A group of customer strategists recently considered various ways to keep an established customer experience program visible. All of their programs are fairly mature and they share a common challenge of keeping employees engaged and motivated to take action.
Here are some of best practices identified to avoid these obstacles and keep the VoC initiative front and center:
Build Customer feedback into incentive compensation. This is a great motivator to keep employees engaged. Tips: ensure all employees are impacted, incorporate customer feedback as a fairly small percentage of the incentive plan, and make sure the metric does in fact impact compensation.
Recognize employees. It’s important to recognize employees to let them know the work they do is valued. For example, some companies post positive customer comments on intranets or internal blogs when employees are mentioned by name for providing outstanding customer service. (Be aware of any internal restrictions, privacy issues, and the potential need to remove derogatory comments.)
Communicate progress. It is essential to communicate progress to keep employees engaged. One way is to ensure data collection frequency provides visibility into progress on key indicators. Another option is to define internal metrics that are customer oriented. Providing regular updates will help to maintain focus on the customer experience.
These are just a few suggestions on ways your Customer Experience Program can stand out at your organization. What other ideas do you have?
Seth Godin recently wrote a blog titled, "Avoiding false metrics." His point is one that will resonate with Customer Experience and Voice of Customer (VoC) professionals.
The premise of his blog is that a metric should be accurate and aligned with your goals. There are many different examples of customer metrics that are neither. Consider these two examples:
Not aligned: A business leader adopts a metric solely because the metric is simple, or the metric was touted in a business book. Many companies are guilty of adopting a metric without doing the necessary homework to determine if the metric is aligned with their goals. It is an easy trap to fall into.
Not accurate: The sales representative who "cherry picks" who receives the survey, ensuring only those on the list will provide positive responses.
The problem is, finding the best metric isn't easy. But, many customer focused leaders are enlightened (like Seth) and will invest in the right process to ensure the business is focused on the right metrics.
When working to identify the right metric, ask yourself:
Will this metric predict the business outcome that we are trying to achieve? In other words, is there reliable proof that the metric is aligned with the goals?
Will the metric engage the enterprise? Do colleagues understand the metric? Does it resonate with their role and responsibilites?
Does the metric enable action? Are colleagues motivated to exhibit behaviors that will have a positive impact on the metric and thus the business?
Identifying the right metric is a work of art and science and companies that invest in the work are rewarded.
Yep, Saturday was Cinco de Mayo; hard to believe it is here already. Now for those of you that think Cinco de Mayo is five reasons to choose real mayonnaise over Miracle Whip, you’d better buckle up before reading on.
Cinco de Mayo is Mexican Independence Day, right? Nope. Not right.
Cinco de Mayo is a holiday recognized mostly in the United States to celebrate the Mexican culture. Oh, and to drink lots of Coronas, with limes of course. It is also celebrated in the Mexican state of Puebla, where it is formally referred to as El Dia de la Batalla de Puebla (translation: The Day of the Battle of Puebla).
In this battle in 1861 against the French, a group of about 2,000 from the Mexican army defeated a well-armed group of French soldiers numbering about 6,000—in a single day. Realize that the French army was comprised of professional soldiers, who were well-financed and consistently successful. The 2,000 representing the Mexican army? Farmers, locals and others with little financing and little experience.
How did they win? There are probably lots of factors that contributed to the victory, but there are four things that stand out that businesses can learn from.
They were grossly underestimated by their enemy. The French never imagined the Mexicans would really even put up a fight. In fact, some of them believed they were likely to be friendly to the French. So, a force of 6,000 trusting the enemy would simply lay down encountered a violent response, one that turned out to be deadly for about 500 of the French. We cannot underestimate our competition. We must always assume they are working against us and a little ahead of us. We must be motivated to increase our market share.
The men comprising the Mexican army were chosen by the Mexican president, Benito Juarez. He chose a group of men that were fiercely loyal to Mexico. Men who were willing to go above and beyond to make sure they succeeded, even in the face of adversity. Another good lesson for businesses…loyalty is a strong emotion, especially with associates. And associates are the “tip of the sword” for businesses.
This group chosen for their loyalty was hastily thrown together. They were led by General Ignacio Zaragoza who died of typhoid shortly after this victory. While Zaragoza was there to lead these men, they succeeded because they were self-starters, self-motivators. While they relied on their leader to direct them on the battlefield, they all took their positions and each “did their thing.” Just like each of us. We don’t need anyone to motivate us; we are motivated to serve our customers and to succeed, to grow our business profitably.
This victory was a real energizer for the Mexican army and set the stage for this resistance movement, with the aid of the United States, to eventually force the French to withdraw. Success breeds success. It did for the Mexican army and it will for us. We should always use even the smallest of wins to propel us.
I know. All you want to know about Cinco de Mayo is where you can get the cheapest case of Corona. But this holiday, like many things, can remind us of the things we need to do to succeed. Good lessons and a party to go with them…what more can you ask for?
I like to think of each level of the pyramid as representing proportions of an employee base. At the lowest level are all employees who are aware of customer feedback. However, not all of them will understand what it means, and not all who understand will believe, and so on.
At the pinnacle of engagement, then, are employees who truly believe that being customer-focused makes a difference and take action - the right kind of action. These are true customer advocates, and, unfortunately, they are a subset of employees.
The good news is that the percentage of employees at each level does not have to mirror the triangular shape of the pyramid (it’s a marketing graphic for goodness sake). In reality, the most effective, customer-centric organizations probably have an isosceles trapezoid of engagement.
Walker has a new employee, Star. She is a beautiful Lab/Retriever mix with a great disposition. Star is not a pet but is being trained to be a service dog. Star is a puppy that is currently part of an organization called ICAN. ICAN is the only organization in Indiana to use the prison system to train dogs. Once the dogs are trained, they are placed with all kinds of handicapped individuals (including recently training a dog to alert the owner with diabetes when their sugar is too low).
I always enjoy walking by the office where Star is to pet her, it just kind of brightens up the day. No matter what is going on, there is something about playing with Star that just seems relaxing and allows you to take your mind of the day for just a few minutes.
I had a client years ago that had a company dog. It was a very laid-back dog and when you first walked in, it spooked you a bit because this dog just walked up to you. Then you realize how sweet the dog was and how nice it was to have a dog walking around while you were meeting.
A recent article confirms the benefits of having a pet at work. Obviously this would not work everywhere, I have a son that is highly allergic to most dogs and cats. Clearly that would need to be considered before bringing in a pet to the workplace. I know there are other factors that would prevent something like this. However, my point is this is just another creative thing companies are doing to make the workplace just a little better, which is going to lead to improved employee loyalty.
This is a false dichotomy. My previousblogs on service-dominant logic tried to make this point in a broad, theoretical way. This post will try to give a concrete illustration of those arguments.
Let's consider two identical products created by two brand-new companies. One company launches the product with a technical sales staff and a prevasive marketing campaign highlighting the core features and functionality of the product.
The second company hires a sales staff focused on value-based selling and conducts a targeted marketing campaign focused on how the product meets the core needs of target customer.
Which company's product is more likely to have long-term success in the market? The second company.
Why? Because customers buy more than the product when they are buying a product. Customers buy value, and that value is NOT inherent in the product. It comes through the customer-centric service, sales and marketing around the product.
The second company realized that their product could only have value when it solved a customer need, so they targeted those customers and proposed the value to them. Customers can then accept the value propostion by acquiring the product. That is customer-centricity, and that is the ONLY way products succeed in the marketplace. There is no way to separate the two.
When we think about differentiation in a business-to-business context, our minds tend to go right to how products are unique. We think about how Apple has been able to differentiate in the market through disruptive innovation or how a company made an acquisition to help strengthen their product portfolio. We do see and understand, although less frequently, how service-related or customer-focused characteristics of a company can help to drive a competitive advantage as well. But which is more important? Differentiating by being a product-focused company or a customer-focused company?
Companies obviously have to pick one angle to stand on, likely supplemented by some level of operational excellence, in order to drive strategy. While that’s true, there obviously has to be a balance. An extremely customer-focused company won’t succeed without a product that meets some bare minimum threshold of product satisfaction. The same goes for product-focused companies that need to provide a level of service that allows them to retain customers. Understanding this balance and the “breaking point” of profitability is what companies today continue to try and understand in order to separate themselves from the competition.
Where we as customer advocates can help our organizations with this balancing act is by helping to define what “customer focus” means. Customer focus today requires a new approach, particularly with the shift towards customers having more power in the relationship than ever before. They have greater access to information than in the past, access to many more alternatives, and the ability to communicate with other customers.
The key will be to figure out what’s next and how companies can continue to find their “sweet spot” that allows them to differentiate from their competitors. One key component to this will be a focus on partnership. Understanding from customers what you can do as a company to help their business be more profitable and using that as the driving force of strategy is critical. More focus on customer profitability, less focus on product profitability.
We have continued to change our focus over time on how we measure customer feedback. Shifting our thinking again to understand customer profitability and partnerships should be considered a logical next step in this evolution. Without a focus on customer profitability and partnership aspects of the relationship, companies will struggle to differentiate in the future.
In a series of meetings and conversations this week, there was much discussion about discomfort, and the notion that uncomfortable situations are often a signal of opportunity. The topic reminded me of a past blog post, Can you feel your underwear?, in which I talked about the need to push out of our comfort zones from an account management perspective.
The same thinking applies much more broadly – really to all aspects of our lives. Situations that make us uncomfortable are typically situations that we are unfamiliar with – they require us to stretch, to learn, to try something new and risk failing. And let’s face it, as much as we can learn from failure, it’s not something anybody enjoys.
And yet we all know that there are levels of discomfort that need to be accepted and even welcomed in order to grow. This is particularly true in business situations where we are looking to innovate, an activity that is not only necessary for long-term sustainability, but also one that companies are increasingly being pushed into by customers who are clamoring to introduce their voice to innovation processes. In these cases, the discomfort extends beyond the personal, to a more organizational level of discomfort, but one that, if accepted, can lead to breakthrough developments in products, services, and processes, and ultimately to happier customers and growth.
To capture this upside, it helps to get proactive in identifying opportunities that, while they may be uncomfortable, come with the promise of significant and mutually beneficial rewards. After all, if we all just keep doing exactly what we’re doing now, things will get pretty boring.
As customer experience professionals, we often conduct customer surveys that primarily ask customers to provide answers from a defined set of response options. While I do believe we need to do more qualitative, ethnographic research, I want to take a different direction with this post.
Instead, my hypothesis is that our focus on closed-end survey questions leads us to ask "bad" questions outside of surveys. This hit me as I read this summary of Killer Questions by Phil McKinney. Good survey questions basically ask customers to confirm or disconfirm a hypothesis (our support is great, do you agree or disagree?). These questions are fine in a survey, but we need to use more investigative, Socratic questions within our organizations to drive the learning and innovation necessary to create the customer-focused strategies our companies need to thrive in the marketplace.
Every year, aquatics centers offer American Red Cross lifeguarding classes. They train lifeguards to act with speed and confidence in emergency situations both in and out of the water. Training covers critical areas, including water rescue skills, surveillance and recognition, first aid, breathing and cardiac emergencies, CPR, AED and more.
The value of that preparation was reinforced at the 2012 American Red Cross of Greater Indianapolis Hall of Fame. A group of lifeguards was honored for turning their training into action -- by running to the scene of a fire at an assisted living facility for seniors and people with functional needs, breaking out windows to rescue trapped residents and also providing first aid. Having the advance training prepared the lifeguards to take action and help.
When thinking about your customer strategy, have you ever considered the value that could be realized by your Voice of the Customer program simply by training and preparing your teams to respond to customer feedback?
For example, a membership organization that is getting ready to launch a member relationship assessment will first prepare their team on how to respond to feedback. They plan to contact selected members each month, asking them to provide feedback in advance of the membership renewal period. The goal is for Retention Specialists to be equipped to respond to feedback, making any adjustments needed to extend and expand the relationships.
In preparation for this activity, the Retention Specialists will be trained on how to respond to the VoC feedback prior to the launch of the program. Through the training, they will be made aware of the initiative, understand what the feedback means, and what they need to do about it. Having that advance preparation will set the stage for the team to respond to feedback and take action to improve the customer experience.
Is your team ready to break through glass to help your customers?
I once wrote a post on the importance of testing your hypotheses. In it I mentioned the importance of a culture of testing and inquiry. The problem is that many meetings consist of opposing belief statements that are resolved by majority rule instead of actual testing and validation.
Here is my simple idea for creating a stronger culture of inquiry:
Replace "I think..." with "My hypothesis is..."
If I hear, "I think we can grow market share by offering better support," I immediately think whether I agree or not. If I hear, "My hypothesis is that better support would result in growing our market share," I immediately think about the customer feedback we can use to test it. Maybe this only works for analytical types, but try it for a week and see what you think.
P.S. For a fun meeting game, count how many times "I think..." is used in your next meeting or add it to your business buzzword bingo sheet.
The recent death of Steve Jobs and publication of his biography sparked public attention to business innovation. Apple's track record brings to mind a more old-fashioned word -- invention. New-to-the-world, breakthrough products or "disruptive" ones in the sense of their changing whole business categories. Most product innovation activity is actually making upgrades or iterations to existing products or services rather than new ones. But the brand new, disruptive ones attract the most attention because their impact can be enormous ... and awfully good for business.
Launching disruptive products is not exactly new. History notes the major global impact of the printing press, telephone, automobile and airplane. Entire lifestyles have been changed by new products, not to mention launching major business industries world-wide. But in business today, the strategic importance of achieving breakthroughs and innovation of entire businesses has picked up steam. It was recently reported in an Innosight study of the S&P 500 Index that up to 75% of listed companies probably won't be around in 2027. Where the average company in 1958 had been around 61 years, that average duration dropped to just 25 years old in 1980. The tenure today has dropped again dramatically to just 18 years.
So innovating and re-inventing the business has truly become an issue of survival. It's interesting that many companies and industries spawned by major inventions couldn't always follow that act up over time and eventually faltered. Kodak is one example. Its inventions helped people over the last few generations use affordable cameras and film and earned itself prominent listing on the S&P 500 for many years. But, with the advent of digital technology is struggling mightily today. In contrast the Innosight authors cite IBM, P&G, and J&J as three giants surviving the test of time and innovation turmoil by 1) operating effectively 2) creating products meeting market needs and 3) shedding their legacy businesses toward the end of their life cycles. Good survival strategy tips.
While Channel Partners are customers too, unlike the traditional customer, partners are able to provide a unique perspective. When it comes to Voice of Partner versus Voice of Customer survey research, consider these four differences:
1 - Many Channel Partners sell competing products and services giving them a unique perspective on what drives customer purchase decisions. Their input can help companies understand what causes a customer to purchase one product over another competing product.
2 - In a similar manner, OEMs can use partner input to understand what drives a partner to recommend one product over another.
3 - Many partners are combining an OEM's products with other products to deliver a complete solution. Having a better understanding of solution offerings, can be valuable input for the product group.
4 - Customers who purchase from a channel partner often go to the partner for support. Partners can provide a unique perspective on what is needed to support the indirect customer. This input can also be leveraged for serving the direct customer.
Corporate business strategy can benefit from insights provided by the channel. The partner perspective can be used to grow market share, enhance the product roadmap, and deliver an experience that both direct and indirect customers value.
If you are working to create a customer focused leadership position, consider including the perspective from all customer types.
I am sure you all remember my blog from a couple of weeks ago where I wrote about the results of a recent study we conducted that found companies plan to increase hiring. This study was conducted in Indiana only. I just happened to read another company has confirmed what we found across the nation.
This study is an ongoing study by Manpower and they have been tracking the employee outlook for a number of years. They calculate what is called the Net Employment Outlook, which is the percent that say they are going to increase hiring minus the percent that are going to decrease hiring. The Net Employment Outlook is at 10% which is the first time it has been in the double digits since Q1 of 2008. This also marks a considerable jump from the low of -2% in 2009.
A few other interesting findings:
-All industries had a positive Net Employment Outlook
-18% of companies said they were going to increase hiring
-For those of you in North Dakota, the future is especially bright with an outlook of 26%, the highest of all states and a jump of 14%
-The states with the most positive Net Employment Outlook after North Dakota are Alaska, Vermont, Delaware, and Oklahoma
As I mentioned in my previous blog, not everyone they are hiring are people who are unemployed. There will be some pirating of talent from other companies. This is why having employee loyalty is so critical right now. Employees are more likely to resist offers from other companies when they have high degrees of employee engagement. How do you improve employee engagement? The answer is simple, ask the employees. I have found when employees feel responses will be kept confidential, they will be pretty open and honest about what could be improved. However, I only recommend that you take the time to ask employees if you are willing to take action on the results, otherwise you could do more harm than good.
I am officially declaring spring to have arrived. Living in the Midwest, I realize I could be jumping the gun a little, but my number one sign has recently appeared and the weather has been terrific so I am going out on a limb.
One of the first flowers to bloom each spring is the crocus. There is not much to this tiny flower and many people probably don’t appreciate it. I do. I respect the little guy. This flower has such a thick stalk that it can barely support it own weight. Yet many years, the first crocus to bloom actually finds it way to daylight through a layer of snow.
For me, the crocus is spring. It is the first sign of renewal, the rebirth of flowers and trees after what can be a tough few months of winter (I say “can be” because every once in while our winters are mild like this year).
Spring is also a great time to think about renewing relationships with key customers. Too often we let these relationships roll along, almost taking them for granted. It can be easy to think everything is going along just fine, why rock the boat? It’s time for renewal, but what does that mean? Here are some things to try…
The Unexpected. Often the most impactful things you can do to energize a relationship are seemingly insignificant, but because they are unexpected they leave a lasting impression with your customer. Send a birthday card, call and check in for no reason, anything they would appreciate and not expect you to do.
The Dramatic. You probably should save this one for times when you really need it … drastic times and drastic measures kind of stuff. Make them an offer that appears “out there.” For example, if a customer has been complaining about the price of a proposed product or solution (and you are confident of its fit and value), tell them to pay you what they think it’s worth. That puts the burden on them and will force them to justify their concerns over the price. Most importantly, and this is where the renewal comes from, they will understand your confidence in your value.
The Challenging. This is a great time to sit back and challenge yourself. Are you delivering enough value to your customers? Are you giving them your best stuff, your best thinking, your best work? If you aren’t, now’s the time.
The Collaborative. There is nothing more effective at building relationships than working together to solve tough problems. When you and a customer collaborate to tackle challenges, it becomes the two of you against the world.
Spring is a great reminder of the power of renewal and the impact it can have. Flowers and trees bloom in the spring and those blooms are the basis for more flowers and trees to grow. Same with our customers. Relationships must be constantly renewed and refreshed, and that plants the seeds for more and better relationships in the long run.
You have lots of loyal customers. But, what do you do to make the most of these relationships?
First, let's describe what we really mean when we talk about loyal customers. As described in the framework of the Loyalty Matrix, truly loyal customers are those that are positive in both their attitude and behavior. In other words, they have every intention of continuing to do business with you and they have a positive attitude toward your company. They like working with you and are more likely to increase their spending and recommend your company to others.
Then what strategies and tactics should be deployed to leverage loyal customer relationships? Here are four key initiatives that every company can incorporate into their customer strategies:
1. Support new sales - in most businesses referrals are a key component in closing new deals. Because loyal customers have a positive attitude about their work with you, they are an excellent source of referrals and testimonials.
2. Earn more business - loyal customers typically are planning to increase their spending. This is a chance to up-sell and cross-sell to generate new sales.
3. Team up to innovate - loyal customers are often the best partners. They will be more open and interested in collaborating to consider and test new solutions.
4. Network with other customers - ideally, you want their loyalty to be contagious. Encouraging networking between loyal customers and trapped customers can help convert these trapped customers and earn more loyalty.
Too often, when a company looks at the breakdown of their customers in the Loyalty Matrix framework they focus on the negative - how to improve relationships high risk and trapped customers. Unfortunately, the positive aspect can be overlooked – how to leverage relationships with their most loyal customers. And yet, this may be the quickest way to generate new revenue for the company!
One more note - this blog is part of a series of blogs covering the Loyalty Matrix and each of the other quadrants - accessible, trapped, and high risk. You can also access a position paper on the Loyalty Matrix by clicking here.
Walker recently set out to answer the question, "What drives partner preference?" Or, asked a different way, "Why do partners recommend one product or brand over others?"
As we analyzed data from more than 20,000 partner surveys across multiple IT OEMs, one of the findings that emerged is partners have similar needs as customers.
As we reviewed the drivers of partner preference and compared them to the drivers of customer satisfaction and loyalty, we noticed some similarities:
Partners and customers prefer OEMs that offer reliable products. This area, more than any other, including the financial incentives that OEMs provide to their channel, has the greatest impact on partner preference and is a common top driver of customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Partners and customers want to work with companies that are easy to do business with. While this is a nebulous concept, partners and customers generally consider the people and the processes they interact with when evaluating a company as being easy to do business with.
As we sifted through all of the data, I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if OEMs adapted their voice of customer (VoC) best practices to their partner relationships. Best practices such as soliciting partner input, creating partner-specific action plans for vulnerable relationships, and leveraging partner feedback to prioritize improvement initiatives. Would that help them grow market share? Would this help them solidify their customer retention strategies?
Based on the work that we've done, the answer is yes.
As with any new or strategic initiative, voice of the customer programs are not excluded when it comes to executives asking for a change management approach and process. It’s a common scenario – companies know they need to be more customer focused and set out to implement some kind of customer feedback process. After launching a survey or establishing a process to gather inputs, owners of these types of initiatives are charged with creating a formal change management process.
This sounds like a good approach, right?
Wrong. I think companies that think like this are missing the point. OK, maybe that is a little harsh. They aren’t totally missing the point, but they are out of sequence in thought. Change management seems to be the favorite scapegoat when it comes to the reasons why creating a culture of being customer focused is not as successful as it could be. I think it is because change management didn’t come first.
Consider the model below. This demonstrates employees have to first be made aware of why customer partnership and loyalty are important. Then they have to understand and believe it. Once that foundation is in place, they can act. Establishing this up front is critical to the success of customer feedback initiatives.
I’m not advocating that every organization has to undergo a full transformation of being customer focused before embarking on a customer feedback program, but an initial assessment of the situation to identify gaps in awareness, understanding, and belief should be done. Once the gaps in these areas have been identified, specific actions and communications plans can be created to address weak areas. Some issues may be more difficult to address than others, but measuring progress with a simple framework will help you to remain focused.
I was recently with a business strategist from a Fortune 500 company who stated there were ultimately three reasons corporate strategies fail. Even though he was speaking of overarching corporate strategies, the three reasons align with what I have seen related to customer strategies:
You measure the wrong things – Good strategy is the result of careful, intelligent analysis; however, the old maxim “garbage in, garbage out” applies here. In customer strategy consulting, this can be the result of jumping on the bandwagon of the latest killer metric without a full analysis of whether or not the metric actually applies to your industry. One way to avoid this shortcoming would be to conduct a pre-program strategic assessment – this step will allow you to learn not only the key customer touchpoints, but also identify the critical needs of key stakeholders in the process. It will also help you make certain you are profiling the customers the right way and focusing on the most critical.
You make the wrong decisions – Even if you measure the right data, there is no guarantee you will make the right decisions. Some of this is related to the data itself – in customer strategy consulting, using statistical methods that allow us to determine which areas of focus will have the greatest impact on customer loyalty will provide some insulation against focusing on the wrong areas. There is, however, another source of potential error – and that is the direction of where the market in total is heading. Every decision is framed not only by the data you observe, but also by your outlook on the competitive environment in general. To ensure you get it right, there are three recommendations I would make:
Include competitive assessments in your loyalty measurement program – Having an idea on your position relative to the competition can help fine-tune your analysis. You can read more about benchmarking options in this series.
Commit to ongoing measurement – This does not necessarily mean an ongoing data collection effort; rather, it is about knowing when to re-assess the customer landscape to ensure you are accounting for all the relevant issues. Most clients do this every 18 to 24 months at a minimum.
Build macro and micro-level strategic plans – The overall strategy that emerges from the statistical analysis is best used in the context of focal areas that have the greatest impact on the greatest number of customers; however, building more micro-level, customer-based action plans will ensure you are accounting for the individual differences that exist among customers.
You do not take action – This is the one we tend to see the most. I once worked with a person who was prone to saying “strategy is cheap; execution is hard.” When I first heard him say this, I thought he was saying that strategy was simple; I now realize what he meant was that even though strategy can be hard, it is infinitely more difficult to execute on a plan of attack you know is correct. The phenomenon of acting in ways that are not in your best interest is less about intelligence and more about discipline. I tend to use diet and exercise as an example – I know I should exercise more and eat less, but it is far easier to do the opposite. We at Walker have designed a framework to help navigate the key disciplinary elements needed to take action – namely, organization, process, communication, and motivation.
Certainly there are many reasons strategies can fail; however, I suspect that most of the reasons would fit into this framework. Being mindful of the potential pitfalls that may exist can help you be more proactive in building a plan that will maximize your probability of success.
Mark A. Ratekin
Sr. Vice President, Consulting Services
One common response from people who use customer insights to drive corporate business strategy goes something like this, "The customer comments are great. They are very helpful and valuable."
There are a lot of tools for analyzing unstructured data, but my nine year old daughter recently introduced me to one tool for displaying this type of data.
It is called Tagxedo and is similar to Wordle. But, with Tagxedo you can put the word clouds into different shapes and images.
This example is my blog displayed as a coffee cup.
While this text tool won't provide you with the rich natural language processing that is available in some text analytics software, it is a fun tool for visualizing the common words customers use when they talk about your products, services, and brand.
outside of surveys. This hit me as I read this 
While 
daylight through a layer of snow.
I’m not advocating that every organization has to undergo a full transformation of being customer focused before embarking on a customer feedback program, but an initial assessment of the situation to identify gaps in awareness, understanding, and belief should be done. Once the gaps in these areas have been identified, specific actions and communications plans can be created to address weak areas. Some issues may be more difficult to address than others, but measuring progress with a simple framework will help you to remain focused.
One common response from people who use customer insights to drive corporate business strategy goes something like this, "The customer comments are great. They are very helpful and valuable."
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