Customer Experience: Good News and Bad News
Yesterday I moderated the webcast “Take a Walk in Your Customers` Shoes: Using process thinking to transform the customer experience across the enterprise,” during which we polled attendees about customer experience issues. Their responses were telling, so I wanted to share them with you here.
We asked about the challenges of delivering a top-notch customer experience. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, departmental silos topped the list. And the bad news: Lack of commitment from the top is still a major obstacle.
What do you believe is your organizations biggest hurdle in delivering an excellent customer experience?
Departmental silos 35.2%
Commitment from the top 17.0%
Recruitment and training 15.9%
Technology 14.8%
Focus on reducing operational cost 10.2%
Lack of investment 6.8%
We also asked about how well customer-centricity has permeated their organizations. On the good news side, the majority of attendees work in organizations that think delivering an outstanding customer experience is everyone’s job. The bad news: 5 percent actually have no one responsible for ensuring that customers have a positive experience.
Who is responsible for customer experience in your organization?
Everyone 64.6%
All front line employees 15.2%
Contact centre employees 7.1%
Customer experience team 8.1%
No one 5.1%
Finally, we asked attendees to rate their organizations against their competitors. While nearly 40 percent considered their performance on par with competitors, the majority (45.2%) said they deliver a better or much better customer experience than their competitors.
How would you rate your company’s performance against its competitors in terms of customer experience?
Much better 12.3%
Better 32.9%
The same 38.4%
Not quite as good 13.7%
Worse 2.7%
With all that in mind, let me now ask you:
How would you rate your company on a customer-centricity scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being dismal and 10 being outstanding?
Related Entries
- Guest Blogger Joseph Jaffe: It's Better to Be S.A.F.E. Than Sorry
- Guest Blogger Ralph Heath: What Has Happened to Customer Service in America?
- Preventing a Customer Experience from Going Downhill
Bob,
Thanks so much for sharing your customer experiences. I recently had a similar experience. It’s a real reminder of how important those first impressions are, whether they be a person or a website, in making a connection.
I got a strong reinforcement of the importance of treating all customer interests with sufficient care and responsiveness to ensure an "exceptional customer experience."
My experiences, today, were in getting a routine CAT scan where i was treated poorly in preparation for the procedure and would have started using another radiology site had the tech not listened to my passing comment about how I was treated coming in and, by just being herself in contrast to the rougher assistant I first encountered, had turned the whole situation around and erased my thoughts of not using them again. If there were ever a place where you want the "customer" to have a good experience it is in the health care industry. The problem is typically that low budget employees know that their "customers" HAVE to be there and frequently are never told to show sensitivity in warmly and gently guiding them into the procedure.
My other experience came after tracking down an organization I had unofficially "grown up with," the Masons, due to my father's major involvement and his having been Master of his lodge when he died 50 years ago. I felt strongly on an emotionl level of joining after all these years; but, in their use of the internet they largely blew me off with perfunctory autoreplies at first until I called and said that I was not making a cursory inquiry. I was serious about fulfilling an empty spot in my heart. That they initially and, I believe, inadvertently treated me like someone who just walked in off the street gave me a poor experience although being the very people I felt, from my childhood memories, should be among the most caring and welcoming. This was a little painful and left me feeling that all the "sensitive souls I recalled from my father's time" had gone. Times had changed.
I hope you haven't minded this little catharsis and that I have captured the subtlety of what can influence a customer experience and the disproportionte results apparent insensitivity on the part of the "provider" can have.
If the radiologist for the CAT scan had not been by her nature sensitive to treating me as more than a specimen on a microscope slide; and, had I not let the contacts I made with the Masons know the importance to me of my coming to them (which is as they want it to occur), I would be looking for other options in both cases with the greatest disappointment being from the people I believed to be the harbingers of brotherly love.
Michael,
It is unfortunately far too true that many more companies talk the talk than walk the walk when it comes to customer experience. As you say, organizations must empower their service staff with the information and authority necessary to resolve customer issues. First, of course, these organizations must have the processes, procedures, and policies in place that are actually customer centric.
Stop Putting Prisoners on the Frontline and calling it Customer Service
The face of customer service has turned into Frontline Employees who are trying to serve the customer with their hands tied.
Though the management team and/or ownership may pound into them the importance of delivering a World-Class Customer Service Experience that wows the customer, they have done little or nothing to equip and empower them to be able to deliver this experience.
A company, organization or anyone in the customer facing business must stop putting prisoners on the frontline and calling it customer service. Instead everyone in the organization must work relentless to empower and equip the frontline with the tools needed to deliver world-class customer service.
www.FreshCustomerService.com
Drew,
You make a great point. In fact, the webinar was about the importance of improving theend-to-end processes that touch the customer, versus looking at touchpoints in a vacuum.
Many people do not understand the customer experience this is the embodiment of all interactions with the consumer from the moment they open dialogue with an organization. However while emphasis is placed in sales and marketing the true experience comes from all “touchpoint” within organization. All employees from reception to shipping to whatever need to understand the value they provide. Exemplars such as Disney and FedEx constantly conduct programs such as this. All work toward the proper ways to treat customers.
Drew Stevens
Drew Stevens Consulting.