Customer Satisfaction Measurement - The Leadership Factor

It's all about the experience

"Customer experience" is the buzzword of the day, but what is often sorely lacking from articles and talks on the subject is concrete ideas on what to do on the ground.

I've just come across an excellent list of 50 ways to improve your customer's experience, which is full of specific dos and don'ts. Some of my favourites are:

13. Don't give your customer too many choices.  You're the experts, so recommend a product based on what you learn from him/her.

This is really important, but so few organisations have grasped that choice is not always good. Too much choice bewilders customers and is likely to make them less satisfied with their purchase, not more.

15. If you can't fulfill a customer's need, suggest another company that may be able to do so.

Seems bizarre? Not if you're really customer focused. You can't make that sale anyway, but a helpful recommendation will make the customer like and trust you, increasing the chances they'll shop with you when they can.

16. Never ever say something negative about another company.

Any competent salesperson already knows this, but perhaps that knowledge should be spread through the rest of the organisation. This holds true even if all the criticisms you might make are 100% valid. It justs looks like sour grapes. What if the customer has already used the competitor? Are you telling them they're stupid?

Interestingly there's very little specifically "experiencey" about the list, no stories about Disney. It could just as well be a list of great "customer service" behaviours. Most of these things are timeless and universal, but that doesn't make them common!

Go and read the full list, or you can download it as a handy PDF from the blog.

How do customer emotions impact your business?

Customer emotions are often overlooked when organisations think about the customer satisfaction levels they are getting, or how to improve customer loyalty. But, the evidence is that customer emotions play a key role in this area.

When the concept of customer emotion is addressed by a business, more often than not it seems that it is of the 'wow - delight the customer' variety, but is this really the emotional engagement that customers are looking for?

Well, you can find the answers to the above points and read an article that goes into much more depth in the most recent Stakeholder magazine (see my previous post for the link).

There's also a half-day briefing that's being led by two of my colleagues in London later this month. You can see full details of the customer emotions briefing and book your place by following this link.

Stakeholder Satisfaction Magazine

If you haven't seen it, I recommend that you get hold of Stakeholder Satisfaction magazine, the most recent issue came out a couple of weeks ago. It deals with all aspects of customer & employee satisfaction. It has some great case studies as well.

If you are in the UK and qualify, you can sign up for a free print copy here.

Alternatively, read the articles online (including back issues) here.

Let us know what you think.

Treating Customers Fairly?

The OFT has published a report measuring the impact on consumers of instances of unfair treatment by companies, which they term "detriment". They calculate a cost to consumers of £6.6bn over the last 12 months (which I suppose is about £130 each?).

They estimate that just over half of us have experienced a problem, and that only 64% complain. The findings from the UK Customer Satisfaction Index, a national measure of customer satisfaction we run for the ICS which also covers problems and complaints, show a more positive picture. UK organisations give an average of 17% of their customers a problem, with 72% bringing that problem to the attention of the organisation concerned.

Why the difference? Well the complaints figure is very comparable—the slight difference is probably down to minor variations in question wording. The problem figure is different because it's measuring a different thing. The OFT are asking how many of us have a problem with any of our suppliers in a year, whereas the UKCSI is focusing on a specific supplier for each respondent. I think that's a better measure of how frequently companies create problems for their customers.

Nonetheless the OFT report does make worrying reading, particularly for those sectors identified as the biggest offenders. Those responsible for most financial detriment were insurers, home maintenance and improvements and personal banking.

The largest number of problems were with telecoms, domestic fuel providers and personal banking, which tallies quite well with the UKCSI findings.

Are online customers more demanding?

I caught part of a BBC radio programme on customer service in the UK today. One of the points that was being discussed was whether or not customers of web services or shops are more demanding than their 'bricks & mortar" counterparts. There didn't seem to be a clear distinction one way or the other (at least in the part of the programme I heard).

I think that anecdotally, most of us don't have particularly high expectations of customer service on the high street. Moreover, even if you get great service one day, there are no guarantees that you'll get it next time. Obviously, there are companies that achieve above average results, but in broad terms we don't expect that much. Perhaps our expectations are shaped by the inconsistent service delivery we receive (see Rachel's article in this month's Stakeholder magazine for more on this topic).

My personal take on this is that many people seem to approach online shopping with higher expectations than they would if they were going into a store. I suspect that this is because most of us have our first experience with online shopping at somewhere like Amazon. Amazon seems to always figure highly in customer satisfaction surveys, so it sets a very high benchmark and perhaps, sets high expectations. It also offers an incredibly consistent standard of service delivery. However, as you have probably experienced yourself, not all online stores work to such exacting standards. So is it the case that online customers are more demanding or have they been trained to expect better?

Note from a satisfied defector

Mobile phone customers in the UK are a famously fickle bunch and not to let the side down, I've just changed my mobile phone supplier.

In the context of Stephen's comments below, I'm very much a satisfied defector. I've been with the Orange network for over 5 years and I've been generally happy with their service. So what's prompted the change, have they committed some massive blunder on my account and I've walked away because of that? The answer is no, quite simply I wanted a particular phone that isn't available with Orange so for that reason - I've moved to another operator.

As Stephen suggests, like many defecting customers, I may well move back to Orange if it suits me at some future point. I'd still recommend them, but they aren't right for me at the moment. Perhaps if they'd tried a little harder to hold onto me I'd have stuck with them, or accepted some alternative offer, but they didn't.

What are you doing in your organisation to hold onto your satisfied customers?

If satisfied customers defect....can defecting customers be satisfied?

Let's come back to those satisfied customers who defect. We tend to assume, because of the strong link between satisfaction and loyalty, that defecting customers are dissatisfied with us. If we accept the idea that satisfied customers defect, then some defecting customers must be satisfied. That must be worth thinking about.

What are the implications? Firstly, and most importantly, a satisfied defector is a customer who is not lost forever...yet. Handling the defection process well is the last chance we have to influence how a customer feels about us. Nothing we do should turn that customer into a dissatisfied defector.

Recently I signed up for a free trial of one of the leading online DVD rental services. The service was okay, I had one or two problems with faulty discs, but overall I was quite satisfied. When the trial came to an end I decided that it wasn't, on balance, worth continuing at the normal rate. So from their point of view I had signed up in response to an introductory offer and was now defecting, costing them money. In monetary terms I was a terrible customer but, importantly, I was reasonably satisfied with them. I would have considered signing up for the service at another time, and I would have said quite positive things about their service to other people.

That all changed when I went through the process of cancelling my subscription. There was no option to cancel online (by contrast to the super-easy online sign-up process!), you had to phone up. That's an irritating policy, and the reasons are transparent, so I was a little bit riled when I did call them. After twenty minutes of the most frustrating telephone conversation ever, including obnoxiously worded threats about returning DVDs on time or being charged, I was seething. But I did finally manage to cancel my subscription.

This company has recognised defections as a problem, probably because of its strategy of accepting a high cost of acquisition in the free trial, but it deals with the problem in precisely the wrong way. Instead of trying to manage my attitude about the company they tried to directly impede my behaviour by making it difficult to defect. In doing so they turned me from a satisfied defector, a potential source of profit, to a virulent antagonist.

Never try to keep your customers hostage. If they want to leave, make the process as pleasant and easy as possible. You will make priceless attitudinal gains, and that defecting customer is far more likely to use you in the future and say good things about you.

Why do satisfied customers defect?

I was interviewed recently by a journalist who asked me what I thought about the classic "flaw" in customer satisfaction measurement—satisfied customers sometimes defect. I find it bizarre that anyone thinks this is strange.

Humans are very unpredictable. They also, in most markets, have a range of good options to choose from. To cap it off, many suppliers are so focused on acquisition that they offer special rates or other incentives for new customers. No wonder customers defect, even when they're fairly happy.

More interesting is the fact that customers can, with effort, be made loyal. Anyone unsure of the benefits of customer satisfaction could spend a valuable 5 minutes pondering how that might happen! But that's a post for another day.

What I want to talk about today is the distinction between attitudes and behaviours. Hidden behind the buzzword of the day (commitment, engagement etc.) is the basic idea that customers have feelings about you, feelings which may be positive or negative, strong or weak. The reason we care is that these feelings have a strong influence over their behaviour, and some behaviours (retention, recommending, buying other products) are good for business.

The misconception that I started this post with is based on expecting these attitudes and behaviours to tally perfectly—they don't, and we shouldn't expect them to. Nonetheless, having a customer base which has positive attitudes about you will lead to greater sales across the whole customer base, even if the odd customer acts unexpectedly.

So, why do satisfied customers defect? Not because satisfaction is a poor predictor of loyalty, but because:

• People are innately unpredictable AT THE INDIVIDUAL LEVEL. The average behaviour of groups IS predictable.
• Passive satisfaction is not enough to guarantee loyalty—there are a lot of good options in the market.
• Companies often spend more effort on acquisition than retention, encouraging disloyalty.

 

Mystery shopping best practice – facts not judgements

In the European Union there are restrictions on the use of mystery shopping that prevent it being used for disciplinary purposes against individual employees. It is increasingly recognised by good employers that mystery shopping is best used for factual rather than judgemental aspects of service and to provide positive feedback and recognition to employees. Good companies also understand that it provides operational information rather than a reliable measure of how satisfied or dissatisfied customers feel.

Treating suppliers fairly

Wally Ollins writes more compellingly about brand than anyone else I know. One of the cornerstones of his view of the world is that a successful brand is one that feels the same wherever you touch it.

His point is that the way a company behaves, it's style if you like, should flow from a consistent and powerful set of values that permeate the business. The same basic values should govern the way the business relates to everyone—employees, customers and even those on the other side of the relationship, suppliers and partners.

It would be a terrible mistake to think that you can pretend to be a caring company when dealing with customers while treating your employees badly, though some organisations still seem to believe this is possible. I'll let Branson have the defining word here:

Customers don’t come first. Employees come first. If employees are treated right then service will follow.
Richard Branson

Likewise, it is inconsistent to say you want to build long-term relationships with customers while screwing your suppliers down to a price that puts them out of business. Consistency extends both ways in your relationships, and suppliers are stakeholders just as much as customers and employees. This is fundamental to having a business that is really about creating more value for everyone. It's also the only way to preserve your all-important reputation.

One of the best examples of this in practice is Innocent drinks, who impressed me deeply when I interviewed them for this Stakeholder Satisfaction case study[PDF]