Archive for the 'listening' Category

Posted by: Ian Mapp | 23.04.2010

The UK General Election has accelerated the interest in what is called ‘social media’ – in this context meaning Twitter, Facebook, Bebo, etc. And in particular, how these new ways of communicating with people can be used to win the election.

A lot of this has to do with the perception that the use of these new tools was hugely influential to Barack Obama’s success in the US Presidential election. We can debate whether this is true or not, but my purpose here is only to recognise that social media has become widely acknowledge and discussed. I want to look at the potential impact social media may have on business.

The current news items are only the public face of a debate that began some time ago in the business and government worlds. But what the added attention has done is move the topic of social media up the corporate agenda – and no doubt many will rush to ‘”do something”, to be seen to be doing something and not to get left behind.

Like most bandwagons, and especially technology-led ones, it pays to be cautious and spend time thinking – hard – about what you want to achieve by engaging in these new forms of communication. In amongst the uncertainty about how organisations should react to this change in customer behaviour, one thing does seem to be certain. There is no going back once you have started. 

Many groups and forums are springing up to address this area, many of which are ill-informed and offering poor advice. But, there is lots of valuable thinking and sharing being done as this new area is explored. One that I like is called Social CRM Pioneers. It has somewhat of a technology slant (which suits my background) but there are some very informative and insightful conversations being had there.

The first question is how to start – what should be done first? There is no single right answer to that, as individual circumstances differ massively, but here are a few thoughts for you.

Your customers have always been having these conversations between themselves about your products and services (although with less reach and fewer people to listen). You now have the possibility to ‘overhear’ what they are saying in these public communities and networks and, if you are careful and respectful, the possibility to be invited into the conversations and maybe influence attitudes and opinions. 

How will this change in customer behaviour affect your corporate culture? Firstly, remember, your employees are customers too – and will be feeling this change first-hand in their everyday lives. So, you probably already have a lot of knowledge internally. Perhaps, you could start by asking employees about their experiences and how they would like brands to interact with them in this environment? Start an internal conversation as a precursor to external conversations.

The rise of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems over the last fifteen years should have been accompanied by corporate adaptation to a more customer-centric model, although in most cases only the technology was implemented. Maybe, in this new social revolution we should be building ‘people-centric’ organisations.

That is, not companies facing off to individual customers (remember the ‘market of one’ and 360 degree customer views?) but individual people in organisations building trust and relationships with individual prospects and customers over time and through multiple channels and media – whether that be for marketing, sales or service needs. That would mean organising internally to meet customers’ needs and not simply organising for efficiency.

Oh, and don’t forget that there are a large number of customers who do not not participate in online communities and social media. Their needs must not be overlooked in the seeming stampede for this new promised land.

brilliant basics, culture, customer experience, customer forums, frontline agents, listening, managing, people, social media | No Comments

Posted by: Ian Mapp | 11.03.2010

One of our ‘truths’ is that customers and staff that interact directly with customers already know a lot about issues and problems … and often how to solve them. Listening to their stories is often inspiring. The following was inspired by a customer advisor on a recent client engagement.

View from the front

We the unheeded, doing the unneeded.

Showing the unknowing.

Too much pressing, too many stressing.

The unneeded our undoing.

Talk more, rest less.

Always collecting, something new to show,

never reflecting, learning from what we know.

The knowing unheeded, bright new world unweeded.

Doing the unneeded, defection speeded.

They talk, I squeeze.

They talk, I breeze.

I talk, they freeze.

I talk – on their knees!

I hear them, they are my feed.

I hear them, know what they need.

Now is the time to hear me speak.

Now is the time to heed the call.

Now is the time to follow my lead.

I’m undoing the unneeding, starting now.

 

               

Voice of the Customer, agent experience, culture, customer experience, feedback, listening, process improvement, reduction in contacts | No Comments

Posted by: Ian Mapp | 29.07.2009

My heart sank as I entered the check-in hall at Luton airport – a massive queue for the Dortmund flight desks. Not sure why I was surprised as I have had this experience before, but I was. Also a bit angry at the anticipated waste of time. And waste of time it almost was.

Standing in the queue, brain in neutral, I was idly thinking that I hadn’t looked at Twitter for several days, and I pulled out my phone to check the latest messages. Somehow, the trivial nature of Twitter content seemed a soothing prospect.

Naturally, my frustration with standing in the queue led to a tweet: “easyJet check-in queue not moving at all”. To be completely truthful, it took two tweets as the predictive text on my phone managed to put ‘doping’ instead of ‘moving’ the first time. I later discovered that the input language was set to German – I guess we will never know if it was my mistake, or over-eagerness by a super-intelligent phone, as I stood queuing for a flight to Germany!

I felt no better having sent the message and so resorted to talking to those around me, who were equally unhappy at the mystifying delay. I finally checked in after a one hour wait and the rest of the journey was completed perfectly satisfactorily.

At some point, it occurred to me that I had heard someone from easyJet was active on Twitter and so the next morning, with a few minutes to spare before a meeting, I opened up my laptop and logged back in.

Sure enough, there was a reply from @easyJetCare: “easyJetCare @imptwo I will pass your feedback on to Liz our airport manager for Luton. Usually they move pretty quickly. Hope you had a good flight ^PH”.

A Wow! moment. Direct customer engagement from easyJet, I was genuinely impressed. I had to test how far this would go and so responded: “imptwo @easyJetCare thanks for replying – others around me were unhappy with the 1 hour wait too. It’s raining here – can u fix that too? ”.

Again a reply – in a couple of hours: “easyJetCare@imptwo I will follow up, it is essential that you are informed about your delays. I wish I could fix the rain but I’m not that good ^PH”. This exchange now had a real human feel about it, and, curiously, just getting a response did make me feel better.

Nothing had actually changed and I am pretty sure the experience will be repeated. And the defence that a low-prices means low standards only goes so far; there are minimum standards of treatment and respect to which everyone is entitled.

But, a simple human contact (albeit technology-mediated), tempered with a little humour and I am prepared to forgive – which I guess makes me the very epitome of a loyal easyJet customer. Do you think I should worry about myself?

What it does demonstrate is the powerful principle that delivering a service of any kind is a person-to-person transaction, and don’t ever forget it when designing customer experiences. Now, if only easyJet were to send me a “you said, we did” message to let me know what has changed as a result of my feedback, that would be a great end to the story ….

Customer satisfaction, complaint, customer experience, customer experience design, fast+simple, feedback, humour, listening | No Comments

Posted by: Peter Massey | 22.02.2009

I was asked 3 questions about contact centres for a website recently and I thought I’d share them with you:

1)         What was the biggest challenge facing the contact centre industry in the last 12 months and how did they overcome it?

Whilst there are sexy new things we’re doing like customer help customer, analytics and new ways of knowledge sharing, its really about  the same old challenges to brilliant operating basics that should be the focus for managers who are making big strides.

TOP OF THE LONG LIST OF INTERACTING BASICS ARE :

• a) Why customers have to contact you at all
• b) How the business model changes to focus on removing unnecessary contact, driving excellence in self service and engaging the whole business in removing root causes of frustrations and listening to feedback and intelligence from the contact points
• c) Operating effectively to meet demand
• d) Understanding what knowledge the website and staff need to answer customer needs
• e) the role of contact centres in providing feedback and intelligence to the rest of the business; and how to get the mountains of customer feedback gathered around the business to be useful

 2)         What are the key issues you expect the industry to be tackling in the next 12-18 months?

• a) Embedding new business wide processes that remove at least 20% of unit costs every year  by using feedback and what front line staff know to drive change
• b) The move to customer help customer model causing the role of contact centres to change rapidly
• c) The same ones as before on brilliant basics of running contact centres and self service channels

 3)         Could you give us some insights on how companies can stop doing stupid things to their customers and the benefits it is bringing to their organisations?

Our mission is “How do we stop doing dumb things to our customers and our people?” so we have lots to say on this topic. If I can paraphrase the question – the most successful businesses are removing things systematically by installing and embedding new company-wide management processes based on a different kind of data. The least successful businesses keep kicking off analysis and then generating projects to fix things: we call this “it’s raining projects”. The least successful businesses are swamped with the feedback they request from customers, but don’t act on. For more contact peter.massey@budd.uk.com or take a look at www.budd.uk.com

Customer satisfaction, Voice of the Customer, customer experience, feedback, listening, mission, self service, the best service is no service | No Comments

Posted by: Peter Massey | 4.04.2008

first direct’s withdrawal of mortgages to new customers took the news by storm yesterday. It wasn’t a surprise. As we reported on the 11th of Feb blog entry, it was evident the product was selling “too well”.

 So how come it took til now to do something? Why did it have to reach crisis point? I wonder who’s getting what blame?

But they did get brave and do the right thing. Look after the existing customers and the ones who already applied and stop taking more business that couldn’t be handled properly.

Bravo!

Listening to customers it must have been evident it had to happen. I wonder why they didnt just up the rates a bit in February and take more business at a higher margin, avoiding the negative publicity and “first rock” factor?

It’s interesting that there’s now a BBC Today programme on Saturdays that’s designed to do exactly this. Pick up the stories from the customers before the journalists can.

What our customers are saying is in the public domain. Shouldn’t you be picking it up in your business first?

Talk to us about the “what our customers are saying” process

Uncategorized, WOCAS, first direct, listening, word of mouth | No Comments

Posted by: Peter Massey | 3.03.2008

I sit blogging this whilst my daughter is in theatre at Maidstone Hospital – yes that one that made all the press for MRSA deaths. So it wasn’t without trepidation that we approached the place. It’s a toe curling place to be – or rather toe uncurling to be precise – that’s the minor operation she’s in for.

Beth’s last lesson on Friday had been doing TLAFSSOS…three letter acronym for social studies or something… talking about hospital infections. Online yesterday I discovered from a contact in S Africa the sad news that someone I met last year died from complications after an operation. One of Beth’s friends was in intensive care for a month 2 years ago after a minor op here.

What sticks in my mind from a few years ago, was the difference between the private hospital in Tunbridge Wells and public hospital there. Yes the other half of the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust once run by the infamous Rose Gibb. She that made the news for chasing targets and the resultant dirty hospitals that killed many. She’s still the signature in the “Welcome to our hospital” book today.

But far from being about slagging off the NHS, this is a story of reassurance. Walking into reception at 7.30am this morning, the place was awash ( no pun…) with cleaners. Every corner looks spotless. Every uniform freshly pressed. Every entrance to every ward has disinfecting hand washes and everyone uses them. Whilst sitting in the room waiting, someone has been in and cleaned the toilet. Someone else has waashed down the surfaces, someone else has vacuumed the floors and finally someone else has mopped them. One of the toilets is marked for deep clean 030308 (heh happy 5th birthday to telco 3, launched on 030303 !).

So I can see cleanliness is a top priority. There are no inspectors, just people everywhere paying attention to cleanliness.

There are at least 4 lessons to draw from the tragic history of this place:

- The business of this NHS Trust became focused on its shareholders, the money men, not on its customers, the patients
- The targets set by its shareholders did not reflect the most basic needs of its customers
- Neither the management nor the shareholders would listen to the customers, even when they were dying, because of cost targets that would ultimately cost a lot of money
- The waste of life stands out: the cost now of keeping it clean must be high, but not so high as the price of a death, let alone 100 deaths
 

It’s about the focus and stamina of the leaders really.

I remember hearing Michael Eisner, CEO of Disney talk last year at ECMW. When he ran Universal, he was frustrated that he could never keep the toilets as fastidiously clean as at Disney. So he called the then CEO of Disney and asked what was the secret. He discovered 3 things:

- Whenever I visit a Disney operation of any kind, the first thing I do is go to the toilets. If I have to pick up paper from the floor myself, I do so. But hell breaks loose if I ever have to do it twice
- The secret is cleaning the toilets most when they are most used eg every 15 minutes at lunch time
- It wasn’t difficult. It just had to be a high priority. And stay a high priority.
 

So as I relax and wait for Beth to come into post op, I ask you these questions from the 4 lessons:

1.       Is your business really focused on the basic needs of your customers, not the money? “Show me the money!”, as the film Jerry McGuire illustrated, just isn’t going to cut it in the 21st century.

2.       If you know the most basic needs of your customers, are your metrics about those needs and are they calibrated to match what customers say?

3.       Do you capture what your customers are saying? Yes? And do your management priorities get set by what they are saying?

4.       The cost of waste hopefully isn’t as evident as at this NHS Trust, but do you really know what it is?

Is every customer of your business as relaxed using your business as I can be sat here?

If you’re not sure, type you company name followed by “sucks” into Google and see what comes out.

Get in touch if you’d like to talk

Healthcare, brilliant basics, listening, managing, measurement | No Comments

Posted by: David Naylor | 14.01.2008

I got these quotes from a colleague who’s recently been reading Jeanne Bliss’s book on the Chief Customer Officer. I think these can apply in many walks of life, in and out of work.

• “Think small”
• “Worry about being better; bigger will take care of itself”
• “Think one customer at a time, and take care of each one the best way you can.”

How often do we try to build strategies from the top down and without the real customer context, needs and frustrations in mind? Starting at the frontline, listening to staff and listening to the individual customers is such a powerful way of collecting the most meaningful data on what you need to do next.
There will always be someone willing to put forward the next big thing but how will you know it will make a difference to the little things?

CCO, Strategy, Voice of the Customer, customer experience, listening | No Comments

Posted by: David Naylor | 14.09.2007

I walked into a high street store electrical store today and search for a while before deciding it was badly laid out and I should cut my losses and brave the world of ‘The Shop Assistant’. I approached a guy who was busy recounting his exploits of a night out to his mate and got his attention.

“I’m looking for a lead…” I said before being cut off.

“Leads are over there mate” he said pointing across the store.

“No”, I said. Seeing he was pointing to audio lead section. “I want a TV…”

“They’re here mate. TV leads. Yes, that’s the one you want”, gently ushering me to the leads in another part of the shop. “Here you go” he said, picking up a white ariel lead. And before I had time to say anything he had thrust the packet into my hand and gone – just like the shopkeeper in “Mr Ben”, but in many ways, not at all. (Sorry if you’re not a product of 1970’s UK children’s TV)

So after a moment’s deliberation I put the lead back on the hook and walked out. It wasn’t the lead I wanted and clearly, he had many other more important things to sell somewhere else. Flatscreen TVs, DVDs…

I went on line when I got to the office and bought the lead I wanted.

We accuse call centres (especially offshore) of not listening properly to customer issues and delivering below standard service as a result, but this is common across all of the service industry. This guy thought he’d done just what was asked for and done it really fast. Nobody quality checking the interaction as they do in most call centres. Nobody stopped me to ask if “there was anything else they could help me with today?” or “did I find everything I was looking for?”. This is simple stuff!!

There are some good stores out on the high street but it seems to me that the high street is not keeping up with service standards that are being set by the best call centres or website. I find myself voting with fingers (on the keypad or keyboard) and my feet (away from the high street) more and more these days.

There are lots of articles out there about the web killing the high street. Here are a couple:

The guardian comment

UK Busines forums

Do you think that the high street is its own worst enemy?

customer experience, high street, listening, retail | No Comments