3. CX is an infinite game

Monitoring the NPS of hundreds of companies in the last years we perceived a standard behaviour: in the first 1 or 2 years, when a company begins monitoring NPS a fast increase in the score is noticed. After this period the company reaches a plateau and encounters extreme difficulty in continuing to improve the experience it offers its customers. Right around this period begins the board’s pressures to visualize CX’s ROI.

On this pattern I once heard the following remark: “I’ve monitored my NPS for two years now, why haven’t I become Nubank yet?” I send my customers gifts yet they never mark us on social media, what are we doing wrong?”

Understanding what infinite games are helped me understand this behaviour and answer this question. I got to know infinite game theory through Simon Sinek, but the concept was first coined by James P. Carse.

It is a theory so profound that, when I came into the knowledge, many fundamental pieces fitted together within my brain. It became possible to understand why some companies perform so greatly while others never reach expected outcomes in “the CX Game”.

According to infinite game theory there are two kinds of games.

In one you know the players, the rules are defined beforehand and the game is marked by a beginning and an ending. At the game’s end players continue to exist, the game is over and everyone goes home. Football and soccer are such, the finite games.

Finite games possess clear ways of determining a winner, for example, whoever has more points when the time is up wins.

There is another type of game that does not end, has no beginning, middle and end. In this type of game the players come and go, playing so long as they possess resources, leaving when they do not. The game, then, continues on without them. There are no clear rules and not even the players themselves are necessarily known. Life and business are like that, the infinite games.

There is no way to determine a winner for infinite games.It is important to know that each type of game requires different strategies in order to be played. Infinite games cannot be played to be won, requiring instead to be played in order to continue being able to play.

Customer experience is an infinite game.

We must realize this in order to evaluate efforts related to improving customer experience under the correct metrics.

CX is an infinite game because we are competing for something which’ll always be there, irregardless of the existence of our companies: we are competing for the loyalty and memories of our customers.

CX is an infinite game because there’ll never be a winner, there’ll only be companies (or people) who are ahead in the competition at a certain moment, but who can be overtaken or even run out of resources.

CX is an infinite game because the players will forever be unknown, you are not only competing within your market and not even only against other companies.

CX is an infinite game because the rules are ever changing, what your customer perceives as valuable is in constant evolution.

CX is an infinite game because we can be ahead or behind our competitors, but we must never forget that the true competition is in-house. The question we must answer is, what am I doing today to help sustain and evolve the customer experience game?

According to Simon Sinek there are 5 fundamental factors that ensure you are playing an infinite game correctly and I cannot not surprise myself at the truth behind each one when we make a comparison with the CX game.

Just cause — where we want to be, which world we want to build through our company. Knowing how to communicate and stay congruent to your just cause is fundamental. When customers identify and agree with that which the company wishes to achieve is when they become able to deeply relate and keep meaningful memories.

Your just cause mustn’t be “to provide the best customer experience”, the good experience is a consequence of an effective construction and communication of who you are.

I wrote about this in my article “Where does CX come from”

Courageous leaders — are those who are willing to think long term and having the just cause always in mind, knowing that short term sacrifices can be necessary. It is the kind of leadership which does not allow that a customer be hurt just because the operational metrics would improve.

The other responsibility of a courageous leader is to create an environment of trust for the teams.

Trusting teams — a team operating within a trust environment has the autonomy to make decisions, to be themselves and to act according to what they judge is right without fear of reprisal. When we create this environment we make possible that employees allow themselves vulnerability, without which there is no meaningful connection.

Trust environments deliver the power to the edges so that the employee may work with flexibility to achieve that which is best for the customer and the just cause.

Worthy rival — infinite games are not made to be won, they are made for you to be constantly evolving. Thinking of the CX game, the object cannot be to beat the competition, the objective must be the evolution of the experience you are able to deliver to the customer.

In CX it is best to be in second but delivering the best possible experience than to be the best but not impress the customer.

In such a scenario, a worthy rival is not the one you must defeat but the one you learn from, that competitor whom you admire and who stimulates you to always be the best version of yourself. There are many companies out there who you can admire and learn from. They are companies whom you may rival with to offer a customer experience even better than what they have done.

Existential flexibility — is the capacity to alter the course of your company, many times with relevant costs, simply because that is the right direction. When it comes to CX we cannot think differently, we must be willing to put our customer at the center and change everything in order to offer the best experience. If, at any moment, we attach ourselves to bureaucracy or strict processes who will suffer the damage is our customer and we will fail at the game.

As Sinek skillfully puts, if you are not the one to “break” your company, the market will do it for you.

Looking at CX under a finite lens will prevent your company from reaching the reaul results that this strategy has to offer. You will never “become Nubank” because you will always be focused on short-term results and always be sacrificing the customer’s perceived experience in exchange for evolution in operational metrics.

The market needs to change this vision.

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.