The Customer Experience

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:

1. 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.
    
2. 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.)
    
3. 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?

Kitty Radcliff
Vice President
 

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.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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?

Another in my 140-word series.

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? 

Kitty Radcliff
Vice President

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.

Photo credit: stevendepolo

One week from today, I will be co-presenting with EMC (a Walker client) at the Clarabridge Customer Connections conference in Miami (#C32012).  We’ll be showcasing the success EMC has achieved through their commitment to extract maximum value from the open-ended feedback generated by their customer listening programs, and reinforcing 3 tips that any organization can implement to get the most out of text analytics.

Over the last 18 months, EMC has been on the forefront of the movement to apply text analytic technologies to the open ended comments that customers are providing through transaction-triggered CSAT surveys. To date, we’ve partnered with them and used Clarabridge’s tool to categorize and assign sentiment scores to thousands of comments. The results have been integrated into broader reporting which has led to actions to address newly identified issues and issues that had previously been known only anecdotally.  And while it’s early going on many of these changes, their impact on the customer experience is becoming evident as we continue to monitor the analytics.

3 Tips to Capitalize on Text Analytics in VOC

What do the cloud, social media, and lean innovation have in common? Each are impacting voice of the customer programs and changing the way we measure, manage, and deliver an exceptional and differentiated customer experience.

Cloud computing: The cloud changes the way customers buy products. Customers move from product ownership to product subscription. In doing this, the switching barriers are lessened for the customer and the company is rewarded with recurring revenue. Cloud-based companies need to adapt their voice of the customer program to focus on predicting customer renewals.

Social media: Customers don't need to wait for a company to conduct a customer survey research program to share their thoughts and feelings. With social media, customers have channels to share their feedback with the company, not to mention their closest friends, fans, and followers. Companies are reacting to this trend by monitoring the discussion and engaging in the conversation on public and private social media forums. This has resulted in a voice of the customer platform that companies are still trying to understand.

Lean innovation: Have you ever thought that product development happens in a bubble with engineers, scientists, and innovators isolated in a building and left to their own devices? This paradigm is shifting and the voice of the customer is becoming more important throughout the product development cycle. In this article, Ravi Aron, senior fellow from Wharton's Mack Center for Technological Innovation implies, "[Lean] begins its journey when an organization attempts to hear the voice of the customer." As the innovation process looks to adopt lean principles to reduce time and costs, one essential ingredient is the customer perspective, putting the customer perspective in greater demand.

In a world where the only constant is change, our voice of the customer programs must be adaptable to support our ever changing customer retention strategies.

In this video, Allison Melangton, CEO of the XLVI Super Bowl Host Committeee, shares some of her lessons learned while planning and organizing the 2012 Super Bowl.

Allison's advice serves as a nice reminder for those in charge of developing and executing customer retention strategies. Consider these tips:

Be Bold: Allison says, "If you really believe in something, be bold about it, even though you might have some doubters." Are your customer strategies bold? If not, why?

Make it Different: Allison talks about how they decided to use a different approach to submit the bid for the Super Bowl. Instead of sending the bid to the NFL owners via UPS, they decided to have 8th graders deliver the bid. Are your customer retention strategies unique or are you delivering the same customer experience as others?  

Don't Let Logistics Stand in the Way: As a customer strategist, we often face logistical challenges such as, how are we going to train our entire sales organization, or how can we get the right customer names and contact information for our customer survey research program. We can no longer let logistical challenges stand in our way. What logistics are holding you back?

Focus on Your Strengths: Whether or not someone tells you that, "all of your work is self-inflicted," we must focus first on our strengths. What strengths are your customer retention stratgies focused on?

How does your company operate? Are you “winging it” or do you have a plan and a process to get things done?  

According to urbandictionary.com “winging it” means to improvise with little preparation.

There may be successful companies that don’t plan much. But in my experience, without a plan and process to improve the customer experience - nothing happens. 

Companies are much more likely to achieve their goals when their systems and processes work together. This was recently reinforced when a business colleague shared a successful example of using customer feedback in a very tangible way. 

• The VOC program identified issue resolution as a priority area for the support organization. Open case age was over 50 days. A customer could easily get lost in the shuffle. Eventually many had to call in again and start all over. (How frustrating would that be?) 

• The team put a big focus on managing and reducing open case age in their action plan. They created global visibility around the issue and built accountability into the process. (No winging it here!)

• As a result, open case age has dramatically declined. The customer experience is better and customers are more satisfied with the time it takes to resolve issues. 

Case age has been reduced by 67%, but they’re not done yet. The team is working to reduce it even more - and they will. They have the discipline to stick with the process and make a difference.

“Winging it” usually isn’t enough to execute a customer focused strategy. Aligning the customer results effort with process improvement is critical to your success. 

Kitty Radcliff
Vice President, Consulting Services

As a customer strategist, your role is to help your organization listen to customers and develop customer strategies that will help to earn more from customer relationships. (e.g. Strengthen customer loyalty. Retain customers. Attract new customers. Grow market share. Develop new markets. Be innovative.) It’s a big responsibility. As a result, it is important to have the required knowledge, experience, and expertise. 

But, what if you don’t have all of the answers? Our culture often sets the stage for people to feel compelled to give the impression they have all the answers - even when they don't. Despite that cultural phenomenon, I am starting to see signs where vulnerability is valued.

·         In the book Getting Naked, Patrick Lencioni challenges service providers to be, “completely transparent and vulnerable with clients in order to overcome the three fears that ultimately sabotage client allegiance.” 

·         A recent Harvard Business Review - Management Tip of the Day encouraged readers to, “Admit you don’t know all of the answers.” 

·         Steven D. Levitt made the case that it can pay to say, “I don’t know,” on the new Freakonomics Radio Podcast.   Pretending to know the answer to something can be destructive and makes it impossible to learn.

Of course one can’t use this approach all the time. But surely, no one is fooled into thinking we always have all of the answers…

Kitty Radcliff
Vice President

Have you ever had a two-by-four moment? By that, I mean an “a-ha” experience. It’s like someone hit you with a two-by-four and all of a sudden you have clarity about the situation. You see things in a brand new way.

Recently an executive of a leading U.S.-based distribution organization had a “two-by-four” moment when he reviewed their Customer Loyalty results. His company is pursuing a growth strategy, with the goal of increasing profitability and sales. In an effort to better understand the market position, the VOC initiative included a measure to gauge share of wallet. On first glance their results are extremely positive. They have the vast majority of their customers’ business.

But, wait a second. There is a small portion of business that is going to the competition. That share of business going to the competition is increasing. Furthermore, when you translate the amount of business that is going to other organizations into lost sales – here it comes – they are missing out on hundreds of millions of dollars in potential revenue.

The two-by-four moment: They left money on the table by not pursuing all potential business with new customers.

·         When acquiring new customers they targeted the core business, obtaining about 90% share on average.

·         Over time, their share of wallet eroded as the customer grew relationships with other providers (e.g. down to 80% SOW within five years).

Are you maximizing relationships with your customers?

Kitty Radcliff
Vice President

I have a sign that sits in front of me on my desk in a place that I can’t help but see it many times each day. It is number 17 of the Creed of the Sociopathic Obsessive Compulsive and it says:

Patience is a virtue, but persistence to the point of success is a blessing.

I can’t get this off my mind today. I met this morning with a friend who is an account manager for a large technology company and he told me about a little trouble he has been having with one of his larger accounts. “Yeah, we dropped the ball on a couple things and they are upset. I’ll give it some time and they will come around.”

Come around? Customers don’t come around. They respond to the value that we offer them through the experience they receive (including our products and services and the way we take care of them). When they have a good experience with us, they increase their share of wallet with us. When the experience is bad, they increase their share of wallet with our competitors that offer a better experience.

So while my friend is practicing Zen-like patience waiting for his customer to come around, his competitors are about to discover that their persistence in providing value is about to pay off.

If patience includes taking customers for granted, settling for the status quo and finding reasons not to take actions to improve the experience your customers receive, it is no virtue. It is a curse.

Customers require constant attention; actually, they deserve constant attention. Those who provide it will prosper. Those who wait for their customers to come around will suffer.

It’s official.  I’ve been spending too much time in the world of IT. 

How do I know?  Because several weeks ago I blogged about BIG DATA, and today… today I’m blogging about the cloud.

Now, it seems like everybody has their own definition of what the cloud is, but most can agree that as customers shift more of their operations to a cloud environment their behaviours and usage patterns will become more transparent to the suppliers of the chosen cloud solution.

For customer experience and strategy professionals, this is great news… because it means a host of customer-specific operational and usage data becomes available to us, and we can start to make the connections to customers’ perceptions of their experiences.

The benefits will be many, including:

• Better experience-based profiling of loyal and at risk customers
• Improved predictability of future behaviour based on usage patterns and evaluations of that usage
• More targeted identification of the weak points of the experience, enabling more focused improvement activity
• Proactive intervention in experiences profiled to become negative
• Identification, celebration, and cloning of the ‘bright spots’ – those profiles where experiences are most favourable

And ultimately, the ability to drive happier, more loyal customers, which means a more secure overall business even in the cloudy face of change.

Serving customers in a way that creates a loyal following is hard. Add in the complexities created by an indirect go-to-market strategy and the degree of difficulty rivals the reverse 4 ½ somersault in the pike position (4.8 out of 5.0).

Why is such a strategy difficult? The main reason is that many of the actual interactions with the customers are conducted by your channel partners, not by your people. It also creates a more complex relationship comprised of several relationships as shown below.

There are several companies that have built a strong channel and leveraged that go-to-market strategy to drive revenues and create market expansion. Here are some of the ways in which these companies have created a strong customer experience with indirect customers.

1.      Listen to your customers. It doesn’t matter so much whether the customers are served directly or indirectly, their demand is still driving your revenues. A strong Voice of the Customer program helps understand the customer experience from their perspective. Make sure to share the feedback and insights with your channel partners—much of the action and follow-up required might come from the partners themselves.

2.      Listen to your partners. Lots to learn here. First, how can you improve the experience of partnering with you? How can you make it easier to work with you? How can you build a preference for your brand? How can we drive more business together, benefiting both our businesses and growing our market share?

3.      Listen some more to your partners. Your partners are dealing face-to-face with your customers and they are learning from your customers every day. They are learning what it is like to experience your products, what unmet needs they have, and how they interact with your partners. These insights can help us to create the consistent experience we know customers thirst for.

4.      Treat your partners like customers. I know we don’t think of them this way, but channel partners are customers. We sell to them (and through them), we invoice them, we collect from them. While they are a conduit to the ultimate customer, they buy from us and help us drive revenues. We need to treat them like customers and focus a little attention on them. Part of being customer-focused is being partner-focused.

The best way to deal with complex situations is to break them down into manageable pieces. Eat the elephant one bite at a time. In this case that means understanding all aspects of the channel and understanding how we interact and create an exceptional experience for channel partners and customers.