In a report titled, “The Digital Universe Decade – Are You Ready?” EMC stated that in 2010 alone, 1.2 zettabytes of digital information was created. This is equal to:

• The digital information created by every man, woman, and child on Earth “Tweeting” continuously for 100 years

• 75 billion fully-loaded 16 GB Apple iPads (which would fill the entire area of Wembley Stadium to the brim 41 times)

• A full-length episode of FOX TV’s “24″ running continuously for 125 million years

 And as this forest of data grows, so does the technology available to measure and manage it, and the effects are overwhelming. In “Mindfire: Big Ideas for Curious Minds,” Scott Berkun shares an example of a broken down Winnebago spiraling out of control at 95mp and the driver asking the passengers where they would like to stop for dinner. He writes,

As ridiculous as this scenario sounds, it happens all the time. People worry about the wrong thing at the wrong time and apply their intelligence in ways that doesn’t serve whatever they’re trying to achieve. Some call this wisdom, in that the wise know what to be thinking about, where as the merely intelligent only know how to think.

In our customer and employee experience work we are seeing many business leaders exhausted with business intelligence. It’s not difficult to collect satisfaction surveys and come up with good ideas on how to improve the quality of delivered experiences. The difficulty lies in sorting through that data and finding what your customers care about most, and then focusing attention on those items. Here are three ways we are seeing customer experience leaders navigate the forest of data, to find the insights that drive change:

1. Moving past the “ultimate metric”

Customer satisfaction scores, NPS, even our own Engagement Metric – REAP, have dominated the customer and employee experience scene. These numbers are valuable and useful but can be limiting. While these metrics can tell you if you improved and by how much, they can’t tell how, and most importantly, they can’t tell you why. Many leaders are taking an increased interest in looking at the behaviors, experiences, or interactions that impact shifts in the ultimate metric.

2. Aligning around a set of core metrics

Key driver analysis allows leaders to see into the ultimate metric. If your ultimate score has decreased, looking at your key drivers will offer insight into why this happened, and clearly define the items most in need of attention.

For many of our clients, we set up models of their drivers. These models provide a set of core metrics that an organization can rally around. In quarterly reporting, we will walk through changes in these drivers and use customer comments to bring the drivers to life. This practice allows business leaders to truly understand the customer experience ecosystem.

3. Improved ability to ignore extraneous data

As our clients begin seeing results based on taking action on the drivers, many of them are increasingly ok with not wasting time on the extraneous data. Typical “satisfaction” questions around things like cleanliness and hold times are often axed as leaders see the value in forgoing the 70 page report for a 1 page summary that can be shared across the company. Because once there is unity on what to think about, it is often clear how best to approach the problem (Click to tweet).

The next few years are only going to bring more data. Leaders will feel a rising pressure to measure and manage everything that can possibly be measured. But the winner will not be the person with the most data; the winner will be the one with the wisdom to know what to think about. And by tuning out all of the data noise, will be receptive to hearing the piece of insight that matters most.

Additional Resources:

Taking Action on Customer Feedback

An Effective Treatment Plan for the Average Customer Experience

Photo courtesy of: Dan

We love the “wow” moments of customer service – when a committed employee goes above and beyond to make someone’s day or when a company goes out of its way to correct a service failure. But a customer experience strategy that relies only on superhero moments of great customer service is little more than a nice-sounding dream. A customer experience strategy must focus on creating experiences that are replicable and consistently great. To do this we have outlined seven important areas to evaluate:

Alignment

In our work we often see a Cx “champion” emerge who works tirelessly to get their colleagues and leaders excited about improving experiences.  But this person can’t do it alone. Why? Because the customer experience can’t be owned by one person or department when every person, technology, department, and process that is put in place influences how a customer interacts with your business.

Customer Experience

Take a moment to think about how your customers and clients currently interact with you. Where do these interactions happen? What is the quality of these touch points? How does it feel to do business with you? And how should it feel to do business with you?

Employee Experience

Think about the last time you worked with someone who was good at their job, than compare that to the last time you worked with someone who was good at their job and genuinely loved the work they were doing. The former isn’t delivering a poor experience, but you will always choose to work with the latter. Your employees make or break the customer experience so it’s important to find out what you can do to ensure that your employees love their work.

Break Points

Be willing to admit where you are currently failing your customers. Look at data, talk to your employees, and find where these areas are – and then fix them.

Feedback

Feedback can be tricky business – ask too little and you make uninformed decisions, ask too much and you annoy your customers, ask the wrong questions and you may make the wrong moves. When it comes to dealing with the customer experience we have a few simple rules:

1. Only ask questions that you are willing and able to take action on
2. Avoid asking your customers questions that your employees have the answers to
3. Never ask your customers something you already know
4. Share feedback liberally

HR

Find the people who are already delivering the “wow” moments to your customers, your Brand Ambassadors, and learn from them. Identify the behaviors that make your customers fall in love with you – Is it great product? Prompt responses? An account manager who calls to wish them a happy birthday? – and when you have these answers then work with HR to embed customer-focused practices into hiring, promotion, and rewards structures.

Culture

Improving customer experiences is a journey. With that in mind, it becomes especially important for companies just beginning these journeys to implement measures that will maintain momentum. Things like sharing stories, establishing metrics that will track success, and rewarding the big and small successes  will ensure that your Cx initiatives today will continue to improve tomorrow.

And in the spirit of, “Never ask your customers something you already know,” we developed a Customer Experience Assessment Tool to help you evaluate how consistently your customers are enjoying great experiences with your business (you can also email me at janessa.lantz@peoplemetrics.com to request a copy).

Additional Resources:

Designing a Differentiated Customer Experience – Where to Begin?

Average vs. Great: Why the Quality of Customer Service Matters

The Experience Economy: How Today’s Customers Choose Discretionary Spending

Photo courtesy of: Suat Eman

Many Voice of the Customer programs fail to deliver business results. One reason for this is that companies often measure outdated metrics, such as customer satisfaction. Bloomberg Business Week and others have reported that as many as 60% of customers describe themselves as “satisfied” right before leaving a company, meaning that customer satisfaction is not a driver of loyalty.

However, even if companies are measuring statistics that actually link to profit, stock prices, and other business outcomes (such as Customer Engagement), they are often unsuccessful at improving the customer experience. A recent Forrester Research study that analyzed the customer experience provided by 133 companies with revenues over $500 million found that just 10% had earned “excellent” service ratings.

Below, we take a look at several common failures of Voice of the Customer programs—and along the way, we explain how to create a Voice of Customer program that will successfully improve your business results. The following three hallmarks of an effective Voice of Customer program are worth emulating.

1. Process for Taking Action.
Andrew McInnes at Forrester Research provides more details on why Voice of the Customer programs fail. First, he points out that most VoC programs lack tools for taking action on customer feedback. Forrester’s 2011 customer experience research has found that 65% of companies with VoC programs “don’t systematically take action based on customer insights.”

In other words, although these companies are gathering customer feedback, they do not have tools to close-the-loop on this feedback. Fortunately, some research companies have built tools for taking action on customer feedback into their Voice of the Customer programs.

2. Accessibility of Customer Insight.
Forrester also found that 65% of surveyed companies reported that their Voice of Customer program did not make it easy to access customer insights. All the customer feedback in the world is useless if no one in the company can easily access it. Your VoC system should include an easy way to tier customer feedback, allowing appropriate managers or even frontline employees to have access to this information.

3. Customer Insights Tailored for Different Internal Groups.
Not every employee in your company needs access to your Voice of the Customer data. Furthermore, different departments will want to use the same information in different ways. The marketing department might want quick access to customer testimonials, the leadership team might wonder what product ideas customers had offered in their survey responses, and HR may want to use positive feedback to motivate and Engage Employees. A 2010 survey by Temkin Group discovered that, out of 105 companies with formal Voice of the Customer systems in place, 63% were still “figuring out what to collect, and how.” Fortunately, as described above, you can improve your business results simply by paying attention to how you’re gathering input, and what you do with the resulting customer feedback data – bringing a higher degree of awareness to your Voice of the Customer strategy. serves to improve it.

Additional Resources:
Voice of the Customer (VoC) Results: What to Expect from Your VoC Program
Voice of the Customer Software: 8 Things to Look For
Outsourcing Inspiration: How Customer Feedback Creates Meaning at Work

[photo: Plings]

Voice of the Customer programs shouldn’t leave customers hanging. Too often, companies gather feedback without sharing research results, with a predictable outcome: survey participants feel less inclined to participate in future surveys. This isn’t just a market research problem. Sure, the available respondent pool shrinks as consumers become frustrated with cliffhanger research. But even more importantly from a business perspective is the effect lack of follow-up has on customer engagement. Poor feedback management sends customers the message that you are willing to use them to get ahead—that you are less concerned with their time and effort than you are with meeting your research quotas.

Below, we’ve listed several techniques you can use to close the feedback loop with customers by following up post-survey.

Social Media Sharing
Social media is a lighthearted, easy way to let customers know that you’re listening. Plus, it’s easy to tell customers at the end of a survey that they can follow your Twitter or Facebook feed to learn about survey results. Finally, because social media outlets are public, they can achieve another Voice of the Customer goal: letting your customer base know that you’re dedicated to improving the customer experience.

Newsletters for Respondents
The downside of social media content is that it usually doesn’t last too long. For customers who are especially motivated by seeing their feedback become policy, consider publishing a private newsletter just for survey respondents. One example of well-executed feedback management comes from Marriot, which maintains a private community for respondents called My Marriot Voice. Additionally, Marriot creates regular newsletters telling customer respondents about the survey results and the innovations they inspire.

Individual Action Based on Feedback.
The most advanced feedback management model available today takes anonymity out of the research process. This is especially appropriate for B2B firms allowing htem to harness individuals’ feedback to improve client relationships. For instance, if a client’s survey responses express dissatisfaction with the way that an audit is delivered or a tax return prepared, a Voice of the Customer program can forward this feedback to the appropriate account manager. Our VoC solution sends a Recover Alert to the relevant employees when a respondent’s responses indicate he or she has received less-than-stellar service – and the problem can be quickly resolved

But it’s not just about solving service failures. A good VoC system should also alert you to opportunities for business growth, let you know when an employee has gone above and beyond, gather new ideas from your clients, and also find the clients who are your absolute biggest fans. The problem that many customers have with market research, is that their voice will never be heard on an individual level – so what’s the point?.  By taking quick, appropriate follow-up on feedback companies increase the likelihood that this same client will return and willingly offer their feedback again.

It isn’t unusual for customers to receive several survey offers over the course of a single day. The restaurant where Jill ate for lunch offers her a small incentive for completing a survey via a 1-800 number. The hotel where she stayed last night on a business trip sends her an email survey. Which survey Jill chooses to complete has a good deal to do with how each company “closes the feedback loop” by sharing results with her. No one likes to feel that they’ve wasted their time, or that their opinions don’t really matter. Yet companies send this message every day by keeping market research results totally in-house. By sharing your Voice of Customer program results with your customer base, you are protecting both your market research resources and your customer engagement levels.

Additional Resources:
Benefits of Responding Immediately to Customer Feedback
Bringing Customer Satisfaction Experience Research to Front-Line Employees
Customer Alerts: Turning Customer Feedback into Immediate Sales

[photo: Wikipedia]

Within the customer engagement field, “social media” has become a sort of catchphrase for the latest, shiniest voice of customer program technology. Every day seems to bring the publication of a slew of press releases announcing the latest social media customer engagement gadget. These tools promise to integrate tweets, Facebook posts, comments, and every other bit of social media data with a company’s customer feedback program.

In the ideal company everything would be integrated to perfection. Unfortunately, business leaders work in a real world where everything must be prioritized. We recently wrote an article explaining the importance of designing a customer experience strategy that aligns with the overall business strategy. The same rules apply for social media. To effectively use social media it must be considered as a part of the big picture. The following are a few considerations for leaders evaluating how social media fits into their Voice of the Customer program and into the grand overarching strategy of their business.

1. News travels fast on social media. This might be the biggest understatement of the year, but it is important to note this up front. Social media tools are like magnets for anyone interested in the customer experience because it has changed the way that many of us receive news and interact with companies. Pew Internet Research has found that, on average, each American has 634 ties in their overall network.

News travels fast when people are instantly connected via their ever-present Smartphones, iPads, and other internet-faring gadgets. With Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn just a few clicks away at any time, customers understand that they have the power to quickly share their experience with others. Certain extremely Internet-savvy consumers (the “Technorati”) are exceptionally skilled at quickly spreading (usually negative) feedback. These social media kings and queens know how to amp up the volume and expand their reach. Furthermore, the press is extremely tuned into social media. This provides another level of amplification for whatever is trending online. Because of this, having a social media presence is valuable regardless of industry.

2. Social media may not accurately represent your core customer base. Twitter and Facebook are excellent outlets for “squeaky wheels”—the loudest, angriest, or most popular consumers. It is easy for company leaders to become distracted by these kinds of social media users, which are not to be confused with your best customers. (Indeed, depending on your industry, your best customers may not even have a Twitter or Facebook account). Moreover, social media collectors often provide too much information for company leaders to use effectively.

As customer experience guru Bruce Temkin explained in a recent blog post, a common customer experience management mistake is to assume that more data is always better. Another is to completely focus on one measurement while neglecting to see the big picture. Temkin calls this mistake “Falling in love with a metric.” If your firm falls in love with social media trends, it is likely to follow tweets and Facebook posts without really understanding the entire customer experience picture.

3. Know your size and industry.  While huge business-to-consumer companies can see benefits from tracking global brand trends in social media outlets, social media trackers are less useful for smaller business-to-business firms, simply because niche B2B firms are less likely to be discussed on social media platforms. (From a market research perspective, social media cannot provide a large enough respondent pool to provide accurate surveying results.)

If your goal is to systematically improve the customer experience and boost customer engagement, it is best to continue asking for customer feedback, rather than focusing on social media aggregation. While a review of recent social media comments on your brand may provide a sort of temporary scatter chart, an effective Voice of Customer program will provide a much clearer line graph, showing the overall trend for loyal, engaged customers.

We’re huge fans of feedback and have been collecting it from customers and employees alike for over a decade. We also use social media to connect with people, share ideas, and listen in on what our industry is talking about (Say, “hi” @peoplemetrics). While social media is important, fun, and interesting – it will never replace consistent feedback, systematic follow-up, and a solid business strategy.

Additional Resources:
Voice of the Customer (VOC) Results: What to Expect from your VoC Program
Voice of the Customer Software: 8 Things to Look For
Customer Engagement in a Down Economy: How to Survive Today and Thrive Tomorrow

[photo: Nutadanai Apikhomboonwaroot]

Employee Engagement and Customer Engagement Connection (Fig. 1)

A wealth of data has been published since the early 1990s by PeopleMetrics and others that lend support to this formula. The terminology may be different but essentially the prevailing view is that employees who are engaged – emotionally connected to the work they do – are more likely to exert extra effort on behalf of customers which in turn creates an emotional connection between customers and the brand.  And emotions drive profits.  Customers who ‘love’ a brand are more likely to return, tell others about it and even go out of their way to do business with that organization.

Customer-Centricity –> Engaged Employees

The soon to be released PeopleMetrics 2011 Employee Engagement Trends Report uncovers compelling evidence to suggest that organizations that adopt best practices in customer-centricity have more engaged employees.

The study gathered feedback from more than 2,500 employees across a range of industries including: professional services, financial services, telecommunications, media and entertainment, retail , hospitality and healthcare to tell us about the customer-focus practices adopted by their companies.  Customer-centric organizations were defined as those where employees said:

Employee Engagement in Company-Centric vs. Customer-Centric Organizations (Fig. 2)

a)     Customers are:

• Part of the Mission
• Highly loyal
• Invited to give feedback

b)     And employees are:

• Empowered to handle customer issues
• Invited to give ideas on the customer experience
• Provided customer feedback
• Told when they have done a good job serving customers

Company-centric companies were defined as those where employees said that their companies did not apply these practices with the same degree of consistency.

The analysis then examined how employees in these two groups (those working for Company-centric versus Customer-centric companies) rated their work experience and, in particular, how engaged they were with their employers.  The differences between the two groups are dramatic.

• Two-thirds of employees working Customer-centric companies are Engaged; and one in four are Fully Engaged (see Figure 2)
• Contrast this with just 22% of employees in Company-centric companies who are
  

  The Impact of Customer Strategy on Employee Behaviors (Fig. 3)

  considered engaged; and just 4% who are Fully Engaged

Furthermore, two to two and a half times as many employees in company-centric organizations compared to customer-centric companies say that (see Figure 3):

a)     It would take a lot to get them to leave their current employer

b)     They are motivated by the work environment to give extra effort and

c)     They recommend their company as a great place to work

d)     They love their company or organization

Sharing the Customer Experience Creates Purpose and Meaning

One of the above practices is particularly impactful when it comes to the employee experience.  Specifically, sharing customer feedback with employees cultivates a sense of purpose at work that is not there for those who do not receive that feedback.

• Across industries, employees who are told when they have done a good job serving customers are 1.5 times as likely to agree “I get a sense of purpose from my work” (80% vs. 54% agree to feeling purpose, respectively)

• Accordingly, the boost to a sense of purpose at work drives overall Employee Engagement upwards. Employees who receive customer Recognition are 4.5 times as likely to be Engaged compared to those who do not receive this feedback (55% Engaged vs. just 12%, respectively)

Bringing the Customer inside the Company

In a recent HBR article “How Customers Can Rally Your Troops,” Adam M. Grant, management professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, provides in depth insight into this idea. He references companies who “outsource inspiration” by bringing in customers and end users to tell their stories to front line employees. The results of these endeavors provide evidence that while traditionally leaders and managers have felt the responsibility to “rally the troops” toward better performance it is actually meaningful customer feedback that holds the greatest influence on employee motivation.

The New Service Profit Loop (Fig. 4)

So perhaps we need to reconsider the service profit chain, perhaps it looks something more like the image in Figure 4 – a service profit loop.

Companies need to start by admitting that employees need to find meaning and purpose in their work beyond a paycheck.

And those companies that start to actively look for ways to outsource inspiration will be rewarded by higher levels of Employee Engagement and better business results.

This article was originally posted on CustomerThink.com.

“Well done is better than well said,” advised Ben Franklin. As Franklin appreciated, follow-through is a challenge for most members of our species, and it’s certainly a stumbling block for businesses as far as customer feedback is concerned. According to the Temkin Group, six out of ten companies have a Voice of the Customer program in place, but very few of them actually take action based on the customer feedback they receive.

Tempkin reports that most companies get caught up in what it takes to obtain customer feedback, or sidetracked by endlessly crunching the mountains of data that customer feedback can provide. A few shocking numbers emerge as we get more specific about how most companies fail to take action on customer feedback surveys. Consider the following statistics from Aberdeen Group’s report The ROI on Customer Feedback:

77% of companies DO NOT have established methods for responding to customer feedback.
With no method for responding to customer feedback, what’s the point of gathering it in the first place? From improving customer procedures to driving innovation, customer feedback can be a golden opportunity for any company. If your company is not among the 23% who have established methods of responding to feedback, you should seek out customer feedback management software that does more than provide aggregate data on brand feedback over time. Look for a Voice of the Customer solution that provides actionable techniques your managers and front-line employees can use to improve the customer experience right away.

85% of companies DO NOT take immediate action on individual customer feedback.
Most organizations are still living in the dark days of market research, when technology limitations prevented companies from responding immediately to individual customer feedback. Today’s customers know better and if you can bother them with newsletters, mailings, and requests to provide their feedback -  then it is imperative that you be ready to take real and meaningful action on what you learn from them..

79% of companies DO NOT define best practices for utilizing and deriving actionable insights from customer feedback.

Unless you know where you’re going, a map is pretty useless. Similarly, all the customer feedback tools in the world won’t help your organization improve, unless you define best practices for utilizing customer feedback. Managers are busy, and a good VoC provider will provide guidance on the best route to creating the most engaging customer experience.

Marketing and Branding and all the “well said” materials in the world can quickly be unraveled by a disappointing experience. And while neither business nor people can be perfect all the time, a good VoC solution should be guiding your company and employees toward a more frequent “well done!”

Additional Resources:
Customer Alerts : Turning Customer Feedback into Immediate Sales
Bringing Customer Satisfaction Experience to Front Line Employees
Becoming Customer-Centric Through Real-Time Alerts

Organizational learning innovator John Seely Brown advises, “The harder you fight to hold on to specific assumptions, the more likely there’s gold in letting go of them.” PeopleMetrics has found three major assumptions that many companies maintain regarding their feedback management processes. These assumptions are comforting for the present moment because they cover up problems. Yet in the long term, each of these three assumptions endangers and weakens companies. In this blog post, we’ll introduce three customer engagement process assumptions and find the “gold” awaiting organizations that can let go of them.

1. Assuming you deliver a superior customer experience. According to Bain and Company, 80% of executives say their company delivers a “superior” customer experience; just 8% of their customers agree. That’s a 72% reality gap. It’s often the executive’s job to be optimistic about the future of an organization; perhaps many in the c-suite simply believe their own hype.

The danger in this assumption is fairly obvious: if you don’t know how your customers feel about your brand, you can’t very well make informed decisions about what to change, what to improve, and what to maintain. Yet it appears that many executives simply decide their companies are doing a great job without actually asking their customers. 

The hidden gold beyond this assumption: Once a feedback management system is in place to help you gather, analyze, and apply customer feedback, you can track your improvement as an organization and rest assured that you’re not acting on pure assumption.

2. Assuming your customers will tell you if they experience a problem. TARP research has found that for every 26 customers that experience a problem with a brand, only 1 will report it back to the company. In other words, many customers switch brands silently, with no warning or feedback for the company they’re leaving.

The danger in this assumption: The silently disgruntled (or dissatisfied or even nonplussed) customer is likely to leave your brand for any reason, at any time. Another assumption often stems from this one, namely that customer turnover is inevitable and unchangeable. Pity so many leaders accept this as fact, since brands can find significant savings from retaining long-term loyal customers.

The hidden gold beyond this assumption: A feedback management system can help you uncover common  reasons why your customers become frustrated and leave your brand. That kind of feedback is invaluable; it can tell you how to steer your organization according to what your customer base actually wants.

3. Assuming you are using the right metrics for your customer feedback management program. Many companies continue to rely on outdated, vague metrics for their customer feedback management systems. Customer satisfaction is a term that is freely bandied about the business world as a measurement stick for overall brand success. Yet Bloomberg Business Week tells us that 60% of customers describe themselves as “satisfied” just before leaving a brand (October 2009).

PeopleMetrics recently announced the winners of the 2011 Brand Ambassador Awards. Given to six individuals across five companies, the Brand Ambassador Awards recognize individuals who have consistently delivered extraordinary customer service. Alphabetized by company name, this year’s Brand Ambassador Award winners are:

• Susannah Heitger and John Weber at Crowe Horwath LLP
• Derek Criswell at Moss Adams LLP
• Peter Landis at Signature Flight Support
• Sasha Spei at The World
• Barbara Zonin at The Addis Group.

The Brand Ambassador Awards highlight the importance of identifying and emulating the Brand Ambassadors within any company’s ranks. Brand Ambassadors are employees who “Bring a brand to life,” so to speak. (Indeed, this is the subtitle for Brand Champions, a forthcoming book to which PeopleMetrics’ leadership contributed a chapter.) They are employees who consistently go above and beyond customers’ expectations. Such stellar service can turn a merely satisfied customer into a Passion Promoter for the company.

As PeopleMetrics VP Kate Feather explains, “We have found through our independent and client research that employees who are willing to go above and beyond create customers who love them. These customers, in turn, become Passionate Promoters of the company. Brand Ambassadors are a powerful reminder of how much one individual can strengthen (or weaken) the emotional tie between customers and companies.”

The award selection process is based on the PeopleMetrics Voice of the Customer solution. During quick, “check-in” Customer Engagement surveys, customers are given the chance to recognize certain employees. PeopleMetrics Enterprise Feedback Management system automatically delivers a Recognition Alert when a customer praises a certain employee by name for going “above and beyond” on the customers’ behalf. The five winning companies were selected according to the percentage of Customer Recognition Alerts generated. Within each of these firms, employees who received the most customer recognition were selected as Brand Ambassador Award Winners.

PeopleMetrics CEO Sean McDade provided a context for the award, explaining, “Every company has great people who are doing extraordinary work every day. The challenge is in knowing who they are so you can recognize them and learn from them. We hope that this award will be an incentive, not only to our clients but to other companies as well, to make a commitment to systematically seek out, recognize, and reward the internal heroes in their organizations.”

To learn how PeopleMetrics Voice of the Customer solution can help identify your Brand Ambassadors, visit our Voice of the Customer Page.

Additional Resources
Bringing Customer Experience Research to Front-Line Employees
Employee Effort: Moving Customers from Loyalty to Customer Engagement
Creating Brand Ambassadors Through Recognize Alerts

Last December, many experts were calling 2010 the year of social media—and in many ways they were right. Facebook now has 500 million users, and Twitter signed on over 100 million users in 2010 alone. Nielsen has found that Americans spend a quarter of their time online at social media sites, a 43% increase since 2009. It’s no surprise, then, that marketers around the country are touting the importance of a social media presence in business, and praising customer engagement software for social media management. Yet PeopleMetrics’ 2010 Most Engaged Customers (MEC) study reinforced the age-old idea that face-to-face interaction is best as far as customer service is concerned.

In the MEC study, PeopleMetrics compared engagement levels for customers interacting with a brand in-person, online, and over-the-phone. Customer satisfaction feedback from the study revealed that Fully Engaged customers are more likely to have had face-to-face interactions with a brand. More than half (52%) of Actively Disengaged customers had phone contact with a company, compared with just 18% of Fully Engaged Customers. On the other hand, 76% of fully engaged customers had in-person interactions, versus 48% of Actively Disengaged customers. In other words, customers are more likely to be engaged when they have had in-person interaction with a brand.

Authentic customer service is  challenging to achieve over the phone because it is more difficult for service representatives to read the customer’s mood. During in-person interactions, eye contact and facial expressions allow for a better understanding of each customer’s mood and personality. Furthermore, many customer service call centers are so focused on metrics such as call volumes that they discourage the kind of small talk and humor that can endear customers and give service reps insight into each consumers’s state of mind.

However, it’s unrealistic in this day and age to expect companies to conduct all of their customer service in-person. Nearly every company today interacts with customers via multiple channels. The challenge is to ensure that your productivity metrics don’t trump the customer experience.  A customer feedback management system can help your managers monitor customer engagement levels, and quickly respond to any service slip-ups. Such Enterprise Feedback Management software gathers all customer touchpoints into one easy-to-read dashboard, which employees at every level can check to determine the current state of a company’s customer service.

Additional Resources:
Enterprise Feedback Management Dashboard Tools to Improve Efficiency
The Importance of Customer Satisfaction and Customer Engagement in Business Outcomes
Benefits of Assigning Customer Engagement Research Access Levels

From snail mail questionnaires to telephone surveys to online panels, the market research world has benefited greatly from improvements in communication technology. Modern technology allows companies to close the customer feedback loop by responding to individual customer feedback in real time.  Today, members of an organization can respond to customer feedback as it is gathered. Just a few years ago, companies had to wait hours, days, or weeks for customer satisfaction study results to learn what customers actually thought about their products and services. Now, there’s no wait time, assuming you’re working with a cutting-edge Enterprise Feedback Management system.

As an example of one such system, consider our Action Alert system. With brief, 2-3 minute B2B and B2C surveys, we regularly interview our clients’ customers. Certain responses trigger Action Alerts, which are sent to the employees our client specifies. Survey results are also available through an online dashboard. Each type of Action Alert serves an important purpose.

One such purpose is preserving and improving customer retention and trust. When a customer indicates a problem with the brand, a Recover Alert is immediately sent out, so managers can resolve the issue in a timely manner. Recover Alerts help build customer trust, a key ingredient in Customer Engagement as our 2010 Most Engaged Customers study found. Customers stick around when they trust your brand to provide superb service and resolve any problems quickly and professionally. As the 2010 Most Engaged Customers study states, “If mistakes do happen (and they inevitably do happen) the way that a company responds will either create or destroy customer trust.” A major benefit of immediately responding to customer feedback is the ability to quickly resolve problems, thereby improving customer trust.

A second benefit of immediately responding to customer feedback has to do with how customers view surveys. Many customers see online and telephone surveys as a waste of time. That’s usually because they’ve given their opinion before, and seen little to no change in company policies and performance as a result. In fact, it’s rare for the customer to receive any verification that the company has even heard their opinion. Admittedly, in the past surveying was so complex and clunky that it was very difficult for companies to respond to individual customers. No more. Using modern EFM systems, your employees can let customers know that their concerns have been heard—even better, the customer can see how their feedback is driving change. Empowering the customer in this way is an excellent method of building customer loyalty.

Last but certainly not least, an immediate response to customer feedback builds overall Customer Engagement. As mentioned above, customer trust is a major factor of Customer Engagement. By giving employees the tools needed to quickly respond to customer feedback, you can win the customer’s trust and loyalty. Once a customer engagement process is in place, the ability to respond to customers in real time improves overall Customer Engagement by keeping the conversation between company and customer flowing smoothly.

Additional Resources:
Proactive Customer Management: Using Customer Feedback in Real Time
Creating Brand Ambassadors through Recognize Alerts
Enterprise Feedback Management Dashboard Tools To Improve Efficiency

[photo: Michel Filion]

Building Blocks of Customer Love

To provide context, customer trust is the fourth level of the “pyramid” of Customer Engagement. The 2010 MEC study uncovered six traits that add up to Customer Engagement, each of which builds upon previous characteristics. For instance, the first layer of the pyramid is a unique offer—a product or service that customers can’t find elsewhere. Customer care and consistency are the second and third requirements; they earn a brand customer loyalty. However, without trust a brand cannot move from customer loyalty to Customer Engagement. The MEC study uncovered two general types of trust. Some winning brands, we discovered, never give customers a reason to doubt their dedication. Flawless service delivery is the first method of creating customer trust. This route to trust requires perfectly consistent customer care while delivering a compelling offer.

However, it is unrealistic to expect any company to be 100% flawless. Even the world’s top brands make mistakes from time to time; what distinguishes top brands is how they handle problems. How you respond to a customer’s complaint or problem will determine your customers’ trust levels. In fact, the highest levels of customer trust are found among consumers “who have had problems and experienced positive problem resolution,” as the 2010 MEC study states. On the other hand, when customers experience poor problem resolution, they are less confident that the company will be able to handle problems in the future. In other words, trust is built when the organization is put to the test, as the MEC 2010 report emphasizes.

A quote from a Costco customer exemplifies the kind of problem resolution that builds trust and contributes to overall Customer Engagement: “Whenever I have had any type of problem or issue with any products I have purchased from Costco, they will always take the product back for either full refund or replacement. No problem.” As this customer feedback implies, when companies properly handle slip-ups, customers don’t even see them as problems. High customer trust levels are earned when companies provide flawless service delivery, or effectively resolve any flaws that do occur.

To understand where your business makes mistakes, you must have a customer feedback system in place. Even the earliest studies of customer satisfaction showed that most customers won’t willingly complain; they’re more likely to just take their business elsewhere. A strong, consistent feedback system, like our Customer Engagement Management solution, ensures that you discover your own mistakes so that you can quickly resolve them to build customer trust and Customer Engagement.

Additional Resources
Why the Ritz-Carlton is #1 in Customer Engagement: 6 Customer Love Factors in their Credo
Customer Engagement vs. Customer Satisfaction: Which should you follow?
How to make your customers happy: Improve the purchasing experience

[photo: PeopleMetrics] ]]> http://blog.peoplemetrics.com/the-two-routes-of-building-customer-trust/feed/ 0 http://blog.peoplemetrics.com/customer-engagement-vs-customer-satisfaction-which-should-you-follow/ http://blog.peoplemetrics.com/customer-engagement-vs-customer-satisfaction-which-should-you-follow/#comments Thu, 30 Sep 2010 13:00:21 +0000 Kate http://blog.peoplemetrics.com/?p=1577 This blog post is provided by PeopleMetrics. To read more, please visit the PeopleMetrics Industry News blog. PeopleMetrics specializes in Employee and Customer Engagement Solutions

This blog post is provided by PeopleMetrics. To read more, please visit the PeopleMetrics Industry News blog. PeopleMetrics specializes in Employee and Customer Engagement Solutions

“A science is as mature as its measurement tools,” Louis Pastuer once said. The concept applies to the business world as well. In order to survive, companies must retain customers. The tricky part is figuring out which measurement tools can be used to effectively assess, predict, and improve customer loyalty. Since the 1980s, customer satisfaction has been a popular measurement tool for improving retention. In the intervening decades, however, many business experts have questioned the importance of customer satisfaction, pointing out its weak impact on loyalty. These days, many organizations are instead tracking Customer Engagement. Following a brief history of customer feedback metrics, this article will discuss why Customer Engagement is an especially powerful “measuring stick” in the current market.

In the early days of customer experience research, customer loyalty was defined according to past consumer behavior. This was a problematic approach because it could not predict how customers would behave in the future. Who knew why these customers were loyal? Was it due to good deals or purchase rewards? In this sense, loyalty only indicated that customers hadn’t left yet; it couldn’t help predict whether they would stick with a company for the long term.

For some time, customer satisfaction was seen as the solution to the customer loyalty problem. R.L. Oliver’s Expectations Confirmation Theory held that customer satisfaction could be defined by measuring the gap between the customer’s expectations and his or her perception of whether those expectations had been met. Satisfied customers were those who perceived their expectations had been met or exceeded by a certain company’s goods or services. Measurement strategies such as SERVQUAL were developed to help companies determine customer satisfaction. Extremely satisfied customers, it was thought, would continue to buy goods and services, thereby creating brand stability and growing future profits.

However, it soon became clear that marketers had been chasing the wrong goal. In the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, researchers discovered that extremely satisfied customers were only slightly more likely to stay with a firm than moderately satisfied customers. In a 1995 Harvard Business Review article, Thomas Jones and Earl Sasser Jr. pointed out that “satisfied customers defect.” Indeed, numerous studies debunked the clout of customer satisfaction. For example, one analysis of banking customers found that 6% of “extremely satisfied” customers closed their accounts—nearly identical to the 5.8% departure rate for less satisfied customers. In other words, it was discovered that efforts to improve customer satisfaction provided a very low ROI.

Customer Engagement came on the scene when researchers included emotion as an important driver of the customer experience. As the above diagram shows, customer satisfaction was a functional measurement; it examined customer feedback on tangible, rational outcomes such as price. When a less expensive product appeared, customers were likely to switch providers. In contrast, Customer Engagement included emotional facets of the purchasing experience; it incorporated how consumers felt. Research verified that this was an important distinction; fully engaged customers were far more loyal than less engaged customers. In other words,  achieving higher engagement provides a handsome ROI. The banking study mentioned earlier found that just 3.8% of fully engaged customers closed their accounts.

Customer Engagement may be used to pursue customer loyalty because fully engaged customers feel an emotional investment in the brand and its employees. Compared to customer satisfaction, customer engagement is a superior measurement tool for growing retention and other business outcomes such as profits and ROI. Indeed, PeopleMetrics’ Most Engaged Customer study has shown that businesses with higher engagement levels also enjoy higher profits, ROI, and share-of-market. Customer Engagement vs. Customer Satisfaction? When you consider the research, the choice is clear. Customer Engagement is the best tool for measuring the customer experience.

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On September 20-22, thought leaders from across the country will gather for the 7th annual Customer Feedback Week, an event highlighting the latest developments in the VOC industry. At the conference, experts will expound on capturing, analyzing, and using customer feedback to increase customer retention and attract new customers. PeopleMetrics is attending and sponsoring Customer Feedback Week.  Additionally, PeopleMetrics president Sean McDade will join Executive Vice President Kate Feather and Vice President of Business Development Frank Rowe in presenting a Pre-Conference Workshop on Monday, September 20th from 8- 11 a.m. Attendees may also find PeopleMetrics at the PeopleMetrics sponsor booth.

At the Pre-Conference Workshop, “Leveraging Customer Feedback to Engage Both Customers and Employees,” Sean, Kate and Frank will explain how engagement differs from satisfaction and loyalty. They will also discuss the crucial link between Customer Engagement and Employee Engagement. Through examples of companies that have maximized engagement, workshop attendees will learn how to build deeper emotional connections with employees and customers. Finally, the presenters will explain how customer feedback management services, such as PeopleMetric’s Customer Engagement Mangement solution, can harness modern technology to provide real-time alerts of growth opportunities and exceptional service.

Real-time alerts are increasingly common in customer feedback programs, but what distinguishes PeopleMetrics’ approach is built-in content describing best next practices. Rather than just delivering customer engagement or satisfaction data, masterful market research partners provide insight on what to do with that feedback.  PeopleMetrics’ online engagement hub includes modules on How to Recover Customers and How to Recognize Employees who have provided extraordinary service. PeopleMetrics’ dynamic technology can also be used to ensure managers are consistently following up with clients, according to agreed upon responses. At Customer Feedback Week, Sean, Kate and Frank will present PeopleMetrics’ latest tools for gathering and using customer feedback to achieve impressive bottom-line results.

~Kate Feather, Executive Vice President

Ultimately, every customer engagement strategy includes a conversation between a company and its customers. However, it’s not enough to listen to customers’ opinions—firms must also respond appropriately, whether with a refund, a new product, or a revised company procedure. Before those changes can be implemented, customers’ responses must be distributed to the correct agents. In this way, a strong feedback management system acts as a selective loudspeaker, reproducing customers’ opinions to the right employees. If customer feedback is not properly distributed, it cannot be translated into higher sales. PeopleMetrics’ Enterprise Feedback Management solution allows our clients to assign different access levels to different employees. This approach provides benefits at all levels of an organization.

Our Customer Engagement Solution includes a dashboard displaying customer feedback data. Company leaders can choose which employees see which data. Additionally, Action Alerts are sent out according to delineated access levels. Alerts are sent when customer feedback indicates opportunities to grow sales, recover waning customers, recognize stellar customer service, or improve company marketing.

Top-Down Benefits
Often, executives choose to see the full spectrum of customer feedback. For instance, the CEO at Schlesinger Associates chooses to receive every Action Alert, keeping his finger on the pulse of the company’s customer base. Because they can view both aggregate trends and individual customers’ responses, PeopleMetrics’ CEM solution provides C-level executives with the information they need to drive business improvement.

Mid-Level Benefits
PeopleMetrics’ Enterprise Feedback Management solution allows company leaders to decide which types of customer feedback mid-level managers see. This helps relieve information overload. Moreover, PeopleMetrics’ Customer Engagement Solution indicates which actions will have the greatest impact on Customer Engagement, allowing managers to prioritize and plan responses. For our B2C clients, we also include our proprietary library of best-practices for boosting Customer Engagement.

Bottom-Up Benefits
Customer feedback is reported in real time with PeopleMetrics’ feedback management system. This means customer-facing employees can immediately see research findings and adjust their performance accordingly.

Overall Benefits
Even after a message has found the correct recipients, responsibility for taking action can easily get lost. This is one reason for “Open Loop” feedback systems; customer satisfaction analysis is not maximized, since the ownership for each piece of feedback is not clear. PeopleMetrics’ Customer Engagement Management creates a case for each Action Alert. Leaders and managers can assign cases to the correct employees, track progress, and close out completed cases. The whole organization benefits from these organizational tools.

Unfortunately, few companies have a customer feedback program in place. Those that do rarely know the best actions to take based on customer feedback. What distinguishes exceptional companies is how they use customer feedback data. To maximize customer engagement investments, companies need tools for distributing and organizing feedback, and ways to track and resolve customers’ issues. PeopleMetrics’ Customer Engagement Management solution provides the companies with the tools they need to sustain a productive conversation with customers.

~Kate Feather, Executive Vice President

Photo: IDenticard Images

Customer Engagement researchers have always battled the Open Loop—i.e., the difficulty of actually using customer satisfaction survey results to improve company performance. In a recent blog post, we explained how our Customer Engagement solution allows companies to respond to customer feedback in real-time, resolving one of the most frustrating aspects of the Open Loop. We also explored how today’s Enterprise Feedback Management technology can help companies carry out Closed-Loop customer feedback research. In this post, we zoom out to provide a more complete picture of the Closed-Loop feedback process. Along the way, we relate our methods for closing the loop. Finally, we’ll list benefits of Closed-Loop customer feedback systems.

Basically, Closed-Loop systems do what all market research aims to do: adjust company procedures according to what customers actually want. The Closed-Loop process begins with testing a specific metric, such as Customer Engagement. Once customer feedback on that metric has been gathered and analyzed, the next step is to share survey results with employees. With guidance from management, employees proceed to make changes that will help boost the metric. More customer feedback may be obtained at this point, as the company tests and refines the changes. If the metric is indeed higher after the changes have been made, the Closed-Loop customer feedback process has been successful.

PeopleMetric’s Customer Engagement model is a Closed-Loop customer feedback system. We measure Customer Engagement, since our research has shown a strong connection between Customer Engagement and business outcomes, including earnings per share, ROI, and gross margin. Our online CEM dashboard distributes survey results to managers and front-line employees, according to the access level assigned to each. Mainly for our B2C clients, we also include a library of best practices to improve Customer Engagement. Most of our clients regularly gather customer feedback, partially to determine if engagement-boosting strategies are working.  Finally, our system improves on the basic Closed-Loop model by tracking individual customer complaints and requests through a system of Action Alerts. These alerts allow companies to respond to individual customers’ feedback.

There are many benefits to Closed-Loop customer feedback systems. First, by completing the research circle, companies can prioritize actions that will improve Customer Engagement, or whatever metric they are measuring. Customers’ needs are related to management in Closed-Loop systems, whereas in Open-Loop systems, poor distribution of survey results often means that company leaders never understand what customers want. Closed-Loop systems include Enterprise Feedback Management solutions to centralize and redistribute survey results, so that strategists are better informed.

Another, more obvious benefit of Closed-Loop models is that they can actually improve the metric in question. Here at PeopleMetrics, we help companies boost Customer Engagement and Employee Engagement. Our Closed-Loop system allows companies to track engagement levels over time, so that actual results may be seen. In contrast, Open-Loop systems never complete the research cycle, so it is difficult to know how market research spending is impacting performance.

This leads to a third, crucial benefit of Closed-Loop research: measurable return on investment. Open-Loop systems make it difficult to see how market research budgeting benefits the company. Of course, this depends on which metric you are measuring as well; we choose to measure Customer Engagement because it correlates with higher customer retention and sales.

Finally, as mentioned earlier, PeopleMetrics’ Closed-Loop Customer Engagement Management solution allows companies to see additional ROI in the form of immediate results–new sales and retained customers. As customers respond to survey questions, they often report problems or additional needs. PeopleMetrics reports this invaluable feedback through Action Alerts. Our Action Alert system warns companies of waning customers through Recover Alerts. It also points out opportunities to garner new business (through Grow Alerts). Our Market Alert indicates a testimonial that may be especially suited for marketing. And finally, our Recognize Alert is sent when a customer reports that an employee did an especially good job.

All in all, it’s clear that Closed-Loop systems are beneficial in many ways. Open-Loop systems are like torn fishing nets—they allow important customer feedback to escape. PeopleMetrics’ Closed-Loop Customer Engagement solution retains and distributes all customer feedback, and delivers both aggregate trends and individual responses, maximizing customer feedback investments.

~Kate Feather, Executive Vice President

Customer feedback mechanisms have always faced the challenge of the “Open Loop.” The Open Loop refers to the gap between the customer’s mouth and the executive’s ear. Survey results are often misinterpreted or underutilized due to the time lapse between when the customer provides feedback and when company leadership sees that feedback. Moreover, the gap in the loop prevents companies from addressing individual customers’ concerns. However, today’s web 2.0 technology allows customer feedback to be tracked in real time, thereby closing the loop. This article will briefly explore the history behind the challenge of closing the loop, and introduce PeopleMetrics’ advanced system for responding to customer feedback in real time. Through groundbreaking Closed Loop customer research approaches, companies can finally manage customer feedback as it is gathered, and thereby enjoy skyrocketing Customer Engagement.

Modern market research has humble roots. The man who is often cited as the father of market research, Charles Coolidge Parlin, took long road trips to personally interview customers across the country. One of his studies might take three or four months to finish, and then there were weeks of analysis to do back at the home office. Talk about a time gap! As printing technologies improved, market research companies sent snail-mail surveys to customers, and waited weeks or even months to receive back mountains of completed questionnaires. Again, weeks of compilation and careful study were required to actually figure out what drove sales. The loop was wide open—there was no way to individually address each respondent’s complaints, and the time gap meant management couldn’t be sure the survey results reflected customers’ current opinions.

Later on, as telephone technology improved, researchers began calling customers at home (usually during dinner). Responses were typed into computers, compiled into data tables immediately, and translated for clients within only a day or two. The loop narrowed, as the customer experience could be more quickly related to company leadership. However, there was still no way to respond to each customer’s compliments and complaints.

Nowadays, companies can receive almost immediate feedback. Once the internet came along, email surveys became possible. Today’s web 2.0 technology allows companies to immediately see results. Only now can companies actually see survey results in real-time, as the consumer completes the questionnaire. This new development in technology has great potential for changing the way companies conduct business, yet few firms actually allow clients to see customer feedback instantly.

PeopleMetrics’ Customer Engagement Management (CEM) solution includes an online dashboard that gives our clients the power to see and respond to survey results in real time. This allows leaders to continuously track Customer Engagement levels and steer company development accordingly. Even better, our CEM solution sends alerts of various customer comments. For instance, a Grow Alert is sent when a customer indicates the need for a new product or service. On the flip side, a Recover Alert is sent when a customer reports a problem with the brand. Executives can grant various access levels to different employees, while top leadership has access to every alert. Because alerts are sent immediately, our clients enjoy unique opportunities to grow current accounts and recover wavering customers. Our closed-loop feedback program empowers organizations to engage in a conversation with the customer while measuring Customer Engagement and improving business outcomes.

Photo: Alan Cleaver

Shakespeare famously claimed that names are unimportant, that “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Clearly, he wasn’t in marketing. The marketing world has long recognized the power of names. However, a new study from the CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) Council shows that the majority of marketers fail to use customized communication in their loyalty programs. Meanwhile, consumers in such loyal customer clubs are clamoring for more tailored interactions. Just what’s in a name? And can personalization increase engagement? In addition to tackling these questions, this article will review the CMO Council’s loyalty study and propose research techniques for increasing ROI on loyalty programs.

Published in January of this year, the CMO Council’s report is titled “The Leaders in Loyalty: Feeling the Love from the Loyalty Club.” The CMO Council surveyed 600 marketers and 700 consumers in loyalty clubs. This pool of respondents allowed CMO to discover the success of loyalty programs from both consumers’ and the marketer’s perspectives. Their conclusion? “Both consumers and marketers agree: deeper engagement and personalized contact drives loyalty, not gimmicks.”

Furthermore, the survey shows that while the majority (65%) of marketers find loyalty programs essential to their practice, only 13% say their loyalty programs are highly effective at “leveraging loyalty and brand preference among club members.” In other words, although companies spend roughly $2 billion per year on loyalty programs, they are not seeing ideal ROI for their efforts.

However, the report’s data points marketers in a definitive direction for improving ROI, namely customization. 23% of consumers surveyed complained about the lack of personal communication in loyalty club communications. As Sandra Zoratti, VP of Global Solutions for Marketing for study partner InfoPrint Solutions Company, puts it, “Customers are issuing a very clear warning to marketers: give [us] relevant communications that reflect my history and connections to you, or we will go elsewhere with our business.”

Marketers are taking this advice to heart. According to the CMO report, 51% of surveyed marketers reported that they plan to increase loyalty programs’ ROI by personalizing communication and target messages. Along the same lines, CMO Council Executive Director Donovan Neale said, “Better understanding of customer behaviors, predispositions, intentions, and preferences enables more effective and relevant messaging. It is also an essential part of customer revenue optimization and lifetime value building.”

The question, then, is not whether but how to capture customers’ inclinations.  73% of interviewed marketers reported gathering basic demographic information for their club members, but only 31% track customers’ personal preferences. It seems the marketing world’s market research techniques have not yet caught up with modern technology. We now have the database capacity to store gobs of customer data (just ask Facebook), and consumers are often willing to share their preference information (and more; just ask Facebook users). The difficulty lies in actually capturing customers’ thoughts.

PeopleMetrics’ approach allows customers to provide immediate input. We help our clients interview their customers either at the POS, or shortly thereafter. Such surveys are usually short (five minutes or less), and many customers actually appreciate the opportunity to provide feedback. After capturing such vital customer information, many companies remove the individual from the picture by rolling all data into the aggregate. Although this allows them to track “big picture” progress, individual preferences are lost.

In contrast, PeopleMetrics’ Customer Engagement Management (CEM) dashboard system delivers real-time, individualized feedback for each customer. Our clients determine who in their company sees such data. Those who have access receive alerts regarding customers’ experience. These Action Alerts tell team members about chances to recover lost customers, grow new customers, and more. Our CEM solution also allows for improved customer communication through customized solutions, which could easily be developed as part of a business intelligence strategy. In fact, something as simple as a spreadsheet of customer alerts would allow managers and customer representatives to quickly, personally respond to customers’ concerns.

Dale Carnegie once said, “A person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” Today’s customers verify Carnegie’s sentiment—as we have seen, they want customized communication. Through real-time CEM solutions, companies can turn customer interactions into a personalized conversation, thereby increasing Customer Engagement.

Additional Resources
Real-Time Feedback From CEM Solutions Helps Schlesinger Stay On Top
Reward Programs: Are they Effective for Creating Engaged Customers?
3 Techniques for Customizing Customer Service

Top photo by Silver Sumire.

As we recently discussed, long-term customers provide many financial benefits to your company. In fact, strengthening current accounts is one of the most effective methods of boosting profits. Recruiting new clients usually costs a pretty penny, so many world-class organizations focus on increasing up-selling and cross-selling to current customers instead. Unfortunately, many salespeople avoid these techniques because they are afraid that suggesting additional products or services could scare off customers. However, as long as you follow a few basic strategies, as outlined below, you can successfully cross-sell and up-sell to your current customers.

1.    Identify the Roles of Individuals in the Buying Process. The administrative assistant may actually put in the order, but he or she doesn’t set the budget for office supplies.  Get to know the different roles in your clients’ buying hierarchy.  Understanding your clients’ buying hierarchy will help you pinpoint where you should spend your cross-selling and up-selling efforts.  Don’t be afraid to ask your contact who is involved in decisions.

2.    Learn from your customer throughout the buying process. How often do you get accurate customer feedback for your pitches?  In order to successfully sense when and how to up-sell and cross-sell, you must gather feedback throughout the selling process.  Follow-up questions are often rich sources of information on how to improve your methods. If a customer is unhappy with your service, ask what you can do better. Most “tough customers” are happy to help you improve your operations.

3.    Increase Employee Engagement to Wow the Customer. 54% of clients who interacted with an employee that went above and beyond expectations say that they would go out of their way to do business with that firm again in the future.  In comparison, only 25% of customers who haven’t had a “Wow!” experience say they would go out of their way to do business with that firm again. Consistently exceeding expectations is a great way to double repeat business from your current clients.

4.    Map opportunities for cross-selling and up-selling to your clients. Every customer cycles through a specific series of steps during the buying process, as outlined below in Miller Heiman’s Buying Process map.  Miller Heiman is a global leader in sales performance solutions.

They note that certain times are riper for up-selling and cross-selling, as indicated by the arrows in the figure.  A customer who hasn’t yet recognized a need to change won’t be ready for up-selling. On the other hand, once a customer has implemented a certain product or service, and is assessing the value of their purchase, he or she is ready to consider additional products; this is the perfect time to cross-sell.

By continually seeking customer feedback, carefully timing your pitches, improving Employee Engagement, and harnessing a good understanding of the roles of each buyer, you can successfully increase your sales to existing customers.

~Monica Nolan, Account Manager

Additional Resources:
How Long-Term Customers Benefit Your Company
Customer Engagement Management Tools for Organizing Customer Feedback
The Customer-Engagement Boost: Why your customers’ emotions matter

Top photo: Beck Tench

American inventor Charles Kettering once said, “A problem well stated is a problem half solved.”  This maxim is as relevant to business success as it is to invention. Business growth is often fueled by customers who clearly, honestly report problems. We might tack on an addendum for business: A problem immediately relayed is often more easily resolved.  In an ideal world, managers would know about each customer complaint mere moments after it had been lodged. To appreciate how such real-time feedback can impact customer engagement, let’s review a case study: Schlesinger Associates.

First, a little background information. Schlesinger Associates is a 40-year-old research services company with 16 offices in the US and UK. Their customers include marketing and market research executives from several Fortune 500 companies. To retain and grow current accounts, Schlesinger Associates has utilized PeopleMetrics’ Customer Engagement Management (CEM) solution for the last five years. In addition to providing superior service in a competitive field, Schlesinger aims to quickly, efficiently respond to client problems.  Since it is estimated that recruiting a new client costs seven times more than retaining an existing client, Schlesinger strives to turn potentially disengaged, disloyal customers into advocates for their company by responding quickly and effectively to grievances.

PeopleMetrics’ CEM solution helps them do so, first by capturing real-time feedback from clients who have recently visited a Schlesinger Associates office. About 100 such customer surveys are completed each month.  If a customer indicates that they were dissatisfied with an aspect of their experience, a Recover Alert is sent to the facility manager and the CEO. Each Recover Alert contains information about the customer’s concerns, as well as a compilation of all survey responses.  This information empowers Schlesinger Associates managers to quickly, efficiently resolve customers’ complaints.

In addition to aiding managers, PeopleMetrics’ CEM solution allows Schlesinger Associates’ CEO to keep his finger on the pulse of the organization.  Because he receives every alert that is sent out, the CEO can track areas for improvement.  A transparent culture of accountability and continual improvement has been established at Schlesinger Associates, thanks to automated, real-time Customer Engagement Management Alerts.

Overall, Recovery Alerts help Schlesinger Associates deliver on their promise of excellent customer service. Moreover, PeopleMetrics’ CEM solution allows Schlesinger to understand customer feedback on multiple levels: by individual customer, service area, location, or for the business as a whole.

To revisit our initial quotation from Charles Kettering, Schlesinger Associates gives customers the opportunity to provide “well-stated” feedback. Furthermore, alerts are immediately sent to the CEO and the appropriate employees to facilitate prompt resolution. Could he view Schlesinger Associates’ consistently high customer satisfaction and engagement scores, Mr. Kettering might be inspired to reframe problems as opportunities for perpetual improvement.

~Kate Feather, Executive Vice President

Additional Resources & Related Posts
To learn more about PeopleMetrics’ CEM solution, visit our page on Customer Engagement.

Combating Miscommunication in the Workforce
Customer Engagement Management Tools for Organizing Customer Feedback
Customer Alerts: Turning Customer Feedback into Immediate Sales