Syed's Customer Experience Blog

The power of text messaging for customer feedback

The last 12 months have been really exciting when it comes to use of text messaging/sms as a tool for customer feedback. At ResponseTek we have always held the opinion that the closer you are in time and channel to the customer experience the better the information you will collect. This has been easy in the web and call center channels but in the retail channel it has been a big problem. However there is good news, there is a quiet revolution happening in retail feedback management that is being led by the European Telco's and they are quickly being followed by other retailers. The revolution focuses on the use  of SMS to capture the voice of the customer at the point of purchase.

Text messaging is a great technology for certain types of retailers to collect large amounts of timely information that can be used by the front lines almost every day. In Europe the use of text messaging as a feedback tool is rapidly accelerating as companies move away from more problematic or expensive  programs such as outbound calling or receipt back messaging/surveys. It is also very effective, we have seen clients that can expect a 20-30% response rate from text message feedback programs if designed intelligently. The feedback can also be quite rich, with both quantitative and qualitative information being collected across up to 6-10 questions.  Where text messaging feedback was an experiment for lots of companies in Europe 12 months ago now it has become their core retail satisfaction monitoring method.

One thing I do still find surprising is that although North America is the icon for the iphone/smartphone generation there is very little (if any) adoption of this exciting technology this side of the pond. Even though this approach is an obvious fit for companies like Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, etc.  they don't seem to be connecting the dots yet and continue to spend big on more expensive yet less timely research approaches.

Regardless of the differences in North America and Europe relating to text message feedback programs, what we have seen within clients is proof of a technology and approach that is here to stay and one that can dramatically change the way a company connects with it's customers and employees.

Syed

What is the role of the Customer Experience Executive?

Companies started formalizing executive roles focused on customer experience about 2-3 years ago. As someone that has operated in the Customer Experience (CE) arena for over 10 years it was great to see the customer experience getting formalized and my hopes for companies using the "voice of the customer" as a serious management tool increased accordingly.  At the time we never really knew how the role was going to play out but it seemed surrounded by good intent.  Unfortunately the SVP/EVP/VP Customer Experience  has rarely lived up to it's promise and now as times get tough the number of Executive's with a "Customer Experience" title that are being let go is increasing almost daily.

The problem I think is that most, if not all customer experience executives operate in a Corporate Group role rather than in the Operating Groups of large companies. The effect this has is that they become responsible for guidance and best practice identification but the have very little power or influence where the rubber hits the road, at the operating groups.  As a result in my experience very few customer experience executives have been able to transfer their excitement and priorities for monitoring and managing the customer experience across to the executives in the operating groups. 

The other factor that has led to the lack of impact a typical customer experience executive has on changing the business is where the budgets are held. Most group level CE executives have a small budget which is focused on addition market research, consultants, etc. However, the budgets needed to truely transform customer experiences are much larger and typically owned by operations or the contact center. As a result most CE executives never get into the real issues around measurement, consistency, systems or behavioral change because they do not have the mandate or resources to affect change.

I am disappointed to see that so many CE exec roles are being cut these day's but I also recognize that the role as it has been used in most companies today is ineffective. The role and responsibilities of a CE exec needs to be revised if they are ever going to impact large organizations. Perhaps the role should sit in the office of the CEO, be an extension of the operations role or operate at the board level similar to an audit or compensation committee?

If you have come across a company where the CE exec does have the influence and resources to make change happen please let me know.

Syed

Customer insight strategy: Think Small.

Most small businesses still collect customer insights in real-time.  Every time a customer steps into a store, the owner can watch where the customer goes, offer help, and ensure they’re satisfied. Small businesses ask customers what they’re looking for and what they like, all as part of a casual conversation. 

Informal as it may be, most small business owners will tell you that these conversations are the heartbeat of the business. The information they collect from customers every day influence every aspect of their business, from staff training to purchasing to display.

Unfortunately, most large businesses have lost this connection with the customer. The conversations might still be happening at the front lines, but unlike small business, the customer conversations are not adding intelligence to the business. Valuable customer insights are lost. 

Companies typically think of the value of customer insights in a strategic sense for competitive positioning; hence, billions of dollars are collectively spent on market research to gain some insight from customers, even if those insights are skewed or manufactured due to the built-in constraints of surveys, focus groups and mystery shopping. 

There’s little value in “arms length” relationships that fail to recognize the sophistication, knowledge and technical competence of the customer. Big business needs to recognize that advances in technology now make it possible to capture these conversations once again and use them to make business – and the people who drive it – smarter about the way customers are engaged, every day.

Given the chance, customers will use phones, IVR, SMS, email, the web – and yes, even face-to-face interactions –  to tell you what they want, when and how.  At ResponseTek, we are helping our clients absorb, collate, analyze and distribute customer insights – both structured and unstructured – so they become part of your company’s customer intelligence  By opening up as many channels of communication as possible to collect customer insights, companies can stop viewing insights as problems, and start seeing them as opportunities for innovation.

We have seen that companies that recognize the need for continuous front line customer insights ( example: Lastminute.com) have a greater chance of getting back to the mentality of the continually improving and adjusting small business owner. The biggest challenge? Getting companies to recognize this as the preferred alternative to ‘traditional’ paradigm of periodic, centralized customer research, before it’s too late.

After all, in this economy, there’s always another company out there who’s willing – and able – to listen to your customers.

Best regards,
Syed

Welcome to the year of Customer Experience

I wanted to wish everyone a happy new year for 2009. 

Perhaps I am going against the grain but I believe 2009 is going to be a very important and exciting year for those of us working in or around the Customer Experience Management (CEM) field of business. In 2008, we saw a step change in the way that organizations view customer experience information as well as a rapid maturing in their understanding and expectations of how they could better use the "voice of the customer" as a business tool.

I believe 2008 was the first year that companies seriously started to ask tough questions of their market research groups and vendors regarding the return on the billions of dollars spent on market research.  The effect of this maturing understanding of CEM, coupled with the economic imperative to keep the customer you have  during the current downturn, made the later half for 2008 one of the most interesting times so far in the evolution of the CEM sector.  With more and more companies looking for new approaches to understand how and where they should focus the efforts to improve the customer experience.

I see the trend continuing in 2009 with more and more dollars being re-assigned from "traditional" market research programs to actionable customer experience programs. This can only be a good thing, especially if you are one of those people spending your company budgets of backward looking market research data instead of forward looking customer experience improvement information.

We have lots of topics to discuss this year..... and I promise to be better disciplined regarding regular blog postings.

Happy New Year

Syed

Top down vs bottom up improvement strategies

Are you trying to change your customer experience from the top-down or bottom-up? ..........

I am amazed at the number of executives I meet as part of my work at ResponseTek who greet this question with a blank look or a “what do you mean…”?

Assuming that your business has joined the conventional thinking that a good customer experience leads to a higher probability of happy customers (and that happy customers are good), then you have to come up with a strategy that leads to happier customers.

Here is the top down scenario: First you decide hire McKinsey, Bain or BCG…(nobody ever got fired for that). Six months, a million dollars in consulting, and workshops (ad infinitum) later, your consultants of choice will typically deliver you a comprehensive top-down customer experience improvement strategy. It will include marketing messages, slogans for the employees, new compensation plans, a few tracking surveys and some benchmarking with competitors.  If you’re lucky, it might even have an operational framework for continuous improvement, such as customer workshops, panels and focus groups.

So if you spent the money and got all of this, you’ve got your top-down strategy for customer experience improvement.

The good news? You won’t get fired. Hiring big name consultants is always a great strategy to hide behind when you don’t have a clue.

The bad news? Top-down strategies alone rarely work.

To improve customer experience and sustain improvements, employee behaviors must change. Partner behaviors must change. The behaviors of your outsourced suppliers representing your brand must change. Anyone interacting with your customers has to focus on improving the customer experience.

With top-down strategies such as aggregate customer-sat scores or compensation incentives, the behavioral change needed for business improvement is at best temporary. To sustain improvement, you need to ensure your top down strategies are complemented by bottom-up strategies.

Bottom up strategy scenario: Bottom-up strategies focus on making employees accountable for the customer experience every day, during every interaction. Bottom-up strategies take the basic principles of short interval control, used effectively in the manufacturing sector, and apply them to today's service focused environments, such as call centers, retail stores, and field service and support teams.  Bottom-up strategies focus on timely measurement and reporting of customer experiences at the individual or transactional level. By deploying timely measures within a framework of timely, individual reporting, employees can quickly and continuously identify for themselves behaviors that do not enhance the customer experience.  This level of personal awareness and individual reporting can then be very effectively used by supervisors for training or coaching.

The combination of top-down and bottom-up customer experience strategies is powerful…but rarely practiced.  I don't know if this is because corporations lack an understanding of this as a best practice, or because it’s much harder to do than top-down alone. What do you think?

Final thoughts: Perhaps the best way to think about a top-down strategy on its own – that is, without the bottom-up strategy - is in the context of a manufacturing quality improvement strategy. With a top-down strategy, you just have a quality plan, quality targets, quality linked compensation, and monthly surveys of the quality actually coming off the front line. A bottom-up strategy adds a production line quality team that measures quality at every production stage on an hourly basis, and quality addresses issues daily. In today’s environment, no one would try to improve manufacturing quality with just a top-down strategy, without front-line measurement and improvement processes that shadow the production line. And yet, that is exactly how companies are trying to improve the quality of their customer experience using consultants and market research.

I hope this prompts you to ask your executive team about your company’s top-down and bottom-up strategies for improving the customer experience.  Let me know what you find out!

Syed