Welcome to Budd’s Fast+Simple newsletter! If you’re interested in making things Fast+Simple for your customers then we’re bringing you some interesting stories that may help your cause.

In this issue we look at...

Fast + Simple
Engaging with customers via pods and blogs

Join the Dots
What are your customers saying about you?

Root cause
Virtual home visits to wrestle with tech support

Help yourself
Spiralling viral at Threshers

Top gear performance
Benchmarking the top shopping sites this Christmas

2 ears, 1 mouth
Coaching on the board room agenda

Sourcy Talk
Nasscom goes in search of excellence in India

Around the world in 80 seconds
Singing the praises of the Philippines

One of the things conference audiences are continually intrigued by is: ‘What’s the latest big thing around the world?’ Simply put, it’s the divergence between companies that work with customers and those that do things to customers.

What do we mean by this? Well the 2006 Customer Engagement Report, sponsored by cScape, illustrates this with  findings from more than 800 industry respondents.

• 42% are planning to apply user-generated content (UGC) to their websites in the next 12 months; 23% are using it already
• 35% are planning to use corporate blogs in the next 12 months; 17% are using them already
• 33% are planning to use podcasting in the next 12 months; 18% are using it already
• 35% planning to use videocasting in the next 12 month; 17% are using it already

So if you’re not already thinking very hard about these topics in 2007 – get in touch with us for a briefing.

One example of podcasts and videocasts is that first direct is to pilot video access to customer representatives over the 3 mobile phone network to find out what British consumers really want from mobile phone banking.

To support the trial, first direct and 3 have created Britain's first made-for-mobile banking Website. The Website - at 'myfd.mobi' - is also one of the first to use the .mobi domain, specifically created for mobile Internet access. The site includes one-click access to first direct via video or voice and will be developed to include mobile-friendly video and audio podcasts about hot financial topics.

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We’ve previously talked about the process called WOCAS or ‘What Our Customers Are Saying’. It’s the process which pulls together feedback from across your organisation but goes a whole lot further.

WOCAS tracks what directors and project managers do to address what customers say needs fixing. It makes their actions visible to front line staff. It allows the board to track and manage their actions. It enables the board to hold each other to account for fixing the issues that frustrate customers. It allows the projects going on in the organisation to make the most of what customers know.

So who champions the customer in your business? On March 20th Budd is holding a Directors' breakfast seminar for leading executives in customer services, sales & marketing or beyond.  Every business needs a Chief Customer Officer (CCO) on the board. Every board needs to put the customer at the heart of its decision making for long term success. Getting the board to listen to the Voice of the Customer and the business to act on the right things is the challenge. Meeting with other CCOs in a participative session you will have time to explore how your peers have addressed these challenge and learn how the WOCAS process can put the customer on your board's agenda.

It will be co-hosted in central London with Norwich Union. So get in touch if you’d like to know more or to reserve your place.

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A survey about customer service experience with support for technology products,  carried out by Harris Interactive, says that:

• 90% of consumers say they've had a bad experience that evoked a response such as swearing, shouting, crying or hitting something in frustration.
• 71% think customer-service representatives aren't sufficiently trained.
• 53% believe the inability to reach a service representative over the phone or Web is the No. 1 complaint among consumers.

One firm that has been in for criticism is Dell. Dell said in its earnings report that it "is seeing signs of improvement in key external and internal indicators. The company has reduced call transfers by over 30 percent and has improved first contact resolution rates by 20 percent."

Dell has been expanding its customer service in an effort to turn around poor earnings results. In June, the company launched 'DellConnect', an expansion of its 'TechConnect' service allowing Dell service agents to troubleshoot customers' PCs using a broadband Internet link instead of a personal visit. Dell claims the approach will save time and money compared to the cost of dispatching technicians.

Meanwhile Hewlett-Packard is offering a 'virtual house call' service to users who have trouble getting their PCs to work .HP Instant Care provides personalised service over the Internet. Customers can sit at their home PCs while remote workers defragment a hard drive or speed up booting time by deleting extra files in the Start Up menu. HP's move follows remote IT services offered to business customers by Dell and Intel.
Source: CMC - InsightExec  22-Nov-2006

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And if you want evidence of just how powerful word of mouth is, then Threshers’ story of the “40% off” Christmas e-vouchers for staff is a great example. They didn’t set  any limits on who could use them when they distributed the e-voucher email to colleagues to pass onto friends and family. Well friends and family are pretty well connected these days and one blog site alone who ran it had 800,000 people help themselves to 40% off.

Then of course it hit the news and everyone wanted 40% off with estimates in the millions. The company did admit slight concern about the popularity of the offer! But just think of all that lovely data collected when the vouchers were used.

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I saw Derek Williams, CEO of Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals in Europe (SOCAP) and MD of The WOW! Awards speaking at IQPC’s Advanced Customer Management London conference in September.

Research by Blast Radius analysed the top 28 UK online retailers according to traffic volume, grading their performance in the run up to Christmas.

Blast Radius noted that online merchants are now challenged to differentiate themselves based on customer experience since so many have adopted industry best practices, according to the study. These include encouraging customer participation to offer new value to shoppers and innovating based on unmet customer needs.

"Online retail has changed dramatically in the past year, with many more retailers putting more effort into offering a consistent experience across all stages of customer interaction," according to Blast Radius. "Going forward, experience-based differentiation will mark the new leaders in online retailing, so more retailers will be seeking true cross-channel integration and encouraging community participation and engagement to support online purchases."

In the UK and US, Amazon was identified as the best online shopping experience, based on their continued dedication to customer experience. Some of Amazon's recent innovations were identified as its social networking capabilities, tagging, customer blogs and discussion boards, which provide a stronger ability for customers to engage and participate.

Source: Blast Radius   

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Steve Hurst in Customer Management newsletter reported last month on how customer service is finally taking its rightful place at the top of the boardroom agenda.

He talked about a UK survey revealing that two in three business leaders expressed plans to commit the most budget to customer service in 2007 - ahead of other spending options such as IT, marketing, compliance and finance. You can hear the Eureka moment in board rooms everywhere - happy customers buy more, unhappy customers buy less, so you have to invest in service to sell more.

Also on the subject of customer focused leadership, the CCMA (UK) are beginning their search for the Call Centre Manager, Team Manager and Support Manager of the Year 2007. Now in their twelfth year, the awards aim to endorse best practice, reward innovation and promote excellence within the contact and call centre industry. Go to www.ccma.org.uk for details of how to enter.

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Nasscom held a discussion day for BPOs in Chennai recently to discuss why India is “still lagging behind in areas such as efficiency and productivity”. “Plagued by issues such as attrition and absenteeism, the industry is yet to make the grade in terms of service and operational excellence” according to Nasscom.

That sounds like a fairly gloomy assessment to us. A lot of the issues we see are about poor client side management rather than poor Indian management in-country.

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Meanwhile the call centre business is the fastest growing industry in the Philippines, growing last year by 90 percent as revenue reached $1.7 billion. With several decades of American colonial rule, Filipinos are more attuned to US culture than most Asians are.

But growth in the industry has put such skilled employees in high demand, driving up competition and labour costs. But then India has this problem too. Quoted in the New York Times, Clint Streit of outsourcer Convergys said “The longer you keep employees, the higher the quality you are going to deliver. From that point, the Philippines has a clear advantage over India. Ultimately we have to stem attrition rates in India, otherwise switch to the Philippines.”  Convergys has hired 9,500 people in the first three years of its operations.

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If you have good articles or case studies about making your business Fast+Simple for customers, or if you have customer/company experience, views or information that you'd like to share, it would be great to hear from you, just email us.

Want to get more up to the minute Budd views on the world of the Fast+Simple customer experiences? Read the Budd Blog!

A bit about our passions!

Fast+Simple™ is an original Budd concept. We work on behalf of your customers to simplify things. We deliver practical, holistic programmes and services in customer management and contact centres. Based on the experiences of Amazon.com, where being Fast+Simple is a way of life, we have developed a systematic approach to driving operational change through customer feedback. To learn more about Budd and the LimeBridge global alliance go to www.budd.uk.com. Fast+Simple is a trademark of Budd.

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