Customer Satisfaction Measurement - The Leadership Factor

Social media - talking with customers, not at them

Many companies still seem unsure how or why they should be using the new tools offered by “social media” in their relationships with customers. The web is no longer a static, one way, channel. Instead of broadcasting a message to customers and hoping they hear it, we now see conversations being built between organisations (or rather their staff) and customers.

We've moved from a web that was little different to print—static reams of content updated once in a blue moon—to one of rapid bursts and interaction. The inevitable result is that organisations have lost control of the conversation, and the trick of social media is to embrace that loss of control. Why? Because it gives you an unprecedented opportunity to listen to customers and engage directly with them, one human being to another.

Sadly, many organisations listen to all this, nod sagely, and think to themselves “great, how do we fake this authentic communication?”. You can't, at least not for long. If you try to use the new tools as just another way to bombard customers with your ad messages then you're missing out on a great opportunity. It's worth looking at the people and companies who are popular on Twitter, to see what they get right.

Stephen Fry is probably the leading Brit on Twitter, and for good reason. Why? Because he understands that what is new and interesting about Twitter is the opportunity to build conversations with his fans.

Innocent Drinks can't compete with Fry in terms of numbers of followers, but then they are a company rather than an avuncular national treasure. Their "tweets" are a good model for unmoderated, real, conversations between customers and employees. Particularly interesting to see how they handle potentially unpopular decisions like the recent Coca Cola investment.

Aleksandr Orlov is doing very well for a fictional meerkat. He's a good example of how you can fake it, at least for a little while. On the other hand that tells you more about the success of a surprisingly joined-up advertising campaign than it does about customer engagement with comparethemarket.com.

Richard Branson, sadly, is an example of how not to do it. Despite having a lot of followers, Branson is treating Twitter as a channel to push news stories and events on his agenda, not to build conversations with customers.

So the secret is to let go, and allow your staff to have real conversations with customers. Organisations that embrace this will be jumping on board the cluetrain, allowing employees throughout their organisation to engage in natural conversations with customers through Twitter, blogging, forums and so on. My favourite soundbite from our client conference was from Graham Parker-Gore of VW Group (he was quoting someone else but I forget who!):

“Sacrifice perfection of message for honest communication”

This is the cluetrain philosophy in a nutshell.

The alternative is to try in vain to keep control over everything that is said about you. Delete any negative comments on your blogs or forums, edit Wikipedia articles to remove anything you'd rather people didn't know, pretend to be enthusiastic customers, pay professional fake customers to post positive things about your products, sue anyone who uses your name in a website (positive or negative) and allow no one but the marketing department to talk to the outside world.

The one thing we know for sure is that what worked in the past won't work in the future. Companies that behave like this are as clueless about the web as the music industry, destroying themselves in a desperate bid to protect their business because they just don't get it.

Do you really want to hear from your customers?

Answer the question honestly. Then point me to the page on your website where I can find email addresses and phone numbers for real people in your organisation. What about if I phone up and ask to be put through to a Director? Thought so.

Tomorrow, at our client conference, I'm going to be using this slide with a quote from Darren Cornish, Director of Customer Experience at Norwich Union (now Aviva):

It's from a blog post he made to his staff in which he distributed his email address and phone number for them to give to customers at their discretion. That's so unusual it's almost shocking, but I think it's where we all need to get to in an increasingly communicative market.

Big brands need to learn the lessons of the cluetrain manifesto—the era of one way conversations (brand broadcasting) is over. We need to allow customers and staff to engage at all levels of the organisation. Taking the first steps is scary, but it'll be a better, more honest, world.

Ex-employee loyalty

I argued in a previous post that customer defection is not necessarily the catastrophe it might seem to be. Customers can “defect” whilst still maintaining a positive attitude about a company, which means they are both good prospects for the future and a potential source of positive comment about you.

Much the same should be true of staff. If you treat staff well then, when they part company with you,they should retain positive attitudes about you. These will make them more likely to use you as a customer, if applicable, and will also affect the way they talk about you.

One of the best examples I've seen of this is the ex-employee of US Airways who posts on Twitter as http://twitter.com/usairwaysgirl. She looks out for tweets that mention the airline, positively or negatively, and replies. Often she tries to help people find a solution to a problem that they've experienced.

Frankly this is something that US Airways, and other consumer brands, should be doing much more actively anyway. Until then, usairwaysgirl is doing her best to preserve her ex-employers reputation. That's testament to unusual levels of loyalty.

Not the emotion you want to create in your customers

A series of tweets [language warning for the easily offended] from Stephen Fry perfectly captures the intense emotional reaction that a poor customer experience can cause.

I hate Vista so much I want to cry...

...How insultingly dreadful can software be?

Too late. It's going out the window...

As usual, the cause of dissatisfaction is the failure of a product or service to do what it is supposed to do. Designing complex software packages that work flawlessly and effortlessly is hard, but that's what customers have come to expect.

Failing to deliver on the basics is the main cause of dissatisfaction for almost every business.

Customer experience and retention

Interesting post on Bruce Temkin's blog about the latest ACSI results. The message he picks out is the importance of retention in a recession economy. And what drives retention? The customer experience, of course.

Colin Shaw of Beyond Philosophy comments that "retention" is a more effective word for selling the importance of customers than "customer experience". I suspect he's right, and the reason is very simple. The "customer experience", however valid a concept, is merely the latest in a string of buzzwords that have been used to talk about customer attitudes.

Retention is one of the key resulting behaviours, which are not subject to the same changing fashions, and have a much more obvious link to business performance.

We are the opinion-formers

Seth Godin has an interesting post on the idea of giving away products (to the right people, of course) in order to promote them. The innovative thought that Seth has picked up on is to buy large numbers of a similar (but already successful) product, sell these absurdly cheap, and package your product as a freebie. Clever.

He comments:

"What a shame that Amazon hasn't figured out how to provide this as a useful service. Amazon knows who buys a lot, they know who reviews a lot... why not ask those people if they want a free prize now and then?"

I suspect they have. This sounds a lot like the Amazon Vine programme (that I happen to have been invited to join!). People who have written helpful reviews become eligible to receive free stuff, often the equivalent of promo CDs and publisher's proofs that DJ's or reviewers get. As Seth says:

"...but now, of course, it's us that are the DJs..."

 

The dangers of clipart, and four better options to enhance your presentations

Livening up a report or presentation with some images is always a good idea. Charts are one way to add some colour, but some of the points you want to make may be more abstract.

Pictures have a powerful emotional effect (especially pictures of people), and have been shown to aid recall for a speaker's points better than simple bullet points or (worst of all) word for word visual repetition of what the speaker is saying. To be effective, and to support your image as a professional speaker, steer clear of two common traps:

• Avoid clip art. It looks unprofessional and is rarely entirely relevant.
• Never steal. Even if it's for internal purposes, using images you've found online without permission is illegal. There are better alternatives, as we'll see.

If you want to start using images professionally you need to start building your own library of stock images. Often you'll need to source new images for each presentation, but if you store the images you use in one place you'll find that you're soon re-using them. But where do you go to get these images?

• Join a "microstock" site. If you make a lot of presentations, consider becoming a member of one of the online sources such as istock or shutterstock.
• Use free pictures. The microstock sites offer a free "photo of the week". Keep an eye on these and download ones that might be useful. In addition, sites such as Morguefile and even Flickr can be a good source of images which can legally be used as long as you are careful about the licence.
• Use images your company owns. Your design or marketing department is likely to have CDs of royalty-free images as well as subscriptions to stock sites. Ask them for help.
• Get a camera! You may not be David Bailey, but to illustrate your points a specific photo is often the most effective option.

Finding the images is one thing, using them effectively is something else. My tips would be 1) fill the slide 2) limit the amount of text you use and, most importantly, 3) read Presentation Zen!

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.

Brand tags

Every so often the blogosphere comes up with a good idea. Once in a blue moon it's a really good idea.

Brand image has always been a tricky beast to pin down, but most people would define it as something like the sum of all the attitudes and associations that consumers hold about a particular brand. Some different ways of putting this:

It has always seemed to me that your brand is formed primarily, not by what your company says about itself, but what the company does. Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon.com

Consumers build an image [of a brand] as birds build nests. From the scraps and straws they chance upon. Jeremy Bullmore

A brand is a living entity—and it is enriched or undermined cumulatively over time, the product of a thousand small gestures. Michael Eisner

We have the power to shape brands to be what we want… Wally Olins

A brand image is shaped by the products and services themselves, by the consumption environment, by marketing communications and, perhaps most importantly, by the behaviour of the organisation and its employees.

So how do you measure something so vast and intangible? One technique is to ask people what associations they have for a particular brand, something along the lines of "what 3 words come to mind", and over a sample of hundreds some interesting patterns will emerge.

Brand tags is a website that does exactly the same thing, across a whole host of brands, and represents the results in the form of a "tag cloud" similar to the one to the right of this blog. A fascinating concept, and there are some revealing results. You can take part in the tagging or simply browse through the  brands.

Here's a snippet of the cloud for a famous sports shoe brand:

Can you guess who it is? If not peek at the image title/alt tag, or listen to more hip hop!

Reputation management

As many of you know, we held our annual client conferences this week, and I thought there was lots of interesting ideas from both the TLF talks and from the floor. Some of your stories about companies you like and dislike were fascinating!

Martin's piece on social media and its role in spreading news (good and bad) about companies made me think of the growing trend to perform "reputation management" online. As Martin said, there are numerous tools to help you do this, including automated alerts when a blog post is made that mentions certain keywords.

There was an excellent example of this in action on our blog a while ago. When I made this post mentioning Fred Reichheld someone from his company was very quick to follow up with a link to his blog (hi Net Promoter people!). How long would it have taken your organisation?