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Stop Thinking Short-Term
Author: Jeannie Walters
June 24, 2009
I had the privilege of attending the all-city Chicago Vistage meeting last week. While it was great to meet other like-minded business leaders, it was most compelling because of the speaker, Alan Beaulieu. Alan and his twin brother are economists who provide forecasts for companies, organizations, and even governments through their company, the Institute for Trend Research.
If you’re thinking “you lost me at ‘economist’” then we are kindred spirits. It’s not my thing. But he was powerful in his predictions, and I’ve been thinking about the discussion ever since. I admit, when he first began speaking about 2011 and the future, I was growing uncomfortable. What about NOW? What about TODAY?
But his focus was on beyond. What happens beyond Chicago, beyond the United States, beyond 2011, beyond this economic turmoil in which we’ve been immersed.
It’s so tempting to think short-term. So many organizations are focused on the immediate realities of our world today. Even the “unsinkable” companies of past generations are looking at how to make the next payroll; how to pay off the latest debt; how to cut the costs FAST.
When it comes to customer experience, it’s easy to fall into short-term thinking. Here are some examples:
- Promotion without strategy – customers can smell desperation and often exploit it. Know your limits and understand your desired pay-off before promoting something too quickly. (KFC!)
- Talking without listening – Executives who decide what to say to customers without talking to them first will have a hard time appealing to them. (MotrinMoms learned this the hard way.)
- Sacrificing current, loyal customers for the sake of acquiring new customers – AT&T recently retreated on their original iPhone policy in response to the outcry from current customers.
- Finally – this one is a personal favorite – treating social media as the end-all of customer communications. Social media is a fabulous tool, as I discuss here, but it’s just that – a tool. It’s part of a larger strategy of connecting with customers in powerful ways to naturally create loyalty and retention. If there is no larger strategy at work, social media will be a way to possibly connect with a segment of customers, and that’s only if it’s executed well. If not, it’s just another tool being underutilized.
So, as hard as it is, I believe we all have to start looking at beyond. Take a minute, map out where you want to go with your experience strategy, and then take the steps to get there. I feel better already.
Emotionally Connecting With Customers Through Social Media
Author: Jeannie Walters
June 18, 2009
Yesterday at a conference, I was peppered with questions about WHY small and growing businesses should enter into social media. This video from a few weeks ago helps answer some of those questions. But it’s important to note that it’s always wise to think of the WHY prior to jumping into the HOW.
4 Ways Real Companies are Dealing with Customer Experience TODAY
Author: Jeannie Walters
June 11, 2009
Let’s not whitewash it. It’s a scary world right now. Everyday, we’re absorbing news via all our devices and witnessing low quarterly earnings, uncertain futures, and friends and family being laid off. It’s easy to just keep going through the motions of cutting expenses, limiting focus to “critical” activities, and just making sure the boss is content.
And yet some companies are innovating right now. Here’s a sampling of how some of them are working on the customer experience (and action you can take) TODAY.
1. Take one small step. A client of ours is focusing on their e-commerce strategy. With limited resources, they are making small changes to their e-commerce process to ensure customers have a better, faster checkout process. This has led to improved conversion, cross-sell and up-sell numbers via the web site.
2. Unite! One organization asked us to come in and rally the troops around customer experience. Summer is their big season, so we are helping every person at the organization - from the CEO to the janitorial staff - understand their place within the customer experience. It’s helped them create a common language and improve their own service standards.
3. Focus on the future. One client in a very hard-hit industry is creating a 3-year plan to get ready for the future. Dabbling in new ways to connect with customers, testing theories, and gathering feedback, they’re able to set the stage for success instead of stagnate where they are.
4. Communicate. Many industries have been hit hard, resulting in difficult times for customers and employees. The focus right now for a client in such an industry is on engaging their employees to deliver a superior customer experience. How? By implementing ways to stay connected through dialogue and communication that’s honest, compelling and relevant. They’re asking employees to celebrate each other and their little victories in new ways. Engagement is up and customers are remaining loyal, even through bad news cycles.
These aren’t costly, cumbersome projects. These are lean and flexible in response to the times we’re in. Anything you can take away here to get started? Let me know.
Customer Loyalty Month
Author: Peggy Entrop
April 10, 2009
April is Customer Loyalty Month!
Here at Vox, we talk a great deal about how simple improvements to the customer experience can increase customer loyalty and therefore profitability. Giving people a personal touch is often the key in creating the kind of relationships that will win a loyal customer.
What simple things do you do to keep your customers coming back for more?
How do you build relationships with them?
How do you repair relationships that may be on rocky ground?
Leave a comment with your tips on building customer loyalty!
Jewel-Osco, Chase and Employee Indifference
Author: Peggy Entrop
February 3, 2009
What happens when you have a great website, great ads, but a terrible in-person, face-to-face customer experience?
That’s a dumb question, right?
Every few weeks, my coworker and I run to the grocery store to stock our office kitchen. We usually spend a couple of hundred dollars. We started doing this after a really fantastic new Jewel-Osco grocery store opened up right up the street.
The new grocery store is gigantic. It’s clean. It has an amazing selection. And, it has the grumpiest, meanest, rudest cashiers known to man. I learned awhile ago that I’m much better off going to the self-check-out, because then I won’t have to deal with the cashiers.
Guess what will happen when another option for getting our groceries presents itself?
That’s a dumb question, too.
Perhaps no-one needs customer loyalty more than banks right now. So, what are banks doing to win our trust and secure our loyalty?
A co-worker relayed this story of her recent trip to a Chase branch:
There was nowhere to sign in or anyone to direct me, so I walked up to teller. After a few minutes, I was asked if I needed help, but when I answered “Yes,” the lady answered a phone, and apparently forgot she had already asked me if I needed help, because a few moments later, she asked me once more.
She then went into the banker’s cubicle for a couple minutes, came back out and walked right past me, obviously forgetting what she went in for.
Finally, she saw that I was still waiting and went back into the banker’s cubicle. When she came out she told me that he would be with me shortly and walked away.
I waited in the seating area as another customer came in to see a banker. When the lady came back only two minutes later and saw me in the sitting area, she asked if I had been seen yet! I said no-by now very annoyed.
When I finally saw the banker, I was rushed out of the banker’s cubicle so that he could go to lunch.
I decided to never go to that Chase location again.
What really bothers us as customers more than employee indifference? What are businesses doing to engage and empower their employees?
Follow Peggy on Twitter at www.twitter.com/entrop
Belkin puts a price on its Customer Experience: 65 Cents
Author: Luis Serpa
January 20, 2009
Some companies may say that a good experience is priceless, but it seems that someone at Belkin really thought that he could get a few good experiences for a lot less and now the company is paying a steep price to recover their customers’ trust.
The (dumb) idea was simple in concept: use Amazon’s Mechanical Turk Cloud Service to recruit “reviewers” for Belkin’s products. The hired reviewers’ task was pretty simple: give the highest possible rating available to the products as if they had bought them. The price tag for each review: just 65 cents! (see full description of the offer in the image below)
The history was first published by The Daily Background and then reported on TechCrunch. Looks like it was all the action of a Business Development Representative named Michael Bayard and not a company-wide strategy, but the damage it caused is still the same. After the spread of the article through the web, Belkin posted a reply taking action to fix the situation without denying or explaining how it happened in the first place.
The point of story here should be obvious but I will spell it out it anyway: A good Customer Experience CAN’T be produced artificially! It is always the result of good services and care provided to your customers and the results you get will always mirror your real intentions. Alienated and wronged customers usually spread the word pretty fast. The whole incident is being called now “The Mechanical Turk Shilling” and the negative comments about it on the Blogosphere and twitter have been growing exponentially since Saturday.
I am betting that Belkin will be paying way more than 65 cents now to fix the situation, and nothing guarantees that their product reviews will ever be totally trusted again…
Has Economic Downturn Created a Customer-Friendly Environment?
Author: Bill Cusick
January 13, 2009
It’s obvious many large companies are clinging to solvency through this wide-scale financial crisis. Banks, car companies, retailers; everyone is struggling. You would think the declining revenues would lead to even fewer resources spent on customer-focused services.
However, anecdotal evidence suggests the opposite may be the case. With every dollar of income now precious, many businesses seem to be trying a little harder to keep the customers they have. More flexible return policies in some stores, a nicer tone when you call into the credit card call center indicate at least some companies are starting to “get it.”
One case in point: we just took our Trailblazer into the Chevy dealership for some work. I did so with trepidation, based on past horrible experiences. But, instead, we’ve been treated as (I hesitate to say this and jinx it): valued customers. The service employee has been friendly, accommodating, responsive and even empathetic. As you know, Chevrolet is the poster child for inflated, inflexible, even stubborn old-school business. Time will tell if this is an isolated incident or there is a cultural shift occurring.
I’ll choose to be very cautiously optimistic.
McDonald’s Converts
Author: Peggy Entrop
January 12, 2009
I was just reading this great article in the New York Times business section about how McDonald’s is making a big comeback. What stood out to me is how they have shifted their focus from “being the world’s best quick-service restaurant” to being “our customers’ favorite place and way to eat.”
In changing the food they serve and they way they serve it, they have won back millions of “McDonald’s Converts.” And, as I read the article, I realized… I’M A MCDONALD’S CONVERT!
I hadn’t set foot in a McDonald’s in probably 10 years until they started offering iced coffee for a fraction of the price of Starbucks. One day, I tried it, and it was really good.
Also, the store itself seemed less, how do I put this, disgusting than I remember it being. It was clean and colorful, and the staff was friendly. Overall, a not-too-shabby experience. That, plus the cost difference, was enough to change my ritual from grabbing-a-quick-Starbucks to grabbing-a-quick-McDonalds.
I guess the lesson is: never stop trying to reach your customers. If the way you are reaching them isn’t working, try shifting your focus. McDonalds found out what was missing from their experience, then they adapted to fit that need. Any question about whether it worked? Check out their profits!
What’s Your “Customer Resolution” for 2009?
Author: Bill Cusick
January 6, 2009
The year has begun, and I think we all know this is a challenging time for businesses. But one way to optimize your bottom line in 2009 is to make at least one “customer resolution.”
This is a simple exercise that can yield positive results. The idea is to resolve to improve at least one aspect of your company’s customer experience. Here are a few quick ideas.
- Grab as much of your “standard” customer correspondence as you can get your hands on. This could be monthly statements and invoices; customer form letters; anything that you know is sent to large numbers of customers on a regular basis. Now look at them. Nothing fancy. Just read through them as if you were a customer, a customer without any special knowledge about your industry or company.
- Pop on to your website, and pick two or three easy tasks that a typical prospect or customer might like to accomplish. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes, and walk through these tasks - gathering information, asking a question, or (if you have this) paying a bill or other customer process. Note how many clicks it takes, and how simple or complex it seems.
- Call into your company’s offices or call center and, acting as a customer, attempt to get a couple of questions answered. Pay particular attention to the tone of the employee as he or she helps you. Or, if possible, listen in to a few actual customer calls. Note nature of the customer requests, the hold time (if possible) and the tone of the customer at the end of the call.
Here’s my guarantee to you: If you just spend a little time and make a sincere effort to better understand one aspect of the customer experience, you will discover some problem that in hindsight seems incredibly obvious: the billing statement is confusing for no reason; you are using terminology a typical customer doesn’t understand; irrelevant content or poor navigation on your website are getting in the way of what your customers really want; or your call center employees lack the freedom to actually help solve customer problems.
Once you uncover the issues with your customer experience, you’ll see that many are problems that aren’t all that hard to fix. You owe it to your customers and your company to make the effort.
So, what’s your “customer resolution” for 2009? Take the initiative! There’s a big payoff for those that do.
3 Biggest Mistakes Companies Make Regarding Customer Experience
Author: Jeannie Walters
October 20, 2008
I got a huge compliment from my audience at the Chicago Financial Women’s event last week. They asked some great, thoughtful questions after hearing me speak about exceeding customer expectations.
My favorite question was a simple one: “What are the 3 biggest mistakes a company makes regarding customer experience?”
These are the mistakes that popped into my head. There is more to say here, but it’s a start.
1. Focus on only one metric - customer satisfaction.
Satisfaction is a place to start, but it certainly doesn’t tell you the whole story. Customers can be extremely “satisfied” and still not be loyal. Just look at all the satisfied VW customers who traded in for Mini Coopers.
Back in 2005, our CEO Bill Cusick had a few things to say about this topic in his article “Satisfaction Schmatisfaction.” You can find that here.
2. Attract customers with beautiful marketing materials and then deliver customer communications that are sloppy, ugly or just plain useless.
Banks, I’m talking to you! Send me one more piece of crap mail about my e-deposit and I’m coming for you. Spend more money on my experience and less on huge banners telling me about credit cards I won’t get anyway.
Even some of the newly redesigned statements are confusing and convoluted, and totally disregard the customer’s perspective. Case in point: health insurance statements. Thanks for the “Summary of Benefits,” but I’d like to know what you’re covering and how. And please don’t send me something that sounds angry because I missed the footnote on the statement.
Customer communications are a cornerstone to the experience, and yet often they are completely neglected. Don’t let the bean-counters create the invoices or statements for your customers.
Another topic for another day…why bother going through the effort to provide Spanish language marketing materials and then not offering the same courtesy to your customers?? Ay carumba!
3. Fiefdoms and in-fighting which don’t serve the customer.
The customer experience is not one channel, one product or one transaction. The customer experience is built or destroyed with every interaction with your company. When company structures and incentives are created to reward only one area at a time, the customer loses. For example, web sites sometimes seem to make it harder for a customer to find a call center number. This is due to fiefdoms within the company.
The online team doesn’t get “credit” (or worse, commission) if a customer starts online but ends up completing the purchase via a customer service rep. Likewise, the customer service rep is rewarded for spending the least amount of time on the phone with any given customer.
Then there are the front-line employees who are rewarded in a different way and have the same competing agendas.
Make the customer the ultimate winner. Everyone wins if a customer gets what they need when and how they need it - regardless of how your company is set up.
While none of these are easy fixes, they are extremely important. There are ways to set your own organization up where the customer wins. Don’t we know what that means for the organization by now?
