The Brian Wright Show Podcast

The Vast Misunderstanding of Customer Experience & Using its Psychological Definition to Create a Famous Brand that Goes Beyond the Data Sheet

• Brian Wright • Season 8 • Episode 128

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Understanding what "customer experience" or "patient experience" truly means might be the most powerful competitive advantage you're overlooking. Despite being a buzzword in businesses worldwide, when asked to define it, most leaders draw a complete blank. This fundamental disconnect prevents organizations from delivering the transformative experiences that turn ordinary customers into passionate advocates.

Customer experience isn't just having friendly staff—that's merely one ingredient in a complex recipe. The true psychological definition is "the totality of cognitive, effective, sensory and behavioral responses of a customer during all stages of the consumption process." This encompasses every single touchpoint before and after purchase. While hospitality skills and customer service are components, neither captures the comprehensive journey that shapes how people perceive your brand.

The most successful businesses—from five-star hotels to Michelin restaurants—understand this distinction. They don't obsess over financial metrics; they obsess over creating exceptional moments at every interaction point. This mindset shift produces remarkable results: when you focus on crafting extraordinary experiences, sales and referrals naturally follow. The organizations fixated on experiences consistently outperform those fixated on numbers.

This same principle applies equally to employee experience. Your team members experience a journey with touchpoints before and after being hired, each one shaping their engagement and performance. The culture you create directly impacts how well they'll deliver exceptional customer experiences when nobody's watching. True leadership means mapping these journeys, identifying every interaction, and finding ways to make each one uniquely valuable.

Ready to transform your approach? Map every customer touchpoint, evaluate how each compares to competitors, and remember that regardless of your industry—you're in the people business first. Join us at our upcoming Nashville event to develop the skills needed to implement this experience-focused mindset across your organization.

Welcome to the Brian Wright Show, a podcast downloaded in 127 countries. This podcast, formerly known as the New Patient Group Podcast, is dedicated to entrepreneurs, their team members and their families but for anyone wanting to transform their life, career and/or business in the new economy. 

The Brian Wright Show Podcast is hosted by globally renown motivational speaker, business consultant and life coach, Brian Wright. He is a trusted consultant and speaker for some of the biggest name entrepreneurs and corporations in the world, including AlignTechnology, the makers of Invisalign. He has been featured in Forbes, CNBC and The National Journal. He is currently the Founder & CEO of New Patient Group and also WrightChat. He is married and has two children.

New Patient Group - The Employee & Patient Experience Co.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Brian Wright Show Audio Experience, a podcast dedicated to transforming lives, careers and businesses, and now your host. He's a husband, father of two, an international business and life coach, the founder and CEO of New Patient Group and Wright Chat, and a consultant and global speaker for some of the finest companies in the world, such as Invisalign and many others. Now here's your host, brian Wright.

Speaker 2:

Hey everybody, welcome inside the broadcast booth, brian Wright here, the Brian Wright Show, and welcome in to another edition of the podcast. Today's going to be a short one and it's all about my mom. All right, it's not all about my mom, but she's the one that triggered today's episode, wanted to get one out. It kind of puts some end to some confusion out there that I believe a lot of you have. I hear this terminology thrown around. I'm going to have longer, much more in-depth podcasts about this and, honestly, if you go back and listen to all of our podcasts, all of them really are about all the touch points and interactions about what I'm going to talk about. But I want to clear something up. I hear the words hospitality, experience, customer service, things like that thrown all over the place and when you ask people what is the definition of any one of those words, nobody can give you the definition. I asked last year at Align Summit I think it was in October. I spoke at Invisalign Summit and a great event they always are. Those are some first-class events to go to, but the theme was experience matters and I asked 15 people there what is the definition of experience and not one of them could answer the question and if you really think about it, you may be listening right now, going well damn, I don't even know the definition. That's something I want to be good at. I find it important to deliver a good experience to my employees and my customers, or those that I want to become customers or patients of mine, but I don't know the definition.

Speaker 2:

Today I'm going to clear it up. My mom, we're sitting at dinner and it was over, and some of you have heard me talk about this already. I have several podcasts coming because this is a really intriguing thing for me, based on what I teach is that right down the stream is 20 minute drive from our house in Colorado Springs, is the only five star, five diamond hotel resort in the world and you want to talk about a place that makes any other business just go. Uh, I thought we were good, but now I know there's a whole nother level to get to. That's the place to go to. You take your team there. It is ridiculous. Well, the Italian place there, ristorante del Lago, is a very good restaurant restaurant and the podcast, the head chef and waiter or podcast listeners of mine, and they implement a lot of the things that we teach all of you out there and it's really cool. So it's cool to go there, it's cool that they listen to the podcast, all that stuff, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 2:

But we're eating dinner and mom's like, after all these years, you've told me a million times what you do, but I still I don't know. I don't know what it is and I'd laugh every time she says that. But I told her, you know, look, for years it was really hard to explain what we do, because we do a lot, we teach a lot and and many of you out there that are customers know the program is really infinite. It is an ongoing marathon journey that never has a finish line because customer experience and employee experience there is no finish line. You don't go to an event and come back and go okay, I'm the best leader of all time, I can check it off, I don't need to work on it anymore. Or sales skills or hospitality skills those are infinite things. So when you hire us, the goal is us to be a division of your business that is constantly working on things with you, walking you through the journey, holding you accountable role, playing with your team, doing things that 99.9% of businesses in any industry wouldn't even think of, because their mindset is we just need more customers, more new patients, more advertising Meanwhile, they don't need any of that. More new patients, more advertising Meanwhile, they don't need any of that. So what I told her, and summed it up very easily, is I teach employee and customer experiences for a living. Now, today, I'm going to briefly mention employee experiences and how it fits into this journey and this definition of experience that I'm about to give all of you and the true psychological definition. But the main point today is focusing on customer experience and the definition of that and diving in Because I don't want any of you out there especially you know our family members, our customers sometimes it goes easily forgotten exactly what it is you need to focus on in your vision and what you should do to truly motivate your team and things like that. So I want to dive back into really what this definition is today to refresh a lot of your memories as well as all of you out there. And like I said in the last episode I think it was the last episode we have downloads now of this podcast in 127 countries and territories, which is just amazing, and it keeps growing, and I want to make sure, because I can promise you the vast majority of listeners out there and those that watch too on YouTube hey there, everybody is.

Speaker 2:

You don't know the definition of this and you run around blind in your organizations throwing these words around, like experience and hospitality and customer service, and all three of those are different. I'm going to talk more about that here momentarily. But you need to know exactly what it is that you're striving for. You can't just throw these terminologies around. They're not going to mean anything. They're not going to mean anything to you, they're not going to mean anything to the team. You're going to run around blind. You're not going to have any goals. It's just not going to make sense and it's not going to come together for you as an organization Employees out there too.

Speaker 2:

When I'm about to talk about and go into this definition, this is why this podcast has so many employees that listen to this, because these are the things that, if you can fully grasp how important you are and how every word you speak can make or break a sale, it could make or break a referral. It could make or break whether somebody goes from a patient or a customer to a super fan, which is what all of your goals should be is how do you take somebody that's just a customer or just a patient and turn them into a fan? And that goes way beyond the final clinical result. It goes way beyond the food as a chef, it goes way beyond your product and your service. And I want to clear up the definition for all of you so you all have a 100%, full comprehension of exactly what customer experience is, because I think so many of you out there think that customer experience is your people being nice I hear it all the time at events or people that call us, they schedule an online consultation with us, or I come off stage and they're talking to me and things like that and the misconception big time is that, oh yeah, judy that sits up front, oh, she's so sweet, our customers love her. So boom your mind right. There doesn't even go to well. Guess what? That's one piece of a thousand-piece recipe.

Speaker 2:

Customer experience defined is the totality of cognitive, effective, sensory and behavioral responses of a customer during all stages of the consumption process. So this refers to every touchpoint a consumer has with your business pre-purchase and post and that, everybody is the definition of experience. You can't jumble that with hospitality, because hospitality is a skill set that is taught as well as there's a lot of inheritable traits that come with it. Hospitality is an ingredient that goes into making sure every single one of those touch points before and after purchase is exceptional. Customer service is when you get what you want by delivering more than expected right. So that's a scenario where your business wins, but your customer, or those you want to become customers, believe they received more than expected during every interaction of the consumption process, pre and post sale.

Speaker 2:

Hey everybody, brian Wright, let's step away from today's podcast. Hope you're enjoying it and obviously the theme today is customer experience as well as employee experience. I'm going to mention a little bit down the road in today's episode. But, speaking of experiences, we have the Ultimate People First Business event coming your way. We've got the Ultimate Customer Employee Experience event coming your way and it's our iconic event this year in Nashville, tennessee, actually on my birthday weekend. So come celebrate my birthday in Nashville with us. It's gonna be a beautiful hotel and it's a full team iconic event. Gonna.

Speaker 2:

Put the link in the description below. Click that, go check it out, learn more, schedule a free consultation with us so we can explain how your team and you will benefit greatly from this event that is unlike anything that you will ever attend. If you think Michelin star restaurant experiences, five-star hotel experiences and how those experiences those real sales skill sets, hospitality skill sets, leadership skill sets imagine how those implemented into your business, into your practice and our niche, could help transform your business, your practice, to attract and create a better culture, attract more new patients, increase conversions, sales at a higher price, revenue, patient compliance, all the stuff. This is going to be unlike anything you've ever attended. So make sure to click the link below, schedule a consultation with us, and it's going to be great to see you there because you'll be able to interact with all of our customers that are coming, that have been with us for years, that are already developing and implement the skill sets, implementing these in a high levels into their practices, and interact with them and be able to see how their employees role play versus how your employees role play. And role play is a really important topic because all the events you've probably been to before massive audiences, you're switching speakers, things like that, no personal attention this event your team's going to be role-played with, practiced with, put into difficult situations, every scenario you can think of. So they come back armed with the real skill sets to actually implement the ideas. Because you've all been to events where you say, hey, that's a good idea and you don't implement squat, this event. You're going to implement things at a very high level because we're going to practice, give you the personal attention, the skills necessary and required for you to go back to your practice and make real change happen. So we hope you see you there. Like I said, come celebrate my birthday with me. Hope to see you and your entire team in Nashville, tennessee, this coming October. And now let's get back to today's podcast.

Speaker 2:

So these are different skill sets, right, just like sales, in order to maximize your success and get what you want by delivering more than expected, all members of your team, regardless of position right, they need to be trained on high-level sales skill sets, right. Right. So, when you look at the customer experience journey before and after, and that consumption in that consumption process, this is why your culture is impeccable, right, this is why ongoing leadership training is so critical, because if your leaders don't know how to create the right culture and part of that culture is happy people that feel taken care of, they feel safe, right. They feel part of that culture is happy people that feel taken care of, they feel safe, right, they feel part of something that's bigger than numbers, right? So many of you just you know you're so freaking focused on numbers that you're making the team miserable because you're not motivating them right. But that's why you've got to be a great leader to define and set the right culture. So when you're not looking, the employees will go and implement the sales, hospitality, communication, verbiage, presentation psychology, so they know what to say, when to say, how to say, why to say. That's what that psychology is, and I could go on and on. Those skill sets that we teach all of you are amazing skill sets backed by years upon years of expertise and proven expertise and proven success. But if you don't have the right culture, this consumption process of every interaction up to sale and after, the employees are not going to implement it at a high enough level for it to work and create a famous brand.

Speaker 2:

Digital marketing is another piece I get asked all the time why do you do digital marketing and coaching? Well, it goes back to the founding principle of this company and it is customer experience. We want to help you control every interaction before and after sale. So digital marketing is a part of that consumption process. It's part of the consumption process as people shop for you, of that consumption process. It's part of the consumption process as people shop for you.

Speaker 2:

But if you get really innovative, even more importantly, you can use digital marketing to get people who just scheduled to actually show up to their appointment, their reservation, whatever it is. You can use digital marketing to shorten appointment times in your office. You can use digital marketing to educate your customers about the food. Obviously, in our niche we use that to reduce the start appointments for the Invisalign delivery appointment, brace's delivery appointment, whatever else you're doing, because so many times your assistants are sitting there repeating themselves a thousand times. Your patient isn't even listening and then you wonder why they're not compliant. And then you wonder why they're not compliant. Well, if we use really cool video marketing, we can not only get them to retain the information better, be compliant at a higher level, but now we shrink the appointment times at the same time. Now the beauty is, as people are watching that and your views are going up, you get the backdoor play and get more new patients because you get better visibility on YouTube and Google as new patients search for you, because they're all intertwined right, and today's not the episode for that.

Speaker 2:

Today is purely what is customer experience right? And that's what I read and, as a leader of your organization, these are the things that you must focus on. You cannot focus on numbers, right Numbers. It's like focusing on the weight scale. You cannot control it, but you sure as hell can control reducing calories, lifting weights more, doing more cardio, holding yourself accountable. That you can control. So if your focus shifts to the controllables, you win. If your focus shifts to constantly talking about customer experience with your team, you're going to win, because that in itself will build a better culture, because you're not finite-minded, building everything around numbers, you got to build everything around experiences. And when you think this way sales and referrals and compliance and all these things they start to take care of themselves. It's kind of an amazing thing the people that worry about the numbers typically don't succeed. The people that worry about the experience crush the people that are worrying about numbers, while they're not worried about the numbers, they're worried about experiences. About the numbers, they're worried about experiences.

Speaker 2:

And for all of you understanding the true definition, the psychological, by-the-book definition of customer experience. By you understanding that and focusing on it, you instantly become like a Michelin star restaurant and a five-star, five-diamond hotel, like the Broadmoor that I was referencing earlier. These are their focal points, those are what they obsess over. They obsess over the technology, the communication, the verbiage, the presentation, the psychology, hospitality, sales, skill sets, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, via every touchpoint along the consumption process. And I wanted to do a short podcast today to just clarify this.

Speaker 2:

Stop using the word experience, everybody, when you don't even know what it is right. Today you learn the true definition of customer experience and if you want to know the true definition of employee experience, it's the exact same thing, right, it's how their consumption, via every interaction they have with your business, they have with your people, they have with each other right Throughout the whole journey, right Prior to them being hired and after right. And all of these I'm going to create multiple podcasts within, because that last one that I just said about employee experience, that is a topic that we could go very, very much in depth with. But not only do you have a consumer-customer journey before and after sale, you also have a consumer-employee journey before and after hire, and I want you guys to always remember that. It's every touchpoint. That is the definition of customer experience and if you're focused on it, you will win. It doesn't mean that you're going to have your greatest year every year, but you will always win the infinite journey and definitely beat the finite-minded people.

Speaker 2:

I hope everybody enjoyed this brief podcast today, but very impactful and very powerful. Hopefully for all of you to walk away going. Now I know what the true definition of customer experience is. Now I've got to go make sure that every touch point of that consumption process leading up to sale, to increase sales and then after to increase compliance and referrals and video testimonials and five-star reviews and turning customers into fans, patients into fans If we focus on that, we are going to crush it. If we invest the money to focus on that, we are going to crush it. Shift the mindset. I'm glad you know what customer experience is now and, as always, thumb this video up if you're watching on YouTube. Make some comments for us. Share it with friends, colleagues, family, anybody wanting to transform life, career and business. Same with all the audio experience channels out there. If you're listening, write us a five-star review. Thanks for the following everybody. We keep rocking it. Like I said last podcast up to 127 countries. We have downloads in now. We keep growing, so I hope everybody enjoyed today.

Speaker 2:

Focus, focus, focus on this consumption journey. Every interaction I want you to think about, every interaction. I want you to map it out before and after sale. And I want your goal to be how can we make every one of those interactions unique compared to anywhere else they could spend their money? Forget about your own industry, look beyond and if you're being a true people business, like all of you are, no matter if you're a restaurant, if you're in our niche in orthodontics and dentistry and other specialty practices, all of you, no matter what industry you are, no matter what product you have, no matter what product you have, no matter what service you have, you are all in the people first business and you need to make sure that everything you are doing, via every interaction leading up to sale and after, is showcasing your people business in a more unique, innovative way than anybody and everybody else out there would ever even dream of. All right, do it, you will win. We will see everybody on the next episode of the Brian Wright show. Talk to everybody soon. Bye-bye.