For many companies, the economic outlook for 2011 is somewhat of an uncertain one.

Economic recoveries in their early stages of growth are normally rocky and it’s not out of the ordinary to see fluctuations in growth from quarter to quarter.

This has been echoed by previous recoveries, with the quarterly rises in GDP fluctuating from zero to 1.5% in the first three years of the 1980s recovery and from -0.2% to 1.4% in the equivalent period when the UK economy was recovering in the early 1990s.  [1.]

Over the last month, we have seen a deluge of news stories highlighting the uncertainty in the economy with declining sales for retail stores such as John Lewis, Unilever, WH Smith, Halfords, and Mothercare with Dixons, HMV and Clinton Cards being the hardest hit of all posting profits warnings to their shareholders. [7,8.]

These economic pressures coupled with new, enabling technologies and shifting consumer tastes have changed the business landscape for many organisations and have given rise to a new breed of customer who are intelligent, savvy and no longer buy from brands with big budgets but more so from brands they can trust and depend on.

To meet the demands of this new, sophisticated customer, many organisations are paying significantly more attention in retaining their existing customers by analysing the drivers behind why consumer tastes are changing so rapidly and how best they can adapt.

The Multi Channel Approach

One such idea, gaining momentum, is that of the “unified customer view” which essentially involves mapping the customers experience over an organisation’s touch points and adapting them to better suit the needs and expectations of your customers.

In a recent report published by PwC titled “Meeting the demands of the new multi-channel shopper”, they discuss how:

“Increased access to information and a broader set of offers means consumers can now pick and choose how they research, buy and receive their purchases to suit their individual needs.

This has led to distinct changes in the way consumers’ shop – particularly how and why they use store space – which are now shaping the UK retail landscape, and the balance of power in the sector.” PriceWaterhouseCoopers [2.]

So how can organisations make sure they remain competitive in these uncertain times?

In a survey of US and UK business thinkers, Customer Service Measurement Ltd found that 71% of people surveyed regarded a word class response to customer feedback to fall within the “Real-time to 1 hour category” whereas 29% felt as though a world class response fell in the “1-5 days category”. (Sample of 50 respondents) [3.]

A leading practioner using this approach is Coca-Cola where real-time access to customer data allows Coke to develop deeper insight into people’s true motives.

Instead of looking at the past to predict the future, Coke can look at, and make sense of, real-time customer feedback using it to display the right message, in the right media, to the right consumer segment, in a specific geography, at the right time. [4.]

Looking at the broader picture, it is important to remember that a real-time response to a customer complaint is only one factor of a world class experience, and other indicators such as quality of response, time to resolve the issue and the time it takes to connect to a human within the organisation are equally important.

Ultimately, taking your time to respond appropriately is far better for customers than responding quickly and then falling short.

Developing a World Class Customer Experience

Developing and delivering a “World Class Experience” can tie up organisational resources due to the vast amounts of data generated from systems that need to be maintained manually in order to analyse and report back to management teams effectively.

“Now that multiple channels have become the norm, the complexity of the reporting challenge is ballooning, as managers are spending inordinate amounts of time collating data from each channel in Excel spread sheets.” Karl Reed – Marketing Director for Elingo [5.]

To overcome this hurdle, organisations are investing in operational and customer dashboards in order to free up time to spend on higher priorities and respond to customer feedback within a world class time i.e. “Real-Time to 1 hour”

If you’re thinking about investing in a dashboard, you have to make sure that it reports the right data and in the right way, enabling meaningful assessments and decisions to drive your organisation forward in line with your customer expectations and future needs.

When it comes to dashboards Russell Swanborough founder of ScIAM reflects:

“A dashboard is nice like a cup of tea is nice. The more dials, the more you think you are managing. In a sense that is true but it is only partly true.

There is a mantra chanted by the computer literate that goes, “If you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it”. This is true, but it is only half of the mantra.

The information literate add, “If you don’t set it, you won’t get it”. Don’t believe that if you tell me how you will measure me that it will magically also tell me what I have to do. It won’t.

You can’t know where you need to go and get there by looking only at the dashboard.

Be specific, provide a corporate windscreen as well as a corporate dashboard and your grip on the corporate steering wheel will be considerably more steady and sure.” [6.]

As more and more organisations adopt the multi-channel approach to drive new business through the doors of their retail stores, early adopters are effectively utilising customer dashboards as part of their new tool box to consolidate the vast amounts of data generated from the variety of customer channels they use and grow gracefully in to the new retailer paradigm.

CSM is a renowned supplier of real-time customer insight research and dashboards.  To book a 30 minute consultation with our Customer Champion Oakleigh Wood, please email research@csmsurveys.com or call direct on 0800 970 9940.

References:

1. Bank of England “Let it grow: how monetary policy can support sustainable economic growth” Speech given by Andrew Sentance, External Member of the Monetary Policy Committee, Bank of England To the CBI East of England Annual Lunch, Suffolk; 22 March 2011, http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/speeches/2011/speech483.pdf
   
2. PricewaterhouseCoopers “Pick ‘n’ Mix: Meeting the demands of the new multi-channel shopper” Article/Report, 19th April 2011, http://www.pwc.co.uk/eng/publications/multichannel.html
   
3. Customer Service Measurement Ltd “Poll: What is a world class response time to customer feedback?” 20th April 2011, http://linkd.in/g3DSoH
   
4. ScribeMedia “Coca-Cola Taps Into Real-time Social Data” Interview with Joseph Tripodi, EVP and Chief Marketing & Commercial Officer of The Coca-Cola Company, Article by Peter Cervieri, 18th April 2011, http://www.scribemedia.org/2011/04/18/coca-cola-taps-into-real-time-social-data/
   
5. ITWeb “Info overload haunts call centres” By Admire Moyo, 5th April 2011, http://www.itweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=42640:info-overload-haunts-call-centres&catid=69
   
6. LinkedIn | BP Group “Customer Dashboards… are they good or bad?” By Russell Swanborough founder of ScIAM, 20th March 2011, http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Customer-Dashboards-are-they-good-1062077.S.46141814?qid=b28d7bce-c92d-4bcb-bcf6-fcb20a108b64&goback=.gmp_1062077
   
7. Independent “Retailers report struggling profits”, 7^th April 2011, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/retailers-report-struggling-profits-2264597.html
8. Brand Republic “Unilever plans further cost reductions after inflation warning”, 28^th April 2011, http://www.brandrepublic.com/news/1067383/unilever-plans-further-cost-reductions-inflation-warning/

Are your customers truly satisfied? Do they come back time and time again singing your praises and referring new business to you?

Is there an area of your organisation that you could improve that you are currently unable to see?

If so, this could indicate that there is a misalignment between the internal thinking within your organisation i.e. the perception of satisfactory service delivery and external thinking held by the perceptions of the customer once they have transacted and experience working with your organisation…

So why are satisfied customers so important?

It is fairly known within the customer service arena that a satisfied customer is a happy customer… and we all know that if our customers are happy, then they will be more likely to purchase more from us, tell their friends about what a great service they’ve had and refer new business to us.  Having a strong customer base in this way is integral for any organisations long term survival and sustainability as it ensures that the organisation will live on through the generations and explore new markets.

However, reaching this fine balance between the customer and organisation can be easier said than done as with any market, the customers that you are addressed will be made up from a wide variety of customer groups and their needs regarding your product/service will vary depending on how they aim to put it to use.

I think Theodore Levitt summed it up best when he said that

“People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!”

But if you had more than one product you were selling, say a portfolio, each targeted at different segments of the market, then it immediately becomes apparent that shaping your organisations resources to be more customer centric can be much more of challenge.

To develop this further, your organisation may already be delivering a quality service to the majority of your customer base but say a minority of customers had an issue with, the voice of these customer could shed light on how best to innovate your products/services and also, re-align your customer satisfaction processes to increase satisfaction across the board.

So what are the different types of customer feedback?

In a general sense, there are two types of customer feedback your organisation can use in it’s customer satisfaction programmes… they are:

Positive Customer Feedback:

• Helps define best practices in service delivery and  quality control
• Delivers the Voice of the Customer into the Organisation
• Allows management teams to apply the right resources in the right areas of the business

Negative Customer Feedback:

• Helps define change management programmes
• Identifies gaps between customer expectations and service delivery
• Identifies inefficient or in-appropriate business processes

Reshaping Organisational Thinking

In the fast paced business world we work in today, there can be tendency to focus on short term goals and measurement metrics that help deliver a ROI in an as short a time as possible, but to make a sustainable business that transcends across generations and delivers a long term ROI, your organisation will ultimately need to invest into areas of the organisation that improve the customer experience across the board to ensure that your organisation foresees changes in customer buying preferences and trends and pip you competitors to the post before they can take the opportunity to meet your customer expectations.

So how should an organisation view a customer satisfaction programme?

Scholars and academics have maintained the fact that a highly satisfied customers can contribute more to an organisations revenue generation programme as they are more likely to talk about your organisation in a positive light, refer more business to you, purchase more goods and services as well as stay with your organisation as it evolves over time.  It is these advocates of your service that are the most important customer groups to your organisation as it shows that the way your organisation communicates and delivers its products or service are closely aligned to the needs and buying preferences of your customers.

With top management teams stressing about meeting short term objectives and meeting targets/quotas means that all too often, investing into a customer satisfaction programme gets left on the back burner… however, tipping this perception on it’s head shows us that investing into a customer experience/satisfaction programme should not be accounted as organisational cost, but more as a long term investment that will return positively to your bottom line i.e. an ROI

But sometimes this isn’t the case…

Sometimes, organisations can see growth in revenue whilst there is a drop in customer satisfaction.  But why does this occur?

One of the reasons I have looked into around this phenomena is that although an organisation may be experiencing growth in revenue, this also attracts many more customer groups who also choose to buy from you.

Moreover, as the characteristics of these new customer groups may be beneficial for an organisations growth, or even survival, the leadership functions within these organisations need to recognise these new customer groups also attract a new customer expectations that an organisation needs to address.

Quite often, this can be the trigger point for where gaps between service delivery, customer support and the customers expectations occur so wouldn’t it be nice if you could nip these in the bud before gaps widen?

However, once the Voice of the Customer starts filtering through an organisations decision making processes and a reconfiguration and restructuring programmes are deployed in order to manage these new customer expectations, organisations can then focus on optimising their business processes around raising the quality of customer satisfaction to in effect, make longer terms savings in service delivery and retain customers for longer thus increasing the value of the customer for the organisation.

Long Term Organisational Benefits

• Increased word of mouth
• Satisfied customers retained for longer
• Referral sales
• Increased cross sell opportunities.
• Increased loyalty
• Increased retention

No matter what market you operate in, you could be a marketing manager, a clinician, an , a student or an employee of any organisation.  Promoting positive customer satisfaction programmes throughout your enterprise can bring the voice of the group into your planning process and grow your organisation with your customers instead of without them.

Customer satisfaction surveys are an often overlooked tool organisations can use to uncover the insight they need to visualise, measure and improve the intangible factors that are associated with influencing customer satisfaction delivered by an organisation.

Moreover, one of the biggest benefits associated with running a customer satisfaction programme is that it can give your organisation reliable, accurate and actionable statistics to show to directors, managers and decision makers to measure how your organisation performs on satisfying your customers.  More importantly however, it identify areas that you are performing well at and help you shape training programmes to create a winning culture of success across customer interactions and touch points.

For example, in a call centre, you may want to measure the customer service request rate along with the call resolution rate identify how your agents are performing over time and reward your best employees appropriately.  On the other hand, in public sector organisations, you may want to measure local crime rates and measure how the public perceive the resolution of these issues.

It’s all about the Detail…

Central to any organisations pursuit for profits are its’ key customer groups.  Servicing their needs, surpassing their expectations and fulfilling promises are key to creating sustainable revenue streams through brand loyalty, customer advocacy and sales via referral and in today’s tough business landscape, it is more important now, than ever to keep our customers satisfied and delighted.

Whether your goals are to increase market share or close more sales through your marketing efforts, you will always need insight from your customers to align your organisation to market needs, shifts in consumer trends and guide your organisation on the right trajectories of growth.

In a nutshell, customer satisfaction surveys are a great way for organisations to utilise the power of market research and truly understand the reasons why customers choose to buy from you, what they value the most about your organisation and more importantly, gather valuable competitive intelligence about your competitors to identify areas of your service offering which need to be improved in terms of your customers’ needs, wants and desires.

Benefits for Customer Satisfaction Surveys

“There are known knowns; there are things we know we know, we also know there are known unknowns”

Originally said by Donald Rumsfeld from a Press Conference at NATO Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium, June 6, 2002, this statement couldn’t be better to sum up the benefits that market research brings organisations.

From a top level, market research helps organisations gain the insight to allow managers and decision makers alike to reduce the associated risks in making difficult strategic decisions to make the organisation grow and to be closer aligned to meet your customers need of your existing or new products or services.

For customer centric organisations, the market research process is an intergral part in knowing opinions and thoughts on a product… but to delve in further, it can help managers and decision makers make decisions on how best to optimise their new products they are taking to market as well as shape the product concept, price point and identify communication channels which are best utilised to reach your customer groups.

In a nutshell, the role of market research helps solve the problem of bringing the voice of the customer into an organisation and and create and develop an up-to-date and relelvant portfoloio of products and services aligned to an identified set of customers wants, needs and preferences.

Applying a customer-centric philosophy throughout your organisation allows customers the opportunity to voice their opinions directly to an organisation so that their views are taken in account allowing a healthy amount of two way communication flow between your key customer groups and your organisation.  Interestingly, an in-direct benefit to this is the associated PR and Word or Mouth awareness you can build with your customer groups at the same time as your market research programmes.