People lie. I have done it. You have done it. Even your customers have done it. From little white lies that don’t cause any real damage to great big deceptions with serious repercussions for all involved, lies are a fact of life. 

While the scope of the lying is different, the aim is the same: avoiding the truth. You are avoiding the truth about your plans for the evening when you tell your friends you can’t meet them in the pub because you are busy and you are really going home to watch Netflix.  You are avoiding the disappointment your mother would feel to know you already have the sweater she bought you for a holiday gift. You are avoiding getting sacked when you tell your boss that you are almost finished with a project you haven’t started yet. 

In this episode, we tell you the truth about lying. We get into why people lie, how they justify it to themselves, and when they can’t. We also explain what happens to your relationships with customers when you lie to them. (Spoiler alert: it’s nothing good.)

Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience

One surprising insight that I learned was that people not only lie to other people, but also to themselves. Author, consultant, and investor Nir Eyal, breaks down lying into a 2 x 2 framework. One axis shows two groupings: other people or yourself. The other axis shows the subject of the lies: facts or values. From this, Eyal divides liars into four groups, which include: deceitful, delusional, duplicitous, and demoralized. By dividing into these groups, you get a glimpse into some of the reasons people lie. 

Here are a few more key moments in our discussion:

• 04:20     Ryan shares research that suggests we think of lies as an economic trade off, what we gain vs. what we lose with lying.
• 08:58.    Colin explains that most people lie in Customer Experiences to get the sale or to avoid upsetting the customer.    
• 10:58     We compare the fine line between framing information and deceiving the customer through how we present the facts.
• 16:03     We share the justifications people have for lying; and, surprisingly, there is a good reason there.
• 17:55     Ryan shares past research of his that explains why people with rapport tend to lie more during negotiations than when they don’t.
• 26:21      We share our advice on how to manage honesty in your Customer Experience and why it is imperative.      

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Customer Experience Information & Resources

This podcast is sponsored by Verint.

Verint helps the world’s most iconic brands build enduring customer relationships by connecting work, data, and experiences across the enterprise. The Verint Customer Engagement Cloud Platform draws on the latest advancements in AI and analytics, an open cloud architecture, and The Science of Customer Engagement to meet ever-increasing, ever-shifting consumer interactions and demands.

Download the new Verint research report on the Engagement Capacity Gap, by visiting www.Verint.com/boundless 

Customer engagement is critical to your success. Join this three-day, virtual conference to discover tools and techniques that can help you build enduring customer relationships. Register at www.Verint.com/engage

LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 289,000 followers of his work. Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy LLC as one of the best management consultancies for the last two years. Follow Colin on Linkedin and Twitter.

Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University. 

Why Customers Buy: As an official "Influencer" on LinkedIn, Colin writes a regular newsletter on all things Customer Experience. Click here to join the other 22,000 subscribers. 

Experience Health Check: You already have an experience, even if you weren't deliberate about it. Our Experience Health Check can help you understand what you have today. Colin or one of our team can assess your digital or physical Customer Experience, interacting with your organization as a customer to define what is good and what needs improving. Then, they will provide a list of recommendations for critical next steps for your organization. Click here to learn more. 

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