KANA Global Consulting Services Blog

Latest Updates: customer experience management RSS

• 

  Kate Leggett 07:23:55 pm on September 28, 2009 | 3 | # |
  Tags: Collaboration, customer experience management, customer relationship management, customer service

  Evidence Based Service – The How is harder than the Why

  Service organizations would perform better if leaders applied the best evidence. I’ve dedicated several posts to this subject. It’s a great concept and it’s another thing to do it.

  Some experimentation is easy – for example like what Yahoo! does on its homepage where they typically run over 20 experiments at a time, changing things like colors, placement of ads and location of text or buttons. Outcomes of these experiments can have a huge effect – like moving the search box from the side to center of the home page generated enough click-throughs to bring in about $20M more revenue a year.

  But this requires a mind-set shift–instead of debating which screen design or content works better, you gotta try it, and analyze the results to see what works.

  #1–Treat your service offering as an unfinished prototype. Baseline your performance. Then try to vary something and measure how you do – trying something half baked quickly with the data at hand is often much better than just waiting until you have all the data you need as the urgency to react may have passed.

  #2-Don’t get blindsided by corporate mantra, and organizational half-truths. Many service organizations are managed based on industry best practices, and historical precedence. Base your decisions on just data. Understand what works for you and your customers and do a root cause analysis to understand why changes you have made work or don’t.

  #3-Look at yourself using your customer’s eyes. Do a mystery shopping exercise on your site, and document your strengths and weaknesses. Look at your competitors and see what they do. Do it in a systematic, scientific way, not based on emotion.

  You can apply evidence based service at a micro or macro level-to a simple installation and tuning of a product–for example a new ERMS system. And, you can apply it to optimize a particular service offering, or transform your complete service offering to the next level of operational maturity

   

• Kate Leggett 04:24:19 pm on August 24, 2009 | 1 | # |
  Tags: customer service, CRM, customer experience management, Customer Experience

  Service = Brand, Part 2

  Customer service. We know that it is not one size fits all – it is the art of aligning your service with your brand. It’s the consistency of experience that a customer feels every time they interact with you. And what is brand? It’s what you stand for, it is how you differentiate yourself. Bruce Temkin from Forrester blogs a lot about this.

  We seem to agree that not all companies need to provide exceptional customer service – just good enough service that is in-line with their brand. Think back to the IKEA and Apple examples in my last blog.

  But what about industries where there is little differentiation between products and services? Like banks or telecom providers? Is there any true difference between the banking products and services at Wells Fargo, Citibank, or Bank of America, just to name a few? They also offer an undifferentiated customer service experience that makes it hard to for you, as a customer, to individualize them.

  One deviator in the banking space is ING Direct. They are a non-traditional, internet bank where all business is done via web self service, ATM or email. They have no branches, and you cannot visit a live agent. Even without this traditional personal touch, they know who their customers are, what they want, and deliver what they need. Everything about the banking experience is slick, comprehensive and targeted to a good customer service experience. However, they only target the tech savvy customer with relatively straightforward banking needs – they are known to fire “high maintenance customers” who do not fit into their service mold.

  ING Direct, in a sector of undifferentiated products and services, differentiates themselves by their exceptional service experience. This experience is aligned with the bank’s business model. And this service differentiation becomes their brand. Once again, service = brand.

   
• 

  Allen Bonde 04:24:36 am on July 25, 2009 | 1 | # |
  Tags: Knowledge Management, customer experience management

  Is it still all about the experience?

  
  About a year and a half ago I wrote a column for CIO.com looking at the state of CRM and customer service and proposing that three priorities were emerging: delivering a differentiated customer experience, better leveraging content assets so reps and customers have answers at their fingertips, and tapping into collaboration and social networks. As I discussed a couple posts ago, our recent survey of customer service leaders shows that content (and KM) and social CRM are in fact two of the areas that are attracting additional investment this year despite lower spending overall on customer service. So the last two have definitely been predictions I can live with (remember, I was an analyst at one point…)! But what about customer experience management? The third of the “mega” trends I started to see back at the end of 2007.

  
  Well…it just so happens that in the same survey, we also asked respondents about their organization’s position on customer experience management. The results are shown below.

  

  What is interesting in this data is that not only are more organizations focusing on how to deliver a differentiated customer experience via some “flavor” of CEM (or SEM, if you use KANA’s lingo), but more than a quarter are currently deploying or have finished deploying a CEM program. Another 30% have a CEM strategy and presumably are ready to go once funding is in place.

  
  What about your organization? With pundits such as Forrester recommending companies keep customer experience top of mind in the current economic climate and some evidence that companies with improving customer service scores can actually boost their share price (see discussion and table in BusinessWeek), are you looking at experience management as an area of investment for the remainder of 2009 and beyond?

   

• Allen Bonde 04:55:25 pm on April 16, 2009 | 0 | # |
  Tags: customer experience management, Knowledge Management, Self-Service

  Hello again!

  It’s been exactly one year since I kicked off the eVergance blog with the goal of sharing our thoughts on the state of customer service and support, looking at emerging best practices and technologies, and – hopefully – creating a community of interest which would be greater than the sum of its parts. After 8500 views, 80 posts and several hundred comments to this point, I think we have exceeded my expectations for our little exercise, and shown that there is a place for “evolved thinking” in the Blogosphere!

  I want to thank Esteban for his contributions, insights and wit in nurturing our blog over the past year, and while I don’t know if I can meet the standard (and expectations!) he has set, we have some great contributors and our team is looking forward to our second year of blogging and developing some additional themes as eVergance and KANA go down the exciting and uncharted path of Service Experence Management.

  At the same time, I’d like to re-oriented our focus a bit to get back to basics, if you will. Just as the three-martini lunch has gone out of style in today’s business climate, I think we have to remember why we are here and re-focus on some of the core questions around effective service delivery, such as:

  • what are the remaining efficiency killers in the call center? (we think KM is one solution, and it’s great to see Michael Maoz’s recent post with a similar theme)
  • how do we deliver service on our customer’s terms – while still maintaining control and visibility?
  • how do we find the right mix of channels, and leverage all our investments in systems and content to this point?

  I know there are a lot more questions we have and will tackle. I hope you will continue to check in, offer your suggestions and feedback, and pass on a good word if you like what you see. Look for additional bloggers joining the fun as we ramp up our plans for the remainder of 2009, and we’ll try to provide more frequent, punchier and more news-related posts as well.

  Thanks for reading!
  Allen Bonde, eVergance CMO

   
• 

  Esteban Kolsky 07:00:40 am on April 13, 2009 | 5 | # |
  Tags: CRM, Customer, Customer Experience, customer experience management, customer first, customer loyalty, customer service, experience management, loyalty, Voice of the Customer

  Customer First? or Customer Only?

  Been reading a lot lately, trying to get caught up after spending so much time in the trenches doing some real work.  Almost everywhere I turn I read about “Customer First”.  Putting the customer first, or ahead of everything else you do.  Why, there is even an entity in the UK that is called Customer First to ensure UK organizations remain true to their customers.  Closer to home, Continental Airlines has been talking about the great results of their Customer First initiative, as well as Northwest Airlines (which merged with Delta recently, another Customer First organization) and even an organization as distinct as the City of San Antonio has gotten on board.

  With all these people you’d think that customer first is all it takes to succeed – but I would like to bring up a more interesting point: it is not about putting the customer first, it is about making the customer the ONLY reason for your existence.  Putting the customer first means that there are other things to distract you from your commitment to your customer.  Making the customer the only thing means that their needs will supersede all others.  It may seem a trivial difference, and hair-splitting semantically speaking, but think about it for a second…

  Do you want to commit all your resources to making your customers happy – or just the ones you can spare?

   

• Esteban Kolsky 03:22:06 pm on April 7, 2009 | 0 | # |
  Tags: CEM, CRM, customer experience management, customer service, experience management, Self-Service, Technology of Business

  How is that “new” customer service going?

  Some time ago I wrote about this “new” customer service brought on by the economic downturn.  I said back then that these moves were not based on core, sound principles and thus they would not last long.  It takes three weeks for people, and between six and eight weeks for corporations, to make a habit stick (think new years resolutions and the time when they affirmed or broken – or rather, how your gym seems to be more empty in Februay than it was in January).  We are a little bit past that time now — how is that new customer service working?

  My perspective? I started seeing some complains come across twitter for customer service problems that had gone away and are now coming back, and I began to hear again from our customers about overloading their systems, how they can reduce the costs of supporting clients with longer handle times, and whether it is a good idea to have those automated and electronic systems put back into action.  In other words, we are going back to normal.  Just as Will Smith said in “I, Robot” when they learned that the robots that were supposed to serve are actually trying to take over the world — “Somehow I told you so just doesn’t say it”.

  Remember, to make changes stick you need to change the core – not just the surface… What are you seeing out there? Am I wrong?

   

• Esteban Kolsky 04:59:51 pm on April 6, 2009 | 1 | # |
  Tags: CEM, channel, CIH, CRM, customer experience management, customer service, Experience, multi channel customer service, multi-channel

  Do Unto Others, or The Golden Rule in Customer Service

  There is one major problem with customer service setups today -each channel is treated differently, yet we expect customers to have seamless, similar experiences across all of them.  The flaw in this reasoning, it is nearly impossible with normal resources to manage any one channel properly – less along two, three, four or more.  You want to replicate, centralize, and leverage as much as you can to bring into action the economies of scale.

  A client of mine who undertook the painful and lengthy process of mimicking in all channels what they were doing in their most successful one (telephone) was able to increase customer satisfaction by almost 30 points in a standard business cycle (one calendar quarter in their case) for most of their channels.  Even telephone, which had not changed, received higher scores.

  Similarly, another client decided not to undertake the “huge burden” (their words) of centralizing channels or even replicatiing workflows and rules. As a result, they ended up spending almost 20%+ year after year for supporting separate channels.  This caused them to rethink their strategy of suppoorting separate channels and actually drop some of the channels they were supporting.  Yes, this is the opposite of what you want to do if you want to increase customer satisfaction.

  Are you supporting all your channels as a single channel?

   

• Esteban Kolsky 06:49:27 am on March 3, 2009 | 7 | # |
  Tags: CEM, CRM, customer experience management, customer service, experiences, Feedback Management, service, service and support, Voice of the Customer

  The End of Customer Experience Management?

  My former colleague at Gartner, and good friend, Ed Thompson is an exceptional analyst.  He probably did more to advance the understanding and knowledge of Customer Experience Management that just about anyone else in this world.  He is the one who got me more interested in this aspect of life, and we wrote a lengthy paper together on how to do CEM properly which is still one of the best read documents at Gartner.  He used to have a set of slides to explain Experiences that was outstanding, and in one of those slides he had examples of people paying more money for more exotic experiences.  For example, people that would pay more to go to an ultra-luxurious hotel instead of a 5-star hotel – just for the added experiences.  He reasoned that customers were willing to spend more in better experiences and if you provide better experiences to your customers you can then charge more and justify the cost of the extra benefits.

  I  agree with the concept, and I have helped countless clients do just that.  They enjoyed great benefits for their commitment to the idea of providing a superior experience at the same or higher cost, and their customers saw that and gladly paid for it.  Fast forward to today’s depressed economic situation (no, I did not say depression – we are a long way from that).  I wrote an entry last month about how some companies are realizing these days that they need to preserve their customers and they need to improve customer service with better experiences.  Back then I said that this behavior probably would not last the downturn, and as soon as things got back to “normal” and revenues increased these “new” experiences were gone and service would go back to what it was.  Service providers had not made the necessary investments in superior experiences, they merely had more time to provide better service (less customers, more time spent per customer).

  I have been thinking lately about all this and where does it end, or where does it go.  My conclusion? Regardless of the outcome of these economic hard times, customer experience management is approaching its long, but certain, end.  Hear me out.  I was listening to the radio today and someone was talking about “the thrift syndrome”, whereas people in bad situations committed to saving money and change their lifestyles, spend less in the future regardless of their situation (the theory is that they lived well with less they’ll continue those habits to be ready for the next downturn).

  Now, this is where it all comes together… 1) people spend more money for a better experience, 2) companies see they can provide a better experience without spending oodles in customer experience management, and 3) “the thrift syndrome”… get it? people will spend less and won’t care about the experience, companies will do better without caring about the experience – and we have the end of customer experience management!

  What are your thoughts?  Am I wrong? Am I a sophist in the making?

   

• Esteban Kolsky 03:58:39 pm on February 2, 2009 | 0 | # |
  Tags: CRM, customer experience management, customer service, enteprise feedback management, Experience, Feedback Management, surveys, Voice of the Customer

  Surveys Done Right – Part 3 – Survey Best Practices

  OK, on to part 3 – best practice for surveys.

  I have been working on and off on this topic for a while, updating it and making sure it was still valid.  This is the knowledge I have gained over the years of doing surveys.  Enjoy, and do let me know what you think of it.

  Know What You Want. It is essential to know before crafting the survey what information you need to get out of it. Most surveys look for customer satisfaction, others are trying to determine how to improve the delivery of service. Yet others may be trying to determine the effectiveness of a certain service or program. The most important thing to know is that each of these goals should be unique and single – one survey per goal, with documentation before you release it.

  Determine Effectiveness. Survey methods will be unique for each channel (for example, Web, e-mail, phone) and customer segment (geography/postal code, age, gender,  buying/service patterns). Each customer segment is unique and will react to channels and survey methods differently. For example, a customer registering a newly installed personal computer may or may not have a readily available Internet connection during the registration process. A survey that requires customers to go online to complete an installation satisfaction survey may be an annoyance. However, the addition of a simple question, such as “Connected to Internet?” or “Store survey results until next Internet logon?” will advance the process. Effective surveys are delivered at the conclusion of a service interaction via the same channel as the service provided.

  Adhere to the “KISS” Principle. The keep it short and simple (KISS) principle applies to these surveys. Customers are more likely to complete a survey when the time to completion is explicitly displayed at the beginning of the process, the purpose of the survey is clearly stated and the use of information is defined. For example: “To help us improve our service to you in the future, please participate in our satisfaction survey. The survey will take less than one minute, and no information specific to you will be shared or distributed to any third party.” We recommend no more than three to seven questions per survey, one common topic, and short and succinct wording. Furthermore, to make it easier to answer and to tally responses, multiple-choice answers are recommended. Writing questions is a complex and iterative process. The most critical step in the survey process is to test questions. Before implementation, survey questions should be tested in focus groups, followed by a small pilot survey run and measured against a real customer base for a short period.

  Ensure Consistent Gathering. Hand-picking the “right” respondents to achieve higher scores is a common problem when gathering responses. For example, enterprises that discard participant data because the customer appears upset, not in the right frame of mind, biased or not really friendly rob themselves of critical insight and end up with skewed results. Customers who are the least “friendly” or sympathetic are often the most honest in their responses and central to a better understanding of where service delivery may be failing. Survey response gathering should be done consistently, either to all subjects in the target group (if feasible) or by following a predetermined random algorithm that will be applied to all customers (for example, every fourth caller into a Web site or call center).

  Read the Answers. More than 60 percent of enterprises generate a single data point from a survey – one that usually supports their original view of the level of customer service satisfaction – and ignore an analysis of the possible implications of the data. A well-designed survey will reveal trends, patterns and outright new information that are valuable to improving the customer service operation. This information should be used as part of an EFM system (read “Finally, A Definition for EFM“) to better understand, know and serve customers.

  Act on the Information. Even the best surveys, designed and executed with the best of intentions, are a waste of effort unless a set of specific actions is put in place to respond to customer input.  Alas, the majority of organizations fail to change the customer service organization or workflows based on survey results. Conducting a survey just to know where things are will upset customers who believe that the survey is intended to improve things. An enterprise that surveys customers but fails to act on the data will actually damage the relationship with the customers more than if they had never been surveyed. Even if the only purpose of the survey is to capture the status of customer satisfaction, customers should be given the opportunity to suggest specific input as to how they would like to see interactions improved. In all cases, the end result should be the same: Whatever needs to be fixed should be fixed, and what should be improved must be improved.

  Repeat It. Improvements to the customer experience happen through an iterative process. Responses captured once will be inadequate for determining a trend. If we don’t know whether customers are more satisfied today than last quarter, we are bound to lose customers, and the purpose of the survey will be lost. At periodic business cycles (such as quarterly), as determined by the business, the survey should be repeated, and all the above steps should be done again – including knowing what we want from the survey.

  Let Customers Know. Improvements to customer service as a result of customer feedback should be communicated back to the customers. Let them know that their input is taken seriously and used. Few organizations that conduct surveys do this, yet it is a critical part of customer experience management and of EFM strategies, and it should be done to encourage future participation from customers and to improve customer loyalty.

  So, what do you think?  Am I missing something?  Of course, the bottom line is that you should only do this as part of anEFM strategy… right?

   

• Esteban Kolsky 02:04:52 am on January 25, 2009 | 5 | # |
  Tags: CRM, Customer Experience, customer experience management, customer satisfaction, customer satisfaction surveys, customer service, customers, enterprise feedback management, Experience, feedback, surveys, Voice of the Customer

  Surveys Done Right – Part 2 – Customer Satisfaction

  I have been dreading writing this entry since I came up with the idea for the series (have you read part 1 yet?).  It is not that I don’t know what to say, or that I don’t want to do it.  It is simply that my fear of providing “sample” survey that will later become “real surveys” for all people without customization or personalization really, really takes hold in this arena.  I mean, who has not had to write a customer satisfaction survey in the past?  It is probably the most used, misunderstood, and poorly implemented of all surveys out there.

  If we go by the surveys that I have seen, customer satisfaction surveys should only have one question since that is what most people care about anyways: “overall, how satisfied are you with us?”.  It seems that if the customer says they are overall satisfied then there are no problems.  Further, as long as we get a sufficient number of customers to say they are satisfied (somewhere in the mid-70s to mid-80s), and the number remains consistent or (gasp) even grows a little  we are perfectly set from the customer experience, loyalty, and satisfaction point of view.  After all, if 80% of people are satisfied – isn’t that good?  Well, yes and no.  I wrote about how you can ensure you will get a 90% of more in customer satisfaction surveys in the past (second most popular post in this site).  It is possible to score high – even increase your scores, and not be doing a good job.

  So, before we jump into the description of the survey and the sample questions (and before I beg you again to personalize and customize them), let’s make sure we understand one thing about this survey.  This “sample” survey is not intended to tell you how many people like you.  It is intended to, historically, provide a trending line of your customer satisfaction overall – but more important it is intended to give you real answers to partial satisfaction questions (e.g. were satisfied with the speed of the answer?) in accordance to your strategy (you do have one of those right?).  Finally, consider that I used these questions for customers that have customer satisfaction as a key metric and part of the insight.  I still believe that customer satisfaction is too flawed as a metric to be used reliably (also read this one), but a trending report cannot hurt – as it wouldn’t with any other metric.

  Too many words to get here, so here are the the essentials of a customer satisfaction survey (part 3 of this series, best practices for writing surveys – stay tuned!):

  • First, the most important part – KISS (keep it short and simple).  I use the rule of 5+/-2 (five, plus or minus two), with five being the magic number, and three and seven the limits.
  • Second, you MUST personalize the questions to the specific items you want to measure satisfaction on – which is why there are some questions below to use, but they may not fit what you are looking for.  Tie your questions to your strategy
  • Third, send them out every business cycle (varies by industry and function), and make sure you use panel management tools so you won’t keep sending them to the same person over and over (we know what they think – no one should get more than one a year), and that you don’t send them to people who won’t respond.
  • Fourth, statistical significance is great for market research or election day polls, not so much on customer satisfaction.  Make sure you get a large enough number to make it varied (I suggest at least between 3-4% of the population) and I am talking responses – not invitations.
  • Fifth, make sure you use the same questions the next time you send them out (yes, exactly the same wording) so you can keep historical trends.  Remember, customer satisfaction is an OK metric to keep as long as you use it as a historical trending metric, not a KPI

  Those are the basic rules for these surveys, but more will arise as you begin to implement them.  Of course, best practices for EFM and Surveys apply, so those are to be considered as well.  Now, without further ado, the list of questions I’d like to propose for your consideration:

  1. Overall, what is your satisfaction with Company XYZ? (hate this question, but it is an easy one to answer)

  Now, this question is to be answered in a numerical scale, I favor a scale of 1-4, you can use whatever works for your objectives.  A scale of 1-10 is popular with people who endorse NPS (Net Promoter Score), but I don’t buy into that.  A different way to ask this questions, which I prefer, is:

  1. Overall, would you say you are satisfied with Company XYZ?

  This question is answered with a simple YES-NO.  Why do I like this question? Two things, first the wording predisposes the respondent to say yes (which is a positive score).  Second, you can setup your scripts to react in the case of a negative answer – and since the question predisposes the respondent to say yes, when someone says NO they really mean it.

  From the following questions, pick some of the ones that reflect your objectives, vision, strategy, and purpose for this survey.  Remember, personalization and customization are highly encouraged – so if these don’t fit your needs go ahead and change them accordingly.

  2.1.  What is your satisfaction with Company XYZ web site / self-service solution?

  2.2. What is your satisfaction with Company XYZ representatives on the phone?

  2.3. What is your satisfaction with Product ABC from Company XYZ?

  2.4. What is your satisfaction with Company XYZ return policies?

  2.5. What is your satisfaction with Company XYZ use of email for customer service?

  Well, you get the idea.  Keep in mind that how you ask the question is going to depend on the answer, and see Q1 above to see some examples of different ways to write the questions.  Needless to say, again, the questions you chose for the second part are related to your specific, strategic goals and are bound to change for your survey.

  This is the longest post I wrote since we started this blog, but I wanted to make sure it was clear and explicit.  There is, of course, lots more to read and write about customer feedback, customer service, customer satisfaction… well, anything dealing with customers.  You will read more and we move along – but how do you like this post?  Interesting? Are you using it?  Please let me know your thoughts and experiences… and thanks for reading!

   

•  

  November 2009

  M	T	W	T	F	S	S
  « Oct
  						1
  2	3	4	5	6	7	8
  9	10	11	12	13	14	15
  16	17	18	19	20	21	22
  23	24	25	26	27	28	29
  30

• Search for:

• Pages

  • About

• Blogroll

  • Church of the Customer
  • CRM Mastery
  • Customer Experience Crossroads
  • Customers Are Always
  • Customers Rock!
  • First Coffee
  • Jive talks
  • Marketing 2.0
  • Ragsdale’s Eye on Service
  • The Invisible Crowd
  • Think Customers
  • WordPress.com

• eVergance

  • Contact info
  • Home page

• Industry resources

  • CIO.com
  • CRM Magazine
  • CSI
  • SearchCRM.com

• Tags

  best practices CEM Collaboration Communities contact center content management CRM Customer customer acquisition customer acquisition costs customer centric Customer Experience customer experience management customer loyalty customer relationship management customer satisfaction customer service Customer Support efm email enteprise feedback management enterprise feedback management erms Experience experience management feedback Feedback Management forums KM knowledge Knowledge Management LinkedIn loyalty process satisfaction scorecard search Self-Service service experience SSPA strategy surveys user generated content Voice of the Customer Web 2.0

• Recent Comments

  • Hype or Hyper-Measurement? « on Evidence Based Service-The How is harder than the Why
  • Chill on Customer Support Myths…Or are they really myths?
  • kate leggett on Customer Support Myths…Or are they really myths?
  • Esteban Kolsky on Customer Support Myths…Or are they really myths?
  • New Contributors Joining our Blog « KANA Global Consulting Services Blog on About

• Blog at WordPress.com
  Prologue theme by Automattic