Can You Hear Me Now? It's Your Customer Calling

Does anyone still breathing believe that we can succeed without customers? I didn’t think so. If people don’t want what we’ve got to sell, we’re toast. So, there should be no argument that customer satisfaction and loyalty are goals we should be eagerly pursuing since the pundits tell us that it costs five times as much to acquire a new customer as it does to keep one.

I know, some of you are saying satisfaction and loyalty, yes, “but not at all costs” and “not the wrong customers for our business”. Exactly. So how are you managing those customer issues for your benefit and theirs?

Hello? I’m Out Here and Here and Here…: There are so many channels from which to collect customer feedback and each one potentially provides data gold. However, what is interesting may not be useful. Before buying, jettisoning or adding onto your business intelligence platform, a game plan is imperative.

Customer orientation is a critical part of developing a business strategy. It’s hard to describe competitive advantage and competencies unless we’ve defined how we will deliver products and how we will serve our customers. Business intelligence needs to be aligned with both strategy and customer needs. A company’s market research used to be private; now it is open and available on every social media outlet and search engine just by mining customer comments. We shouldn't ignore the qualitative nature of data and fail to integrate that into other customer data sets as it is necessary for ongoing strategy development

See Your Company Through Your Customers’ Eyes: It’s disappointing to deal with companies that seem to have no idea how many customer touchpoints they have and infuriating that they are not integrated. It’s inexcusable that frontline employees are neither selected nor trained for a service job. If you invite some of your co-workers into a room with a big white board and start mapping customer interactions, it is a mind-boggling exercise. Or, just read your customer comments online.

Create a Single View of a Customer: I’ve said it before: customers do not care about our silos. It’s not their job to sort out which department is responsible for resolving a problem. A fragmented approach rather than Outside-In customer experience design means that your employees have a perspective of your customer based on their job roles not on customer expectations.

It’s Called Voice of the Customer: I design a lot of feedback and research surveys and I am sent a few as well. It takes me less than 30 seconds to decide whether or not I’ll complete a survey depending on how it’s constructed. Questions should be properly worded and of an appropriate length; be free of bias; be actionable and be linked to the customer experience as well as the company’s metrics and Key Performance Objectives.

I’ve been on a data and analytics soap box for a while and there is no doubt that through collection of behavioral, rational and experiential data, we are doing a better job of knowing who buys from us and why. To understand what we didn’t sell and why requires tapping into customer emotions. Maybe someone will develop an App for that. Until then, we have to collect, aggregate and understand qualitative data to hear what are customers are feeling as well as saying.

To paraphrase a line from my newest favorite film, The King’s Speech, your customers have a voice. Yes, they do.

What Business Are You In? Really.

I’ve got a whole key ring full of bar-coded plastic tags that designate my “loyalty” to a particular store; I’ll bet you’ve got fistfuls as well. Are they an indication of my loyalty? Can you measure my loyalty with that piece of plastic?

Companies like Southwest Airlines and Zappos know they are in the customer service business; they just happen to fly airplanes and sell shoes. We all are in the business of serving our customers and that is a tall order when, for years, we organized our businesses around products.

I don’t know about you, but I have a list of criteria that my brain churns through in the midst of a buying decision. If someone wants my business, they have to demonstrate that they know me, respect my needs and provide an experience that suits me.

If you say you’re customer focused, show me. Nothing wears me out faster than marketing messages that bear no relation to the actual experience. Who thinks of this stuff?

Have you ever listened to your own voice mail or help desk systems? Finding the balance between efficiencies and customer experience is a challenge but there is no excuse for making it so hard to talk to a human that we have to Google to find out how to do it. What’s more important than a customer anyway?

Your web site may be great but your (fill in the blank) department lets you down. There are so many ways I can touch your company and if all the touchpoints aren’t designed for my buying experience, I may be leaving and you won’t even know it.

Why can’t the person I’m talking to make it right when there is a problem? As Mick Jagger said, “I try and I try and I try but I can’t get no satisfaction.” Why is there more chain of command in Customer Service than the Pentagon? If your customer strategy spells out how you’re going to deliver a customer experience and the culture supports it, employees should have the tools and skills to make the decisions.

Why are your marketing “campaigns”, coupons and emails so generic? Is it that you don’t really know me, or that you don’t care? You collect so much information from me with that plastic tag and yet you don’t connect the dots.

Please do not expect me to complete a survey foisted on me by an employee who is asking me to give him top marks. This is no way to reward employees or to gather valid customer data.

Loyalty programs are part of customer relationship management but they don’t guarantee that you have hearts and minds. I don’t think loyalty is bought; it’s earned over time by designing the experience customers tell you they want and ensuring the company is aligned around it. What are you doing to earn the loyalty of your customers? Is it more than another piece of plastic for my keyring?

Let's Get This Party Started: Winning the War for Customers

I’m officially declaring the Gloom and Doom funk over! I think we’ve all spent too much time examining the lint in our own navels and have found it much too interesting. Maybe it’s the minute-by-minute access to disasters or the endless shouting by talking heads that has us paralyzed but we won’t get better if we don’t get busy.

Business always has been tough, even when everyone said we’d never had it so good. Finding good people; finding great customers; finding terrific ideas: haven’t these always been our challenges? Sure, the pace of change is much faster and there are a lot more consequences to our global business network. There’s always something so why not acknowledge that it is what it is and let’s get going to find new customers and keep those who have selected us as their provider of choice.

So, what’s on our To Do list? I can think of a few positive things to perk up our customer focus:

Paint a Picture: what is your vision of your ideal customer experience and how are you measuring up? Gather information and insights directly from customers and employees (who are very good predictors of how things really are with customers) and indirectly from web searches. There is a lot of comment in cyberspace and some of it could be about you. Ask your customers about all aspects of the experience including, for example, first call resolution, ease of self-service and access to information on your web site and so on.

Get a Plan: close the gaps between what you want your customer experience to be and what your audience says it is. And, execute it! A plan is not action and hope is not a strategy. You might be surprised at how galvanizing it is for your employees to experience the momentum of putting ideas into action.

Tell a Story: current and prospective customers are more engaged by success stories than by product features, brochures and fact sheets. Buying is an emotional experience and stories tap into that reservoir.

Give Them Something to Talk About: Engage in authentic conversations in ways that your customers prefer: social media, your web site, guest blogs, anywhere. Ask them to write reviews and participate in online focus groups. People are flattered by the invitation and most of the time, are happy to provide feedback (note: just don’t overdo the frequency) IF it’s done in a personalized way.

What else should be on our To Do list? Let’s get busy and start the party. End of funk.

Making Customers Matter: Eight Things You Can Do Right Now

We are all trying hard, I think, to get back on track with employees and customers after a particularly difficult time over the past 18 months or so.

In my video blog, I discuss a unique concept that you can apply today to create a positive environment for employees as well as a great customer experience.

Do you see The Spillover Effect in your companies? Are the eight drivers some of the behaviors and outcomes that you focus on for better results?