Neglect of the customer experience
Verint Consulting have recently published a white paper detailing the consistent neglect of the customer experience.
The research was based on an international study by Ventana Research. They found that although 81% of businesses agree that their customer experience is paramount to loyalty, and advocacy, and spend, less than 35% use an effective measure to analyse their company’s interaction with customers.
Only 34% of companies have a standard documented process to determine the customer experience delivered; and over 65% do not have measures in place for supervising multi-channel interactions. This figure rises for web and IVR-based self-service.
Therefore, companies are missing customer acquisition opportunities by undermining the value of quantifying this variable. Helen Murray, Verint Consulting’s Director explains, “Customer satisfaction has proved to be a poor indicator of a customer’s true feelings or intentions. Nevertheless, in the absence of a viable alternative, organizations have dutifully persevered with it, investing time, energy and resource to improve their scores. They have done so despite the fact that they can make no reliable correlation between those scores, their customers’ subsequent behaviour and their own business performance.”
Customer behaviour is a key marker for business development, setting targets, and achieving them. Measuring this by managing feedback on the customer experience is a direct tool to do this.
Verint Consulting conclude there are five steps to improving the management of customer experience:
1. Identify customer interaction characteristics
2. Design interaction handling procedures that reinforce the positive customer outcomes.
3. Implement a quality management process that monitors correlations.
4. Use organization-wide customer centricity to directly influence design, manufacturing, marketing etc.
5. Use the information for customer-focused action.
Murray concludes that the more positive the customer experience, the greater the positive impact on business value. It is an area that business can no longer afford to neglect.
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Many of the issues surrounding the customer experience provide very little to the correlation of what really matters and that is the integration of sales, marketing and customer service. Each area fully integrates with the other yet so many organizations operate in microcosms.
To embody the experience organizations must realize that 1) the sales professional is the most imperative person in the process. Sales professionals have more the 55% influence in the client purchase decision and this accounts for a majority of the experience.
Organizations should refrain from the metrics and simply gain qualitative feedback from customer focus groups, shadowing and even secret shopping. These valuable experiences will denote differentiation in the industry and amongst competition.
Finally, there is one area that cannot be measured- passion. Organizations simply must create a passionate and optimistic atmosphere for the client experience. Exemplars include Disney, FedEx, Southwest Airlines, etc. Passion is innate and is difficult to measure however a client can discern organizational empathy amongst competitors. Our advice, refrain from constant measurement, review these vital techniques and seek the best advice from whom matters most- your client.
Drew Stevens PhD
http://www.drewstevensconsulting.com