A few weeks ago I heard a story of “extreme customer service.” Strangely enough, it wasn’t about a great experience but about a failed service experience. My friend absolutely loved a particular fast food chain and ordered the same thing every visit. On her last visit she was charged more than the listed price at the drive thru. Miffed, she pointed this out to the sales associate and then the supervisor on duty. But they both summarily dismissed her indicating that she was charged the new price. She then took measures to ensure the company heard her and fixed the issue. Twitter and FaceBook were immediately alerted. In fact, anytime she has a bad experience, or an exceptional one for that matter, she takes it social. In her words, “I will go to the extreme to get the service I deserve. I own my customer experience.” She expects a good customer experience and will take matters into her own hands to get it!
Posts Tagged ‘customer knowledge’
Customer Experience Motto for 2012
Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012Recently, I came across a great quote by Kerry Bodine of Forrester Research, Inc. where she said, “Companies need to start treating customer experience as a business discipline—not a bumper sticker.” It made me wonder if companies, as they start planning their strategy for 2012, are truly embracing what it means to build a customer-centric culture.
Working in the customer experience industry, weekly I meet with numerous Fortune 500 organizations. I am always surprised to hear comments like, “this year we are focusing on our customers first and foremost” or “we have just hired a new senior director to really lead our customer experience initiative.” For many of these companies, they are just starting to embark on the customer experience improvement journey. A 2011 study from the Temkin Group shows only 7% of companies think they are customer experience leaders while 61% of them want to be at the top in their industry in three years. The question I ask then is, “Why now?” Haven’t you always been concerned about your customers?
Who Comes First in Shaping Customer Experience: Customers or Employees?
Tuesday, December 6th, 2011[Excerpt from Vineet Nayar, vice chairman and CEO of India-based HCL Technologies] “The conventional wisdom, of course, says that companies must always put the customer first. In any services business, however, the true value is created in the interface between the employee and the customer. So, by putting employees first, you can bring about fundamental change in the way a company creates and delivers unique value for its customers and differentiates itself from its competitors.”
Leveraging Information Assets to Optimize Customer Value
Monday, November 21st, 2011When asked to identify the greatest barriers to improving multichannel customer experience, “Thirty-four percent of respondents identified difficulty unifying different sources of customer data.” This would indeed be a barrier as understanding your customers’ needs is intrinsic to delivering an exceptional customer experience. To understand the customer, organizations must take each morsel of information left at touch-points across the organization and weave them together to create the customer’s story. The need for information optimization and big data applications then becomes vital. I had the honor of being in the hot seat as we explored this topic at one of our tweet chats. Here is a glimpse into our discussion:
Movement Inevitable or Improbable
Monday, October 17th, 2011“When we forget who we are we drift—movement is inevitable.” I heard this statement recently and immediately thought of how much truth resonated from it even with regards to organizations and customer experience.
Sometimes a company starts in overdrive and sets a high precedence for how they serve and delight customers. As Q1 slips into Q4 and years roll by, overdrive slows and service levels dwindle—“Movement is inevitable.” Customer churn rarely happens all at once—it happens gradually. Time leads to a weakened commitment to the customer experience strategy, vision dims, and Customer Facing Professionals (CFPs) lose their passion. The shift in mindset is almost imperceptible as the organization moves from tolerating subpar service, to accepting it, then embracing it.
Insight, the Oxygen Companies Need
Tuesday, October 4th, 2011This week is National Customer Service Week and organizations across the globe are promoting a heightened awareness of customer service with the theme: “Refresh, Recharge, and Reconnect.” Customer Facing Professionals (CFPs) are encouraged to take this week and refresh their spirits, recharge their energy, and reconnect with customers. It’s interesting that the focus is on the ‘people’ factor in the customer experience as we’ve had quite the discussion about it this past week on LinkedIn. “Refreshing” and “recharging” is an excellent goal as happy employees can connect with customers more effectively. As part of recharging, companies should ensure the free flow of organizational information and knowledge—the oxygen carrier for any organization.
Design, Deliver and Display a Customer-Centric Culture
Wednesday, September 7th, 2011In today’s economy it’s important that organizations, regardless of size or industry, create customer-centric cultures. Research indicates that “71% of business leaders believe that customer experience is the next corporate battleground.” This means that the entire organization must align with the customer experience vision, strategy and standards. Companies need to empower all employees to ensure they deliver memorable customer experiences. “Eighty percent (80%) of CEOs believe their brand delivers a superior consumer experience yet only 8% of consumers agree.” How then do we create a customer-centric organization that our customers agree is superior?
The 12 Most Important Steps an Organization Can Make to Improve the Customer Experience
Monday, August 29th, 2011The customer experience an organization delivers is unique to that company, difficult to imitate, and results in a distinctive competitive advantage. According to Peppers and Rodgers, “81% of organizations with strong competencies for delivering customer experience excellence outperform competitors.” Here are Vivisimo’s 12 most important steps an organization can take to improve their customer experience:
The Union of Structured and Unstructured Data
Monday, August 15th, 2011I had the distinct pleasure of speaking on a recent CXPA webinar “Gaining Customer Insights from Unstructured Data” along with CXPA co-founder and chair Bruce Temkin and Jason Schneider, vice president of enterprise sales at Clarabridge. One thing that resonated was Jason’s comment that “the marriage of structured and unstructured data is the point of ultimate action for an organization.”
I would have to concur. The challenge many businesses face today though is that the information needed to support customers is scattered throughout the company. Sales professionals, account management and customer support professionals have to log into 10 or more different applications trying to find information to help customers. According to Harris Interactive, even once information is found, 44% of customers claim that they received the wrong information. Added to this challenge is the phenomenal growth of unstructured data from internal blogs, content management systems, and customer survey responses as well as data captured outside the firewall from social media.
