right, will create a more efficient business. He also demonstrates that the customer experience is not just the responsibility of front-line employees, but shared across the company, from the CEO operating as the spokesperson of the business to the programmers developing a seamless and welcoming user interface.

Whether you're a well-established incumbent or an early-stage start-up, on either end of your product or service is a human. Packed full of practical advice and engaging case studies, The Human Experience is the ultimate guide to creating a culture and an experience with humanity at its heart, helping to develop a customer base that will stay with an organization, and a company that will grow in an increasingly efficient way.

Genres: Business

224 pages, Paperback

Published April 4, 2023

About the author

After starting his career on a market stall in Essex, John has spent the last twenty-five years working in and with companies around the world to make things better for customers. He's advised organisations such as Sky, The Body Shop, BUPA, Ovo Energy, Invesco, Morrisons, eBay, and UNICEF.

Now Managing Partner at customer-led growth company The Foundation, John also spent twelve years at HSBC, starting on the frontline and finishing as Head of Customer Innovation.

John works closely with Young Enterprise, a charity that helps young adults become the next generation of entrepreneurs, and is a mentor for The School of Marketing.

His writing has been featured in The Guardian, Management Today, and WARC, as well as having work exhibited at the Imperial War Museum, The Foundling Museum, and as part of the Bloomsbury Festival. He writes at johnjsills.com.

Reviews

[H.Sharma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone should read it once, to understand how an experience can make our day and life overall better. I like the idea of providing a lot of real life examples to connect better with content. Great job John Sills.

[Viral Shah · Rating 5 out of 5]

(AB) The Human Experience is one of those rare books that manages to be insightful, practical, and genuinely enjoyable to read at the same time.

I’ve had the opportunity to work with John on a project for a client in India and have met him a couple of times along the way. What stands out, both in person and in this book, is his nuanced and grounded view of customer experience. There’s no jargon for the sake of sounding clever. The message is simple and powerful: keep the customer at the heart of everything you do.

The book is packed with inspiring yet straightforward ideas on building successful teams and businesses. Nothing feels over-engineered or overly theoretical. It’s very human, very doable, and especially relevant for anyone leading teams or shaping customer journeys.

What really adds depth are the case studies. They’re not written as dry business examples, but as short, story-like narratives that bring the ideas to life. You see real people, real decisions, and real consequences, which makes the lessons easy to relate to and apply. They reinforce the idea that great customer experience isn’t about grand gestures, but about consistently human choices made every day.

And then there’s the humour. The dry British wit, with just the right touch of sarcasm, had me chuckling more than once, which is not something you often say about a business book.

If you’re looking for inspiration, a fresh perspective on customer experience, or simply some solid ideas you can build on, The Human Experience won’t disappoint. Smart, honest, and human, just like the title promises.

[John Lamb · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this book was excellent. Full of real life case studies and examples. Not preaching on how to offer good customer service but showing real life examples of good customer service and also how it can go wrong.

There are so many common sense examples of what companies could do better that will improve customer service and more importantly customer satisfaction and retention.

There are so many takeaways from this book and so many of them are easy to implement and get right. Listen to your customers and empower your employees - stop making them carry out stupid instructions and rules. You may think you know your customers but have you tried actually asking them, not in data where 91% agree but in real life, speaking to them directly?

The best part of reading this book is that it's a joy to read, it's fast moving and it doesn't feel like work reading it. It's written in a style that will make you smile and laugh. You should read it.

[Robert Day · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't like the style much. It's like one of those 1950s business books.

I don't like the layout much. It's like a book from a university course done in a cookie-cutter way so that all the chapters have the same structure.

I don't like the writing style much. There are too many missing commas and ambiguous sentence structures and so it's hard to read.

I don't like the content much. It's like the author is trying to (or just being) the worst customer ever and is then wondering why he has a bad customer experience.

Some of the advice is half-decent and I agree that there's no point in hiring humans and then training them to be robots. Those will come soon enough without doing that. Let people be people in all their glorious, unpredictable, creative wonderment. I mean, sure, make sure you get your money's worth from your employee but at the same time, give them a little leeway.

Read this book if you own a business with staff or if you're a CEO. Avoid it if you're me.

[Vicki Mustard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this, John Sills explores the 3 myths underpinning a lack of humanity in customer experience:

Myth of Loyalty - nobody cares as much about your business as you do…..

Myth of customer feedback - listen to what people aren’t telling you, look at the thick end of the wedge.…(and stop sending bloody pointless surveys!!)

Myth of ROI - a bad customer service experience is horribly expensive!

Makes so much sense when you read it & can make you a bit hot & sweaty when you realise some of the traps you have fallen into when looking to improve!

A very insightful, funny & downright useful guide.

If in doubt - be human - superb advice 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[Peter P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I struggled to enjoy this book, finding it to be fragmented, and without enough prose to completely engage. The examples are massively UK-centric, given the author's locale, and while the principles are hard to argue, the results (220 pages) provided no real breakthrough findings.

[catrina lynch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy, humorous read with good insights and information relating customer and human engagement. I also follow John Sills on LinkedIn and I like his writing style.