Tag Archives: Customer

December 10, 2015 · 11:29 am

The Agent Or The Dentist?

Holiday time is supposed to be a joyous season.  This, of course, as long as you have no need to call customer service.  When that happens, it becomes a season of frustration and anger, at least according to the latest iteration of the Customer Service Report from the folks at Corvisa.  It doesn’t sound as if it will be a particularly happy time for the businesses in the receiving end of the calls either.  You can have a look at the complete report here.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

  • Consumers are getting fed up with poor customer service and, as a result, business livelihoods are at stake.
  • When it comes to customer service delivery, companies don’t get many chances to make a good impression.
  • Long hold times hurt the bottom line.
  • Robotic-sounding agents are undermining ROI.
  • Consumers don’t hold back when they’re angry, and often share their experiences with others.

I don’t know that there is anything particularly new about any of those findings, but the degree to which some are an issue might be. When 48% of respondents said they have stopped doing business with a company due to negative customer service experiences in the past year, it should give any business manager a reason to pause and think about half of the customers who call customer service walking away.  25% of Millennials say it takes only a single bad interaction to prompt them to jump.

The other point that hit me was the need to stay human.  I’ve supervised a business that had to deal with daily customer service calls.  There is a tendency to want to script everything so that every customer has the same experience and issues are anticipated and resolved.  The problem is that customers “hear” it’s a script.  We need to train agents with general guidelines and protocols and then let them deal with each situation in a more human way.

Customer service is still, for the most part, broken.  52% of survey respondents said they would rather shop with the crowds on Black Friday or go to the dentist than speak with customer service.  Does that sound like it’s working to you?

 

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October 8, 2015 · 9:31 am

Beyond The Data

If you’ve been reading along this week, it must seem as if I’m obsessing with data. While my inner nerd is peeking through a bit, that’s not my real obsession. The data I’ve been writing about is only one aspect of what is a primary business obsession of mine: customer retention. It ought to be one of yours too.

Simply put, the only two things that should be a primary focus of your business thinking are making great products (or services) and providing great service to customers. Why? Because those are the two keys to customer retention and customer retention is the key to a successful business.

There is lots of research on the value of keeping a customer versus acquiring a new one. According to research by Market Metrics, your success rate selling something to an existing customer is around 65 percent. The probability of converting a new prospect, on the other hand, is only 5 percent to 20 percent. If you’ve been servicing those customers well and providing great products, that’s a very believable finding since the folks that know you, love you. They spend more too: research says about a third more.

So why aren’t you spending more time thinking about customer retention and about how to cut down the churn rate? Probably because the data points you’re reporting as KPI’s are emphasizing customer base growth. There is a place in the dataset for acquisition information and an important one at that. But, for example. when Google reports that 25% of new app users leave after the first day they install an app, obviously new users can only take you so far. Are you looking at retention rates by acquisition channel? Didn’t think so.

Data is a tool, not a crutch.  The business is about growing and retaining customers.  There are lots of ways to do that but at the core of every one of them are a great product and even better service.  Is that what you can honestly say you have?

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February 18, 2015 · 12:57 pm

CX

Maybe this customer-centric thing is starting to sink in.  I’m encouraged by the results of a study put out by the eConsultancy folks in conjunction with SDL which explores how retailers are addressing customer experience, or CX for short.  From the results it seems that many retailers have figured out that price is just one factor in the purchase decision and that it is outweighed these days by how customers interact with the brand.  In fact, the report states that providing an exceptional customer experience is the single most important strategic choice that retailers can make now and in the years ahead. 89% of the retailers surveyed for this report agreed or strongly agreed to the statement “Our customer experience is our brand.”  It’s a good point for any business, retail-based or not.

Think about it.  A quick visit to a search engine can usually produce pricing comparisons but that same search engine tells you little or nothing about how the customer is treated.  If you’re researching a product, how complete and truthful are the product listings?  If there is a problem with your order or you have a question as you purchase, how helpful and responsive is the customer service?

Every business (even mine!) has customers of some sort.  Their experience with you begins with their first encounter: maybe your website, maybe some content you’ve issued, maybe the response to a form they filled out or maybe someone answering a telephone enquiry.  There is one thing I found surprising in the study which is that only 12% said “company culture” is a barrier to successful customer experience management.  If that’s true it’s incredibly encouraging and represents a big shift.  I’m not sure I believe it however.  Many companies still put way too much emphasis on pushing merchandise that provides the highest margins or which is aging over the needs and wants of the customer.

If your product has been commoditized (read that as “if your primary selling point is price”) than you are going to have a hard time competing from my perspective.  A great customer experience differentiates your brand.  I’m glad to see that way more folks are agreeing with that and investing in that differentiation.  Is that something you’re doing?

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