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/

Research projects help organisations gain a better understanding of the part of the business they are researching…

It could be an organisations customer segments, purchasing behaviour or even the sentiments held by your customers, an organisation is always better informed to make better decisions when the basis of their decisions are centred around the core of the organisational challenge at hand.

For example, your organisation may want to increase sales, the effectiveness of marketing campaigns or the ability of their call centre reps.  In all cases, having a clearer understanding of the customer is key to success of any improvements you make to achieve operational excellence.

But how can an organisation ensure the initiatives and steps it takes generates new revenue, increases efficiency and benefits the organisation as a whole?

Building a Business Case

Building a business case for your research programme helps your organisation set goals and objectives which can in turn, be clearly communicated to members in your team and senior leaders.

It also helps the organisation as whole understand the benefits of running such programmes and ways it will increase the likelihood of reaching top level goals such as retaining customers, reducing customer acquisition costs as well as taking steps to influence a higher share of customer spend.

As buying decisions generally affect departments across the whole structure of an organisation, it is important that you gather support for you initiative and this only comes when you have the ability to communicate it’s organisational benefits, its payback period and expected return on investment.

In turn, this will help you build confidence and credibility around the initiative that you’re trying to push through…

The key points to use in your report here should focus on…

• Which benchmark metrics are you going to use?
• What are the expectations you need to communicate?
• How will you gain the acceptance of the initiative by management?
• Can we create a scalable model for measuring success of improvements made?

Download your ROI worksheet here

Case Study

Taking our clients as an example, we helped design a research programme around enhancing the customer experience delivered by the organisation but more precisely focusing on the quality and training surrounding their call centre staff.

With our online dashboard, they were able to visually recognise that the quality delivered by call centre representatives differed greatly from across the globe…

The result? The organisation was better informed, and make decisions on tangible facts.  In this case they were able to re-route their customer support calls from the UK and US which averaged on £10 to £12 a call to Hungary which equated to £8 a call whilst at the same time, maintaining the quality of service that their customers expected.

This helped the organisation make a £4 saving per call which resulted in a win-win for both the customer and the organisation.

By building this picture around call centre quality, price and customer expectations, they were able to see and measure the effectiveness of the changes made over time using the initial data gathered as a baseline measurement.

What do you think? have something to say? Feel free to discuss this article below..

Measuring customer satisfaction is an integral building block for any organisation wanting to leverage the knowledge gained from customer insight programmes.

Depending on your end goal, survey research can help your organisation to gather and understand information surrounding your customers, employees and key stakeholder groups in order to design relevant and effective processes, technology, management structures and programmes centred on the needs of group being studied.

In a world where competitive intelligence is just a click away, it has become increasingly important for organisations to use alternative bases of differentiation to set themselves apart from the crowd and create sustainable streams of revenue.

We’re all still feeling the after effects of the financial recession and some say that the worst it still yet to come… but how can we, as business owners, entrepreneurs, executives and professionals steer our way out of these turbulent times and into a phase of growth, stability and profit generation?

Well…  although there are several answers on how this dilemma could be answered, in today’s article, I hope to cut through some of the noise surrounding the all things “experience” and lay out some of the key insights I have learnt so far on my journey.

So does your organisation have the X-periential factor? No matter where your organisation is on its journey, the keys to creating the ultimate experience for your customers has to start with a customer centric culture and its fit between its people, processes, technology and awareness of what the customer really thinks of your organisation. Moreover, it is the alignment or convergence between the customers expectations and organisation internal perceptions of service delivery that really create fruitful and profitable relationships.

Experiential Marketing

So what exactly is Experiential Marketing anyway?? In a recent conversation with Sally Durcan from Hot Cow Experiential Marketing, she explains that…

So how can I use this in my organisation?

Creating a branded experience for your customers is a great way to engage them into your organisation and show them that you are there to really serve their needs and make them happy.

So how can you use this in your organisation? Well… it’s almost impossible to give a “one size fits all” blueprint as every organisation is configured differently and stand for different things but here are some top examples from some brand names you may recognise to inspire you.

Stay Tuned for my blog on Thursday where I’ll tie in where customer experience sits, why it’s different from experiential marketing and how they can both work together to generate revenue for your organisation…

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…