Taking a True Measure of Customer Experience

Cognizant CRM Insights Taking a True Measure of Customer Experience By Tom Woodson As every marketer should know by now, it is The Role of the Customer Experience critical that customers have a positive Team experience when interacting with their companies. A few years after the advent of Web Traditionally, marketing managers collect 2.0, consumers are more powerful than ever, and customer satisfaction data and then find ways to any company that ignores their preferences puts make the numbers look good. Instead, they should its existence at risk. Many organizations, conduct root cause analysis and take corrective therefore, are implementing Customer action. But this rarely happens due to a lack of Experience Management (CEM) tools and time and training. Having a dedicated Customer techniques to better understand their Experience team can help overcome this. This customers. team is charged with pulling customer satisfaction data from all parts of the organization and Unfortunately, most companies that measure reporting on trends to executive management and customer satisfaction do so departmentally to the rest of the company. What this reveals is an rather than at the enterprise enterprise view, identifying common issues across Institutionalizing level. With this approach, no one channels -- however customers interact with your in the organization is responsible organization. the tracking of customer for customer experience. To take satisfaction helps cut to a true measure of customer The Customer Experience team sets standards the heart of what truly experience requires dedicating a for reporting so meaningful comparisons can be made among channels and modes of interaction. makes customers happy team specifically to that purpose. The role of the If you can resolve the root cause issues, your and keeps them coming customer satisfaction scores will rise. That is a Customer Experience team is to back for more. evaluate customer experience core premise, and one that we have seen borne holistically, across channels and out in our work with clients. Another important departments, taking ownership of customer function of the Customer Experience team is to perception and satisfaction. watch metrics for any sign of an actionable trend (whether positive or negative) so they can Institutionalizing the tracking of customer respond. satisfaction helps cut to the heart of what truly makes customers happy and keeps them coming For example, a Cognizant customer introduced a back for more. third-party call center to handle certain types of CRM Insights

customer transaction calls. However, the third- The team also monitors social networking sites party personnel did not have adequate training on such as Facebook, Twitter and online how to handle these calls. Transactional surveys communities and blogs so the company is aware conducted immediately after calls of this type of what customers are saying outside the indicated that customers were not pleased with company, as well as within the official channels, the service they had received. Instead of rating and can take action if necessary. their own satisfaction as high (at With a Fortune 500-size level 4 or 5 out of 5), customers A recent example from the grocery industry company, the Customer consistently rated their made headlines when the CEO of one company satisfaction in the 1’s and 2’s. made disparaging remarks about a health food Experience team might chain in blogs and on social networking sites. comprise a full-time staff of In addition, the company The company being attacked took action as soon two to 10 people, depending offered customers the opportu- as the commenter’s hidden agenda and rival on how many channels nity to participate in surveys on status was revealed. It can be difficult to its Web site. These surveys also determine whether or not the people they’re monitoring and how indicated customer displeasure commenting have a hidden agenda. many vertical industries with the third-party call center, the company serves. establishing a negative cus- Of course, even if they do, your response must tomer experience trend. Social be measured and authentic or you risk media sites were a third source of feedback. Put increasing the damage. This is another reason to together, the customer experience data culled establish a team (or an individual on that team) from the different sources strongly indicated to track all forms of social media for trends and unhappiness stemming from the root cause of customer comments. Every company is just one poor performance by the call center provider. bad YouTube video away from a firestorm. Domino’s Pizza discovered this recently as video The company took corrective action by doing came to light of employees handling pizza in a remedial training with the call center provider non-hygienic manner. Your brand can be ruined and building an escalation path that enabled overnight by malicious activity or plain-old bad improvement of first-call resolution. The PR. This type of event can tank your customers’ customer satisfaction trendline has since satisfaction levels just as rapidly as a product changed from decreasing to increasing. Had the recall or other major issue. company had a Customer Experience team poised to act on the first Who’s Onboard? A chief task of the indication of a drop in customer attitudes, it would With a Fortune 500-size company, the Customer Customer Experience team have likely been able to turn Experience team might comprise a full-time staff is to establish common the situation around more of two to 10 people, depending on how many processes and customer quickly. channels they’re monitoring and how many satisfaction metrics across vertical industries the company serves. By monitoring customer the enterprise, including interactions and trends in Depending on the number of interactions and standard categorization customer sat scores, the channels, the team might include a few part-time of customer interactions. Customer Experience team staff members, as well. The most important could take corrective action thing is to have a leader with a vision. The other faster to stem the tide of dissatisfaction. Most roles include a governance control person who companies -- even the largest ones -- do not share brings in a governance board (executive leaders customer satisfaction data across the from different areas) and part-time organization. So, for example, personnel from the representatives from senior leadership across in-house call center might well be aware of the corporation. Likely, checking the social mounting customer dissatisfaction long before its networking sites will require at least one full- Web team. The Customer Experience team has time person (perhaps a recent college graduate visibility into leading indicators across all with intimate knowledge of the ways of the Web). interaction channels, so it can see trends that need attention sooner, as opposed to minor blips. A chief task of the Customer Experience team is to establish common processes and customer CRM Insights 2

satisfaction metrics across the enterprise, In today’s fast-moving world, the tide of including standard categorization of customer customer opinion changes rapidly. Staying interactions. abreast of customer satisfaction with enough time to take corrective action For example, relationship surveys (in which requires an enterprise view. Having a central team selected customers are asked about their Leaving the task of measuring control the surveying feelings toward the company) are one way to customer satisfaction to process both boosts measure customer satisfaction. In this case, you individual channels and have common survey questions across all your response rates and protects verticals increases your risk of different input channels. Transactional surveys not being able to respond in against “survey fatigue” (in which customers are polled immediately time. Having a Customer on the part of customers. following a transaction) are another important Experience team helps you avenue. It is a best practice to have the team keep a close watch on customer satisfaction review both types of survey instruments, trends across channels and product lines and ensuring they follow enterprise standards, are decreases your risk of one day finding your statistically relevant and are not excessively customers have gone elsewhere. long. Having a central team control the surveying process both boosts response rates and protects against “survey fatigue” on the part of customers. About the Author Tom Woodson is a Senior CRM Strategist within the Customer Solutions Practice at Cognizant. With over 20 years of CRM experience, Tom brings insight and experience to designing CRM systems (sales, service and marketing) with measurable business benefits in mind. He has successfully delivered multiple CRM projects through the full SDLC lifecycle and has expertise in CRM Application Functional Architecture, business process design and re-design, organizational change management and training. Tom has recently focused on customer experience management. He can be reached at Tom.Woodson@cognizant.com. About Cognizant Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH) is a leading provider of information technology, consulting and business process outsourcing services. Cognizant's single-minded passion is to dedicate our global technology and innovation know-how, our industry expertise and worldwide resources to working together with clients to make their businesses stronger. With over 50 global delivery centers and 64,000 employees as of June 30, 2009, we combine a unique onsite/offsite delivery model infused by a distinct culture of customer satisfaction. A member of the NASDAQ-100 Index and S&P 500 Index, Cognizant is a Forbes Global 2000 company and a member of the Fortune 1000 and is ranked among the top information technology companies in BusinessWeek's, Hot Growth and Top 50 Performers listings. Start Today For more information on how to drive your business results with Cognizant, contact us at inquiry@cognizant.com or visit our website at www.cognizant.com. World Headquarters European Headquarters India Operations Headquarters 500 Frank W. Burr Blvd. Haymarket House #5/535, Old Mahabalipuram Road Teaneck, NJ 07666 USA 28-29 Haymarket Okkiyam Pettai, Thoraipakkam Phone: +1 201 801 0233 London SW1Y 4SP UK Chennai, 600 096 India Fax: +1 201 801 0243 Phone: +44 (0) 20 7321 4888 Phone: +91 (0) 44 4209 6000 Toll Free: +1 888 937 3277 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7321 4890 Fax: +91 (0) 44 4209 6060 Email: inquiry@cognizant.com Email: infouk@cognizant.com Email: inquiryindia@cognizant.com © Copyright 2009, Cognizant. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the express written permission from Cognizant. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.

Taking a True Measure of Customer Experience

by Cognizant on Sep 29, 2009

Accessibility

Categories

Tags

Upload Details

Usage Rights

Statistics

Taking a True Measure of Customer Experience — Document Transcript