A chemical manufacturer with a solid customer listening program noticed an uptick in complaints about pricing. Unlike many firms, which would take the comments at face value and take action accordingly, this company first stepped back and reflected on its strategy: It sold premium chemical for advanced applications targeted at particular industries, so it surmised that the company shouldn't see this kind of feedback. It conducted some root cause analysis, talking to those customers. It learned that some distributors were
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When it comes to providing the best service experience possible, the customer defines success. Though many companies approach service and support as just another metric to be maximized, those that emphasize quality over call times differentiate themselves from the competition and excel in customer satisfaction. For Cisco and Cigna, winners in the Customer Service Optimization category of the 2013 Gartner & 1to1 Media CRM Excellence Awards, superior service isn't simply a goal to be attained, but also a foundation on
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Voice of the customer data is alluring. Once you start to collect customer feedback, there's always something more you could be gathering. You think: What else can I learn? What else are customers saying and thinking? Where else are they saying it? You want to know more.
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I was flipping through the 2012 Forrester Voice of the Customer Award nomination forms the other day, and I realized that I've been unwittingly holding on to a valuable resource -- all the advice that we asked nominees to impart on other voice of the customer programs. The very last of the six questions on our nomination form is, "What advice would you give to other organizations to make their programs successful?" We got some great answers from the 40
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Allow us to paint a vision of the future for you: After interactions with your favorite companies, no one asks you how you liked those interactions. Your email inbox contains no requests for a few minutes of your time. No one asks you to wait on the phone line to answer a few questions. The word "survey" has vanished from your vocabulary.
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You just bought something at your favorite store. You walk out with a skip in your step thinking about when you might wear this new purchase. You give into your compulsion to check your email on your smartphone, and there, waiting for you, is a survey from that very company asking about your experience. You groan, but you click on the link. The survey isn't formatted for your phone, so you have to pinch to zoom in and out. You
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I'm about to start a gut renovation of my kitchen, which, of course, is an incredibly stressful -- not to mention expensive - project. For cabinets, we got a recommendation for a designer at a local cabinet store. We met with her, got some great ideas, and went home to wait for the quote.
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Henry Kissinger said, "The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been." This year's 1to1 Customer Champions are doing just that. Their enthusiasm to improve the customer experience, and their willingness to try new tactics for organizational adoption, underscores why they were chosen as exemplary leaders who drive their companies' customer experience forward.
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Customer centricity is often associated with steps that companies in the private sector can take to build closer relationships with their customers and to deliver products, services, and experiences that are designed with the customer in mind. But customer centricity doesn't just apply to the business world. As a Peppers & Rogers Group white paper points out, a growing number of governments, associations, and non-profits around the world are adopting best practices from the business community and designing citizen-centric offerings
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Many companies strive to provide great customer service. However, few companies deliver the kind of customer service that makes an emotional connection with customers - the kind of connection that fosters loyalty and willingness if not an eagerness among customers to recommend a company to a friend.
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One of the hallmarks of customer centricity is making it easier for customers to do business with a company. One company that's taken a step in the right direction in this regard is Wal-Mart. This week, the retail giant announced that it has expanded its Christmas layaway program, extending the amount of time that customers have to pay for certain products under its interest-free program by an additional 30 days. In addition, Wal-Mart also expanded the categories available for layaway
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Customer experience is no longer a "nice to have," it's a "must have." But marketers' customer engagement efforts are constantly challenged due to constant pressures to deliver a consistent and relevant customer experience across all channels. With the continuous explosion of data threatening to hamper marketers' customer experience efforts, as well as emerging social and mobile channels, organizations are frustrated with how and where to drive customer engagement throughout customers' lifecycle.
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1to1 Media's Tom Hoffman speaks with John O'Hara, President of Pitney Bowes Software Solutions, about the opportunities and challenges for achieving a thorough understanding of customers, including insight into customers' needs, behaviors, preferences, channel usage, experiences, and potential value.
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I've written before about my experiences as a Nissan customer, most of which have been positive. However, I recently had a less-than-stellar experience with Nissan that I'd also like to share, one that ultimately had a favorable outcome.
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Customers today have numerous opportunities to interact with brands at a variety of touchpoints. Therefore it's critical for companies to leverage such opportunities to engage with customers and build an emotional connection. A growing number of companies are realizing that engagement goes beyond just listening to customers across multiple channels, but also empowering them to advocate for their brands--both through online and offline.
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Opportunity often knocks one customer at a time. That's the beauty of social. If you can use social monitoring to cut through the clutter, you'll find opportunities to engage with customers on an individual level--and not just to resolve complaints. Listening to customers in social channels also presents opportunities to provide information and advice that builds goodwill and helps to maintain loyalty. We've all heard the stories about Best Buy and Zappos.
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Customers' enthusiasm to be vocal and share their thoughts with the brands they do business with gives organizations a goldmine of information. But as Lonnie Mayne, Mindshare's chief experience officer, puts it, unless organizations use the insights to take action, it's just data.
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Sometimes a CEO takes the reins at a company that's in such great shape, I can't help thinking, "Wow, it must be great to be that guy!"
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A new study released by Amadeus examines the frustrations that travelers have with today's airport experience and how airports are expected to evolve between now and 2025. The study provides a fairly comprehensive look at what passengers dislike most about the airport experience and what they would like to change.
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Social has brought transparency to consumers never before possible. The information that consumers share about companies and that companies reveal about themselves is presenting new opportunities for B2C companies to build and maintain, or rebuild, customer trust--or to lose it in the blink of an eye in one gigantic, public flameout.
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We hear a great deal about companies collecting customer feedback and not using it, and about companies ignoring social sentiment. But fortunately there are also plenty of companies that act on customer input gathered from various interaction channels. As it turns out, igourmet.com is one of the latter.
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Voice of the customer initiatives require three main elements to succeed: executive involvement, closing the loop, and taking action--according to Cameron Conway, assistance vice president of customer research at Equifax. During his presentation at the Allegiance VoCFusion conference yesterday, Conway provided some insight into each of these areas.
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There are some matters that are beyond our control. No matter how hard we strive for the perfect customer experience, certain unexpected factors come into play--factors beyond the company's or brand's control, in fact.
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Sitcom kids from past generations always had a goal in mind. Whether it was Wally and the Beav or Dennis the Menace, they took on after-school and weekend jobs to earn just a few extra pennies so they could afford whatever the episode happened to revolve around that day. They learned the principles of hard work and the value of a dollar. But today, there are far too many teens who care more about when their shift is over than
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Customers are more empowered and more connected than ever, NICE President and CEO Zeevi Bregman reminded attendees during his keynote at the company's Interactions 2012 customer conference. Customers are online shopping and playing more, sharing more, using more media, he added. With the proliferation of mobile, customers can now interact 24/7 from anywhere via multiple connection points: mobile websites, social networks, the contact center, etc. In fact, a NICE survey of about 2,000 consumers found that respondents use six
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Many business leaders consider their most valuable customers as those who are the most profitable or the largest. There's certainly no denying that. Increasingly, customers who are considerable social influencers are also moving up the value chain. But what about the customers who don't buy much, but only buy from you. Customers who give you 100 percent wallet share. Do you know who they are? Do you need to?
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One hundred years ago, Titanic launched. Three days later, she sank, taking precious lives and treasure to an icy grave. In hindsight, saving the ship should have been easy. The captain and crew needed to listen to warnings from nearby ships, communicate more honestly among themselves, and turn hard to port before it was too late. But the main thing they needed wasn't to be invented for 27 years: radar to see dangerous icebergs miles away through the fog.
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Human beings have the propensity to give, but often lack the follow through. Filling out paper or online forms to make a donation or volunteer can become a chore that discourages the generous from giving both their time and money. But as mobile devices become more widespread, charities and other organizations are also working to branch out, developing techniques that cater to the digital age.
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Even when in public, everyone still seeks comfort in the right to privacy. But for us ladies, "rest" rooms can be the unsettling sore spot of the overall customer experience.
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Many different types of firms have channel partners or others that control a significant part of the actual experience with customers. Automobile companies have dealers, insurance and real estate firms have independent agents, software companies have value-added resellers (VARs), restaurants and hotels have franchises, and heavy equipment manufacturers have resellers. Even the brokers or financial advisors within financial services organizations can act in many ways like these external partners.
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Parents always tell their children to disregard what others think--to march to the beat of their own drum. But for businesses across the board, from fledglings to old timers, consideration of how others perceive the company's products and services can mean the difference between success and failure. One way many companies are getting insight into that perception is by asking how likely customers are to refer friends or associates.
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1to1 Media's Tom Hoffman speaks with Dave Capuano, Vice President of Marketing at Vovici, a Verint Company, about different approaches for engaging today's empowered customer.
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The noise around voice of the customer is growing. In fact, the balance of 2012 will see an increase in the impact of VoC strategies on customer engagement and loyalty. Not surprisingly, technology, marketing, and customer care service providers are all fighting for their piece of the VoC revenue pie.
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AT&T is facing a customer backlash brought on by complaints of data throttling. After a customer in California sued AT&T in small claims court of data throttling, numerous customers have started petitions on Change.org in an attempt to urge AT&T to alter its data policies. The combined petitions have garnered thousands of signatures.
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While I write frequently about the rise of the Chief Customer Officer within firms advanced enough in their customer experience efforts to consider this kind of executive position, I often get questions at a much more basic level, such as: Where do I get started? Often an individual may get mandate from an executive to spear-head creating a greater customer focus at the company. For those, here are seven steps for getting started:
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Social media is like a tornado, creating a whirlwind of open dialog between companies and their customers. This is how Get Satisfaction CEO Wendy Lea described social media to me when we recently discussed the topic.
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I had the privilege to attend the recent 2012 NRF convention and was impressed with the buzz around loyalty marketing and customer centricity. In one session Macy's CMO Peter Sachse stated, "We don't need new customers. We need to keep the ones we have and get more out of them." Simple yet powerful; all marketers should take this approach--and will create more valuable brands as a result. Yet, why do so many companies continue to miss the mark here?
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"Customer trust is down." You've seen plenty of headlines like that, especially in banking. But what does it really mean?
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Customers are communicating with their favorite brands in an ever-increasing number of ways; along with phone calls and emails, today's customers are increasingly using social media channels not only to follow and interact with companies they're interested in, but also to share their experiences with these organizations.
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When Susan Boyle walked on the stage of Britain's Got Talent in 2009, both Simon Cowell and Piers Morgan gave the 47-year-old unemployed woman skeptical looks. She expressed her wish to become a professional singer, but had never been given the chance to make her dream come true. And from Cowell and Morgan's facial expression, they didn't seem to believe that her luck was about to change.
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Adapt or die: It's an adage that many companies have had to heed to remain successful in times of change. New technologies threaten to sideline currently successful ones with the promise of better and faster service and output.
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It seems that marketing folks are torn. In most organizations marketing "owns" social media monitoring and welcomes the opportunity it provides to interact with customers, but they don't want to get pigeon-holed into become the monitoring group, according to Chris Cottle, executive vice president of marketing and products at Allegiance. Cottle called this situation the dysfunctional social paradigm.
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2011 was a pivotal year for the field of customer experience. A major increase in the number and types of consumer technologies had a wide-ranging impact on daily life: People controlled their TVs with tablets, asked their phones questions, and played video games without using physical controllers. The extensive reach of these changes -- and the screaming pace at which they happened -- triggered a corporate awakening to the value of great customer interactions.
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Last year was an exciting one for the voice of the customer (VoC) world. We saw significant advancements in a number of key areas, including process, culture, and technology. Ultimately, these moves led to better experiences for customers and better financials for companies.
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Companies that have grown in this economic downturn did so because their customers became an army of advocates who grew their business for them. They earned the right to their customers' raves, and the growth that ensued, because they deliberately made decisions that moved their operations in the direction of their customers and employees.
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Don Peppers, founding partner, Peppers & Rogers Group, asserted in Fast Company's blog last Friday that companies must leverage social media to harness the diverse opinions of their customers in order to evolve and innovate.
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Net Promoter is both popular and controversial, so naturally we in Forrester's customer experience (CX) research practice get lots of questions about it from CX leaders whose companies have adopted it or plan to adopt it in the future. Overall, we know that Net Promoter can effectively support CX efforts when companies implement it correctly. But we also know that correct implementation from a CX perspective is in no way a given.
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Last week the 1to1 Media staff provided in-depth coverage of the upcoming holiday season. Articles ranged from sharing new mobile initiatives and gift card best practices to e-marketing campaign tips and research such as holiday consumer spending predictions. Even with coverage of the many facets of the industry, a few themes shown through.
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What's the best thing a customer's ever said to you? Whether it's a simple "thank you" or a success story or asking for advice, customers' expressions of gratitude can speak volumes. During interviews with the 1to1 editorial team, several of the 2011 1to1 Customer Champions shared the best thing a customer ever said to them:
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"Customer experience (CX) maturity" was the topic of Forrester's recent Chief Customer Officer (CCO) roundtable meeting. The customer experience leaders present took a self-test of key CX practices (based on a recent report by Megan Burns called "Customer Experience Maturity Defined"), discussed their own company's strengths and weaknesses, and shared successes and challenges they faced at their companies in interactive discussions throughout the day.
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For decades companies have been promising to delight customers, while simultaneously disappointing them in nearly every channel. That tactic won't cut it anymore. Why not? We've entered a new era that Forrester calls the age of the customer--a time when focus on the customer matters more than any other strategic imperative. In the age of the customer, companies find that:
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Customers may not always be right, but they always deserve a timely response to their queries. Companies that today ignore their customers will find it's a practice fewer and fewer consumers will tolerate--especially in the age of social customer, where consumers will not only share information with scores of other consumers, but they can also more and more easily find who to contact to get their issues resolved.
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Steve Jobs has said: "You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new." Wow! Apple has an amazingly strong brand, yet the visionary leader of the company seems to say that listening to customers isn't valuable. Should companies eliminate their customer insight groups and abandon their voice of the customer (VoC) programs? You'll have to read a bit more to see my
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My colleague Andrew McInnes recently wrote a post about the tunnel vision that results when companies rely solely on analytics for understanding customers. By neglecting qualitative research methods like ethnography and related tools like personas and customer journey maps, firms run the risk of thinking they know what customers want and need but in reality not having a clue. And that's the root cause of some of the worst customer experience problems--issues that can drag down a business. Take the
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"Listening is the infrastructure behind customer centricity," Maribel Sierra said during her keynote at Social Customer 2011. "It can inform and drive every aspect of a business." Sierra, Dell's director of global social media and communities, is a passionate advocate of customer listening and the benefits it provides. "Listening works," she said, adding that even if you can't resolve every issue, customers appreciate that you listen to their ideas and concerns. Listening positively impacts NPS, brand, and more.
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