Idea Gathering: Customer Experience News: Are You Listening?

The Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit provides both B2B and B2C case studies and translating these innovations and insights is a huge part of the value of the conference. Our unique idea gathering wrap-ups between sessions facilitate this translation and were one of our most highly rated features last year.

Here on the blog we're doing a regular series of idea gathering wrap ups, pulling together some of our favorite stories on customer experience, customer experience design, and overall customer-centricity. Share with us in the comments to add your thoughts!

This week, we're looking at listening. Do you know when to listen to customers? Fast Company presented the short video below with CEO of RedStamp Erin Newkirk focusing on the issue.
Many brands are now using Social Media for listening to customers and on that note 1to1media presented "3 Ways That Social Engagement Breeds Customer Loyalty." One example they used is of creating an online community for listening to customer ideas:

"To keep the pressing competition at bay, TurboTax decided in 2004 to launch Inner Circle, an online community and idea exchange, as a way of listening to the company's most loyal customers and to implement their ideas. Through careful monitoring and continuous engagement, the crowdsourcing community has grown to 20,000 members dedicated to finding ways to improve TurboTax's products, and is now the feedback destination where customers come to share ideas and to ask questions."

In an article in Training magazine, Nick Lane, Director, Strategy and Planning, Everything Everywhere wrote of listening to customer feedback on an agent to agent level to improve customer experiences and "Inspire Brilliance".

Lastly, we came across this great interview with Dunkin Brands' CMO John Costello in Forbes where he states on making Dunkin beloved:

"It goes back to basic understanding of the consumer, to listening very hard to their needs and wants."

How are you listening? Like these updates? Follow us on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook for industry news all week long.

Is Your Company Meeting Consumer Expectations?

Consumer expectations are changing more rapidly than ever before. Meeting the needs of today's consumers while remaining true to your brand promise is a challenge your organization will soon have to face.

Join Scott Hudler, Vice President - Global Consumer Engagement, Dunkin' Donuts at the Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit, taking place June 6-8, 2012 in Boston, Massachusetts as he delivers his keynote presentation: Meeting the Expectations of Your Consumers

In this presentation, Scott will share how Dunkin' Donuts focuses on delivering a consistent and integrated message to the consumer across advertising, marketing, menu, in-store environment and guest service to keep the brand as one of the most beloved brands in America.

Join Scott at Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit, an event that not only redefines customer centricity, but explains what this means for you, your brand and your business. It will unite diverse industry leaders to share genuine insights and best practices for "Designing an Integrated Experience with Measurable Impact."

In addition to Dunkin' Donuts, hear from the following companies who will be sharing their own real-life stories in customer experience:
AAA NCNU, AARP, American Family Insurance, BMO Financial Group, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Burke, Inc., Citizens Financial Group, Experience Engineering, Feltz & Associates, LLC, Forrester, GfK Custom Research, GfK Customer Research, Hunter Douglas, Inc., Indiana University, Janet LeBlanc & Associates, JoAnna Brandi & Company, Inc., Maritz Research, Porter Airlines, Prophet, REI, Rockwell Automation, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, The Hartford, Time Warner Cable and USAA.

Download the brochure to see the full program.

As a reader of our blog we’d like to offer you a 15% off the standard registration rates, use code TCEL12BLOG to save. Visit the webpage to register today

We look forward to seeing you this June in Boston!
The Total Customer Experience Leaders Event Team

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Total Customer Experience Takeaways

As we begin looking forward to the 2012 Total Customer Experience Leader's summit, we'll be presenting some of the key takeaways from our 2011 event. Pictured here is a Wordle of our executive summary notes. I've stripped out the two most obvious words"Customer" and "Experience" to drill down a bit more into the heart of our takeaways.

One thing that immediately strikes me: how action-oriented these words are. "Make, create, integrate," and "change" all jump out. That's what we hope for from this event: that our attendees will leave with actionable insights that they can immediately integrate into their existing strategies when they return to the office.

Another big theme: Culture, Ecosystem & Employees. Kerry Bodine's session at last years event focused on this particularly, with the theme summed up in the following sentence "The Customer Experience Ecosystem is a complex set of relationships among your company’s employees, partners, and customers that determines the quality of the experience."

To create a strong Customer Experience Ecosystem, Kerry recommended following these steps:
1. Map it
2. Co-create it
3. Socialize it

Don’t just target segments, go out and talk to people and create personas based on behavioral attitudes.

Did you attend Total Customer Experience Leaders in 2011? What were your key takeaways?

Idea Gathering: Customer Experience News

The Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit provides both B2B and B2C case studies and translating these innovations and insights is a huge part of the value of the conference. Our unique idea gathering wrap-ups between sessions facilitate this translation and were one of our most highly rated features last year.

Here on the blog we're doing a regular series of idea gathering wrap ups, pulling together some of our favorite stories on customer experience, customer experience design, and overall customer-centricity. Share with us in the comments to add your thoughts!

Our absolute favorite story this week came by way of The Chadwick Martin Bailey blog. The author discusses 3 things a company did to leave her feeling even better after a bad situation:

- They responded

- They used manners (thanked me for my business, apologized for the problem, etc.)

- They offered a resolution

Our guest blogger Flavio Martins also had some great insight this week, offering up5 Traits of Great Customer Service. Additionally I came across this white paper by Oracle which showcased Seven Power Lessons for Customer Experience Leaders. Lastly, we kept counting up to customer experience as Entrepreneur offered up "How The 10 Most Trusted Corporate Brands Connect With Their Customers." We'll leave you with the following quote from that piece:

"Though they may not have the biggest sales or market share in their categories, today's most trustworthy brands have created relationships with consumers through experiences that trigger a visceral response."

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AAA, Starwood Hotels, Indiana University & more to Share Insight into Customer Experience Design

More and more organizations are viewing customer experience as a strategic priority. As firms strive to establish a competitive advantage through customer experience management, it becomes clear that they must develop a deep understanding of experience management to evolve a solid strategy and approach.

The 2012 Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit is an event that not only redefines customer centricity, but explains what this means for you, your brand and your business. It will unite diverse industry leaders to share genuine insights and best practices for "Designing an Integrated Experience with a Measurable Impact."

In addition to AAA, see who else will be sharing insights on Customer Experience Design:

• The Academic Research Evidence
Neil Morgan, PetSmart Distinguished Professor of Marketing Chair, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University
• Managing the Customer Experience - What it Means and What it Takes to Do it Well
D. Randall Brandt, Vice President, Customer Experience & Loyalty, Maritz Research
Lou Carbone, Founder & CEO, Experience Engineering, Author, Clued In: How to Keep Customers Coming Back Again and Again
• Redesigning a Guest Experience Feedback Program for Improved Change Management & Enhanced Outcomes
Mathew Valenti, Ph.D., Director, Global Market Research, Starwood Hotels & Resorts
Erik Andersen, Vice President, North America, GfK Custom Research

Download the brochure to see the full program here.

As a reader of our blog we’d like to offer you a 15% off the standard registration rates, use code TCEL12BLOG to save. Register today. Visit the webpage to register today.

We look forward to seeing you this June in Boston!
The Total Customer Experience Leaders Event Team

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This Week In Customer Experience: 'Grats and Gripes

As we quickly gain on the next Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit in June, we'd like to occasionally share with you some of our favorite links of the week on customer experience, customer experience design, and overall customer-centricity.

This week on the blog, we introduced our new guest blogger Flavio Martins, who shared his excitement for the upcoming Total Customer Experience Leader's Summit.

Elsewhere, 1to1media  taught us that "Customer Experience Isn't the Only Thing; It's Everything" when discussing the winners of the Gartner & 1to1 Media CRM Excellence Awards. One of the companies honored was The Oklahoma City Thunder:

"By building a customer-centric organization from the ground up, The Oklahoma City Thunder, has been able to build one-to-one relationships with each of its season ticketholders and elevate the fan experience at every game. The organization continuously educates, evaluates, and congratulates its employees on proactively enhancing the overall customer experience."

We spoke with Pete Winemiller, Senior Vice President, Guest Relations of the Oklahoma City Thunder for our Storyteller Spotlight podcast series, check out some of his thoughts on customer experience in the podcast here.

It must be awards season, as this week also saw The Stevie Awards honoring various achievements in customer experience, browse the winners here.

Meanwhile, The Huffington Post has opened a "Gripe Line" to gather customer experience complaints. It will be interesting to see what stories, good and bad, follow.

What customer experience news did you notice this week? Share with us in the comments. 

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Flavio Martins on The Customer Experience Conference You Can’t Miss

In anticipation of The Total Customer Experience Leader's Summit, we're introducing a new guest blog series by Flavio Martins. Flavio is "The Customer Service Management Coach" and writes the blog The Mana.gr, for more about him, click here.  
 
If you attend only one event this year, make it a customer experience conference focused on designing an integrated customer experience with measurable impact. 

According to the recent Temkin Group Insight Report, the 2012 Temkin Experience Ratings, only 28 percent of companies earned a "good" or "excellent" customer experience rating. The Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit is the customer experience conference on a mission to change that.

Details:
June 6-8, 2012
Hilton Boston Back Bay
Boston, Massachusetts

For a 20% discount, use the discount code: TCEL12MANAGR

I'm excited to be blogging from the Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit this year. It's an awesome opportunity to be part of this amazing customer experience conference with so many industry experts and thought leaders. I hope you'll join me there! Let me take a minute and share some details to why you can't miss this year's extraordinary customer experience conference.

What's this customer experience conference all about?

For 2012, the Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit is a customer experience conference about breaking silos. It's about joining together diverse industry leaders to share genuine insights and best practices which speaks to the TOTAL customer experience process, a true customer experience conference.

We challenge you to think of your customer throughout the entire process – how investment planning, onboarding, product development, sales, operations, customer service, employee training, marketing collateral and ROI fit together and align with your internal customer experience strategy.

This customer experience conference will help you connect, develop, and enhance the customer experience process in your organization. Join us for a customer experience conference with 3-full days of innovative keynotes, and advanced case-studies that explore Customer Experience Design, Measurement & Feedback, Strategy, and Alignment.

What you'll get from this outstanding customer experience conference:

Customer Experience Collaboration

In the spirit of building a cumulative agenda grounded in insights, expertise and interactivity, we broke down our own silos and designed a customer experience conference with an integrated experience of all main stage presenters. We challenge each attendee at this customer experience conference to think of their customer throughout the entire process – customer experience design, measurement & feedback, strategy and alignment.

Customer Experience Idea Gathering

In its second year at this customer experience conference, the idea gathering wrap ups are a staple to the Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit. These sessions allow for questions, feedback and open conversation that truly translates high-level talks to real-world insights and solutions.

B2B & B2C Customer Experience Cases

Learning is not industry specific, so why should our agenda be? At this unique customer experience conference, there are key insights to be learned from both sides, and at the end of the day customer experience is about the buyer, not the business itself.

Are you the right fit for customer experience conference?

As a small business leader, I don't have an unlimited budget, so I'm always looking to get the best bang for my buck. When researching products, services, and even events, I'm on the lookout for those that are the perfect fit because every decision counts. The Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit is that one customer experience conference you can't afford to miss this year. If you're involved in any of the following areas, you'll be sure to come away with insights and ideas that will carry you through the rest of the year.

• Customer Experience
• Voice of the Customer
• Customer Research
• Customer Experience Design
• Customer Dissemination, Interpretation and Measurement
• Customer Process & Quality
• Customer Messaging
• Customer Analysis
• Customer Innovation and Inspiration
• Internal Operations and Communication

AND individuals who seek to enhance their own company's capabilities in these areas, ultimately driving business results through improved customer experience. I hope to see you at the Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit this year.

I'm looking forward to this customer experience conference, and I hope you join me there where we'll connect with customer experience leaders from various industries and translate customer experience talk into excellent service action.

---

Flavio Martins is The Customer Service Management Coach. As a blogger and customer service fanatic, bad service keeps him up at night so he's on a mission to show that excellent service can be consistent, simple, and easy.

For more free great customer service tips, resources, or to subscribe to the blog, visit: http://www.themana.gr/

This Week In Customer Experience: Are You The 28%?

As we quickly gain on the next Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit in June, we'd like to occasionally share with you some of our favorite links of the week on customer experience, customer experience design, and overall customer-centricity.

With "experience" reaching buzzword status, I was surprised to see this week on the 1to1media blog that "According to the recent Temkin Group Insight Report, the "2012 Temkin Experience Ratings," only 28 percent of companies earned a "good" or "excellent" customer experience rating." Healthcare and Internet service providers ranked especially low.

So what is holding these industries back? Temkin points to a failure to engage employees, deliver on promises or invest in focusing on customer experience.

Another challenge may be siloed organizations. When it comes to new channels such as social media and mobile, many are still struggling. In this post on Enterprise Apps Today Kate Leggett, a senior analyst at Forrester Research is quoted as saying:

 “Organizations need to proactively jump on the bandwagon to be able to implement social media channels. Many have done it in a very reactive way that is disconnected from the rest of customer support operations and infrastructure.”

In fact, being proactive about these channels may increase productivity in addition to improving customer ratings. In recent research by Nucleus Research "CRM decision makers and found an average productivity gain of 14.6 percent from mobile capabilities and 11.8 percent from social CRM."

Out of 223 CRM officers in the U.S. and Europe surveyed "About three-fourths of respondents have connected their CRM for mobile use, with 14.6 percent noting a substantial increase in sales productivity from the link."

For those who are already working on multi-platform, digital customer experiences, our friends at The Digital Impact Blog discussed the merits of creating value for your customers through mobile content.

Meanwhile, here on the blog, we started to cover some of the exciting speakers coming to the Total Customer Experience Leader's Summit in June, starting with Peter Dixon, Senior Partner & Creative Director, Prophet. Look forward to more speaker features in the coming weeks!

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Understanding and Delivering Customer Experiences that Count

“'Customer experience' is one of those amorphous terms that is increasingly in the public conscious nowadays. It's amorphous because it tends to be under-defined, it's meaning shifting according to your perspective. Often, it's viewed with merely an operational or product lens rather than an understanding of the nuances of the experience as the sum of total customer interactions and the emotions they evoke."
- Peter Dixon, Senior Partner & Creative Director, Prophet 

Welcome to the 2012 Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit, an event that not only redefines customer centricity, but explains what this means for you, your brand and your business; an event that measures each critical touch point throughout the entire customer lifecycle; an event that unites diverse industry leaders to share genuine insights and best practices for Designing an Integrated Experience with a Measurable Impact.

Join Peter Dixon, Senior Partner & Creative Director, Prophet at the Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit, taking place June 6-8, 2012 in Boston, Massachusetts as he delivers his keynote presentation: Understanding and Delivering Customer Experience that Count 

The ability to create and manage the customer experience is something more businesses would like to get right. For every Starbucks, Virgin Atlantic, Zappos, Starwood, or Apple - a handful among the many that do get the nuances and make the most of them - hundreds more only wish they could come close to the bar that's been set. It is an attainable goal.

 In addition to Prophet, the following companies will also be sharing their stories at the Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit: AAA NCNU, AARP, American Family Insurance, BMO Financial Group, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Burke, Inc., Citizens Financial Group, Dunkin' Dunuts, Experience Engineering, Feltz & Associates, LLC, Forrester, GfK Custom Research, GfK Customer Research, Hunter Douglas, Inc., Indiana University, Janet LeBlanc & Associates, JoAnna Brandi & Company, Inc., Maritz Research, Porter Airlines, REI, Rockwell Automation, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, The Hartford, Time Warner Cable and USAA.

Download the brochure to see the full program.
As a reader of our blog we’d like to offer you a 15% off the standard registration rates, use code TCEL12BLOG to save. Register today.

We look forward to seeing you this June in Boston!
The Total Customer Experience Leaders Event Team


Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/TotalCustomer
Become a fan on Facebook: http://on.fb.me/Aw2yW4

This Week In Customer Experience: "Experience" as Marketing Buzzword

As we quickly gain on the next Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit in June, we'd like to occasionally share with you some of our favorite links of the week on customer experience, customer experience design, and overall customer-centricity.

Trying to make a case for a more social & digital version of customer-centricity within your company? Check out this piece by Brian Solis. Solis writes:

"That’s because the future of business isn’t tied to the permeation of Facebook, Twitter, smartphones, tablets or real-time geo-location check-ins. The future of business comes down to relevance and the ability to understand how technology affects decision making and behavior to the point where the recognition of new opportunities and the ability to strategically adapt to them becomes a competitive advantage."

No specific Facebook post or mobile app will be able to create a customer experience design strategy, but being the sort of company that can embrace new technologies and trends early may be the differentiator you need. 

Fast Company also weighs in on moments of "human connection" in a digital world with their article
Experience Is The Next Frontier In Marketing." Plus, take a look at this post "The Customer Is Always Right? Wrong" by TheMana.gr, Flavio Martins, for insight into the "real gem hidden in...complaints."

Lastly, here on the blog we announced the release of the 2012 Agenda for the 2nd Annual Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit. Download it today to view our whole exciting lineup! 

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