Engaging the Enterprise

I get a kick out of the AT&T ads (examples here and here) showing how the pace of things is so fast that the savvy user of the HTC Vivid with 4G is always informed and ahead of the game.

While the commercials are informative and entertaining, the application makes sense for how customer strategists build better customer relationships.

The most common example that has gotten attention is the way some companies have monitored social media sites to identify customer complaints and quickly address them. In doing so, they salvage a customer relationship and impress consumers with their attention to customer issues.

I prefer to consider uncommon examples, like complex customer relationships in a B-to-B environment. We've seen terrific examples of companies that have closely monitored feedback from surveys that trigger alerts notifying account managers of customers issues that need to be addressed and opportunities to pursue. In one example a company identified more than 5,000 issues that were logged and prioritized for action. What's more, they prompted sales opportunities that delivered more than $200 million in new sales.

This was all done by setting up a system that included the following:

• Good lists - insights are gathered from the right customers
• Good design - to incorporate triggers to identify issues, opportunities
• Good training - account managers understand their role
• Good buy-in - everybody sees the benefit for them and for the company
• Good tools - an online documentation system ensures follow up
• Good measurement - the ROI is measured to validate the payoff

• Things about you that everybody knows – your hair color, your eyes, your height, weight, etc. (arena)

• Things that others know about you, but you do not see - annoying habits or shortcomings (blind spot).

• Things you know that others don’t – your habits, your secrets (facade).

• Things you don’t know about yourself and others don’t know – subconscious things that make you do the things you do (unknown).

Everyone agrees when customers share their insights, employees should put them to use. So why is it so hard? Without a doubt, taking action on customer insights is the number one challenge of customer listening programs.

Here are three reasons why employees fail to take action:

First, they aren’t aware. In most companies there is so much happening and so many initiatives taking place that customer programs hardly get noticed.

Second, they don’t understand. It’s not clear how customer insights are to be put to use and people don’t understand what they are supposed to do with the feedback they receive.

Third, they don’t believe.  Either they don’t think the feedback is accurate or they don’t think any action will make much difference.

The Hierarchy of Engagement is a framework that helps make sense of how customer strategists can prompt more action from customer listening programs. Good customer strategists do much more than gather insights and crank out reports. They promote customer initiatives, train users of customer insights, and show employees how it all makes a bottom-line difference. In other words, they prompt action.


Patrick Gibbons
Principal/SVP
Walker

• One, the resident notices no ceiling fan, is a bit disgruntled, but doesn’t say anything. 
• Two, the resident notices no ceiling fan, mentions something to the maintenance staff who may say, “Sorry – just following procedures.”
• Three, the resident notices no ceiling fan, responds to a request for feedback, and the issue is addressed.

1. They request feedback 30 days after move-in. This allows them to know if the customer experience is off to a good start. 
2. They request feedback after any maintenance issue is closed. This allows them to know if the experience of having something fixed left them with a positive or negative impression.
3. They conduct a slightly longer survey halfway through their lease. This goes into more depth to understand the things they are doing well and the things they need to improve. Most importantly, it allows them to anticipate whether a resident will be renewing their lease. This important piece of information helps them understand if a resident is moving because they are dissatisfied or they are simply moving on. Either way, they can anticipate the number of vacancies they may have – a vital piece of information in property management.

Customer strategists can’t do it alone. They need an army of ambassadors to make sure people are aware of the organization’s customer initiatives and that a customer-focused spirit is engrained in the corporate culture.

To evaluate what you have in place, do this simple exercise. On a sheet of paper, draw a line down the middle. On the left side, write – who do I have? On the right side, write – who do I want? Then, on the left side, list all those that are ambassadors of your customer initiatives. In other words, who believes in the customer strategies that are in place? Who can you count on for support? Who's on-board? Then, on the right side, think about who else you would like to have in your army.

Don’t limit yourself to certain departments or areas. Include executives, people on your direct team, managers, users of information, and any others across the organization.

Who’s in your army of customer advocates?

Patrick Gibbons
Principal, SVP

Customer strategists must anticipate all the twists and turns and ups and downs that can derail their customer strategy. This was the topic of my last blog, which encouraged customer strategists not only to create effective plans, but to anticipate the things that can derail them. Following up on that, here are three tools that can help keep you on track:

1. Have a good ROI statement. Nothing is more powerful than being able to show the value of your program with a succinct description of the return on investment. If a new executive arrives,  there is a reorganization, or budget cuts are looming, justifying your program in financial terms will be the most effective way to ensure you sustain momentum.

2. Show that customer information is being used. One of the sharpest arguments for inadequate customer strategies is that nobody takes action on customer insights. Smart customer strategists will make sure they track the way people in their company use customer insights. They build an infrastructure to show that people not only receive reports, but there is accountability and action that pays off.

3. Have great stories. The first two items appeal to the rational side of the brain. But there is an emotional side of the brain as well that can be much more powerful. People love to hear a good story about how an employee used customer insights to make an important decision that paid off. It could be an account manager who turned a strategic account around. It could be an engineer who implemented a cost-saving process change. Or, it could be an executive who shifted strategy to provide a competitive edge. Great stories stick with people.

As a customer strategist, if you experience these common items that frequently derail programs, be armed – have a good ROI story, show that people put customer insights to use, and have compelling stories that will showcase how the use of customer insights makes a difference in your company.

Patrick Gibbons
Principal, SVP

The metaphor of a road map is often used in strategic planning. In other words, you think about your strategy in terms of getting from point A to point B and you map it.

Actually, I think it’s more like a roller coaster.

On a roller coaster you’re still getting from the beginning to the end, but you must anticipate the ups and downs and twists and turns. In planning your customer strategy, I believe it is not only important to consider how to successfully reach the destination, but also to consider how to be ready for the turns and prevent being derailed.

When I was a child and our family would prepare for a summer vacation, we would think about all the things we wanted to do, and we would prepare. We would pack the appropriate clothing and prepare for all we needed to do on our list. But my parents also planned for what could go wrong. My dad would change the oil in the car to prevent breaking down. My mother would pack a box of medicine, just in case somebody felt ill on the trip.

I believe planning your customer strategy is similar. You can chart out your plan for what you want to achieve, but should also think about the following:

• What if there are unplanned budget cuts? How will you defend your strategy?
• What if there is a reorganization? How do you ensure your strategy sustains?
• What if a new senior leader arrives? How do you “resell” your strategy?
• What if team members are reassigned? How do you keep things moving?

Strategic planning is an art. In planning your customer strategy you need to consider all the ups and downs and twists and turns that can happen and consider how you are going to sustain the momentum to coast smoothly to the finish.

Patrick Gibbons
Principal, SVP

Lately there’s been a lot of buzz around having a “chief customer officer.” I’m growing a bit tired of all the “chief” titles that are apparently in vogue, so I’m not stuck on the term. However, the idea of having an executive in charge of customer strategy makes sense. 

While some of the reasons are obvious, I think it really comes down to two things: distractions and priorities.

In fact, at a recent forum we asked a group of customer strategists to identify the things that distract or derail their progress on implementing customer strategies? The following were common responses:

• Administrative process and approvals
• Unplanned budget cuts
• Company reorganization
• New senior leader – need to orient, “re-sell”
• Team members are reassigned

However, the most frequent responses were:

• Other job responsibilities take priority
• Another initiative “overshadows” customer strategy

Those two are the big issues. Most customer strategists juggle their duties with other responsibilities. What’s more, without the right discipline and infrastructure, customer strategy is something that is easily taken for granted. It’s just there and can easily be overshadowed by the corporate initiative du jour. 

A chief customer officer (or whatever you want to call them) provides the ability to focus solely on customer strategies and work hard to make sure the organization’s customer strategy initiatives are widely known and an active part of the corporate culture.

Patrick Gibbons
Principal, SVP

P.S. At a Forrester’s Customer Experience Forum last summer Ginger Conlon, Editorial Director of 1 to 1 Media asked me and several other industry insiders about chief customer officers. Here is the video she posted.

If you tweet it, will someone come running? I wondered this as I sat in a session on customer service at the recent CRM Evolution conference.

Two fictitious scenarios were outlined:

Scenario one - A person's washing machine was broken. They called the customer service line and were required to walk through a complex process to check the warranty, diagnose the problem, and arrange for the repair. This was positioned as the inefficient process that was a horrible hassle for the customer. We've all been there.

Scenario two - A customer randomly tweeted that their washing machine was broken and it prompted a series of proactive responses. The customer was contacted by the manufacturer with all information ready to solve their problem and arrange for a service call. This was positioned as the highly efficient process that is remarkably customer friendly. The presenter was touting this as a solution that his company was ready to provide.

As I listened to this I thought of three things:

1. Do people really tweet about their broken washing machines?

2. If they do, are they providing the make and model number? I mean, wouldn't they need to know that?

3. Is the day coming where we might tweet about something like this and expect companies to come running to serve us?

I don't know. It seems unlikely that customer relationships will evolve in this manner. After all, at the same conference I learned that even with all the advancements made in customer contact centers, 50% of people still reach a company the old fashioned way - the telephone. However, I hate to underestimate how social media will change the way customer and companies interact.

We'll see what the future holds. Until then, I'll probably pick up the phone if my washing machine breaks down.


Patrick Gibbons
Principal/SVP

• Information Gathering – we’re not gathering the right information from the right customers to drive improvement.
• Communication – our employees are not aware of our VoC strategies and/or don’t receive customer feedback to use in their jobs.
• Relevance /Alignment – the customer feedback we receive is not relevant or aligned with our business strategies.
• Action – we don’t do a good job of taking action on the customer feedback we receive.
• Team and Resources – we don’t have all the right people involved and/or the right resources dedicated for our VoC strategies to be effective.
• Validation – we don’t do a good job measuring the business impact of our VoC strategies.

• In this blog, Leslie Pagel reinforces the need to have the right people involved and introduces our recommended framework.
• In this blog, Leslie provides a quick breakdown of responsibilities - a great reference!
• Finally, in this blog Mark Ratekin makes the case that such teams are one of the key things that separate customer focused companies from less successful companies.

• The kind that are focused on other things - financial management, operational efficiency, or any number of other business concerns. They know it is important to have customers, but they may not be very committed to hearing what they have to say. That is, until there's a problem.
• The kind that are supportive, but not very involved - they know it's important to use customer insights in running the business, but aren't personally very involved. Instead, they leave it to others.  
• The kind that are very customer focused - they know customer strategies drive performance and believe it is everyone's responsibility take action on customer insights. What's more, they are involved and set the example for the organization.