MarketTools Blog

Last week I attended Customer Management IQ’s Customer Insight Week in Chicago, and had the opportunity to meet with leaders from around North America in the Voice of the Customer space. Although the speakers represented both B2B and B2C organizations across all major industries, there were some common themes across all of the presentations:

• Customer-facing employees are crucial to customer satisfaction:
  Or, as my 6th grade self would say, “duh.” But seriously, as obvious as this sounds, many, many organizations still don’t have structured programs in place to ensure customer-facing employees are given the tools, training and motivation to provide excellent customer service. Think about all the call centers you’ve reached where you still can’t get someone to answer a question or discuss a situation that's “off the script.” I was thrilled to hear that more and more organizations, including American Express and Best Buy, were no longer providing scripts to call center agents but instead focusing on extensive training that helps customer service agents, as American Express put it, “service a relationship, not a transaction.” They focus on hiring the right employees that are passionate about providing good customer service, knowing that they can teach the technical skills as long as the right attitude is present. In addition to smart hiring practices, they also changed the metrics to measure agents based on satisfaction scores instead of length of the call – helping to move people “from robots to ambassadors.”
• Significant ROI can be found in increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty:
  Organizations often struggle to understand the ROI of a Voice of the Customer program. It seems like the right thing to do, but where is the concrete evidence of an improved bottom line? Fortunately, as programs mature and more data is available to track over time, more and more companies are showing ROI for their VOC programs. American Express analyzed their “promoters” (customers who actively promote the company to others) and found that they were their most profitable set of customers – both in terms of spending more and costing less to retain. And Charles Schwab found that their “promoters” really do recommend their services – most new clients provide “referral from someone I trust” as the number one reason they chose Schwab. They even suggested that the budget normally spent on advertising could shift to spending on loyalty programs and customer service training since they see more tangible results from providing excellent customer service.
• Sharing and taking action are key:
  As the presenter from Charles Schwab put it, they initially had lots of surveys and lots of data, but no one was paying attention. Most companies ask for customer feedback in this day and age, but unfortunately many still don't use action management practices to follow up on the results of this feedback. Schwab’s mantra is “only ask if ready to act”, and they literally don’t bother asking questions they can’t do anything about.  As part of their Voice of the Customer program, managers now make all follow-up calls within 24 hours to close the loop with unhappy customers.
   
  In another presentation, MarketTools customer Philadelphia Insurance talked about sharing VOC results with customers, internal teams and individuals through different levels of customer feedback reporting that occur daily, weekly, monthly and annually. What’s more, their Regional Vice Presidents personally call all detractors—causing several initially upset customers to quickly back down from their original negative comments and become raving fans of the company.

These are just a few examples of how companies are getting real impact from their Voice of the Customer programs across several different types of industries. If you haven’t been to an industry event in this space, I highly recommend it as a great opportunity to share and learn from others! Next week we’ll be at the ICMI Call Center Conference and will return with more great tips to share!