Tim Genovese, Vice President of Guest Experience & Brand Consistency at InterContinental Hotels Group, discussed how businesses can enhance the customer experience during his presentation at the 2014 Customer Care Leadership Forum in Atlanta on Nov. 20. According to Genovese, his company uses social media and technology to enhance customer care, and it needs to embrace these tools to stay ahead of its rivals. Genovese pointed out that customer feedback is vital because it provides a business with insights into its everyday operations. And as a result, Genovese noted a business must find ways to collect customer feedback, even if that feedback is sometimes harsh: “Feedback is a gift. It is a gift, and you and your organization need to look at it as a gift because it helps you run a better business and it helps you retain your customers, even if that feedback isn’t as comfortable as we would all like it to be from time to time.” In addition, customer service reviews are quickly becoming key differentiators for businesses in today’s highly competitive global marketplace, Genovese said. A business that identifies new ways to keep its customers happy, Genovese added, can gain a competitive advantage. Also, Genovese said a business needs to respond to customers via social networks to ensure that these clients get the support they deserve: “If you don’t already have it, establish team members who are responsible for maintaining and talking and watching what’s happening with your company, your name [and] your products out on the Internet and [be] responsible for reacting to that. They [should] respond to both positive and negative posts.” - See more at: http://www.argylejournal.com/customer-care/2014-customer-care-leadership-forum-tim-genovese-vice-president-guest-experience-brand-consistency-intercontinental-hotels-group/#sthash.Ue8zkkJY.dpuf

2. “Customers Are Rarely Lost –
Our Competition Usually Finds Them”
Anonymous
Tim Genovese

4. 178 391 55 1168 2258 38 10 196 312 2 0

5.  4,697 Hotels / 686,873 Rooms
 77.4 million IHG Rewards Club Members

6.  3,616 Hotels / 451,424 Rooms
 699 Hotels in our Development Pipeline

7.  My team is responsible for Guest Experience and
Brand Consistency
 We host approximately 141,372,500 guests a year
 Our customers sleep with us....
 24 hours a day, seven days a week
 We go through approximately 22 million rolls of
toilet paper per year
 That is enough rolls to go from the earth to the
moon approximately three times!

9.  Social Media
 Leveraging Technology to Enhance Customer Care

10. Online Surveys
Post to
Social Media

12.  96% of unhappy customers do not complain
 A dissatisfied customer will tell between 9-15
people about their experience. And around 13%
tell more than 20 people.
………. But all that changes with Social Media
Statistics from White House Office of Customer Affairs

13. The Dave Carroll Story

14.  70% of Americans read reviews before making
any purchasing decisions (ZMOT)
 Consumer reviews are 12 times more trusted
than Brand generated marketing (eMarketer)
 More than 1 billion unique users visit YouTube
each month
 100 hours of video are uploaded on YouTube every 60
seconds.
 Over 6 billion hours of video are watched each
month, which is almost one hour for every person on
earth.

15.  Twitter has more than 140 million users and
340 million tweets per day
 Facebook reported 905 million monthly
active users
 43% of Americans would give up sex for a
year as opposed to losing internet
connectivity for a year!

16.  Establish team member(s) who are responsible for
maintaining, monitoring and responding to social
media for your organization
 Respond to both positive and negative posts
 For the positive responses use company name /
product(s) often
 Screen scraping technology exists to recognize your
company name / product(s) and to pull contextual
information around your mention and categorize the
comments for analytics
 Keep Web sites current and up to date
 Mobile compatibility critical

17.  Go on the offense – establish Facebook,
twitter activity, blog(s), web site(s) where
appropriate
 Frequent / relevant and engaging activity
 Try to be less corporate
 Establish mini communities with similar likes
which allows your products to become part
of the conversation experiences
 Customers will engage, participate and promote

18.  X-score, a real time value measurement of
how well known and liked a “property” is on
the internet – run by SponsorHub whose
software calculates the X-score
 NBA Clippers had a 99 (out of 100) before
their PR crisis. Their X-score went to a 66
before the Commissioner acted.
 Establish a social media PR emergency
“game plan”

22.  Need feedback before customer interaction
is done
 A customer is 4 times more likely to defect
to a competitor if the problem is service
related rather than price or product related
(Bain & Co.)

23.  Dissatisfied customers whose complaints are
taken care of are more likely to remain loyal and
even become advocates (Strauss & Seidel)
 96% of unhappy customers don’t complain;
however, 91% of those will simply leave and
never come back.

24.  QR (quick response codes) built in Japan in
‘94 for the auto industry for assembly line
improvement
 Allow offline to connect to online with a
mere scan of a smart phone
 50% of Americans own a smart phone
 36% of Americans between 25-36 years old have
reported scanning codes

25.  QR codes have and are being tested for
customer immediate feedback during their
experiences allowing companies to respond
more immediately to their needs
 Can be imprinted on anything
 Potential next steps in customer service or first
line support
 Use as customer FAQ’s
 Easy to use if smart phone has the app

26.  “Best Buys” uses QR codes to understand
associate mood’s for the day by asking; How
are you feeling today? Good / Bad
 Could also ask customers - How is their shopping
experience going today? Good / Bad
 QR codes have opportunities
 Apple / Android do not ship phones with pre-
loaded code reading apps (account for 87.6%)
 Use only in Wi-Fi zones
 Not always linked to a mobile optimized site

27.  Other “quick response” technology exists:
 SMS or short codes (texting capabilities)
 Mobile apps – such as UPC bar codes
 Bluetooth and NFC (near field communications)
 Visual recognition (VR)
 New Market software has staff member
notification software allowing guest needs to
be known to associates via their phones for
immediate follow up and issue tracking and
escalation to resolution

28.  Technology allows for “Anticipitory
Customer Service”
 Manage to serve unexpected wishes
 Demonstrates vigilant care by your company
towards your customer
 Distinguish your company in the eyes and
emotions and memories of your customer
 Examples are:
 Alerts via vmail, email of flight delays or changes
 Shipping delays of products

29.  Examples continued:
 Remind customers of something they should keep
in mind themselves
 Scheduled maintenance for the car or house hold A/C
 Re-order medicine, Reminder payment is due
 Traffic warnings before social or sporting events
 Pro-active new food products with links to recipes
 Great Clips uses online wait time reviews by
zip code and pre check-in to lower wait
times – their #1 customer issue

30.  Technology allows customer historical data
to be known to associates (CRM)
 Customize response to individual
 Better analytics to understand customer needs
over all and address any issues
 Reminders for new staff of re-occurring issue
(holiday season, long order time, etc)
 Technology does not replace appropriate
human interaction

31. “Customers Are Rarely Lost –
And by leveraging technology you can
give them a GPS to find your
product”
Tim Genovese