NACCM LIVE 2009: KEYNOTE: The Ultimate in Customer Centricity: Chief Customer Officers Describe How Everyone Can Be A Loyalty Leader

Moderator:

Curtis Bingham, Author, The Key to Customer Strategy: The Rise of the Chief Customer Officer, and President, Predictive Consulting Group.

Panelists:

Rudy Vidal (RV), former Chief Customer Officer, InContact

Tammy McLeod, ™ Chief Customer Officer, Arizona Public Service

Bob Olson (BO), Chief Customer Officer, Homestead Technologies, an Intuit Company

Curtis warmed up our thoughts with a story about the hotel. When he arrived, he was greeted with a room upgrade, extra water in his room (because they know he likes that), and taken to his room in a golf cart by a bellman who told him all about the hotel. Upon arriving in his room, the bellman put all of his bags in the right place and offered to get drink, food, or whatever Curtis desired. The bellman clearly loves his job. He also got a big tip.

Then Curtis asked us to imagine if there had a problem with the TV (there hadn't, by the way). Imagine calling for service and being promised service in 5 minutes. After a much longer time, service shows up, a smelly repairman who complains about his job. Imagine how you’d fill out the satisfaction survey IN SPITE after dealing with this imaginary service tech, even after the great experience up front.

The actions of many can be offset by the actions of one.

You can’t afford to be the only champion of customer loyalty. You can't tackle it alone.

How many in the audience have a chief customer officer?

Answer: 1.

What is a Chief Customer Officer?

The CCO uses customer insight to affect corporate & customer strategy and align deliverables to customer values, thereby maximizing customer acquisition, retention, and profitability.

Rudy, what is loyalty?

RV - It has a lot to do with where you’re standing. Loyalty is a commitment to repurchase or recommend a product or a brand that resists normal market pressures. What loyalty is NOT in my mind is getting a customer to have repeat purchases. I can have repeat purchasers for a whole bunch of reasons.

I contend that you cannot buy loyalty. It’s an emotional issue.

TM – A lot of those loyalty programs that require me to use a certain card to get my points, it’s not as fun to be a part of those with all the conditions, etc.

BO – I believe you can get a good sense of customer loyalty and engagment by looking at employee loyalty and engagment. When I walk into a new company, I observe employee engagement. It’s amazing the correlation you find inside and outside the company.

RV – There are metrics that very much support Bob’s view. Engaged employees DOUBLES loyalty. If your employees are not engaged, you have half the loyalty that you could have.

How do you think loyalty is changing?

RV – I think the drivers of loyalty are changing. The morning speaker talked aobut consistency. 20 years ago, consistency was difficult to get. You couldn’t train people well enough. Consistency created emotion in customers. Consistency is easier to obtain now. Computers help make consistency happen. What makes us emotional now is changing.

TM – I agree. We see tremendous changes in the drivers of loyalty. The current economic conditions are causing a lot of this. I see that we’re creating a tremendous increase in distrust. We’re also seeing a “return to local.” Every dollar that’s spend with a locally owned business drives 43 cents back into the community. That’s higher than if you spent money with a nationally owned company.

BO – With the local side, there’s a big push to bring jobs back onshore. I think it’s driven by the customer. It’s been so easy to make money in the past, now you have to earn the money in a different way.

Rudy, how do some of the loyalty programs adapt to an emotional experience?

It’s not easy to do, but it’s easy to understand. The issue is to know your customer. This used to be a product & service economy. Not anymore. It’s an experience economy. People are spending money for experiences. Why? Because products are commoditized. If we’re an experience economy, we shouldn’t be surprised when people just want a lower price for a commoditized product. You have to understand your customer. Frankly nobody cares about your product. If you know your customer, and you can lay out a customer’s experience across your customer, and you know the emotional requirements of your customer, you can provide for those emotional needs. And it’s relatively cheap to do.

AUDIENCE QUESTION – It’s easy to create the emotional experience, how do you maintain that focus?

RV – When I greet you, I need to create delight. That’s not so easy to commoditize. Don’t’worry so much about the process, as much as the emotional results.

BO – Instead of using the word focus, I’d use the word purpose. When you describe the outcomes you want, people will find a way. Who wants a job where you have to follow a big manual that tells you exactly what to do. When you define purpose and outcome, people will surprise you.

AUDIENCE QUESTION – How do you manage them to do that day after day?

RV – It’s a culture issue. If management understands why they get up in the morning, and they were to instill this purpose, this mission, and create an environment where everyone knows why they’re here, they’ll watch out for each other and learn from each other.

The moment you believe a culture is strategic, go back to the drawing board. Culture is all about the FRONT LINE. What does a customer need at the front line? That’s what culture should focus on.

BO – Jack Welch talks about getting tired of saying the same thing over and over, but it’s important. Do you people go home at night knowing what’s important? It’s all the little things you do that make a difference. That’s why culture is tactical, not strategic.

Tammy, how have you helped everyone take ownership for loyalty?

TM – It’s a never ending task. It’s never done. We’re a large, regulated “monopoly,” so our approach is often a little different. We have to publicly go before a commission to change pricing, etc. If our service, satisfaction, loyalty isn’t good, it makes that process much more difficult.

Walking the walk is what I’s all about. Alan mentioned this morning UPS and how they’ve caught up to FEDEX. Part of how they’ve done that is by measuring everything. We measure, too. One thing we measure is satisfaction. My task is to inform my company that we’re all in this together. For instance, if you’re a tech and your shirt is untucked or you show up late, you’ve affected the customer experience.

Let people see their part of the picture. How do they fit into this? Create unlikely allies. Go out and pick an unlikely ally. I picked the person who runs the fleet. Then I went to our legal department and made them customer advocates. Find people that others wouldn’t necessarily expect to talk the customer loyalty.

The next step is to sit down with the other groups and have them discover how they impact the customer.

Our CEO made customer satisfaction a measurement across the board, which has helped our efforts tremendously, but like I said, it’s a job that’s never done.

The message I put out there is that the CFO doesn’t sign your paycheck, it’s the customer! Think about that every time you get your check.

Are there metrics that help drive some of the behavior?

TM -We measure a lot of stuff. Web interactions, calls, etc. We look at those on a weekly basis.

BO – At GoDaddy, I would bring in people from different departments and talk to them about the customers and how the different areas affect them. When you can get different groups and make it so they see the interrelatedness of the outcome, that’s when you get good results. It ultimately starts with defining jobs by outcomes and interdependencies and bringing the face of the customer into the building.

RV – I got a letter from a customer who outlined a horrible experience with an electronics company over a month and a half. We literally could not have done a worse job at pretty much every touchpoint. I started thinking “If customers only understood…” which is the wrong approach.

So what I did was invite this customer to come to NY and tell his story to my managers. We offered to cover expenses and provide a stipend for him. It was a beautiful moment. Management got it. They understood. And for every one of these letters, there are 30 customers who felt like this who DIDN’T write.

It was so compelling, managers actually approached him afterward because they felt compelled to say they were sorry.

For us, it became a tradition. We started inviting dissatisfied customers to come visit.

AUDIENCE COMMENT – As we recruit, it’s essential to make sure we know exactly the kind of person to hire.

BO – We all know that chapter one of the book is always “Hire the right people,” but we rarely do it, or share best practices.

RV – There are places where profiling is a good thing! There are different attudes required for different roles.

AUDIENCE QUESTION – Which types of incentives are the best drivers?

BO – For most people it’s not money, it’s recognition. We throw money at it, but nobody’s thought of how detrimental that can be.

TM – We’ve been advocates of Gallup’s Q12 from First Break All The Rules. One of the questions is about getting feedback every seven days. After you get to know your people, you figure out how they like to get that feedback. Have those interactions weekly. Commuication is undrrated and it shouldn’t be.

We have found it highly motivating to set people up in their homes to work if they meet a certain level of performance.

RV – How many of you would like to receive a gift from somebody who doesn’t mean it as opposed to from someone who does mean it. It is key that the employees understand that you mean it. The acknowledgement, the emotional, the human reward has to happen before the currency reward (points, cash, product, etc.). If you do the currency first, they will tend to think they got something for doing something, If you do the human recognition first, you get the attitude you’re looking for.

How do you sell loyalty to the C-Suite?

BO – At the C-level, we’ve been looking for the “diet” approach instead of the “lifestyle” approach. How do you balance short term with long term? CEOs are trying to do the right thing, but it doesn’t always match up with the right need.

It starts with building trust, good debate, and unfiltered freeflowing communication from the customers and the employees.

You also can’t be afraid to lose your job. You’re going to be respectful, but it’s going to be painful for them to hear. You’re going to thell them things they don’t necessisarily want to hear.

AUDIENCE QUESTION – How do you sell it as a strategic initiative when it’s one of the “soft” numbers that easily gets cut first?

TM – By having measurements, I can tweak the service model to see where we can make cuts without losing too much service level.

RV – Have KPIs that are leading to results. If you have actionable KPIs that lead to results, they very rarely want to cut that.

BO – All companies have a brain, heart, and soul. You can’t just focus on the brain.

At the conclusion of the session, the audience shared it's most valuable takeaways:

• Support local establishments
• Find unlikely allies
• Have dissatisfied customers talk to management
• Understand what emotions I want to drive, rather than what process to follow
• You cannot separate employee engagement and customer loyalty
• Make it everyone’s job

NACCM 2009: Walk the Walk: The Most Important Rule for Real Leaders

Leadership takes guts! Alan Deutschman, author of Walk the Walk, shares how putting customers first sometimes starts with putting something else first. His book delves into the concept of what it takes to put customers first. If you put customers first, then someone else is second, i.e., vendors, executives, employees, Wall Street stock analysts, etc. Leadership means making the tough choices over these competing constituencies.

Deutschman shares the example of Starbucks and its CEO, Howard Schultz. Schultz was responsible for Starbucks incredible growth over the years, building from 400 stores in 1994 to 14,000 stores today, reaching a 75% market share. He came to realize that in their pursuit of market domination and growth, Starbucks had lost their vision. Schultz believe that they had strayed away from what made them popular over the years - café-like experience, aroma of fresh ground coffee beans, and personal interaction with the barista, to name a few. Schultz realized that he had to lead his company back to the basics and “walk the walk”.

A company that built a truly customer-centric focus is Amazon. CEO Jeff Bezos made leadership decisions that were unheard of in the industry. For example, he allowed customers to post negative reviews about books, allowed third-party merchants to come in and offer lower prices, and gave away free shipping. Wall Street analysts asked Amazon’s board to remove Bezos because of his radical marketing tactics. Bezos understood that these strategies would ultimately create long-term customer loyalty and it did. Amazon succeeded at putting customers first says Deutschman.

Some companies have chosen to put customers first by putting other things first. An example of this is Southwest Airlines which has chosen to put employees first. During bad times, Southwest took a different approach than other airlines. In over 35 years, they have never laid off a single employee during a downturn reports Deutschman. Their high retention allows them to train employees in more creative way. By putting employees first, they have put customers first.

You can also serve customers first by putting a group of employees first. For example, Sony’s mission was to create a company for brilliant engineers. When color televisions came on the market, Sony held back from entering the market because they wanted to create a superior product driven by their engineers. Because of their investment in technology, they came out with the best color television in 1968 that had a superior picture quality called the Sony Triniton. Their CEO “walked the walk” because he chose to put their engineers first.

In another example, Deutschman points out that putting “cleanliness” first allowed McDonalds to grow exponentially. Ray Kroc was a clean freak and made cleanliness their #1 virtue. Fast food restaurants at the time were originally a hangout for teenage boys. Families stayed away. Kroc wanted to create a family restaurant that was clean and could offer value. Cleanliness, transparency, uniformed staffed, etc., helped to create this value. To date, cleanliness continues to be the #1 concern people have in choosing a fast food restaurant.

Charles Schwab wanted to create a stock broker business that put ethics first. They chose not to do investment banking, removed conflicts of interest, worked with individual investors and did not give purchase advice. Brokers were on straight salary so that they could provide service with no hidden agenda. One day, Schwab fired his own son for giving purchase advice to clients. Sometimes “walking the walk” requires us to make difficult choices.

To walk the walk and be a leader, you don’t need a mission statement or post your value proposition for all to see says Deutschman. Your customers should know you by your actions. It is rare in corporate America. In all of his research, he has found few leaders who truly “walk the walk”.

NACCM LIVE 2009: Opening Remarks

The main conference kicked off with energetic and encouraging opening remarks from Kathleen M. Peterson, Chief Vision Officer, Powerhouse Consulting.

What a fantastic way to open a conference! Kathleen challenged us to not just think about what we’re hearing, but more importantly, how we can put it into action.

This conference is full of amazing and useful information, delivered by some of the best and brightest thought leaders in customer service. Kathleen's short, but powerful message could be summarized with this thought: don't just sit there, do something. We're going to get out of this conference whatever we put into it. We're going to experience what we decide to experience out of it.

One way to get the most out of this event it to start taking action immediately. Don't wait to get back to your office to start creating an action plan or writing your report about the conference. Start it today.

Kathleen's advice also included mixing it up. If you came with co-workers or colleagues, sit with other people. Don't all go to the same sessions. Spread your talent around and absorb as much of the content as you can.

Before leaving the stage, Kathleen gave a phenomenal introduction to the first keynote speaker of the day, Alan Deutschman, author of Walk the Talk.

NACCM 2009: Summit Day in Photos

Summit Day at NACCM: Customers 1st closed with a keynote session from Disney. Here is the day in photos:

NACCM 2009: Answering the Social Phone – Listening, Measuring, and Engaging in Social Media.

Your social media phone is ringing. But are you answering it? Do the right thing by listening and engaging with your customers says David Alston, VP of Marketing & Community for Radian6.

What should we be listening for? Alston says that he listens for ideas, compliments, memes, crisis, complaints, competition, crowds, campaign buzz, and needs. Treat the conversations as if you are at a cocktail party. Don’t just jump in but look for the point of need from a customer. Listening first and then engage has been the common theme throughout many of the NACCM presentations today.

Alston shared the 5 C’s for engaging in social media. They include:

Content – give content because people don’t want your promotions.
Community – you want to create a place where your fans, customers and even critics can live together.
Conversation – they build the relationships that build your business.
Collaboration – because the consumer is more and more in control, it’s best to collaborate with your community than try to control it.
Connections – you can’t be a hermit. You must actively and consistently connect with your community.

What do you do if there are no conversations about you? Find people who share your passion and join their conversations. Eventually these relationships will evolve and bring you more exposure. The ultimate is to have customers share their positive testimonials about your business using tools like Twitter. Alston shared how he files positive tweets about Radian6 as “favorites” which he calls “twestimonials”.

Alston listed several reasons why some companies hold back from using social media to engage customers. They include restrictive policies, culture, bureaucracy, lack of momentum, concerns over window dressing, lack of top level support and lack of resources. When it comes to your culture, Alston says “if you suck in real life, you will suck on social media.” Make sure it’s right first.

In his Social Media Maturity Model, Alton talks about the various levels of engagement. We all should begin at the bottom and work our way up. That way you build credibility with each step.

Contributing - Contributing value through content and helping customers achieve goals
Sharing - Tell your own story. Share your brand’s passion & personality
Participating - Adding on and sharing your knowledge
Responding - Answering the “social phone”
Listening - Monitoring and analysis

For those still hesitant about getting engaged in social media, Alston says “find your path, and get started NOW!” Consumers want to connect with your brand. You’ll make mistakes but you will survive. Alston’s advice is to “have fun”. With over 11,000 followers on Twitter, you can bet that he is having tons of fun!

NACCM 2009: TELUS Case Study

TELUS is the largest telecommunications company in Western Canada, and the second largest in all of Canada. Krista Sheridan presented a case study of TELUS’ journey to delivering the optimal, executive supported experience blueprint for their small business market segment.

TELUS realized it had the opportunity to:

• Develop cross functional support for Customer Experience Management
• Align customer and business definitions of success
• Create an experience plan that everyone could understand, articulate, action, and measure
• Effectively allocate resources – time, money & people
• Win in their markets

To give you an idea of how ambitious this project was, they had to “renegotiate” their budget four different times and the project took several months longer than anticipated. Here’s what they did to achieve this ambitious effort:

They Stuck Their Neck Out

• They started asking“How can we improve” instead of just “how are we doing?"

They Sold The Dream

• They asked stakeholders, “What if we could help you be successful? What if we could help you understand metrics? Helped our customers stop going through a trial & error process.” That got tremendous buy-in.

They Got Specific

• They constantly measured what worked and what didn’t.

They Made the Rounds

• The team talked to stakeholders and customers, formally and informally, to find out what their issues were.

They Kept it Relevant

• When speaking with the various stakeholders, they had to show them the WIIFM: what’s in it for them. They explained why is loyalty important and how it contributes to the success of the company and all it’s parts.

They Leveraged The Buzz

• When the positive buzz started to happen, they spread it around to create energy and excitement about the project.

In addition to learning what made their internal teams tick, they also spent a great deal of time learning as much as they could about their customers. One innovated initiative was taking four days talking to customers ONLINE, then evaluating and prioritizing what was important to them.

Through that process, they learned how important the emotional connection is for their customers. They further realized how important it is for them to treat their customers as people.

Armed with a great deal of information, they rated each touchpoint (12 total) and ranked them in a “Triage Triangle” – which is a way to prioritize by how much impact a touchpoint has.

Some AHAs they learned:

• They were right about which touchpoints were important, but not how they were important or how to deliver.
• They didn’t need to differentiate their touchpoint strategy among Small Business groups
• They did not have to adjust their touchpoints to the maximum level in most cases.
• They could actually increase customer satisfaction AND reduce costs. For instance, they found that 25% of interactions were desired to be online – a way to increase satisfaction for those that want that service which is less expensive for the company to manage.
• Communicating their commitments and carefully managing customer’s expectations throughout each interaction enhances the experience at little to no cost.

The results of their efforts have been success in creating:

• A cross functional team – sales, marketing, operations
• Customer centric scorecarding
• Outcomes linked to compensations
• Improvements to business processes on track
• On-track customer feedback and showing improvement
• A coveted “seat at the table” with business unit partners

Krista’s final tips included:

Borrow from marketers – WIIFM Rules!

• Each stakeholder as his own needs and wants. Answer WIIFM to gain their support.

Sell the dream

• Customer experience improvement can be a long road – get them excited!
• Build the Emotional Business Case.
• Don’t just think about dollars and cents.
• Help stakeholders realize the outcomes of working with you.

Go Grass Roots

• Get others to help you sell your idea across the organization.

It’s a 3-legged marathon

• It's a marathon, not a sprint. A 3-legged race requires you to be in step with each stakeholder and go at the right pace.
• Slow down, listen. Address concerns.

Great Service & Cost Savings are Possible

• Focus on the right things, not everything.
• Figure out what makes the most difference.
• Realize that what’s important to your customers may not always make sense to you.

NACCM 2009: Two-Way Invention: Co-generating New Products and Services with Your Customers Through Ongoing Dialogues Online

In today’s presentation, Sami Hero, Vice President of Global Web Strategy at LexisNexis shared his company’s approach towards social media engagement and its evolution. LexisNexis built their web strategy over the past several years. In 2007, they launched their Web 2.0 initiatives and engaged in sporadic blogging, building focus groups and using Net Promoter Scores to gather feedback from their customers. In 2008, their focus was on building solutions and services for customer problems and creating 17 customer communities. Growth continued in 2009 as they developed global websites and grew customer communities to 30+. LexisNexis continued to grow its customer engagement in 2010 by adding mobile applications, building deeper customer relationships, and making it a common practice to listen.

Customer-driven innovation needs to be measured says Hero. It takes special talent…find them in your organization and “let them loose”. Age doesn’t matter, skill set does. When asked what skill sets are most important, Hero said that people with excitement, those that display strong writing skills, and those who are passionate about customer engagement make the best choices for managing customer conversations.

LexisNexis actively listens to its customers and users through their website at http://lexisnexis.com/community/ideas. Hero sees the value in these community sites as customers tend to go back to the main website. When at the main site, customers typically end up buying something. This cross promotion has significant value to an organization says Hero. He cautions us, however, in that if you aren’t giving good content, your community will die. Invest the resources to keep the customer conversations alive.

NACCM 2009: Create and Maintain Loyalty Through Ongoing Customer Engagement

Do you remember that Coke commercial with the catchy song, “I’d like to teach the world to sing…”

Marti Beller, President of Affinion Loyalty Group, kicked off her session with a powerful demonstration. She played that Coke commercial that’s now 30 years old and many people still remember it. And nearly everyone knows the jingle.

Coke knew how to do 30 years ago what we’re trying to learn how to do today: how to create an emotional bond with consumers.

Apple knows it, too. 75% of PC Users say they love the Apple brand, even though they don’t use it. Don’t tell that to the PC guy in the Apple commercials. He’d have a heart attack.

Marti challenged our thinking by opening our eyes to the fact that 80% of customers are “satisfied” or “very satisfied” before they leave and go buy somewhere else. A great example is your local movie theater. Chances are you’re satisfied with your last experience there, but if there is a better show time somewhere else, you’ll switch.

Harley Davidson and Disney are both constantly creating an emotional connection with their customers. Disney’s website even uses the words, “Life’s Special Moments.”

Customer engagement is an ongoing process. Engagement accumulates through satisfaction, loyalty, advocacy, and excitement about your brand.

Marti knows what she’s talking about. Affinion has had 7 consecutive quarters of double-digit growth because they help their clients create emotional connections through points-based loyalty programs.

Organizations who engage consumers to the point where they are moved to behavioral change do so by creating opportunities for emotional connections through ongoing, consistently positive experiences.

One of the best by-products of a points-based loyalty program is DATA about the customer.

So how do you measure customer engagement?

Share of Wallet – engaged people buy more products

Positive Referral – engaged customers convert potential customers to switch (Ever ask somebody about their Apple iPhone? They’ll convert you.)

Retention – engaged people stay longer

Feedback – engaged people give more feedback, which provides the opportunity to address issues and concerns and preserve potentially lost revenue

So why do we care about engaged customers? So what if our customers aren’t highly engaged? At least we’re maintaining the status quo. Marti argues that low customer engagement actually causes companies to lose money! So when you think you’re customer satisfaction scores are flat, they’re more likely declining!

Marti encouraged us to understand and execute The Four Ps of Customer Engagement:

Perspective: understanding and using your data to best communicate and engage with your customers.

• Very few companies use their current data on the customers they HAVE to realize which customers they DON’T have.

Purpose: knowing your brand and how it best resonates with your consumers.

• You have to use market data to understand your consumers from an unbiased standpoint
• What do your customers think is best in class, average, and worst in class? Make sure your brand promise matches up with their expectation of your company. Consumers want consistency.

Proliferation: using multiple channels to engage your customer

• Be careful where you make offers to your customer. Communicating rewards on their “bill” is probably not a good idea.
• Understand that people will engage with your website. Communicate the benefits of “membership” clearly every day. Get the knowledge out. Remind them frequently.

Praise: rewarding your customers for their behavior and engagement with your brand.

• Thanking a customer can be a great way to create an opportunity to upsell a customer.

Here are the major points the audience stated as takeaways:

• If you don’t do something, you won’t stay flat, you’ll sink.
• You need to make sure your customers know what they’re getting from you (communicate benefits often).
• Understand what you’re communicating and how/where.
• Do the things that are unexpected to differentiate yourself.
• SLA (Service Level Agreements) around passion is important.
• The most important data is the “why.”
• Use every touchpoint to remind the customer about your benefits.
• Certain touchpoints have a tendency to “describe” an entire company.

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?

NACCM 2009: The Power of Global Connectivity: Opportunities from a 24/7 Worldwide Alliance

Two billion Dell conversations are occurring each year online, through chats, forums, emails, etc. People are talking about you and you want to know what they are saying about you says Vida Killian who is responsible for Marketing & Online Conversations at Dell. She shared a quote from Michael Dell that states “These conversations are going to occur whether you like it or not. Do you want to be part of that or not? My arguments is you absolutely do. You can be a better company listening and being involved in that conversation.”

Killian says that Dell has three objectives: 1) Build the brand, 2) listen, learn and engage, and 3) rapid innovation. Dell knew that social media was having a huge impact and expanded social engagement over time. According to Killian, they started with customer forums in 1995, blogosphere and social networking platforms in 2006, IdeaStorm website in 2007, and sponsored offsite properties in 2008.

Dell developed its website IdeaStorm as a result of a need for a customer-driven, central location for new ideas. IdeaStorm.com allowed them to encourage ideas, feedback, innovation and dialogue with and between their customers. What were the results, you ask? The IdeaStorm website has received 12,000 ideas to date (2,000 in the 1st week alone), and has resulted in approximately 400 ideas implemented.

Killian shared key lessons that Dell has learned over the years about social media engagement.

1. Engagement –there is pent-up demand and customers want to talk to you.
2. Open source idea generation transformed the way they operate. They not only have the IdeaStorm website but have added a Facebook Application that allows customers to post ideas directly to Facebook.
3. Customers want to engage both on and off your site. Community Forums exist on Ondell.com and Offdell.com.
4. Transparency and authenticity are key. Killian says that social media is “forgiving” if you respond quickly to the negativity.
5. Social media responsibility no longer is just the job of the social media team. In the early days, Dell had a central team. Now they have distributed ownership to different company departments including sales, service & support, product group, and marketing.
6. Define measurement objectives. Keys include Technorati ranking, Net Promoter Scores, website traffic, etc.
7. Meet specific customer needs through social media. For example, when they needed to move inventory from DellOulet, they used Twitter to send coupons to their customers. Now, @delloutlet is in the top 50 Twitter accounts and has over 1million followers. They currently have over 35 official Dell accounts on Twitter and many more personal accounts.
8. Customers want to connect globally. It is a challenge because of language and cultural barriers. Growth potential is huge to connect with customers all over the globe.

Dell’s original goal was to simply build the Dell brand. What they’ve found is that Dell doesn’t own the brand, customers do. When you engage with them, you are building the brand together which is more powerful than doing it alone says Killian.

NACCM 2009: Fueling Loyalty with a Mile High Customer-Centric Culture

During this crazy economic time, companies have two choices, according to Vicky Stennes, VP, Inflight Experience for JetBlue Airlines:

1. Think the economy is cyclical and wait it out.

2. Think customers have changed, and will continue to change. Now is a time to create a long-term strategy to create a more customer-centric culture.

JetBlue has followed the 2^nd choice. With their mission of “bringing humanity back to air service,” they must be doing something (or should I say many things?) right. J.D. Power & Associates has ranked them 2009 Top Low Cost Airline for Customer Satisfaction.

Not that JetBlue hasn't had it’s share of public bumps and bruises. Many people remember the public relations nightmare that occurred when JetBlue customers were stranded on the runway for hours with no food, bathroom, etc.

This innovative airline has managed to keep it’s chin in the air and continually focus on one of it’s main challenges: how to get people to give them a try. One of the things they’ve done is study the amazing difference in perception between people who are simply aware of the airline, and the people who have actually flown on the airline. People who have flown on JetBlue have a very high opinion of the attributes and features offered. People without flight experience on JetBlue pretty much rank them with all the other low cost carriers in terms of service and features.

To create the “mile high customer-centric culture” they are becoming known for, JetBlue started with a clearly defined set of values:

• Safety
• Caring
• Integrity
• Fun
• Passion

Then they identified behaviors that embody the values (They call them The Five “Be’s”):

• Be in Blue always
• Be personal
• Be the answer
• Be engaging
• Be thankful to every customer

These values and beliefs stem from JetBlue’s core belief: Culture and service are one in the same.

One way they convey the culture both internally and externally is their “blue” vocabulary. Everything is “Blue” – memos are called “Bluenote”; cities they fly to are called “Blue Cities.” They’re cornering the market on the word!

Another interesting idea that helps to spread the culture of service throughout the company is their attitude that everyone is a “crew member.” This echoes of Disney’s “cast member” philosophy, and it seems to work equally well.

What’s the JetBlue “Secret Ingredient”? Crew members make experiences.

The right kind of leadership is critical to leading a customer-centric organization. According to the JetBlue leadership philosophy, if you want to know what kind of leader you are, look at your calendar. If your calendar doesn’t reflect 70% of your time is spent working with your crew members, you’re not living the JetBlue culture.

Employees are equally important. So much so that JetBlue has instituted some tried and true, as well as some ground-breaking employee engagement efforts, including:

• No salary cuts
• Investment in retirement and profit sharing
• High levels of communication via Crewmember channels

JetBlue also understands who it’s core customers are. Internally, they’re called VFRs – Visiting Friends and Relatives. As business is down overall in this economy, JetBlue’s share of this audience is up – a testimony to the service it provides at a value price. And a testimony to the fact that when people are visiting friends and relatives, they truly value what they get from JetBlue.

Continuous Innovation is another key element of JetBlue’s service culture. It is their believe that innovation can take many forms, and it’s not always the new & different.

An example of JetBlue innovation during the recession. Their very successful (so successful they don’t release the actual results) “All You Can Jet” campaign. This program offered $599 unlimited travel between Sept 8-Oct 8. The results:

• Demand far exceeded expectations
• Nearly 50% of customers in this program had never flown JetBlue
• Viral Launch – 133 million reached through various social media channels and PR sources.
• They received an estimated $14 million worth of media coverage
• “Outrageous” response from customers – in a good way!

This program was amazingly more successful than they had hoped. Some flying fanatics actually flew more than 80 times during the program!

JetBlue’s new terminal at JFK – T5 – is a fresh new look at air travel. By paying attention to what travelers need today (as opposed to 1950), JetBlue offers a bright, energetic space that includes:

• lots of electrical outlets
• free wifi
• 22 restaurants and food outlets
• 25 retail stores
• a large kids area

One of the most fascinating stories about the new terminal was how JetBlue even thought through the security experience. They understand that even when you go through security, that’s still part of the JetBlue experience. So they created a better experience for TSA (the security agency) by improving the layout of the security area, and giving them padded floors among other improvements. The result is happier TSA workers who, in turn, help create happier customers.

The Q&A at the end of the session included some thoughtful questions from the packed room:

Q. How does idea generation work in your company?

A. Through the continuous dialog with our crewmembers. We do “pocket sessions” several times a year – listening tours to get feedback from customers.

Q. Are there certain behaviors you strive for to create the culture?

A. It starts with how we teach and treat each other. If treat each other right, it will flow to the customer.

We send surveys to 6 customers from every flight. One of the questions is on how much camaraderie there was among the crew. How much fun were they having? We use that information to see how we’re doing.

JetBlue, like many other companies represented at this year’s NACCM Customer’s 1^st Conference are utilizing Net Promoter scores to help them increase the number of people who will refer them to other travelers.

Vicky’s final message to customer service leadership: ROLE MODEL the behaviors you want. Your people are always watching you. You can put them through training, but your example means more than anything else. Great advice to end the session.

Takeaways that the audience shared also make a great summary of the session:

• It all starts with how we treat each other
• Culture is service
• When asked what makes you different, answer with a story instead of a soundbite
• Focus on continuous innovation as well as consistency
• Culture and profit should work together
• Manage the balance between making crew members, customers, and shareholders happy.
• Leadership should spend 70% of their time with crew members
• Acknowledge imperfection. Things happen. Be honest and deal with it.

NACCM 2009: Leading Through Turbulent Times - Disney Institute

Leading Through Turbulent Times - Disney Institute, presented by Bruce Kimbrell

Disney starts of with a video that shows how they go about preparing the park every day for the maximum enjoyment of their customers. PPIR's in the Disney Institutes's box - to encourage audience participation! Kimbrell has had 27 years of experience in Disney parks. Everyday should be a prep day for turbulent times. If it's important, if it has value, every day should be.

In the 24 Disney hotels from coast to coast, they experience 95% occupancy year round. This all has to do with the cast they have. They know what their guests are coming for. They treat every guest as if they're important.

Leadership excellence came from leaders who were willing to listen. Listening is an art and talent, few people have the talent. There were many leadership challenges from the 1960s on, after both of the Disney brothers died.

Communicate the vision. How they did it at Walt Disney:

-Create a shared and meaningful purpose

-Inspire passion and interest

-Guide decision making and strategy

-Convey values

Core competencies at Disney are how clean the park is and how friendly the people are.

What Disney did to improve their brand:

- Refocus on core competencies

- Refined brand, mission and product offerings

- Solidify corporate culture

Refocus your culture to demonstrate appropriate behaviors of:

-Language and symbols

-Cultural values

-Traits and behaviors

Listen to your front line which is your bottom line. Key factor that Disney relies on for communicating with their customers. Example: A Pub in the park was continually asked if they sold fish and chips. A cast member took a tally of the individuals who asked for Fish and Chips, so they created a shop where customers could buy fish and chips, which now brings in $3 million a month. The leader listened, and was rewarded as a result.

NACCM 2009: Turn Your Enemies into Raging Fans: The Critical Imperatives to Listening Online

A website called “Comcast Must Die” was one of the reasons Comcast took a more active role in reaching out to their unhappy customers. Frank Eliason, Director of Digital Care, National Customer Operations with Comcast, says this website was one of the reasons they started actively engaging in social media. They began by looking at blog site comments about their brand and let these customers know they were listening.

Eliason and his team of 11 are assigned the task of managing Comcast’s social media strategy. The company has set up both internal and external strategies to listen to customers. Eliason involved a variety of departments at Comcast to participate in listening and sharing customer stories, including Marketing, Public Relations, Customer Service and Human Resource departments. According to Eliason, this strategy has enabled Comcast to apply this information and change processes for the good in all areas of the company.

They didn’t start out that way. Eliason shares that Comcast had to learn to move away from being a product-focused company to one that is experienced-focused. It’s easy to track numbers and data to measure your effectiveness says Eliason. But you cannot change your organization by looking at only the numbers. Service people know that the customer experience and customer stories count.

With respects to blogs, Comcast takes the approach of reaching out to customers one-to-one if possible. They will first seek to call the customer and have a conversation. According to Eliason, the surprise factor is high, a two-way conversation is facilitated, and customers feel special. If they can’t reach them by phone, they try email or respond directly by posting comments on the blog site.

Eliason’s advice was similar to many other speakers today. That advice was to start listening to conversations. Search your brand name on Twitter. Don’t hold back, reach out and ask “can I help?” Know which forums your customers are hanging out on. Every customer is an influencer on your brand says Eliason. Listening and engaging are more important than ever in growing your brand.

NACCM 2009: PANEL SESSION: Leading Loyalty Amidst a Disruptive Business Environment

Moderator:

Rudy Vidal, Vidal Consulting Group

Panelists:

Jill Noblett (JN), recent Senior Vice President, Loyalty & Direct Marketing, Wyndham Hotel Group

Dan Wiersma (DW), recent SVP, Service Platforms, Sony Electronics

Megan Crowley (MC), Director Market Research, Norwegian Cruise Lines

Chris Moloney (CM), Chief Marketing Officer, Scottrade

Concept of the panel:

The idea of loyalty is changing. What are we doing differently that’s working.

Definition of Customer Loyalty:

A personal commitment to re-purchase and recommend, that resists normal competitive market pressures

Is loyalty more difficult to attain now than it used to be?

JN – Yes. People are more price sensitive. So we have to consider price, but figure out how to add as much value as we can – now we have to blend the two.

CM – One measure of loyalty is resistance to price sensitivity, but I’m not sure I agree with that anymore. The drivers are changing more dramatically.

There’s a difference between attitudes and behaviors. The marriage of these two are difficult.

DW – The fundamentals haven’t changed. Things like commoditization, the ability to replicate another company’s product or service has changed dramatically in our lifetime. That makes it more difficult to do what we have to do. I’m a huge Southwest Airlines fan. A few weeks ago, I got stuck in Phoenix due to weather in San Diego. Southwest was very responsive, took great care of us, even though it wasn’t their fault. I will fly them forever. They treated me as a person. That fundamental hasn’t changed.

MC – For us, the cruise industry, the experience is very long-lasting. For us, the experience is much more important than the price. We’re focusing on the experiences that are critical to our customers. With less money, we have to focus even more on those things that are most important to our customer.

AUDIENCE – Visibility & availability. Easy to get instant gratification now.

Speak to the empowerment of the consumer:

CM – It may be harder to overcome the price barrier. It changes the spectrum on how you have to overcome the price barrier. There’s only one price leader in any category. Everyone else has to differentiate another way.

What Southwest does so well is service recovery. Maybe right now somebody in your company is delivering bad service. How you resolve that is key!

JN – How do you add value to the price point? In Wyndham brand, we allowed customers to get some personal preferences if they fill out a profile for us. Even though we may cost $20 more, some of these people feel that the personalization is worth it. Sometimes the equity people build with your brand they don’t want to lose.

What creates loyalty?

MC – For us, it’s about the experience. We don’t have a very good loyalty program (from a traditional standpoint). We do understand what’s important to our customers and we try to deliver that. Our next step is to build a more robust loyalty program.

AUDIENCE – Anytime you have a touchpoint, you have to make sure the culture of service comes through.

DW – I agree completely. There are a multiplicity of things that drive loyalty, but the touchpoints of your company, both directly and indirectly are important. I asked different departments: legal, accounting, etc. if they knew how they impacted the end customer. Many of them didn’t know. At Southwest, every single person knows how they affect the end user. So what drives loyalty, as I found at Sony, is getting the linkages with everyone in the organization so they understand that what they do impacts the end customer (even the legal department – think about the legal speak they make customers read).

What is the role of the organization to creating loyalty?

CM – If people don’t identify themselves as part of the company – like saying “we” when referring to themselves in the company – the service level might not be what it should be. They won’t seem as empowered as they should be.

I will throw a wrench in it, though. Most of my friends are loyal to Apple. They’re off the charts for loyalty right now. Harley Davidson has like an 85% net promoter score. People want to be loyal, they want to be impressed, they want to have a good time. They want us to overdeliver. It’s not a situation that’s going to go away. People want to talk about your company.

The drives are probably different for each company, but it starts with overdelivering on the product.

JN – You can have great service, but if the product is flawed, you’re going to have problems. You may be loyal to a certain hotel, but if you find bedbugs, you’re probably not going to go back, or you’ll wait a long time before going back.

AUDIENCE – The opposite is true, too. What I want to know is that everytime I check into a Wyndham hotel anywhere, I want to have a consistent experience. People want good service and good product to be consistent.

JN – A lot of people talk about Zappos, but they’re all in one location. The culture and values can be easier to manage. It’s harder with a company that has many locations.

CM – I’m behaviorally loyal to my airline because of the loyalty program – I’m platinum. I expect a certain level of service for that. When I travel on another airline, I kind of expect to be kicked around.

You cannot deliver an extreme level of service to everybody. Southwest has finally joined the bandwagon and created a tiered level. We all know we have to treat our best customers special, but that can’t hurt the others.

DW – Back to the hotel example, I really like to be greeted at the front desk. My co-workers don’t care about that. We went to a hotel with an express check-in. My co-workers liked that. I felt dissatisfied because I like the interaction.

If you’re used to an environment being a certain way and it turns out different, that can be very disappointing. You have to look at how different people want things.

There’s a vicious circle of delivering what we can deliver, which attracts a certain customer. What about the others that want something different?

AUDIENCE – Let’s use the power of analytics to adapt our loyalty programs and our service models so you can tailor it to what each customer wants it to be.

JN – It depends on your product. It comes back to the drivers. What is that you know about the customer that makes them loyal?

CM – The next step would be to create a service differentiator. Can we group people into buckets? Some companies do “personas” that help understand what the customer wants.

JN – Wyndham creates personas. It was about how we presented the marketing to them. If you wanted points, we could talk to you about points. If you’re a leisure traveler, we’d talk to you a very different way.

DW – Some companies are doing exactly that. They’re having a conversation with you, then you can go somewhere else in the world and they can pull up the information on you (i.e., Ritz Carlton).

AUDIENCE QUESTION – If people fit different slots (ABC), what can you do to move people up the chain? And how do you keep the “A”s from feeling like they’re not special anymore?

JN – We moved people up the value chain through a lot of education and communication – helping them to understand the brands, what we have to offer. Sometimes they got special offers, etc. As we got to the higher levels, we tried to figure out ways to recognize them and get more share of wallet at the same time.

Sometimes we would move people up, or keep them around, even if they were a little short on points. That keeps them engaged and “hooked.”

CM – Sometimes they don’t know they’re in a loyalty program, or what level they are. You have to communicate that to them. You have to constantly learn from your customers about where they are, what’s going on with them, and how things have changed in the past year, you can move them up or down the value chain more easily.

MC – We have a much higher price point product, so we’ve done a lot of work to figure out what makes people purchase 2, 3, or 4 times. Once they’ve purchase 5 times, they’re loyalty goes through the roof. So we focus on how to choose the 2^nd or 3^rd purchase.

Chris, are you loyal to your airline brand, or are you loyal to the points?

CM – I’m hooked because they’re “my airline.” And I have a status with them (Platinum). If they had the exact same policies as Southwest, I’d go with Southwest due to the service.

Are customers loyal to the hotel brand or the points?

JN – You have to wonder if once you’ve created these points program or other program, have you created a monster? Maybe. But if you look at it like you’re giving them something they value , would they stay with you because they’re invested, even if you’re not perfect? That can change over time. I might make a different decision when I’m on business vs. being on vacation vs. when I’m visiting my grandparents. It’s more about what the person is desiring. Understand what they value, then give it to them.

AUDIENCE QUESTION – Can you share some lessons learned from loyalty programs?

DW – We’re not a steeped in loyalty programs as hospitality or airlines. We looked for the highest level of repeat customers and we gave them a “backstage pass.” If you’re close to a Sony store, you can get special stuff at the store. Almost nobody took us up on it. We sent it out to 250,000 and we had only 1000 people take us up on it in a year. We know that people are not as loyal to Sony as they used to be. We thought it would be great because we thought customers would really love the service enhancement.

What was it about that program that didn’t work?

I don’t really know. The flip side, though, was we came up with a program that’s not a loyalty program, but an enhanced services program. Customers loved that. They could come to a store and talk to somebody face to face in the store when they had a problem.

CM – A bank customer tried to do points based on overdraft fees because they’re the most profitable customers. Another bank gave points for ATM deposits. It ended up creating unbelievable lines at the ATM. A utility company tried to create a program that would incent people to use more power by leaving stuff on when they weren’t in the house!

JN – One of the things we didn’t do well was to set expectations properly with franchisees, etc. It took us a couple of years to create a dashboard for them to see the effects of the program. Calibrating those expectations is important.

Internal alignment and the understanding of the organization is important. We had a lot of technology infrastructure, we had to convert a lot of customers, etc. Sometimes we did that too quickly and we didn’t follow our own best practices. Those were learnings that were ongoing. There’s the famous expression, there’s never time to do it right, but there’s time to do it again. Take it slow and do it right.

MC – Our loyalty program is auto-enrollment. Now we’re getting to a point where we have a giant database of people that are pretty much inactive. We’re likely moving to a system that is more opt-in because those people will be a lot more active. Our direct marketing people are scared of losing their giant list, though.

What are you doing differently now than you were before?

MC – First, understanding the things that impact loyalty. Next, focus on the things that are most important. This helps get everyone excited and rally around those things when they’re prioritized.

What we’ve done recently is start with the customer. 80% of our sales go through a travel agent. So even though we touch the end customer, they purchase before we ever meet them. So we have to understand what drives the travel agent. What are the key drivers for them, so we can focus on the most important things for them, too.

Third, what makes employees excited and loyal? Same thing.

If we have loyal customers, loyal travel agents, and loyal employees, we’ll do great.

Is it a problem to “compete” with travel agents with your direct business?

MC – We need the travel agents. We love the end customer. We have to have both, but we can’t deny the travel agents.

Chris, what are you doing differently than you were 5 years ago?

CM – When you look at your business, 10-30% of your business can come through referrals. Get a hold of where referral lives in your business and figure out a way to maximize your referral program.

The people who make referrals to make referrals to people like them. So, high value customers are important to get referrals from.

AUDIENCE – How do you handle the difference in the increase in emotional loyalty?

DW – We recognized that the emotional piece was critical to loyalty. We started to do it base on the call center. When you’re calling a call center, you’re usually not happy. We started to rate emotions. We have your info and we can rate the experience based on what happened last time. We made it as simple as a frown face, happy face, or face with a straight line. We told our agents to not worry about how much time they were on the phone, but instead taking care of the emotional need of the customer.

We also employed skill-based routing. If I made you happy last time, we’re going to try to route your next call to me to take care of you.

AUDIENCE – I’m in healthcare and one of the things we’ve learned in healthcare is how to be “sensitive” to a person’s needs. And in healthcare, we have to change our hats all the time based on the medical need.

Jill, what are you doing differently now?

JN – When you’re dealing with 7000 franchisees, it’s hard to get consistency. Over the past few years, the company at large has made a shift to be more customer-centric. It’s interesting challenge because the “company” doesn’t deal directly with the customer. From a very basic standpoint, the organization started to align it’s technology so we can get an accurate picture of the customer and know what’s happened with them on previous visits. We obviously focus on retaining customers.

From a loyalty program standpoint, we tried to be relevant to our customer, meaning we tried to find things that were important to them and customize our offers, etc. to address those things. Also we tried to go deeper into personalization.

Give us something you learned that was key to making loyalty work:

CM – Net promoter score. I used to market against it. Now I’m the biggest proponent.

MC – For us, it’s listening to customers, then modeling it to them and prioritizing.

DW – I’m a huge proponent of NPS. Alignment is critical. In order to have a successful loyalty program, you need alignment of marketing, sales, etc. Without it, you struggle. Lastly, the significant impact your people have on your customers. Empower them to do things.

JN – Showing metrics and ROI as soon as possible gets the company behind the effort as quickly as possible.

NACCM 2009: Creating a Customer-Centric Social Media Strategy that Works

Business owners want to jump on the social media bandwagon but just don’t know where to begin. Becky Carroll, founder of Customers Rock!, believes you must have a strategy to engage in social media today. In her presentation today, "Putting Together a Customer-Centric Social Media Strategy that Works: Deciphering the Hype from Reality", she discusses how to put together a customer centeric social media strategy that works.
Why consider social media? Carroll says because your customers want it or management wants it. She reminds us that 60% of Americans are using social media, 93% believe a company should have a presence in social media and 85% believe a company should interact via social media. Using social media helps to remove the “faceless veil” so that customers can get to know you on a personal level says Carroll.

According to Carroll, hitting the Social media sweet spot allows us to:
– build trust with customers
– build community
– WOM maximizer
– two-way conversations

Based on the book Groundswell, Carroll shares several reasons to use social media: to listen, talk, energize, help and embrace your customers. Ask your customers which social media venues work best for them.

How do you create a social media strategy? Carroll says you should participate by first listening, deciding what you want to do with your customers and choose the right tools. Establish social media goals. What do you want to do? Share your expertise, build relationships, create a conversation, customer service, or be more human?

Carroll shared several company examples which are successfully using social media. She mentioned the top three brands with the deepest brand engagement using social media Starbucks, Dell and Ebay. Other examples include Coca Cola, JetBlue and Cisco. Coca Cola’s Fan Page was developed by two loyal customers. JetBlue Airways uses Twitter for customer service and has over 1.4 million followers. Cisco CEO John Chambers was captured on video in his office doing duck calls. The video was posted on their blog and allowed customers to see his human side.

The key to social media is in the planning. Decide who is in charge of social media. Many are outsourcing to marketing companies and PR firms. Carroll believes you should not outsource this to someone outside of the company. Find someone in your organization who would love the opportunity to create conversations about your company. Everyone needs to be involved in strategy: marketing, customer service, R&D, C-level, and employees.

Decide which metrics are the most critical. Start with small, focused pilots. Remember, you must be consistent as it is a relationship-building activity for the long term according to Carroll. Ask for customer feedback and revise your strategy as needed.

You can engage in social media in a planned way. Set up the plan and get your organization involved. According to Carroll, it takes a little nurture and care. Little things like “thank you” matter to your customers. Begin by listening is Carroll’s strongest advice.

NACCM 2009: Managing the Customer Service Experience

Customers today are more interested in the experience they have with you, your products and services than ever before. Making the customer experience your value proposition should be our goal according to Lewis (Lou) Carbone, founder and CEO of Experience Engineering and author of “Clued In, How to Keep Customers Coming Back Again and Again.” Carbone reminds us of a quote from Peter Drucker that brings light to this concept, “The purpose of a business is to create value for its customers and the reward for that is profit.”

Two companies, Disney and Howard Johnsons, have influenced his thinking about the customer experience. In working with Disney, he found that their management was concerned more about the customer experience, i.e., concerns over the melting rate of ice cream in their different theme parks, the scent of chocolate chip cookies to enhance the experience, down to the design of Main Street in a way that visitors perceived a long entrance that went on forever and perceived a quick exit after a long day at the park. Compare this to Howard Johnson’s model which lost its customer focus over the years.

According to Carbone, the economy has affected how we look at customer service today. One way a business can differentiate itself is through the service experience. Companies must move from a “make and sell” product-based mentality to a “sense and respond” experience-based mentality. The “sense and respond” mentality focuses on what our customers really want from the service experience and examines the impact of cultural influences and psychological needs. When we factor these into the service experience, we can significantly improve customer loyalty and retention.

An experience audit can help us compare a current customer service experience with a desired customer experience. We can audit our current customer experience with a variety of tools including, language analysis, clue scanning, one-on-one customer interviews, etc. Clue scanning, for example, allows us to look for clues in a service experience that can be improved to better meet the needs and desires of the customer. By using these tools we can close the gap between the current and desired customer experience.

Carbone believes that improving the customer service experience involves both art and science in today’s world. “It is not enough to say ‘let’s treat them well,’” says Carbone. We must look beyond that and decide what we want our customers to feel about themselves when they do business with us. Managing customer clues will become extremely important as time goes on. He foresees a day when every customer is treated as an individual unit as we perfect our “clue-consciousness.” Until then, we must continue to keep our eyes focused on improving the service experience to remain competitive and successful.

Welcome to NACCM: Customers 1st

This week, we're going to be live from NACCM: Customers 1st in Phoenix, Arizona. Conference Producer Amanda Powers recently sat down with us to let us know what to expect from this year's conference.