Put People First - Your Success Depends On It

Photo by paul bica

"Those that will always help a friend, will always have a friend." - Anthony Douglas Williams, inspirational author


When you put people first in everything you do, you will be rewarded in many ways. Companies that put people first - their employees as well as their customers - achieve new and higher levels of loyalty.

Putting people first allows you to understand the key drivers of employee and customer satisfaction so you can leverage empathy to improve their experiences.

Is your company customer-focused or operations-focused? Find out by reading
"Six Differences Between Customer-Focused Companies and Operations-Focused Companies" by Shep Hyken.

If people are your priority, use these insights from this year's Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit to help you design and deliver exceptional customer and employee experiences:

• "Employee Recognition Programs Energize and Strengthen Customer-Centric Organizations"
• "Customer Engagement: The Glaring Blind Spot You Have Been Ignoring"
• "Customer-Centric Culture: Why It Matters and How to Measure It"

 

Peggy L. Bieniek, ABC is an Accredited Business Communicator specializing in corporate communication best practices. Connect with Peggy on LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, and on her website at www.starrybluebrilliance.com.

Never Eat Alone

Never Eat Alone was advice that I followed a few years ago when I attended the North American Conference on Customer Management.  I had lunch and conversations with like-minded people that wanted to learn more about customer service excellence.   Experts gave presentations of the best practices of building relationships with clients, as I nibbled on my croissant.   At the cocktail reception, I connected with other attendees and presenters as they shared their passion for customer service.   After I returned home, I connected with many of my contacts.  One of the exceptional speakers was Kelly Cook, Senior Vice President of Marketing at DSW.   As a founder and Board Director of Texas Women in Business, I asked Kelly to keynote at the annual anniversary luncheon.  Her presentation on Women in Leadership Roles was well-received and DSW even hosted a reception at one of their Austin locations.
  

Customer Service & Shoe Lovers!

  
At the Total Customer Experience Leader's Summit coming soon in Miami, Keith Ferrazzi, author of Never Eat Alone, will speak on Changing Behavior Towards the Customer Experience.  His insights on helping others and ourselves break bad habits will be helpful in our personal and business lives.   Ferrazi, son of a steelworker and a cleaning lady, developed the practice of connecting with others that helped him earn a scholarship to Yale, a Harvard MBA and top executive positions.   His principles are based on generosity & genuine relationship-building.  As you attend the Total Conference, a few key principles to follow are:  

• Don't keep score:  It is never simply about getting what you want.  It's about getting what you want and making sure that the people who are important to you get what they want, too.

•  "Ping" constantly:  The Ins and Outs of reaching out to those in your circle of contacts all the time - not just when you need something.  

• Never eat alone:  The dynamics of status are the same whether you're working at a corporation or attending a social event - "invisibility" is a fate worse than failure.   

Each day there are opportunities to follow thought-leaders on the topic of Factoring Empathy into the Stakeholder Equation.  Amazing speakers are on the agenda and you will have the opportunity to not only connect with the experts but determine your own strategy for exceptional customer experience.  Learn from my personal experience and set the intention to never eat alone but to create relationships with attendees and experts.  

Download the brochure for more information: http://bit.ly/1idxeUe 

Idea Gathering: Customer Experience & Customer Journey Mapping

Not just hearing, but translating innovations and insights is a huge part of the value of the Total Customer Experience Leaders. Our unique idea gathering wrap-ups between sessions facilitate alignment of customer strategy inspiration with business relevant actions and have been one of our most highly rated features in the past.

Here on the blog, we'll be presenting weekly idea gathering wrap ups of some of our favorite customer experience strategy, design and alignment news and views.  

This week our focus is on Customer Journey Maps.

Customer Journey Maps are one of the most underrated parts of a good Customer Experience Strategy and are all too often under utilized or not used at all. Imagine a general who made battle strategies without a map or a contractor trying to build something without blueprints. 

These examples are exactly as absurd as trying to create a customer experience strategy without a customer journey map. Customer Journey maps track customer engagement with a business every step of the way from the first interaction, or thoughts of potential interaction, to after the sale, and every possible step in between. 

Customer Journey Mapping is about understanding the wants, needs, interactions, and emotions of the customer in relation to your business. How does walking into one of your stores make a customer feel? What is a customer thinking when they search for your product online? These are examples of questions that a good customer map should answer. Taking the time out to actually relate to the emotions of customers is an invaluable effort that will reflect greatly on actual customer experience. PeopleMetrics describes this kind of customer empathy as “mak[ing] it easier to shift out of internal process mode and into thinking about how the company could be doing a better job of delivering value to customers.”

Customer Journey Maps should not be taken lightly and to create a truly effective map takes a lot of time and research to determine actual customer experiences and emotions. You also might not like what your first map looks like but that’s part of the process.

UXmatters.com explains that Customer Journey Mapping is all about very subtly selling service design. They define service design as “the design of the overall experience of a service, as well as the design of the process and strategy for providing that service” . 

This means that customers should enjoy the experience of doing business with a company every step of the way despite the fact that the experience is not something which can physically be capitalized on. So while making a Customer Journey Maps wont instantly give you business,  when properly used, they will significantly improve the experience of the customer.

About the Author

Jeffrey Marino is a contributing writer concentrating his focus on Business Administration, Management Information Systems, and Tech Innovations. He blogs at Fordham Nights and can bereached at JMarino@iirusa.com.

"Driving Best-In-Class Customer Experience" Webinar Recording Available

Recently we were pleased to present a webinar entitled "Driving Best-In-Class Customer Experience: Beyond Social Media Listening" in cooperation with EmPower Research, a Genpact company.

In this session, presenter Sagita Joshi explored the customer experience ecosystem, discussing the ways that listening and engagement can be performed on social media channels.  We learned more about the ways that Twitter "has become the help desk" with examples such as Lenovo and Best Buy's "Twelpforce" leading the way.

Joshi presented a "win me, delight me, keep me" approach to social media customer experience building, with Empower finding that over time increased awareness of a brand on social media lead to up to 37% more first timers visiting a brand's page. To learn more, view a recording of the webinar here.

Are you using social media for customer experience?


About EmPower Research:
EmPower Research, a Genpact company (NYSE:G) provides integrated media and business research services. We help our clients understand stakeholder perception and needs, empowering them to service better. We use proprietary methodologies to listen and learn about conversations in the customer ecosystem, deriving real insights for active stakeholder engagement.
For more information, visit http://www.empowerresearch.com 

Michelle LeBlanc is a Social Media Strategist at IIR USA with a specialization in marketing. She may be reached at mleblanc@iirusa.com

Got Happiness? NACCM Provides Solutions!

The North American Conference on Customer Management began with great speakers with informative and entertaining messages about Managing Customer Satisfaction. The attendees shared about their objective to return to their workplace with new ideas, renewed commitment, and inspiration to lead their teams. You could see heads nodding in the room as these managers agreed on principles, challenges, programs, dedication to the customer experience and most importantly a determination for new approaches to continue and improve processes to delight our customers.

We began the day with JoAnna Brandi, Customer Care Coach, that shared the science on how happiness can not only create endorphins and serotonin, along with a long list of other benefits, that improve our problem solving abilities, focus, creativity, and resilience to name a few. The formula for happy customers included the AAA Feedback - Acknowledge & Affirm, Amplify it, and Anchor it. Statistics was also a part of equation in understanding the 60% spread in performance when employees are praised, supported, and show strengths versus emphasizing weakness. An enthusiastic and well-documented presentation on the subject of positivity was enjoyed by all.

Kate Feather, People Metrics, gave a presentation on Brand Ambassadors and improving customer engagement. One of the most powerful measures for investment in customer service programs was that a 5 point increase in customer engagement could improve average stock price by as much as 26% while a 5 point decrease caused stock performance to be below the industry average. Julie Broderick of Signature Flight Support gave a case study of their Voice of the Customer Feedback Program. The program includes action alerts and accountability that maintains momentum.

The final morning speaker was Randall Brandt of Maritz. He shared about setting the bar for customer satisfaction by determining and evaluating the goal whether judgement, benchmarking, or linkage-based targets are used. The objective is to drive continuous improvement to realize desired results.

As a speaker, trainer, and writer, I feel validated, encouraged, and inspired by a room full of advocates that share my passion and unwavering commitment to outstanding customer service. I enjoyed my conversations with other attendees like David Fischer of John Deere, C.J. Muniz of Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Faith Williams, Cancer Treatment Centers of America. Yes, happiness rules here in Orlando and I haven't even enjoyed a lunch yet.

Connie Brubaker

Integrity Training Solutions

www.ConnieBrubaker.com

512 346 7270

Restaurants using Twitter for customer engagement

In an effort to connect with their patrons, restaurants are turning to Twitter. Restaurants have adopted the micro-blogging platform to promote their offerings and specials; but only recently have they started using Twitter to fully engage with their customers. The Associated Press reports that chains like Chipotle and Pei Wei even have full-time social media employees. Previously corporate-sounding restaurant Twitter feeds now are filled with streams of replies directly to diners, in some cases performing nearly instantaneous customer service.

Geoff Alexander, managing partner of Wow Bao in Chicago explained his company's Twitter commitment like this: "If somebody has 1,000 followers and writes a negative Tweet about Wow Bao, then 1,000 people could think the restaurant is bad. But if Wow Bao publicly responds to that Tweet, 1,000 people may see the issue is being handled."
If you work within the restaurant or hospitality industry, have you adopted Twitter as not only a advertising platform but an engagement tool? We'd love to hear your thoughts! DM us on Twitter @customerworld 


Photo: Courtesy of Vidafine 

Could Community Managers be the key to excellent customer service?

A Community Manager is one that motivates, educates and connects with your audience online. These individuals must possess stellar communication skills and they must be properly educated on your company's service or product. So how does the community manager differ from a customer relationship manager or a marketing manager? Many companies are asking the same question. Customerthink.com writes,that if you want to ensure that your customer experience extends beyond the store to the conversation online, then hiring a community manager (or team) to manage your online customer experience should be a priority for any organization.

How does your organization use community managers in your customer outreach?

Learn more: Fire Your Marketing Manager & Hire A Community Manager

Let us know on Twitter @customerworld

NACCM 2009: How to Get The Whole Cookie

This was a split session where we got to hear two different experts share their ideas about how to create loyal customers.

Kevin Mellander, Director of Customer Care for Allegiance focused on making sure you get the “whole cookie.” Creating uber-loyal customers requires four components:

• Quality Product
• Service/experience
• CRM/Rewards
• Feedback management

Many times, companies will focus on the first three, but to get the whole cookie (in Kevin’s analogy), you have to make sure you institute solid feedback management. The main reason? You can’t be everywhere all the time, so you need ways to gather feedback.

When Kevin talks about creating uber-loyal customers, what he’s referring to is customers who are engaged.

There are three levels of customer: Satisfied, Loyal, and Engaged.

Satisfied customers don’t necessarily come back to you.

Loyal customers might come back, but if they experience a problem they’ll likely defect.

Engaged customers will actually bring problems to you to fix. They’ll forgive your mistakes, and they’ll even wear your logo!

Another way to look at customers is to categorize them as Disengaged, Swing, or Engaged. The big goldmine is the swing group. If you can sway even one or two percent of these customers to move into being engaged, it can add significant dollars to your bottom line.

Engaged customers have some interesting and desirable behaviors:

• They buy more.
• They stay longer.
• They promote your business for you.
• If you mess up, they’ll tell you.

Why engagement is the best goal:

• It’s measurable – a business asset!
• It’s a unique differentiator, built on win-win relationships
• It’s made possible through comprehensive VOC and EFM efforts – (Voice of the Customer and Enterprise Feedback Management)

The world of feedback is complex – there are so many ways to give/get feedback from face to face, to facebook. And much of it is immediate. We should always look at feedback as a GIFT. It’s a chance to do something.

If you don’t believe that engaged customers are worth pursuing, consider this quote from a Harvard Business Review study that states “Highly engaged customers deliver a 23% increase in share of wallet.”

The second half of this session was conducted by Bob Caruso, Managing Director, Endeavor Management.

Bob began by asking the audience if they knew which company has been able to sell 20,000 tickets to their corporate event for $125 each in only 75 seconds (it would have been 30, but there was a technical glitch). It’s Blizzard Entertainment – Creators of World of Warcraft.

How has Blizzard Entertainment been able to create such a fanatical following for their video games? They create loyalty through ongoing dialog with their customers. They may be the only video game company that employs “game masters” who you can access while you’re playing the game to ask questions!

Bob challenged us to Develop Deep Advocacy through the following:

Customer experience

• How do you think through the whole experience, even from the pre-sale moment?
• How can you serve them at each step of the customer cycle?

Brand Perception

• Are your customers proud to do business with you? (I.e., Ritz Carlton)

Psychological Preferences

• Determining the customers who WILL be loyal. Some will not, no matter what.

Opportunity

• Give people an opportunity to be loyal.

Bob also had some thoughts about how 2009 brought new challenges, including the absolute critical need to rebuild trust in our customers. Over 90% of people in a recent survey stated that trust and honest communication are important to them when doing business with a company. The key to building, and rebuilding, trust is communication.

One of the most interesting concepts in this session was the idea that your behavior gives your customers a perception of your company. They respond with a behavior that leads to a business result. So you have to evaluate your actions and behaviors constantly by asking yourself:

• What is the estimated gain of doing it right?
• What is the estimated cost of doing it wrong?