In a Relationship - It's Complicated
Posted by Nancy Porte on Thu, Feb 24, 2011
With so many companies on Facebook now, wouldn’t it be great if they could highlight their relationship status with their customers, just like on users’ personal profile pages? If that was an option, many companies might post something like “In a Relationship – It’s Complicated!”
Customer relationships become complicated when businesses don’t consider the needs of customers when making decisions about products and services. In some situations, businesses organize around efficiency goals of speed and productivity. In other situations, companies organize around operational silos and internal politics. The result of either approach is that while individual departments may perform well, the customer can be lost when trying to maneuver from one department to the next. Internal efficiency is only part of the equation. In order to build a loyal customer base, customer needs must be understood and incorporated into business operations. Seeing the business from the customer’s perspective by mapping the customer journey starts to close the gap between customer expectations and customer results.
Over the past year, we have mapped the journey for our customers at Vovici. Our process has included interviews with internal staff and using our VoC survey data to create the initial map. Then we talked to customers to confirm our initial work and collect additional insights.
We learned that our customer journey consists of three distinct customer phases: Building Knowledge, Proficiency and Business Alignment, and Relationship Maturity and Sustained Value. Within those phases are multiple processes from Account Setup to Renewal. Once we understood the processes, we used survey data to identify the “Make or Break” moments – the processes which must go well for the customer to be completely satisfied. These “Make or Break” moments were the focus for our efforts to make sure we were designing processes from the customer perspective.
Inspired by the LEGO Group Experience Wheel, one of the results of this effort was the Vovici Experience Wheel. The experience wheel provides a visual continuum of the processes and helps identify key performance indicators. Customer transition points from one department to another are easily analyzed. Finally, the wheel serves as a great communication tool to review customer status with department stakeholders and the executive team.
By seeing our company through our customers’ eyes – understanding their processes, needs and perceptions - we have a better understanding of our strengths and weaknesses. As we work to include customer insight in our processes, we are improving the ease and value of each interaction. Then, one day, when companies on Facebook can declare their customer relationship status, we’ll be ready to say “In a Relationship – It’s Simple!”