There’s More Than One Way to Customer Experience Success (In Fact, Here’s 7)
The next competitive battleground is customer experience. So say 95 percent of business leaders, according to Ed Thompson, a Gartner vice president and distinguished analyst. Additionally, he said during his keynote at the Gartner CRM Summit, 80 percent of executives think customer strategy is more important than it was three years ago.
Not surprisingly, these executives are seeking differentiation for their organizations through customer experience. Also, not surprisingly, there is a raft of complications, Thompson said. He cited such issues as varying metrics, cynical employees, the rise in the power of the customer, and a lingering view of IT as a part of the problem in service delivery. Oh, and the biggest challenge: Most employees don’t care about customer experience because they don’t get paid to. Those who do care measure it differently, Thompson said. For example, a company that wants to boost customer loyalty might compensate it staff on such metrics as churn/retention rates and referrals.
So how can executives inject a customer experience focus into their organization? Thompson cited seven types of customer experience projects to pursue.
1. Listen, think, do.
Simply, this translates to “act on feedback,” and tell both staff and customers what action you took. An easy place to start is to follow up on complaints. Thompson also suggested standardizing on one enterprisewide feedback tool. Follow up should be immediate; someone on staff should be accountable for that follow up.
2. Rethink process.
Redesign inside-out focused processes to create processes that are designed from the outside in and are based on customers’ moments of truth at key interaction points. Don’t try to swallow the pig, here. Focus on two or three processes at a time.
3. Act as one.
Focus on consistency across channels—and with channel partners.
4. Be open and exclusive.
This may sound impossible, but it can work. Be open with customers and staff by providing access (e.g, offer self-service options and status alerts on open issues or complaints) and building trust (e.g., be transparent and open-minded). At the same time, be exclusive though “inclusive participation,” especially with high-value customers. For example, encourage them to cocreate products and services with you; engage them in online communities.
5. Personalize and simplify.
Yes, these two seeming opposites can work together as well. Personalize products, services, and offers, yet keep it simple. The best organizations do both, Thompson said. Think: the Nike + program. It’s personalized yet easy to use as an individual and to participate in online.
6. Alter attitudes.
OK, this one could be tough. Thompson suggested using governance and recruitment to encourage positive employee behaviors (I’ll add a suggestion here of ensuring that your compensation matches your strategy). Southwest Airlines, for example, hires people who smile—something you just can’t train people to do sincerely (or sometimes at all…).
7. Plan and design the customer experience.
What experience do you want customers to have? Map it the design, values, and brand promise. Thompson cited as an example the well-known Disney theme parks’ parking lot experience, which ensures that people go home happy because they can easily find their cars in its vast parking lot at the end of their visit.
If your organization is really serious about creating a competition-busting customer experience, Thompson suggests appointing a vice president of customer experience. A few companies that have them already: Alaska Air, Bank of America, Dell, Philips Electronics, and Time Warner Cable.
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Miro, Nick,
You both cite the importance of the people-side of the equation, and coincidentally, this came up yesterday at a DMA-hosted Advertising Week event in NYC. Michael McCathren, director of interactive for Chick-fil-A, brought up this issue during his presentation. Chick-fil-A focuses heavily on both the employee and customer experience. Even so, motivating part-time, teenage employees has it challenges. The fast-food chain is trying to get its staff to say -- sincerely -- "My pleasure" instead of "You're welcome," but even that small change across 1,000 restaurants is no easy task. And not surprisingly, either. Just saying "My pleasure" versus saying it and meaning it are quite different--and therein lies the challenge of many organizations whose leadership craves customer-centricity. Even the right compensation can't pay for sincerity. But hiring right in the first place can certainly help get you there.
Some great points in this post. I think the key is to do these things in a way that is truly customer-centric (as Graham Hill points out) and to make sure that the organisation stays true to its stated intent of delivering a superior customer experience.
This means ensuring customer experience is on senior management's radar by having appropriate MI in place and - above all - making sure that it links to performance and reward at all levels in the organisation.
My experience is that organisations often don't treat customer experience in a strategic way because these things are easy to say but difficult (but not impossible) to do. Whilst I wouldn't challenge the 95% of business leaders who think it's strategically important, I would say that a lot fewer translate this into the kind of strategic plan that Ed Thompson identifies.
Nick Bush
Open Chord Ltd
Ginger
is it a matter of not knowing what customer centric things to do
or not having the systems that allow it to be consistently scaled across the enterprise?
Most people I speak to will easily list the better aspects/practices of customer centricity, but then quite literally they will stop and say their constraint isn't the people or motivation its the hardware/software.
This applies to both current practitioners - who aren't able to implement the next "thing" as well as new practitioners who are trying to have their first implementation.
Might be useful for the readers if you spent some time soliciting/talking about high impact, low tech ways to implement customer centric programs.
ie Nordstrom's code " Do what's right for the customer"
I hate to think that circuitry or hardware stops a company from moving forward and they forget about the inherent value of their "wetware". I think there is much value to be had by moving forward and with macro-level measurements than not moving, because one can't have the preferred/required micro-level, ROI-justified metrics that come with a technological "enhancement."
Cheers
Miro
Brand Central Consulting
Guiães,
Yes, integrating the Web with CRM applications is a powerful way to harness a wealth of customer information, and can potentially help deliver a more relevant customer experience both online and off.
The creation and spreading of the web sites is growing every day, making computers to gain access to new functions. During this development we observed a big evolution in the CRM made for the e-commerce. In the beggining, one had to possess a more creative web site to penetrate in the virtual market, at that time it was enough. Today, the competition is so intense, that having a good sense and using the available CRM tools correctly, will alleviate the company to be in a better position, what makes the web a very competitive media. Our academic research´s objective will be to discuss about the importance of using CRM strategies in the companies in the context of e-commerce. All of our work is based in CRM concepts and e-commerce, that will provide to the companies a better way to make their operational informations available and spread or diversify their products or services. With all the information easily available in web sites, companies will have a great appeal for suppliers and consumers of products and services.
Graham,
Some hotels are taking this kind of approach. You can arrange for certain pillow types and other ammenities (some free, others for a fee), and those preferences will be available anytime you stay at one of their properties.
Hi Ginger
More advice from an industry analyst. But I wonder if the advice is really all that good. In particular, there is a growing recognition that the sort of customer experience based upon extensive study of customers, reengineering of touchpoints and all the rest is just the usual inside-out thinking (we the company know best because we asked you) rather than the real McCoy outside-in thinking (you really know best, you want to do something different from last time and we still want to enable you).
Rather than too much planning and designing of the customer experience around the archetypal average customer, far better to look at the range of things customers want to do at any particular touchpoint and then to make sure the touchpoint enables all of them for as many customers as possible.
I am getting fed up of explicitly designed experiences that were not designed for me (or apparently for any of the people around me).
Yes, the customer experience is the current battleground for many businesses. But they will not win the battle by just pretending to be driven by their customers, rather than actually enabling their customers to do their business quickly, easily and effectively.
Graham Hill
Inependent CRM Consultant
Interim CRM Manager