Are You Listening?
Everyone knows that gathering customer feedback is important. The question is, are you really listening to customers or just hearing what you want to hear?
Earlier this week I spent quite a bit of time with three of our 2007 1to1 Customer Champions -- Bill Burris, Relationship Marketing Manager, Lexus; Kirby Drysen, Director of Customer Listening, Cisco Systems; Jane Judd, Senior Manager of Customer Loyalty, Zappos.com. We got together to tape an on-demand webcast on how to create a unique, innovative, and profitable customer experience (watch for it online April16). During the webcast, and even during dinner the night before, the one area we kept coming back to was feedback and customer insight.
In this case, I’m not just talking surveys – which, of course, are hugely important. I’m also talking about understanding customer behaviors through such activities as tracking purchase history, text mining calls to the contact center, and tracking website click-through behaviors. It also means listening to employees, both customer-facing and back office, about the issues and processes that impact the customer.
This level of insight allows organizations to truly listening to what customers are “saying,” through words and actions, and then, equally important, take action on that information to improve the customer experience in a way that meets customer expectations while benefiting the company over the long term where it matters most: the bottom line.
Lexus, Cisco, and Zappos.com all have an intense focus on “customer listening.” That focus help them deliver a customer experience that sets them apart from competitors and builds customer loyalty. Why? When customers talk and act, Burris, Drysen, Judd, and their respective colleagues truly listen; they don’t just hear what’s convenient. And they follow up where competitors might not, so customers know their input actually matters and makes a difference.
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