Posted by Sean Mahoney on Mon, May 14, 2012
By: Sean Mahoney, Manager, Sales Engineering, Vovici
As my wife will attest, I just love the “Journey moment” commercial State Farm has been running for a little while now. If you haven’t seen it, a customer and his insurance agent are bantering back and forth and find themselves using lyrics from a song by the rock band Journey. One says “we just had ourselves a little Journey moment there.” Seriously – I crack up every time! But that’s just the kind of relationship-sync we are all striving for as customer experience professionals.
When done right, using feedback as part of measuring and managing the relationship between our customers and our organizations reinforces this relationship and even bolsters it. That means making a simple, yet important determination at the onset of any feedback initiative. Are you going to send a “relationship” – type survey or a “transactional” – type survey?
A Relationship Survey will cover topics related to the entire relationship between you and your customer. So the survey will be medium to long in length and sent rather infrequently, maybe at a particular point in the customer lifecycle or at the end of the year. A Transactional Survey will mainly be about a recent transaction, such as a purchase, renewal or service request. So this type of survey will be shorter and is usually sent more frequently. Making a determination between these two types of surveys up front is significant and drives the entire direction of your feedback project.
So, seems simple enough – two different types of feedback projects, delivered at two different points in time. But, one mistake I see all the time is survey designers adding questions to the transactional survey that have nothing to do with the matter at hand! Truly, just because one member of the team wants, or believes they need, some specific information and ask for it to be included in the transactional survey is not justification that several additional questions get included.
In fact, this usually leads to at least two problems. First, you are asking a skewed sample (those who had a recent transaction), which will not be representative of the overall customer base. Second, you are lengthening a survey that your customers might not want to spend a lot of time on in the first place. They think they are just answering a few questions on a recent transaction only to find out there is a whole other section of questions. And you thought survey fatigue was already having an impact on your response rates and data validity!
Resist the urge to add extraneous questions to a transactional survey. Consider creating a one-time, special-purpose survey if you have immediate needs for information from customers. If the questions this team member has are about the overall attitude of the customer toward different aspects of your business, suggest adding those questions to the relationship survey.
On the relationship survey side of things, one common mistake is not making it too long, but making it too short! I was recently asked to complete a one-question satisfaction survey for my gym. One question! If they had only asked just one more question (an “anything else to add?” comment field would have sufficed) it would have been better. I had some very specific feedback about the locker room and the recent renovations, and it would have made me feel the management team was serious about using my feedback. If a product or service is important to us, we are usually willing to take time with a survey and even ‘expect’ to share more information about the relationship. Your customers may be disappointed not to be given the opportunity to do so.
The moral to this story is to decide up front for each particular research effort whether a transactional or relationship survey will best provide the answers you're looking for and create your survey accordingly. As with most things, a little planning and consideration at the start can make a world of difference to the finished product and in the results you get – “all night, every night”, as the boys from Journey might put it.
Posted by Dave Capuano on Thu, May 10, 2012
Are you ready for a flashback? You are on the phone with your mom or dad, providing technical support to get them up and running on a new technology. It could be Skype so they can video chat with the grandkids, it could be that new iPad you got Dad for his birthday (big mistake), or it could be Facebook or some other form of social media. I have undertaken such efforts for my parents hundreds of times, and it recently got me thinking about the different segments of customers that businesses get to wrestle with every day.
When it comes to interacting with a business, customers choose the channels with which they are most comfortable – and which provide them with the best customer experience. My mom and dad order products online thanks to all that training I provided on “the Internet,” but when it comes to engaging customer service they use the phone or write a letter (yes, my Dad who is 80 still hand writes the CEO). While I get completely frustrated when I can’t reach a company via a digital channel, my parents go inside their bank and interact with a teller. I haven’t seen the inside of a bank in at least five years. We are different... and so are your customers.
Knowing the different types of customers you have is an important part of creating a successful customer experience program. Did you think customer segmentation was only for marketing departments as they build campaigns to attract new customers? As it turns out, understanding the different types of customers already served by an organization is important for many reasons.
Customers engage with us through their preferred medium. It could be on the phone, via answering a survey, tweeting questions, or engaging in online chat sessions. As such, if you are serious about looking at customer experience from the customer’s viewpoint, the more you know about them the better. By understanding the motivations and needs of each customer group, effective customer programs and customer retention strategies can be developed – resulting in a personalized experience for each segment.
Customer segmentation begins with scrutinizing CRM data and defining clusters of customers who have similar behaviors. Groups can be defined in a number of ways, including geographic (country, state, type of neighborhood), behavioral (product purchased, frequency of purchase), demographic (age, gender, income, occupation), or psychographic (lifestyle, lifecycle, activities, interests).
Once the groups have been defined by the data, you can confirm effective segmentation by performing surveys, monitoring social media, mining call center interactions using speech analytics, and evaluating mounds of unstructured data using text analysis. You will accomplish two things by taking a small random sample of each customer group and asking them about preferences and behavior. First, you will confirm that the characteristics are different among the groups you have defined (which confirms that you have defined the groups correctly). Second, you will start learning about the behavior of how each group interacts with your organization. Looking at CRM data will tell you what they do – evaluating customer interactions will tell you who they are.
By performing customer segmentation, you can begin to learn about the motivations and needs of each customer group... and, more importantly, you get to know your customers.
Posted by Dave Capuano on Thu, May 03, 2012
In this day and age – an age Forrester Research defines as the “age of the customer,” in which focusing on the customer matters more than any other strategic priority – social media has created a shift in power. Organizations no longer hold all the cards. Consumers are now more empowered than ever.
According to a recent U.S. benchmark study by Forrester, almost 96% of U.S. adults online today have a Facebook account, and roughly 25% have either a LinkedIn or Twitter account. As a result, most people have a connection to at least one social media channel.
As consumers continue to turn to social media to express their views and seek resolution to issues, enterprises are increasingly placed under a virtual magnifying glass – in a very public forum. In the past, unhappy customers would usually try to resolve issues through the customer contact center, or at their local branch or retail location. However, given the explosive growth of social media, customers commonly use digital channels as a means to resolve issues or vent frustrations.
Social media is here to stay. If you haven’t incorporated it into your customer experience strategy, now is the time to start the process. While social media channels can provide a forum for customers to express frustrations, it can also be used as a sounding board for consumers who are doing research – a golden opportunity for enterprises to engage with customer to promote their services and brands. Organizations can no longer afford to overlook the potential value and challenges associated with social media, particularly since savvy competitors may already be using these channels to their advantage.
To turn social media into an opportunity rather than a potential menace, determine where social media is playing a role in your customers’ journey with your organization – then align your organization’s social media activities with your customer experience strategy.
According to a recent Forrester report, “How does Social Media Contribute to Customer Experience,” following are some clear goals and best practices for any organization seeking to take advantage of the many opportunities provided by social media:
- Understand customers’ existing use of social touch points
- Document existing social activities and map them to your customer journey
- Identify gaps in the journey and isolate any disconnects in existing social media initiatives
- Establish guidelines and metrics to keep your organization true to its social objectives
Today’s astute customer experience professionals should seek ownership of their organizations’ social strategies. Ensure the social activities of your organization contribute to a consistent experience for your customer. By recognizing the influence of social media and the places where it is playing a role in your customer’s journey, you can take the appropriate actions to harness that power – and take advantage of the new and exciting opportunities it presents.
Posted by Nancy Porte on Thu, Apr 05, 2012
Sitting in a restaurant one recent Friday night, it was easy to palpate the excitement – and the theme of the many dinner conversations. At 11:00 p.m. that night, there was to be a lottery drawing to win more than $640 million and, from what I could tell, everyone in the restaurant was a ticket holder! Waiters and patrons alike shared ideas about what they would do with the winnings. “Buy a new house.” “Travel around the world.” “Send my children to college.” But the most often heard comment was, “I’d quit my job!”
So I decided to do a little research. Do lottery winners really quit their jobs or – when it comes right down to it – do they stay employed? Some studies have found that up to 80% of lottery winners quit their jobs. But that leaves about 20% who don’t. I did a little more research in an effort to find out why. In a study done by the Journal of Gambling Studies, called Lottery Winners: The myth and reality, 576 winners from 12 states were interviewed. While there was a strong association between the amount won and the winner’s decision to keep working, it was also found that individuals with psychologically and financially rewarding jobs continued working regardless of the amount they won!
And there are a few real life examples that bear out this study. Alexandra Charr, waitress, won $1 million dollars with a Florida scratch off ticket earlier this year, but told Lotto officials she was keeping her job at a Mexican restaurant in Clearwater Beach. “I love where I work,” she said.
Marcia Adams, corporate accountant, won $72 million in Georgia. “I love what I do. I have a purpose,” said Ms. Adams. She did hire a financial planner and marry her long-time boyfriend, though!
16 supermarket workers in England won about $640,000 each. Did they win – and then quit as a group? Nope. “It is a great place to work and I think most of us will stay on,” one winner told a reporter. “We have such a good time and are all good friends.” (You can find more winners who stayed – or returned to work – by going to The Grindstone.)
My extremely unscientific research showed that some people quit their jobs after coming into a lot of money. But those who feel they contribute to a higher purpose, have a sense of community, or feel connected through friends at work are more likely to stay. This type of loyalty goes beyond employee satisfaction; these employees are engaged with their work – and their workplace.
Measuring employee engagement and loyalty can be challenging but should be part of every organization’s DNA. Research by APQC, one of the leading proponents of process and performance improvement, has yielded key insights into what engagement is, how it can be measured, and how it can be integrated into organizational culture.
APQC’s qualitative research illustrates best practices for monitoring the Voice of the Employee and driving organizational change. One organization calculates an employee engagement index based on the following subset of employee survey items:
- Satisfaction: Employees are asked, “Considering everything, how would you rate your overall satisfaction with the company at the present time?”
- Advocacy: Employees are asked whether they “would recommend the company as a great place to work.”
- Retention: Employees are asked to respond yes or no to the statement, “I rarely think about looking for a job with a new company.”
- Pride: Employees are asked to respond yes or no to the statement, “I am proud to work for the company.”
Another organization performs an annual employee survey where data is analyzed and action items are identified. After about six months, a smaller survey to measure the pulse of the employees is deployed. The purpose of the second survey is to measure progress towards greater customer engagement.
Whether you have a formal Voice of the Employee program or track employee sentiment through a few surveys each year, employee satisfaction and engagement should be part of organizational initiatives and priorities. The result is a more engaged employee that wouldn’t even think about working somewhere else – even if they just won the lottery!
Posted by Vovici Blog on Tue, Apr 03, 2012
By Colin Shaw, Guest Contributor
Sometimes things never change…. a number of years ago, when I was a Senior Executive responsible for Customer Experience at BT, I was presenting to my colleagues on our Customer satisfaction survey results. I informed the team I felt the ‘Voice of the Customer’ was being ignored by people in our organization and no one was really doing anything to improve the scores. I made the case that because the ‘Voice of the Customer’ score only accounted for 5% of people’s bonus everyone effectively ignored it. I went on to explain that the excepted culture was to prioritise other targets, ie: sales revenue. This was because people could earn much more money by focussing on these areas and ignore the ‘Voice of the Customer’. The room was silent. As I looked around I could see the ambivalence in people’s faces. I wasn’t expecting what happened next. One of my fellow Senior Exec members said “I agree with you Colin, we don’t do anything with it. In fact I agree with you so much that I think we should stop undertaking the Voice of the Customer survey and save the money, it’s a waste of time.” I was flabbergasted. But the reality was this what most people thought. It was an annoyance. Their job was to sell stuff. Customer satisfaction was nice in theory, but didn’t form part of their daily life. I knew my work was cut out for me following that meeting...
In my experience of working in Customer Experience for ten years, I have been gratified to see that more and more companies are implementing a ‘Voice of the customer’ programme. My worry is many organizations suffer from the same issue . I do not believe most organisations are really ‘bought into’ the actions and changes required. My experience shows that in far too many cases the attitude I faced 10 years ago is still prevalent today. The danger is that a ‘Voice of the Customer programme’ becomes a ‘tick the box’ mentality. In other words, people see everyone else is doing it, so they decide to do it as it’s the ‘right thing to do’. But then nothing happens with the results. The real question is not ‘do you have a Voice of the Customer programme’, but what do you do with it!
To do something with it, you need to make it important to people. We all know the old phrase ‘what gets measured gets done’. I agree but I would add, ‘ and what people get paid for gets done even more!’
This is a critical point. It is vital that you make ‘Voice of the Customer’ measures part of everyone’s measures, and I mean everyone; Finance, HR, everyone. But you should also make it part of people’s pay. A recent client which Forrester has recently written a case study on is a good example. Whilst their CE programme was multifaceted it critically included changing employee’s measures and making Customer Experience measures account for upwards of 30% of their bonus. In 2 years they have moved their Net Promoter score from -10 to +30. A 40 point move! You can do the same, if your company takes ‘Voice of the Customer’ measures as seriously as they did.
Colin Shaw is founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy™, a pioneering global customer experience consultancy with offices in London and Atlanta. Founded in 2002, Beyond Philosophy specializes in the customer experience and is a leader in helping organizations to create deliberate, emotionally engaging customer experiences that drive value, reduce costs and build competitive advantage.
Posted by Nancy Porte on Tue, Mar 20, 2012
Last weekend my family decided to watch the award winning movie, Moneyball. For those of you who have not seen the movie, it’s a true story about Oakland A’s general manager, Billy Beane. Billy defies conventional wisdom – and outsmarts the competition – by employing a computer-generated method of choosing players.
During the explanation of this new method, one of the characters says, “There is an epidemic failure within the game to understand what is really happening. People who run ball clubs, they think in terms of buying players. Your goal shouldn’t be to buy players; your goal should be to buy wins. And in order to buy wins, you need to buy runs.”
Most of us don’t manage ball clubs, but we all need to achieve goals by outsmarting the competition – and, sometimes, defying conventional wisdom. As I talk with customer experience professionals around the world, I find that there is still an epidemic failure to understand how important the customer experience is in terms of business success.
Baseball looks deceptively easy. Players arrive at bat and the crowd cheers! Milestones are reached in the form of bases. A player gets past first, second, third – victoriously arriving at home plate, and the scoreboard records a run! Players are measured by an incredible number of metrics, but their ultimate job is to get more runs than the opposing team.
Like baseball, most businesses track a ton of metrics but, at the end of the day, it is all about revenue and profit. Customers are the revenue source, and it is well documented that it costs less to keep a customer than find a new one. As such, a common goal is to move customers “around the bases,” renewing and repurchasing until we get a “home run” – and tally another loyal customer!
Too many organizations celebrate only the acquisition of new customers. They leave daily interactions almost to chance by focusing on metrics that measure staff productivity and efficiency – with very little attention given to customer satisfaction. They might ask for customer feedback on an annual basis, but results are rarely communicated or acted upon. There is a corporate complacency and expectation that once customers are acquired they will automatically become loyal, repeat customers.
In contrast, game changing organizations invest in customer experience teams to assure that every customer hits a home run. No effort is spared to assure that each and every interaction exceeds expectations and builds towards customer success and loyalty. These organizations ask customers for feedback – a lot of it! That feedback is analyzed and transformed into insights that power process changes on the customer’s behalf.
The customer-centric culture of a game changing organization is built by celebrating long-term customers with all of the passion and spirit used to celebrate new customers. Game changing organizations consistently recognize the teams that work diligently every day to implement, train, support, and build relationships customers. They encourage calculated risk-taking for front line employees who need to go outside of standard procedures to please a customer.
Billy Beane was able to build a championship team by understanding the “epidemic failure” within the game. Organizations that understand the failure of not caring for the customer build customer experience programs that give them competitive advantage.
And, to loosely quote another baseball movie, “If you build it, they will come!”
Posted by Nancy Porte on Wed, Mar 14, 2012
Lately I’ve noticed that there is a lot of confusion about the developing field of customer experience – so much so that the terms “customer experience,” “satisfaction,” and “loyalty” are being used interchangeably. In reality, these terms are quite different. Understanding each is key when it comes to a company correctly interpreting survey results and building customer programs.
Experience is an interaction between a brand and its customers – an interaction that leads to an attitude (satisfaction), which itself leads to behavior (loyalty or disloyalty).
Key aspects of the customer experience are how useful a product or service is, how easy it is to use, and how enjoyable the interaction is. Satisfaction, in turn, is composed of overall satisfaction and mental comparisons of the interaction to initial expectations – and to the ideal interaction. Together, customer experience and satisfaction cause a change in the behavior of the customer, encouraging or discouraging them from purchasing again, purchasing more, and recommending the brand to others.
So, if customer loyalty is the desired customer behavior, how is it measured? While there are many models for these metrics, it is important to select a metric that works for your organization – and goes beyond simply segmenting customers into “satisfied” and “unsatisfied” camps.
Thomas O. Jones and Earl Sasser, Jr. have authored a number of papers that explain the complex relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty. Jones and Sasser reveal that higher levels of customer satisfaction do not necessarily correspond with a higher likelihood to repurchase a product or service. In both highly competitive and less competitive markets, Jones and Sasser find that customers who are merely “satisfied” are prone to defection in high rates, while those who are “completely satisfied” are more likely to buy again.
So, how can you define a “totally satisfied” or “completely satisfied” customer? Here’s a definition by Infoquest:
“‘Totally Satisfied' denotes a complete absence of issues. Customers who respond in such a way are indicating they have no unmet needs or desires; that there is nothing the client can do to improve their performance. That alone is the one true foundation of meaningful customer satisfaction and loyalty.”
In most businesses – and particularly those in competitive industries – it has been found that completely satisfied customers are much more loyal than satisfied customers. Sasser and Jones refer to a Xerox Corporation study that found that totally satisfied customers were six times more likely to repurchase Xerox products over the next 18 months than satisfied customers.
As additional evidence of the value of “completely satisfied” customers, InfoQuest built a statistical model to estimate the correlation between customer satisfaction and revenue, tracking 20,000 customer responses over three years, comparing satisfaction levels in year 1 to account histories in year 3. Results differed dramatically based on satisfaction level. A totally satisfied customer contributed 2.6 times the annual revenue that a somewhat satisfied customer generated, and 14 times the revenue of a somewhat dissatisfied customer.
When customers become completely satisfied, their experience far exceeds their expectation and they renew and buy more. And then they share their passion with others through word of mouth, reference programs, and presentations at industry conferences.
In the never ending quest to provide the best customer experience around, “complete satisfaction” is a valuable measure for any organization seeking to strive for product and service excellence.
Posted by Vovici Blog on Tue, Mar 06, 2012
By Stephanie Thum, Guest Contributor
As a retail customer, it’s one thing to appreciate a brand. It’s another thing entirely to experience that brand deeply – beyond the tangible aspects of the products purchased.
More and more companies today “get it.” To attract and retain customers, companies have to provide quality products, competitive pricing, efficient call centers, intuitive Web sites, engaging social media pages, welcoming store layouts, and well-trained sales teams. These concepts are now considered “the basics” of customer experience.
With the basics down pat, some companies are taking the next step – to deepen, not just create, customer experiences.
Athleta, a women’s fitness apparel company owned by Gap, Inc., is one such company. I came to that realization recently when I taught a Zumba Fitness® class to the staff and customers at the company’s Georgetown, Washington, D.C. retail store.
When Gina Nelson, store manager, approached me about leading a class in her store, it struck a chord of coolness for me. We would wheel the store fixtures out of the way, giving customers and staff room to move during the workout.
Beyond the coolness factor, as I talked further with Gina I realized that my in-store class – and others offered by Athleta, such as yoga, pilates, and running clubs – made sense from a customer experience perspective. Gina phrased it perfectly.
“The classes are a great way to bring customers to the store. But the Athleta brand is all about experiencing new and different things. The in-store classes are a great way for our customers to do just that – step outside of their comfort zone and try something new, without judgment and without commitment.”
I’ve been an Athleta fan for several years via their catalog and Web site. But until I taught that class, I had never been inside one of their retail stores. The retail stores are a newer thing, having rapidly opened across the country.
As I discovered, Athleta has the basics well under control: gorgeous surroundings, apparel and gear stocked from the floors to the ceilings – and a professional, attentive, hospitable staff.
But by offering their already fitness-minded customers something deeper – a no-strings attached, judgment-free, no cost, in-store fitness opportunity – Athleta vaulted beyond creating a good customer experience. They launched into deepening the customer experience, all in keeping with the company’s brand.
It was fantastic to serve as an instructor for an Athleta customer class, and now I can’t wait to get back – as a shopper.
Stephanie Thum is a writer and consultant (and fitness instructor) in the Washington, D.C. area.
Posted by Nancy Porte on Tue, Feb 28, 2012
This year I participated in my first Fantasy Football League, and much to my surprise, I enjoyed it. Never mind that I possess only a rudimentary understanding of the game. What I do understand is winning.
So I watched every televised game on the weekend, tracked the performance and statistics of each player, and adjusted my team during the week. And in the process I learned that predictions don’t mean very much. Sometimes a team was unstoppable and could do no wrong. Other weeks the same team couldn’t even get down field. The magic just wasn’t there. And it wasn’t just because the other team had a great defense – there was a lack of momentum on the offense!
In the sports world, momentum is everything. It can swing a game with the blink of an eye, or it can assure that the game never quite gets started for a team.
In the professional world, momentum is no less important. When good leaders have momentum, harness it, and build on it, positive things happen. In fact, changes can occur at a much faster pace – and success seems to build on itself.
Customer experience programs are typically launched amidst a flurry of energy, enthusiasm, and excitement. Typically, employees and executives alike are enthusiastic about the formalization of a program that will help improve customer interactions. Even though there aren’t cheerleaders in skimpy outfits, the launch of a customer experience program can resemble the beginning of a football game – featuring smiling faces, extremely prepared teams, and a focused game plan.
But fast forward a few years, and the customer experience program may look a little different. The program is certainly more mature. The program’s focus has gone beyond simply fixing problems, and is now successful at process redesign. At the same time, organizational changes have occurred. There may be different executives involved, ones who may be more or less supportive of the program. Initiatives have been started; some showed immediate results and some are ongoing. The realization of the amount of work to make the needed changes has set in. Other shiny objects – in the form of new organizational priorities – have emerged. So, while the program is maturing, it is also in danger of losing momentum.
So, how do you maintain momentum in a maturing customer experience program? Experts say there are some strategies that, employed from the very beginning, can establish and increase momentum. Here are those strategies:
Executive Commitment and Communication
A successful customer experience leader gains the support of each and every executive – from Day 1 onward. Understanding the level of support offered by each executive – and their reasons for support – is critical for establishing a strategy to make progress. The customer experience leader needs to work with each executive to communicate a specific value of the program that addresses each executive’s unique perspective.
Reflect organizational priorities
Customer experience programs must maintain an awareness of the complete picture of what it’s like to be a customer – and at the same time, they need to maintain awareness of organizational priorities. While programs are often initiated as a result of an organizational priority, the program must remain relevant by adjusting to new directions set by the leadership. In a challenging economy, the priority may be to retain customers and the program therefore focuses on redesigning customer – facing procedures. A few years later, the economy is improving and the new focus is on acquiring new customers. Tapping into these evolving areas of focus helps the customer experience program remain organizationally relevant.
Build customer advocates
Momentum can be achieved and maintained by building a great team. The quarterback drives his team down field – but a lot of energy comes from the fans! In addition to the customer experience team, may organizations develop a cross-functional team of customer advocates. These teams review customer loyalty scores and develop initiatives for each line of business. Another advantage of these advocates is that they carry the customer message to their departments, providing energy for their co-workers to continually improve the customer experience.
Here is another tip: rewards and recognition are great to keep momentum going. Celebrating employees who act on customer insights, inspire change, and act as role models – it creates anticipation and energy (Think Pro Bowl!)
Unlike football games, successful customer experience programs are multi-year initiatives. But whether we are talking sports or business, achieving greatness requires not only support for the vision but an execution strategy that maintains momentum.
Posted by Dave Capuano on Thu, Feb 23, 2012
I recently had the pleasure of participating in a Webinar with Don Peppers, founding partner of the management consulting firm Peppers & Rogers, about the results of a research study his organization undertook on our behalf. The key focus of the study was on Voice of the Customer, as well as uncovering insights into the maturity and business drivers behind VoC programs. As one would expect, key business drivers for how companies are using customer feedback clearly reflect strategic business imperatives.
The following table displays results from one of the questions in the research study. The results show that companies initiate VoC programs as a mechanism to enable them to retain customers, sell on their success, drive innovation, and increase demand for products and services. No surprise there. Yet while the table below lists the main reasons companies seek to improve customer experience across the board, in the end, VoC also feeds a company’s ability to drive revenue and deliver shareholder value – and executives know it.
As I recently heard from a Senior Director of Customer Listening at a Fortune 100 company, “Companies are not doing Voice of the Customer programs to be nice. It is about differentiating their brand to drive more to the bottom line.”
I like that statement because it resonates with executives – and because successful Voice of the Customer programs require executive buy-in. VoC programs lacking executive buy-in – and lacking measurement and a link to business value – are likely doomed to be stuck as tactical projects.
We all know that customer experience is strategic – but like anything in business today, you have to prove its value. There are plenty of examples of companies using customer experience to their advantage, but there are also many executives who remain unconvinced about the benefits of investing in VoC. Most executives want to believe in the business value of a better customer experience, but they need to be shown a clear and direct path to business benefits.
Those business benefits will be unique for each organization, but take note – successful programs are closely aligned to executive team goals and objectives. Whether the goal is increasing renewal rates or improving customer satisfaction and loyalty, Return on Investment (ROI) is a key metric that needs to be tracked and reported.
One of the greatest opportunities for customer experience professionals is to gain support by identifying and building champions within the executive suite – and to do that, you need metrics. It takes hard work and dedication, but lining up executive support is a valuable endeavor that is well worth the time. Plus, it gives your VoC program the greatest chance of success.
If you would like a copy of the related whitepaper, including the results covered in the Webinar, please register for it here.