Customer centricity is a hot topic in business these days, as more and more companies challenge themselves to foster a “customer-centric culture.” But that’s a tall order – not to mention an ambiguous one – and it raises a number of questions, such as:
What is a customer-centric culture anyway?
Why is it important?
Who is responsible?
How do you inspire a customer-centric culture?
We are actively leading a customer centricity transformation at VMware, and while every organization is unique, our answers to these questions may prove useful as you embark on your own journey. And the word “journey,” when it comes to a customer-centric culture, is key.
For us, it all started with an unwavering passion to do the right thing for our customers, and over time it became clear that we needed to develop a deliberate strategy around it. We’ll talk more about our strategy later, but for now let’s break down the basics.
What is a Customer-Centric Culture, Anyway?
Customer centricity is more than a concept – it’s a mission. At VMware, we believe that customer centricity goes beyond creating great customer experiences – we put the customer at the center of everything we do. Customer centricity is a core company value, a way of thinking, and an approach to doing business.
To achieve that state of being, I can’t overstate the importance of humanizing the customer for your employees. Real culture shift happens when your employees walk in your customer’s shoes and genuinely understand how their individual roles impact the customer experience (even if they aren’t customer-facing!). With understanding comes empathy, and with empathy comes motivation to make a difference.
Why is it Important?
Ah, the million-dollar question. Starting at the top with our CEO Pat Gelsinger, we firmly believe it is our responsibility to provide the best possible experience for our customers. After all, VMware wouldn’t exist without them. In short, it’s the right thing to do.
We also know that consumers and businesses today have more options than ever before, and if we don’t deliver the kind of experience our customers expect, they won’t continue doing business with us. VMware thrives when our customers successfully harness our solutions to meet their business needs – so it makes sense business-wise for us to listen and act on our customers’ needs.
Who is Responsible?
Every employee plays a role in the customer experience. Whether front-of-house or back-office, we all contribute to our customers’ perception of our company.
At VMware, our Customer Advocacy team drives the customer centricity strategy which helps every team, from Leadership on down, understand their role in creating an exceptional customer experience.
In my view, an effective culture strategy has two main components:
Active participation from the entire Leadership team. Employees will prioritize what their leaders are focused on. We work with all functional leaders to ensure their customer obsession talk tracks are woven into every major communication, from all-hands meetings to newsletters; and that they convey a sense of importance and urgency, focusing directly on the customer experience elements that are in the wheelhouse of their audience.
Individual employee customer-centric decision making. We strive to empower every employee with the insights, resources, and independence necessary to operate in the best interests of both VMware and its customers. To facilitate customer-centric decision making, we also strive to ensure that customers are top of mind for all employees, day in and day out. This is where customer-centric culture comes in, and it is why we’ve fully dedicated a member of our team to lead culture programs that create customers for life.
How Do You Inspire a Customer-Centric Culture?
Inspiring a customer-centric culture doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a journey, and my team has learned plenty of lessons along the way. Some of our efforts have been more effective than others, but this is to be expected.
One of our notable successes to date has been VMware’s annual celebration of Customer Experience (CX) Day, an industry holiday. We think that CX Day is akin to a wedding anniversary! While you work hard at your customer relationships every day of the year, as you do your marriage, CX Day is a great opportunity to pause, celebrate, and show gratitude for the relationship you have with your customers. Our worldwide celebrations have engaged employees via interactive journey mapping, tours of a customer story “museum,” and other activities to acquire feedback on how to improve the customer experience. See how we celebrated CX Day in 2018!
While CX Day is impactful, we obviously want our employees to think about customer experience more than once a year! To that end, we created a global ‘CX Leaders’ program to cultivate a network of customer enthusiasts across VMware. The inaugural set of leaders were prior recipients of an internal award recognizing individuals who went above and beyond to deliver a great customer experience. The Leaders conceptualized a program known as Customer Appreciation Week, which focused on the power of an unexpected thank you. Over the course of the week, our sales teams reached out to nearly 4,000 customers to thank them for their commitment to doing business with VMware – and that was it. That’s right – no sales pitch, no upsell, no renewal prompt. The customers were surprised and delighted by the display of appreciation with no strings attached – and for us it was a simple way to maintain relationships and reinforce our commitment to our customers.
Our Closed Loop program is another area where we invest to engage employees and strengthen customer relationships. The program connects dissatisfied customers with VMware employees to dive deeper into feedback provided through various listening posts. In these conversations, the VMware employee seeks to understand the root cause of dissatisfaction and build a relationship with the customer, then follows up with the appropriate internal business unit(s) to develop improvement plans. The program mutually benefits VMware’s customers and employees, and it’s one of the best opportunities for an employee to walk in our customer’s shoes.
Closing Thoughts
I’d like to leave you with a final thought, which is that customer centricity isn’t binary – it’s a journey that begins with customer focus and extends to customer obsession. For us at VMware, it represents a fundamental business transformation that will extend far into our future. The best is yet to come!
I discovered a surprising truth after three years as Customer Retention Manager for a large volume dealer in Houston. There is a hidden enemy that must be addressed before any customer retention initiatives can be achieved. It is the no. 1 enemy of client retention, and yet most practitioners fail to recognize it, let alone address it.
It’s the reason why many dealers are left with small, gradual changes in their retention efforts that pale in contrast to the huge budgets and time spent acquiring new customers. But by keeping an existing customer, who is apt to buy again, dealers could be spending many times less to obtain the same amount new vehicle sales. As proof of this, the 2018 Cox Automotive Service Study found that buyers who returned to the selling dealer for service in the past 12 months were 74% more likely to return to that selling dealer for their next vehicle purchase. Returning service customers were 74% more likely to buy their next vehicle from that same selling store! Those who didn’t return for service in the past 12 months were only 35% more likely to return for their next purchase. That should gain the attention of most dealer GM’s, who generally come from the sales side of the business.
And speaking of sold customers returning for their next vehicle purchase, that same Cox study revealed a negative by-product of today’s obsession with “conquesting” sales from other dealers. “Not a convenience location” (no. 5 reason in the 2015 survey)moved up to the second most given reason for new vehicle purchasers not returning to the dealer where they purchased. So, there is a very good chance that many of today’s conquest vehicle sales will not return to that original dealer for service because they live out of the area where the selling dealer is located.
So, what is the number 1 enemy of retail auto customer retention?
No, the number 1 enemy isn’t a limited budget. Although a sufficient budget is necessary, it’s not the real enemy of a successful retention strategy.
Lack of buy-in from the dealer and management? It’s important, but the reason store leadership doesn’t get solidly behind a retention push is directly tied to the no. 1 enemy.
Silos are a real problem. You must address them, and it is not simple to do so, but they are not the real problem.
Competing initiatives are often cited as a reason for lack of meaningful progress in addressing customer retention. But these agendas usually directly support the number 1 enemy of retention. And that focus distracts management from seriously directing resources in the support of retention.
The lack of a robust technical infrastructure? Yes, retention can be aided with better technology, but it is not the true obstacle to retention.
Lack of training? It certainly helps to have trained employees, but if the average auto retailer really believed in retaining existing customers as a primary strategy, they would find the budget and time to train their workers. HINT: All the training, technology and “knowledge” in the world is not going to thoroughly address the number 1 enemy of retaining customers!
It’s transactionalism, an all-consuming focus by dealers on the “deal” or the “RO” is the number 1 enemy of a successful customer retention program. And that obsession consumes both the larger part of store budgets as well as the time spent by the staff.So, what is the number 1 enemy of a successful customer retention transformation?
Transactionalism describes the decades old, deeply ingrained tradition of placing the transaction front and center as the primary strategy for most auto retailers. And while the transaction has always been the primary focus of showroom sales, it’s just as prevalent these days in the service lane. Customer facing employees are paid to maximize and close “deals/ROs”, and because of that, retaining customers takes a back seat.
I’ve heard it said time and time again that there is little customer loyalty these days in retail auto. But how would we know? If the industry is so intoxicated with the transaction, and much less so with retaining the customer, it’s no wonder customer loyalty is perceived as dead. I spoke directly to this reality in a past MaritzCX Cafe post titled Retail Auto: Client Loyalty is not Dead, But Client Follow-Up is!
But there’s a glimmer of hope on the horizon. Early last year, one of the largest automakers launched the first ever OEM customer rewards program and another major manufacturer followed soon thereafter. And there is strong evidence that other OEMs are pivoting more and more towards implementing strategies that handsomely reward dealers and their associates for focusing on retention.
That’s great, but the big question left is, how are the OEMs going to move the needle of retention forward, when most of the dealers are still consumed with “transaction?” This is all about changing behavior at the dealership, which is the toughest challenge of all.
In my last blog, I discussed how brands are struggling to find ways to serve the needs of the business while also serving the evolving needs and expectations of their customers. Unfortunately, there’s still a serious gap between how well brands think they’re doing when it comes to customer experience (CX), and customers’ perceptions.
Our 2019 US CX Trends Report took a closer look at several specific gaps. We surveyed 1000 consumers and 300 brandsto these disconnects, as well as what brands can to do address them. The first trend we uncovered was how brands go about trying to understand how and why customers feel the way they do.
Customer data is one of the most precious sources of intelligence in understanding the health and wealth of your business. Companies are spending billions of dollars each year scrutinizing the vast number of digital interactions, from click through and online conversion rates, to social posts and online reviews.
And while these online measures of customer satisfaction and sentiment can deliver important information, the most essential information may lie somewhere else. In the study, we asked consumers about the most important thing brands can do to capture how they feel about them and the experiences they are providing. Options included monitoring their posts on online review sites, monitoring their social posts, capturing conversation with staff, as well as monitoring digital behaviors. Overwhelmingly, customers chose something else: asking them directly.
Nearly 70 percent of customers selected this option, with only 40 percent of brands reporting the same. And while the 30-point gap is notable, only 26 percent of brands said they are actually having direct conversations with customers about their experiences.
Brands also placed more emphasis than customers on the importance of online review sites and customers’ social posts. Because reputation management is definitely an important factor, it makes sense that brands place outsized emphasis on public forums, both encouraging positive chatter and quickly quashing the negative. And while companies must continue to monitor, respond, and take to heart what they are hearing online, prioritizing these forums at the expense of direct conversations may skew their view of the customer experience, which affects a slew of actions — from how to prioritize fixes and choosing which new ideas to elevate, to how company leaders and employees view and treat customers. When you feel and act as if you are always under public fire it will impact the foundations of your customer relationships.
To sum it all up, brands need to encourage customers to talk to them, not just about them. The answer for this disconnect is to open channels for direct feedback between you and your customers. Make it as easy as possible for them to tell you how they feel about your brand. Don’t shy away from asking them the important questions, and be sure to weigh both asking and listening wisely.
Thankfully, today’s technologies enable brands to do this at scale, and in a very personalized way. Harnessing customer listening platforms to capture, understand, and socialize the authentic voice of your customer is a powerful way to bring and keep the human element of the relationship front and center for both customers and employees.
Download the full “2019 CX Trends Report”to learn about the five trends you need to know as well as actionable takeaways to help you bridge the gap with your customers and create excellent customer experiences!
There is no feedback more important for companies to utilize than the candid, true thoughts and feelings of employees and customers. In fact, having a detailed understanding of your brand’s emotional connection to consumers can produce positive financial results and retain valuable customers, while even attracting new ones.
Behavioral science is the study of human behaviors; the causes and the effects. There’s much we can learn from people’s actions and decisions that can help businesses to draw conclusions and make predictions that ultimately impact them financially. From product development to sales and services, every person in the journey and every step that’s taken by an organization will contribute overall to the emotional trust that consumers have for a brand.
According to an article published by The Harvard Business Review, on average “fully connected” customers are 52% more valuable to businesses than those who are just “highly satisfied” with the brand or service. Any company, from any industry can forge powerful connections to their customers by properly identifying and aligning themselves to the specific emotions that drive profitable behaviors. The first step is to identify how your customers feel and find the places to fill the gap between general satisfaction and full-on loyalty.
Be Aware of the Brain and How It Works
As humans, our brains are always working around the clock. Everyone has motivators, expectations, and experiences that influence how we feel and react. We will all bring to the table different elements and can’t change how our brains are wired. Constantly, our brains are taking in information and even making quick judgments or decisions on a moment’s notice. A huge number of daily decisions are made intuitively, and most decisions rely on feelings and emotions more than rationality. Especially when it comes to “gut feelings,” something we trust within ourselves more than any outside logic or mental analysis.
And unfortunately, although our brains are quite amazing, the constant stream of brain activity actually deteriorates the quality of our decisions over time, leading to an irrational trade-off in decision making. This is called decision fatigue.
For example, after a long day, do you want to go home and cook a meal, or just simply get takeout? Earlier in the day, before mental exhaustion kicks in, going home to cook a nice meal might sound healthy and cost effective. But by the end of the day, one might lean towards take-out instead because it’s easy and quick. Neither decision is necessarily good or bad, it’s just all about the condition of our minds prior to making decisions, that determine the amount of concentration delegated to certain choices over others.
Another factor that drives perception is the “peak-end” rule. This is whether an experience is remembered as pleasant or not, based only on the peak moment, or the end of the experience. Instead of a “general” overall recollection, it’s only what is remembered most, that drives the perception.
In order to manage and control perceptions, organizations need to pay equal attention to the emotional side of their customer experiences, as well as the operational processes. When customers don’t feel like their concerns are being heard or met, they will go where they will be addressed, and that doesn’t guarantee that you keep their business.
Learning to leverage behavioral science will give companies the ability to identify customer emotions with financial impact and provide them with a “neuro” road-map for maintaining loyalty. Because being aware of the brain, and how it works, can bridge the gaps in any customer and employee experience; if only you are willing to listen.
The Emotional Insight That Awaits You
Lots of emotional insight is waiting to be unlocked, but where to begin? In order to maximize opportunities from emotional connections, companies must examine every customer touch point and find opportunities where they can enhance the emotional motivators. It’s important to understand what you need to measure, and where.
The following questions can be helpful to begin with:
What promotes consumer behavior, and what emotions contribute to decisions?
What type of personas are being interacted with?
Who is interacting with who?
What is trying to be accomplished overall?
What are customers going through, and how do they feel along the way?
A great way to collect answers to these questions are through customer journey maps. Journey mapping helps to interpret what your customer will go through, and what they are actually feeling.
Throughout the customer journey, there are places to keep tabs on what consumers are thinking and feeling during certain moments. To find crucial touch and pain points, Quantitative surveys with open ended unstructured data, analyzed with text analytics, can detect in customer language a variety of topics that stand out. Creating and understanding a range of feelings and experiences from the collected data, especially the intense ones, closes the gap between customer expectations and the actual experience. These customer insights can determine where damage is being done and allow for prevention of future occurrences.
All the right experiences can be designed to reach the right touch points when you acknowledge the brain and determine the proper “feelings” for your employees and customers.
Set the Bar for Proactively Understanding Your Customers
A recent MaritzCX study revealed that 80% of the companies who proactively gather, analyze, manage and use insights into customers’ feelings have better financial performance, year-over-year.
Whether you have a pre-existing customer experience program for your business or are jump-starting a new one, first ask yourself, “Do you know how your customers feel about their experiences they are having with your brand?”
Emotional connections are no longer a mystery and can be utilized by businesses in-tune with their customers, as a competitive advantage to growth. At MaritzCX we work with businesses to prioritize and focus on what elements have the biggest emotional impact.
Why do we love whom we love? It’s a question for the ages, unanswerable by poets, philosophers or songwriters. And yet, for some people, there are so many reasons why we love them. They make our lives better, share their expertise, uplift our spirits, and show profound generosity. This is a Valentine to those people, and more specifically those people who work in CX.
These authors, speakers, thought-leaders and dedicated customer experience professionals have all helped contribute to the widespread adoption of CX, not just as a strategy, but as a higher goal. They’re here, tirelessly working in every industry to make people’s lives just a bit easier, and a lot more joyful.
These are the CX experts we love, and we are happy to introduce you to them all.
If you’re on this list and you’d like for us to update your details, please send us a note.
Why we love Amy: She’s head of Customer Advocacy at MindTouch. She was tapped to look after the customer experience as a whole as company growth accelerated. Her She is a customer journey expert whose analysis of customer feedback at key touchpoints has led to product and service enhancements that have delighted customers.
Why we love Angus: He’s theCustomer Experience Manager at Sendoso and prides himself in “helping people connect the old fashion way.” His responsibilities change on any given day but you’ll usually find him deep in conversation with a client, answering questions in the support queue, helping explain a new product feature they released, or onboarding clients for success. He’s a big believer in building relationships and is proud dad of Owen the corgi.
Why we love Annette: She’s the Founder and CEO of CX Journey Inc. She has experience in both helping companies understand their employees and customers and identifying what drives retention, satisfaction, engagement, and the overall experience – so that, together, they can design a better experience for all constituents. She co-hosts the weekly #CXChat on Twitter, serves as an executive officer on the Board of Directors of the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA), mentors other professionals in this field to help them advance their careers, and is a speaker and an avid writer.
Why we love Augie: He’s the Sr. Director Analyst: Senior research analyst & executive advisor on Customer Experience at Gartner. He has had a rewarding career as both a thought and people leader. He has implemented successful CX, VoC, social media and marketing programs and led highly-engaged teams, both co-located and remote around the globe. People refer to him as an iconoclast, skeptic, and change agent for his desire to bypass hype, solve business issues, and exploit customer opportunities with speed, creativity, and collaboration. Plus, his Twitter feed!
Why we love Clare: She’s a digital nomad, keynote speaker, Founder of CMXperience, and shares her personal thoughts and experiences on The CX Nomad. Having held a number of senior CX leadership roles in Marketing and Retail, across a number of sectors, working for and with some of the UK’s best known brands, Clare has finely tuned her expertise to educate and engage internal teams to design and deliver industry leading services, and create innovative solutions that deliver the desired results for her clients at pace.
Why we love David: He’s VP of Customer Insights at Ancestry.com. A seasoned CX pro, David was with the Global Consumer Insights team at Clorox and Head of Global Research and Brand Strategy at Fitbit before joining the venerable family history and genomics company. He took a crawl, walk, run approach to building out his function at Ancestry, delivering early wins that built momentum and respect for the Voice of the Customer across the company.
Why we love Ellie: She’s a speaker, writer, and Senior Director of Customer Success at SAP Concur. Through hyper-growth SaaS companies, Ellie developed a fascination with the customer. Realizing the impact and the translated value for an organization, she created PictureCS (CliffsNotes for Customer Success Best Practices). She counsels leaders and teams responsible for customer outcomes by designing stronger organizations and guide cross-functional teams to leverage mutually beneficial opportunities with an advanced understanding of the customer journey, sales, product marketing, and operations.
Why we love Guneet: He’s Director of Customer Experience & Advocacy at Docusign where he leads the company’s NPS, customer advocacy, customer labs & customer research. He uses state-of-the-art technology to retrieve and analyze customer data to boost the likelihood of delivering meaningful improvement in customer experience. Sharing this data is key to garnering support for change, he says: “There are journey points that need to be addressed. But if you don’t have hard facts attached to them … then your management team will [ignore these points].”
Why we love Jeannie: She’s a TEDx speaker, CEO and Chief Customer Experience Investigator at 360 Connext, trainer, workshop leader, consultant, and podcaster. Her specialty is connecting with audiences to help them emotionally connect with those they serve. It’s not as easy as we think and our brains work against us! Using humor, stories and her experience as a customer experience consultant, she uncovers what’s stopping your organization or association from really delivering great experiences.
Why we love Jessica: We might be biased because she was Chief Customer Officer at Wootric, but she’d make our list even if she wasn’t. At InMoment, Jessica works with our phenomenal team to build a modern approach to enterprise customer feedback management. She guides our mid-market and enterprise customers by helping to solve complex problems and execute Voice of Customer strategy using machine learning. Her expert, consultative approach to customer experience gives her customers a competitive edge in the CX space.
Why we love Joey: As a keynote speaker, workshop leader, and consultant, Joey helps businesses design creative ways to engage customers – especially in the crucial first 100 days of the customer lifecycle. As a professional speaker who has given thousands of speeches all over the world, he also works with a small number of private coaching clients to develop and hone their speaking skills. His book Never Lose a Customer Again discusses the 8 phases your customer has the potential to travel through as part of their customer journey and the 6 tools you can use during that journey to create remarkable experiences for your customers.
Why we love Kia: She’s the Founder and CEO of K!A CX Consulting. She has held chief positions in customer success, services, account management and support at companies such as: Oracle, Eloqua, Day Software (Adobe), Intelex Technologies, and Blueprint Software Systems. Kia has pioneered the art of Customer Experience by leading businesses through the transition to customer-centric organizations. Her methodology provides clients with a disciplined and sustainable approach to increasing customer lifetime value and loyalty. She also holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Computer Engineering.
Why we love Maxie: She’s a keynote speaker, author, Principal Analyst at Forrester, and has a PhD in Business Management on Customer Care. She helps clients achieve smart profit growth through product and price optimization based on deep customer insights and has managed engagements and projects in a wide range of industries like telecommunication, retail, software, transportation, and high-tech.
Why we love Melinda: She’s a Customer Experience Strategist with experience in Customer Success Management, Customer Experience Design, Voice of the Customer, and Customer Retention/Loyalty/Advocacy practices. She spent a decade at Salesforce and is now part of the incredible team at WeWork, bringing the Powered by We vision to life.
Why we love Rachel: She’s the Director of Customer Experience at Zuora. Rachel has built and led high-performing, thought-leading customer-focused teams. Through those experiences, and as a regular customer herself, she has developed a proven philosophy and methodology for creating Customer Success and honing an end-to-end Customer Experience. Rachel believes that companies and their customers are only truly successful together, and she understands the building blocks and the details needed to compound that effect.
Why we love Sandra: She’s the Customer Experience Director and thought leader for Strong-Bridge Envision Consulting. She helps organizations and clients develop customer experience strategies, measurement programming, actioning of insights, and facilitate workshops focused on: customer journey mapping, employee engagement, to enable organizations to move the needle with customer experience adoption for higher customer loyalty and satisfaction.
Why we love Sarang: Sarang is an Account Executive at InMoment. His big heart, quick wit, and eye for process have made him besties with many a customer. “I learn a customer’s goals and what motivates them – why do they want implement a Voice of Customer Program? To reduce churn? Optimize their product or service? Knowing that enables me to anticipate their needs and present them with a plan that will give them success. The real transformative customer experience comes when you can answer the questions they don’t know they have. It’s in that moment that you win a customer for life.” His specialties are NPS, CES, CSAT and text analytics.
Why we love Sue: She’s a speaker, writer, mentor, Director of Marketing at M4 Communications, and co-host of #CXChat, a weekly Twitter chat on customer experience and employee experience. She’s passionate about helping organizations differentiate and grow by coaching them to be customer-centric, advising them on their digital transformation initiatives, and collaborating with them to design omnichannel experiences that engage employees and deliver customer value. She’s also a diversity and inclusion advocate.
Why we love Venk: He’s a customer-obsessed Director, Product Management at Salesforce.com who is an evangelist for the use of Customer Effort Score metric at SFDC and in the broader SaaS technology space. Venk uses CES and other customer metrics to monitor and improve the self-service customer experience at Salesforce. Bottomline, customers are his playbook.
As a CX professional, I’m sure you’re sick of hearing about your customers’ increasing expectations. Well, I’m right here with you. This statement may be common, but it’s incredibly over simplified.
Yes, customers expect more from brands, but they do so because there are brands out there delivering phenomenally simple, fast, different and even profound experiences. As Paul Papas, global leader of IBM Interactive Experience said: “The last best experience that anyone has anywhere becomes the minimum expectation for the experiences they want everywhere.”
By these new measures, when a brand doesn’t keep up, gets sloppy, or doesn’t do the work to understand what its customers really value, those customers notice — and they put the culprit on notice.
For our 2019 CX Trends Report, InMoment surveyed both consumers and brands to understand the alignments and disconnects in how well or poorly customer experience is delivered. While there are some bright spots, the overall takeaway is that most brands are still struggling to find ways to do right by their own needs while also serving the evolving needs and expectations of their customers.
One big red flag was the mismatch in how companies and consumers responded to whether brands are getting better at delivering an excellent customer experience versus just completing a transaction.
Fifty percent of brands responded that they are “definitely” doing better, but only 11 percent of consumers said the same.
Worse, nearly 10 times as many consumers than brands believe that experiences are definitely not getting better.
It doesn’t help that brands aren’t taking the right accountability for falling short. When asked how much responsibility customers have in helping create better experiences, 40 percent of brands reported that that customers were “very” responsible, with an unbelievable 12 percent stating that customers are “completely” responsible. Customers, on the other hand, see responsibility as a shared endeavor.
While these statistics make the state of CX may sound bleak, our research also uncovered wise counsel on how brands can reverse unproductive practices and make serious strides in the other direction.
Download the full “2019 CX Trends Report”to learn about the five trends you need to know as well as actionable takeaways to help you bridge the gap with your customers and create excellent customer experiences!
We all know it takes a village to drive improvements in customer experience (CX) within an organization. Creating that sense of purpose and collective responsibility requires great communication. Well, the latest research shows that using storytelling in presentations allows you to be a knowledgeable and convincing leader who will influence key audiences in the CX process.
A Stanford Research study shows that statistics alone have a retention rate between 5 and 10%; when coupled with anecdotes, the retention rate rises to 65-70%. Storytelling is relatable and makes data easy to understand. Put simply, you will increase memorability for your audience by creating stories around your data.
If that wasn’t enough evidence for you, Forrester says that “data storytelling not only persuades the analytical part of the brain; it also uses emotion, a key driver of decision making.” Humans are emotionally driven, so impact and action come from stories, not just the facts.
For CX leaders, I believe that applying the following three key elements will make creating an effective story for your audience simple.
Understand Your Audience
As a CX professional, you work hand in hand with various key contributors to the customer experience.This means that you could be presenting to anyone from the C Suite to a regional manager. Identifying the specific audience’s needs, and addressing what is important to them is critical when crafting a story for your presentations.
When customizing a story, you should highlight the key benefits that are most relevant for your audience. What do they care about? For example, you can show the C Suite how your work boosts customer satisfaction and key metrics, increases demand for their product, expands their market, and benefits the bottomline. By outlining the central benefits, you are building increased value for your audience.
But it is not all about the head and facts, make sure you think about how you want your audience to feel. You want to use stories that specifically pertain to them and motivate them —as well as appeal to the heart. As you build trust, you need to be aware of what you want to happen next. Are you looking for more funding? Do you want increased support? Are you trying to expand your CX program?
Don’t forget to tune your story to address the outcome you want. Understanding your audience is crucial in storytelling if you want to have a relevant presentation.
Remember Your Central Question
As you use a story to present to your target audience, make sure you remember to anchor your presentation around a central question; what are you asking for?
When you think of a story it follows a familiar pattern. There is always a rise to a climax and then a fall to a resolution. It is important that you remember to structure your story with the identified theme or idea that you are addressing in mind. You want to have a rise in story that introduces the main question you are addressing for the audience. Then as you finish the story you can propose a resolution to take action on.
People like familiarity. Just as your audience knows a story rises and falls, you should pose a question and then resolve it. You will enhance your CX presentation by following this pattern and remembering your central question.
Create a Checklist for Your Presentation
Finally, it’s not just about what you present, it’s how you present it. There are a few checklist items you need to fulfill when presenting to make sure your delivery is pristine.
Firstly, make sure you are providing an organized map that is well paced and logical. Your audience needs to be able to follow your story effortlessly while recognizing the key points. This also helps you to spend more time on the points that really matter to your narrative instead of spending time on tangents that won’t get you where you want to go.
Secondly, a story is nothing without evidence. Stakeholders are looking for a reason to support you. Without anything backing up your claims, it’s hard for decision makers to commit. Providing solutions to their problems and proof that those solutions are viable creates trust that is crucial.
Lastly, recognize that questions and concerns will arise during your presentation. We will all agree that one of the best moments in a presentation is when you’re asked a question and the next slide addresses that specific ask. In that moment, you’re able to show that you get the audience, and know how they will be thinking. To accomplish this, you want to have additional, relevant stories on hand that can provide solutions to potential asks in a memorable and actionable way.
Applying these three key elements of storytelling can help you rock your presentation. At the same time, being given the time to communicate is a gift that should never be taken lightly, so remember to identify the audience, their primary concerns, and tell a story that addresses concerns with a balance of emotion and facts. Use a story and your audience won’t be able to forget your call to action!
When you work in customer service you deal with hundreds of emails in a day. So, it can be easy to lose sight of just how important each one is. A single negative interaction can be enough to turn a person off your business.
People like to feel as if their problem matters to the person on the other end. Giving your emails a personal feel can be very helpful in facilitating positive and effective interactions between customer support and clients.
Use their name
Start by greeting them with a friendly hello before you dive into solving their issue. Use their name. The way you greet the customer sets the tone for the rest of the interaction, so it’s important. Don’t be weird and address them as ‘customer,’ or goodness forbid, by their case number. People like to feel as if they’re having an interaction with an actual human and not a machine. There’s no quicker way to make a customer feel like they’re dealing with a soulless robot than to address as their case number.
Get everyone on the same page
“Summarize what is happening currently with their issue to ensure everyone is on the same page. Don’t be afraid to ask the customer for confirmation if you think they might be misunderstanding,” advises Brian Sorensen, email marketer at BigAssignments. It’s much better to sort things out sooner than later. If you’re dealing with an ongoing situation or one that is complicated, then it’s never a bad idea to review what is happening. Rephrasing things back to the customer is a great way to make sure you are understanding each other.
Promise them a solution
Conduct your customer service interactions in a way that minimizes the number of customers checking in to see how things are progressing. Keep your customer updated on how things are going; this should happen at least once a day. Give them expectations. Let them know when you will be contacting them again with an update. You can’t guarantee them a solution in that timeframe, but you can guarantee them a check-in. You’ll find this makes your customers a lot less anxious, people like to know what to expect, especially when something isn’t working for them.
Be realistic about the situation
Be honest with your customers about what you’ll be able to help them with. When you overpromise you just create more headaches for both you and the customer. When you mess something up, own it, and apologize to the customer. If the product fails, apologize. Making excuses for failing or the product failing will only make the customer angrier. Focus on fixing the problem and being transparent. People appreciate honesty, and even if they are upset, they will still appreciate you owning the situation.
Canned replies work
Yes, you read that correctly. Used properly, canned replies can be very effective and save you a ton of time. The trick is to know when it is appropriate to send out a canned reply. In customer service you’ll find that a lot of interactions start repeating themselves, and for those common situations, a canned reply is fine. You can still write canned replies that feel personal and not as if they came from a robot. Automating the basic replies leaves you with more time to deal with more complicated situations that arise. Ensure your sending these at the most suitable times for your customers by using an email scheduling tool.
Write better emails with these online resources
Writing is a skill that requires regular practice and fine-tuning. Punctuation, spelling, using the correct word — it all matters. If English is your second language, or you slept through English class, here are some resources to help you nail your text and avoid coming off as sloppy.
Grammarly and Grammar Guide – Check out these grammar resources. They are perfect for simplifying grammar and making it easy for you to understand and use English correctly.
WritingExplained– Is it “#001D30” or “gray”? This blog covers these common mistakes. Don’t let errors ruin your otherwise great emails.
Conclusion
An email will never be as personal as a face to face interaction, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to make it as personal and pleasant as possible for the customer. Small things make a huge difference when it comes to customer service emails. Each positive interaction counts and helps build a relationship between the brand and the customer. Use these six tips to make your customer service emails feel personal.
Grace Carter is a content manager at BoomEssays services. She creates business presentations, teaches interns and curates support communications.
Do you see that? 660 million results. There are gigabytes upon gigabytes of articles across the internet about the pros and cons of various US airports. However, there’s rarely consensus between the many listicles, slideshows and travel blogs. So, Lexalytics, an InMoment company, mined social data from ten of the busiest airports in America. The goal? Rate these airports based on actual customer experience signal. The result: a ranked list driven by data science, not editorializations and PR.
After this project concluded, Lexalytics partnered with Gensler’s Los Angeles Aviation and Transportation Studio, the industry leader in global airport architecture. Together, the teams are completing a firm-wide research project that, in the words of Gensler, aims at “leveraging sentiment analysis to inform the planning and design of airports.”
Architects Kate O’Connor, Justin Wortman and Andy Huang from Gensler have been using Lexalytics’ Semantria Storage & Visualization (Semantria SV) to mine social media data about dozens of America’s airports, with the aim being to find the signal in the noise of customer feedback. Through Semantria’s sentiment analysis technology, the team is generating deep, data-driven insights into what travelers and staff value in their airport experience. It bears mentioning that the information and views presented in this article are Lexalytics alone. This list does not in any way represent the opinions of Gensler or its affiliates.
Methodology
This simplified example serves to illustrate the basic concepts behind rules-based sentiment analysis. In other words, -1 is very negative and +1 is very positive.
We’ve taken 30,748 Facebook comments from ten of America’s busiest airports and ran them through our Semantria Storage & Visualization platform. A bit of perspective: 30,748 Facebook comments equates to 869,973 words, enough to fill 2,768 pages. That’s more than double the size of War and Peace!
Using natural language processing, we algorithmically sorted the airports based on real customer feedback. In other words, the ranking is based on an airport’s average customer sentiment, rather than opinion or star rating. Want to know more about the factors that influenced each airport’s ranking? Click on each airport’s name to review our deep dive into customer sentiment.
If you read our earlier SFO article, it should come as no surprise that San Francisco International Airport tops the list for customer satisfaction. The airport began using social listening in 2017, making improvements aligned with customer demand. Judi Mosqueda, the Director of Project Management for SFO, oversaw the investment of $7.3 million towards improving the airport’s wayfinding experience. This project addresses a major customer concern. The data shows how the social mentions of wayfinding at SFO jumps from very negative to very positive in a year’s time. It’s clear that customers can be your best business adviser if you listen properly – using the right tools.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”#1d8413″ class=”” size=””]I fly out of SFO for work and fun roughly 30 times per year. Yes there are weather delays, but this airport is truly a pleasure to use! The terminals are all being updated or have recently been updated, their [sic] are improvements in the weather delays, and there are plenty of flight options to choose from. The food has been getting better as the terminal renovations finish, which makes the weather delays more tolerable… The staff is great at serving the customers that pack in as delays stack up. The lounges are where I’ve noticed the biggest changes. American’s Terminal 2 Admirals Club is immaculate! If you have the pleasure of flying through SFO I highly recommend it![/perfectpullquote]
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”#c8300d” class=”” size=””]Flights frequently get delayed due to ‘weather.’ You can play the weather card here and there, but when half your flights throughout the year are delayed due to ‘weather,’ that’s called a ‘scheduling’ problem.[/perfectpullquote]
What happens in Vegas can also skew the feelings of travelers who make their way through Las Vegas McCarran International Airport. Negatively scored reviews often criticize aspects of the city well beyond the control of airport stakeholders. Using a properly tuned social listening tool like Semantria SV, we see that often the negative customer sentiment is aimed at the City of Sin itself. We also learn that many travelers seem to enjoy the idea of having slot machines in the airport, while others found them an unpleasant reminder of past decisions. When it comes to the airport services themselves, like complimentary wifi on the tarmac, customer reviews score very positively. Overall, travelers find themselves engaged, on time, and happy while at LAS.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”#1d8413″ class=”” size=”14″]Flew Virgin America for the first time. Classic funk hit ‘Flashlight’ was blasting through the speakers at ticketing! Gotta give them at least four stars for that alone! Also, won at gambling in the terminal. Even better? You get to enjoy super-fast FREE wifi![/perfectpullquote]
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”#c8300d” class=”” size=”14″]I liked it but they need to get rid of the slots. After a week n [sic] Vegas I didn’t want to see another slot. I was so ready to go home. Four days is plenty n [sic] that town.[/perfectpullquote]
The deep-dive into Seattle-Tacoma International Airport details how the customer experience breaks all departmental silos. Dirty bathrooms, for example, exacerbate complaints about costly food. However, despite some small challenges, Sea-Tac’s positive reviews account for nearly 40% of its data set — not bad. Topics ranging from the attitude and helpfulness of staff to the quality of the (expensive) food all score positively. By using smart NLP solutions to its advantage, Sea-Tac could quite easily make the changes needed to find its way to the top of this list.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”#1d8413″ class=”” size=”14″]A welcome stop in a long trip the food is good a little pricey but I guess that’s to be expected, train ride was nice and quick and the staff was friendly!!![/perfectpullquote]
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”#c8300d” class=”” size=”14″]Why are all airport’s food so darn expensive? $12 for water and crackers??? Additionally the terminals aren’t equal in terms of food options. Previously I’ve never had an issue with bathrooms but I gotta say this experience was DISGUSTING. Hair everywhere. Gag me. But otherwise it’s great, the staff is very friendly and very helpful![/perfectpullquote]
As the busiest airport in the world, Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport is bound to face some challenges. Through the power of NLP and social listening, it becomes clear that its biggest problem is with the wayfinding experience, despite recent and costly renovations. The data also shows that the saving grace for Atlanta is the staff, who are reviewed as courteous and helpful. Still, no amount of good cheer and manners can make up for the navigation nightmare of trying to find the proper gate.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”#1d8413″ class=”” size=””]I had to navigate this huge airport with two small children, luggage, and a carseat [sic]. I can honestly say any attendant who saw me was more than helpful. Directing me to TSA, picking us up from the park and ride, and just being considerate. A large place but the staff is more than capable.[/perfectpullquote]
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”#c8300d” class=”” size=”14″]Nice airport, good restaurants… only complaint — the signage could use a little bit of work. I stepped off the train to [sic]soon because of the confusing signage between terminal T and the baggage claim. (I’ve actually done this twice on two different trips :-D)[/perfectpullquote]
Thanks to a colorful connection with conspiracy theorists, Denver’s reviews speak of anti-gravity rooms, the Illuminati, and “Blucifer” — the giant bucking bronco sculpture at the entrance to the airport. As detailed in the linked write-up, social listening shows many of these complaints represent a potential path for customer engagement. When you tune the results, the data show that staff get twice as many positive comments as negative ones. They also reveal that while customers don’t mind the Illuminati so much, they could go for some more hooks on bathroom stalls and an improved baggage claim experience.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”#1d8413″ class=”” size=”14″]It is actually an underground Illuminati headquarters. The enormous, hideous blue horse statue with glowing red eyes next to the entrance road killed it’s [sic] sculptor before he finished it. The runway layout looks like a swastika when seen from space. There is a mural in one terminal that shows a child in a coffin. There are gargoyles on the inside of the building… Also, the people that work here are extremely nice and helpful![/perfectpullquote]
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”#c8300d” class=”” size=”14″]Fantastic airport ruined by terrible bag delays which are common. Waited more than 30 minutes for my bags. Unacceptable.[/perfectpullquote]
In 2017, Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport ranked as both the best and worst airport (on different lists, of course). That it lands here on our list makes perfect sense as customer reviews score mostly neutral. Still, our sentiment analysis reveals that when travelers do get passionate about DFW, it’s usually about cleanliness. Interestingly, a PR director working for a DFW affiliated agency reached out to contest our findings; head over to the deep-dive article to see the exchange — and see the differences between AI and PR. A trove of positive comments highlight DFW’s inter-terminal tram system, Skylink. When properly maintained, Skylink is a unanimous crowd pleaser.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”#1d8413″ class=”” size=”14″]Best airport for kids! Kids play areas and the Skylink! We purposefully will always layover at DFW because it’s always a great experience.[/perfectpullquote]
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”#c8300d” class=”” size=”14″]One of the grossest airports I’ve been to. Carpet in the waiting areas is absolutely filthy, as are the seats in the sky trams as well. Not sure if they even vacuum???[/perfectpullquote]
Chicago’s position on this list is unique from the others, as the sentiment weight is skewed. The subject of a viral national news story, ORD received a flurry of one-star reviews in a short period of time. Using Lexalytics’ web dashboard, Semantria Storage & Visualization, we see occurrences of 1-star Facebook ratings jump from 11% to 58% within days of the incident. The number of 5-star ratings dropped by more than half overnight. There is no question the right social listening tool might have made all the difference to Chicago’s standing during that crucial time, a subject we explore in the article.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”#1d8413″ class=”” size=”14″]Flight on time. Security line reasonable. Was not beaten and dragged off the flight I paid for by agents of an unchecked police state. So all in all a better than average experience.[/perfectpullquote]
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”#c8300d” class=”” size=”14″]I’m paying for wifi and I’m using my last amount of battery to write this glowing review of O’Hare, that’s how much I’m disappointed with this airport. As a disclaimer my flight was delayed due to not being able to clear snow from the runways. I won’t fault am airline/airport for weather, but I will fault you for not being able to handle minor precipitation. Not prepared for snow of any kind in December! Concourses are dated. Waiting areas have no outlets… and chairs look like they’re straight out of the 1970’s. Avoid O’Hare at all costs… Also, I figured out that all these large plastic bins scattered around on the floor of the airport are for the crappy leaky roof. Real great look, Chicago.[/perfectpullquote]
If first impressions last forever, then Los Angeles International Airport is in trouble. Thanks to LA’s famous traffic, the airport faces challenges before customers and staff even arrive at the facility. While some of the responsibility lies with the City of Angels itself, the airport could use — and fortunately is using — AI powered natural language processing to effect landside improvements. The airport recently began deploying text analytics to inform infrastructure changes. Now, myriad improvements are in the works, ranging from a metro link to a tram connecting arrivals to rental car companies. If they follow through, LAX might rank much higher on future lists.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”#1d8413″ class=”” size=”14″]I was pleasantly surprised by how chic the new airport remodel was! Nice little shops, a MAC counter, trendy eateries, a Tumi, and a Frederic M, plus plenty of places to charge my phone and tablet, and although I don’t drink, lots of bars for those that do![/perfectpullquote]
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”#c8300d” class=”” size=”14″]Food options are great….if you can get there threw [sic] the traffic. Once in the vicinity it is so bottle necked its [sic] a mess. The rental car return is so far away dont [sic]even bother. You teally[sic]have to leave where you are at (if youre [sic]within a 35 miles radius, longer if you are farther) at least 4-5 hours before your plane leaves, just to get to LAX. Onc e [sic] within your terminal its [sic] nice.[/perfectpullquote]
Like Las Vegas McCarran, John F. Kennedy International Airport is as much a cultural landmark as a business. Nonetheless, customers come through by the millions and have many of the complaints you might expect of a giant transit hub. Last year, the New York state government earmarked $7 billion for renovations. They run the risk of throwing good money after bad if they fail to tap into the strategic knowledge afforded by text analytics and social listening. When it comes to positive customer sentiment for JFK, there isn’t much consensus. The airport faces many challenges ahead if it wishes to win customers from its two nearest competitors, LGA and EWR.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”#1d8413″ class=”” size=”14″]My favorite of the major NYC airports (JFK, LGA, EWR). Staff is somewhat friendlier and it’s an all around better environment.[/perfectpullquote]
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”#c8300d” class=”” size=”14″]Beyond frustrated with the lack of breastfeeding/pumping areas anywhere! No, I don’t want to pump at an airport terminal gate or in a booth at one of the terminal restaurants, but thanks for the offer. JFK is one of the busiest airports so not a lot of low traffic areas. Why don’t airports put outlets in the family bathrooms? It is hard enough having to travel with the extra supplies as is. Ugh… Also, no free wifi?[/perfectpullquote]
People really, really don’t enjoy Charlotte-Douglass International Airport. The consensus narrative exposed by the analysis reveals a systemic attitude problem among staff. Data extracted from the reviews reflect personnel who don’t appear to care about customer experience. Complaints extend to a variety of other areas as well, from ADA compliance to poor signage and wayfinding design, and the recently defunct bathroom attendant program. Charlotte does stand tall with its communal spaces — central to which is a sunlit atrium appointed with trees and snow-white rocking chairs. If Charlotte begins listening to its customers, it will be better empowered to solve their core challenges. In turn, bonuses like rocking chairs will be seen more as a cherry on top, and less as a manifestation of tone-deaf customer support.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”#1d8413″ class=”” size=”14″]As a connecting airport, it has a way to go to compete with Atlanta in terms of efficiency, services, scope… but I *have* had some respectable longer layovers here that were pleasant enough in a big white rocker with someone playing piano in the terminal gently in the evening. As an embarkation airport, it still kinda sucks but is getting better.[/perfectpullquote]
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”#c8300d” class=”” size=”14″]Horrible!!!! I am Stage 4 Triple Negative Breast Cancer with METS to many bones. I am wheelchair bound as walking is very difficult. One of the people was to take me to terminal 15 and instead dumped me at terminal 8 telling me the terminal has been changed. The terminal was never changed and I was simply deserted. People began asking me if I needed help, these were passengers not employees. Never again will I fly through Charlotte.[/perfectpullquote]
Thank you for flying with us
And so concludes our definitive, data-driven guide to ten of America’s busiest airports. During the ensuing data analysis, we’ve discovered insights about airport architecture and uncovered customer experience best practices; we even learned how to use AI to handle a viral press crisis. It’s clear that when visiting an airport, customers care most about staff attitude, cleanliness, and wayfinding (in that order).
There’s a “cultural,” or if you will, “behavioral” change going on at car dealerships being driven by a source that might surprise many. New, factory bonus incentive programs, such as GM’s EBE, ESE and PASE and Nissan’s Customer Experience Elements, are creating pressure on car dealers to bring “customer experience” to the same level of importance as the “transaction.
Third party consultants and suppliers have tried for decades to motivate dealers to focus more on the “experience.” Those efforts are being dramatically supported by escalating factory bonus programs aimed solely at creating a loyalty loop, where sold customers come back to service their vehicles at the selling store. It is a proven fact that sold customers who return to that same dealer for service have much higher odds of buying their next vehicle from the dealer who sold them their previous one.
Genesis of Factory Incentives Begin With Dwindling New Car Margins
Car makers have always had incentive programs, but past payouts pale in comparison to today’s mega-programs, first launched 5 years ago. It started with factory incentive programs dedicated to compensating dealers for dwindling showroom sales margins. Even today , about 40 percent of car dealers are not profitable in their new-car departments until they get factory spiffs, according to dealership consultancy NCM Associates. But the recent OEM incentives, commonly referred to as “stair-step” programs, are still heavily skewed towards solely boosting new car revenue profits, and not necessarily the showroom customer experience.
But as time has passed, and the era of the “connected customer” comes into play, the role of showroom sales is changing as well, with a greater emphasis on setting the stage for retaining customers for life. Sales personnel are now being asked to perform tasks beyond the transaction, such as completing the connected customer set-up (like OnStar), initiating the customer rewards sign-up and spending extra time in the delivery of the vehicle. And factory incentive programs are even compensating the sales team directly for performing such tasks.
Two of the big three automakers have also introduced dealer wide “rewards programs” with the sole purpose of bringing the customer back again and again to boost service revenue and repeat sales. The growth in targeted rewards, say dealers and consultants, increases manufacturers’ power to shape dealership operations in general, and staff behavior specifically. At first, dealers balked at the prospect of corporate interference from incentive benefits, but over time, many have come to accept those bonuses as critical to the profitability of the store.
OEM incentives are changing store culture (behavior) by “fear of loss” rather than “benefit of gain”
For decades, automakers have tried to influence dealers to encourage their front line sales/service personnel to pay as much attention to creating a memorablecustomer experience, or as it is still referred to, CSI, as they do to the transaction…but to little or no avail. Auto retailers have gotten more transparent, but mainly because the Internet has empowered customers to force change. Transactional-ism is so ingrained in store personnel DNA, that training and technology, by itself, hasn’t forced the kind of behavioral changes needed to increase retention. Dealer staff pay plans have always focused on “the deal” or “service RO”. Employee pay plans are job descriptions… dictating the behavior of the sales/service personnel. But OEMs discovered that pocketbook strategies are the only way to expand staff behaviors to focus on touch points that will directly affect customer experience and ongoing relationships…thus boosting “return revenue,” including their next vehicle purchase. With factory bonus money on the line, those huge sums are beginning to strongly motivate the store leadership to formally implement management efforts focused directly on the tasks required to retain customers. And OEM incentive payments directly to the staff for non-transactional, “experiential” practices are influencing staff behavior to place retention on the same level as “the deal”. Another difference today is that, in addition to monetary payments, OEMs have dramatically increased the number of programs that specifically support the new factory standards accompanying the incentive bonuses. Dealers aren’t left to their own devices to create and manage what the new programs require in the way of behavioral change.
Ground Zero For Retaining New Customers…The Service Experience
Dealer service centers have, not so affectionately, been referred to as “the back end” of the dealership. The showroom has always been the primary focus of the dealer leadership, which is generally made up of store general managers groomed primarily in sales. While some of service directors saw this lack of attention as permission to “do their own thing”, the discontinuity between sales and service has had a negative impact on customer retention. But those days are slowly diminishing. In fact, the ever-increasing reliance on factory incentives is also changing how buyers assess a dealership purchase, buy-sell advisers say. New-vehicle sales are no longer the predominant gauge of a dealership’s financial health. In fact, about three years ago, buyers started shifting their focus to fixed operations, specifically customer-pay service work, as the barometer for store profit potential, said buy-sell adviser Mark Johnson, president of MD Johnson Inc., near Seattle. The service center has clearly established itself as the primary profit center for the future of retail auto…at least until autonomous vehicles become a reality. In fact, service has also become the “second showroom”, as I spoke about in this MaritzCX Café post a year ago. Vehicle exchange programs, stationed in service departments, have established themselves as a second point-of-sale for service customers who are in the market to move up or trade their old model in for a new one…thus facilitating dealers to turn a service visit into a new sale.
The service level customers experience is slowly becoming the great differentiator in retail auto today. The service department, in essence, provides a “loyalty loop” after the sale, where sold customers get a real taste of a dealership’s “customer care” level.
Bottom Line
Car manufacturers are mandating the right kind of cultural (behavioral) change at the dealership with huge factory incentives aimed primarily at “customer experience” and repeat business. At first, auto retailers felt threatened by their diminishing entrepreneurial power, but many have come to accept, and more importantly, even depend on the programs as the major way to keep their stores profitable. For decades OEMs and third-party consulting firms have attempted to expand the “transaction” minded dealership network to deliver a higher level of customer experience. By incenting, closely monitoring and strongly supporting customer retention programs, OEM’s are forming closer relationships with their dealer partners in order to adapt to a fast-changing auto industry.
Data is the new currency. But without trust, brands can’t cash in on it, and it may actually cost them. Since consumers have more power over their data than ever, it’s up to brands to explicitly state the value they’ll deliver in exchange for it — and then consistently keep their promises.
Consumers expect brands to use personal data to create more individualized and relevant experiences, but thanks to a plethora of example of terrible execution, they are growing wary of sharing it. In fact, according to InMoment’s 2018 CX Trends report, a whopping 75 percent of customers report most forms of personalization efforts that rely on access to their data as being somewhat creepy, creepy or very creepy.
Faced with growing customer caution and a host of policies and laws making their way through various countries and states around the globe, brands need to go beyond gimmicks and tricks to convince customers to hand over their data or risk losing their trust all together. Fortunately, consumers are less reluctant to share personal information if brands handle it responsibly — and if they get something they truly value in return.
According to findings from InMoment’s report, there are a few best practices that can motivate today’s consumers to share data in the post-GDPR era:
Keep Customer Data To Yourself
An easy way to violate your customers’ trust is by selling their data. Customers are savvy about who has access to their personal data, and they’re not happy when they feel like the private information they’ve shared with brands is up for grabs.
Facebook learned this lesson the hard way. For many users, the Cambridge Analytica revelation proved to be a tipping point that led them to delete their profiles. Learn from Facebook’s mishap by refraining from selling or sharing data to companies without explicit customer consent.
For example, MoviePass has based an entire business model off of selling its customer data. But the brand makes it abundantly clear as to what data it’s collecting and selling from customers, who get cheap movie tickets in return. That brings me to my next point.
Offer The Right Value
Customers are more willing to share information if brands actually use it to improve their experience by offering something of value in return. That could mean insider exclusives, a more customizable and unique customer experience, or even just a more streamlined buying process.
The report reveals that 80 percent of customers will share personal information if they receive special or exclusive offers for doing so — which is why many brands are finding success requesting email addresses in exchange for special offers.
Asking for customer data is inevitable in today’s data-driven age, but brands that sweeten the deal in the right way create an exchange of value that not only nets a goldmine of data, but stronger relationships as well.
Don’t Be A Creeper
The report revealed that, for many customers, the line between “cared for” and “creepy” is thin. When using personal data to “make customers’ experiences better,” make sure to actually use it that way and instead of in ways that make them feel uncomfortable or worse.
Customers report that common strategies (like retargeting ads or aggressive emails about previously viewed products) are intrusive. In the study’s qualitative data, researchers found words like “annoying,” “stalked,” and “harassed.” This is worse when they perceive a crossover between physical and digital realms, such as feeling as though brands have been “listening” to conversations they’ve had offline, or knowing and using their physical location.
Additionally, customers are hesitant to give brands data they don’t feel would actually enhance their experience. Today’s customers are savvy, and they know what data brands need and what they don’t — for example, unless they are attending nearby events or receiving location-specific offers, they don’t want to provide location data for the sake of it. This puts pressure on brands to make a common sense case as to why they are asking for information.
Creepiness comes with consequences: InMoment’s report reveals that 22 percent of customers report they will look for other brands after a creepy experience. Additionally, 20 percent will tell their friends and family, and one in 10 will share Big Brother-type experiences on social media
The stakes are higher than ever for brands to balance their own needs with their customers’ interests — especially when it comes to personal data. Brands must not only be responsible with data, but also use it efficiently to improve the customer experience without violating trust.
Could there be value lying dormant in your company? Claire Fastier gives three examples of AI unlocking efficiency and opening avenues for your customer like never before.
Artificial intelligence is everywhere. From Google’s Arts and Culture app – which uses facial recognition technology to match selfies to thousands of artworks—to Pizza Hut’s plans for driverless pizza delivery.
In Australia, AI is hot on the agenda. The Federal Government’s 2018-19 budget revealed a $29.9 million investment over the next four years to strengthen Australia’s capability in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning – and a recent report from AlphaBeta reveals that Australia could reap a $2.2 trillion opportunity by 2030 with greater investment in AI.
The application of AI to improve customer experience is particularly on the rise. In fact, this year the Consumer Electronic Show (CES), held in Las Vegas and possibly the most notable conference in the world for showcasing the latest in consumer technology, featured its first ever Artificial Intelligence Marketplace to showcase the latest innovations designed to perform human tasks.
Products ranged from big data analytics to speech recognition to advanced decision making to predictive technology. Many of these solutions are already being leveraged by great companies to add a magic touch to their services.
The question you should be asking yourself is: are you taking advantage of this? If not, here are three ways you can apply AI, and examples of companies which have done so effectively, to improve customer experience right now.
1. Automate simple customer interactions
There’s nothing less efficient than bogging down highly-skilled, highly-paid employees with basic tasks. Emerging technology in artificial intelligence can automate simple interactions, allowing your people to focus on more complex and nuanced customer interactions.
Gartner predicts that 95% of customer interactions will be driven by AI by 2025, leveraging chatbots and mobile messaging to complete simple tasks. A strong local example of this is superannuation firm AustralianSuper, which launched its chatbot, ‘Ash’, earlier this year and has seen more than 50,000 messages sent, achieving a 92% overall customer satisfaction rate.
Over in the US, supermarket chain Kroger announced its new Kroger Edge technology, which, among other things, will enable the company to instantly change prices and activate promotions on digital displays, freeing up employees who would otherwise change prices by hand.
This sort of automation can deliver a more consistent experience and a huge financial impact according to Juniper Research, which estimates cost savings of more than US$8 (AU$11.27) billion annually by 2022, up from US$20 (AU$28.19) million in 2017.
2. Augment your service employees
Another powerful application of AI is within your own organisation. By leveraging solutions that enable you to proactively anticipate customers’ needs and engage on an emotional level, customer experiences will shift from mundane to exceptional.
Some of the world’s largest retail, hospitality and financial services brands, for example, use InMoment’s AI-powered technology to analyse unstructured (text-heavy) data and surface critical information when action is needed. Being able to pinpoint and act accordingly when customers are unhappy or in need of assistance is critical if you are to maintain and develop strong customer relationships.
3. Enrich your existing data
Finally, you can take all the data you have and put it to new use. As Peter Norvig, director of research at Google, notes, “there are a lot of places where AI simply lets companies use their data better, and AI usage is largely invisible to the customer. Retail sites, for instance, can observe the products people are viewing, and use that data to begin suggesting other, more relevant products to them than was previously possible.”
Recently, in addition to making targeted content suggestions, Netflix began tailoring the ‘cover art’ associated with a recommended movie or TV show, based on the user’s viewing history.
For example: the image displayed for a romantic comedy (I’m partial to The Truth About Cats and Dogs), will either play to the ‘romance’ or the ‘comedy’ of the film.
Or, it may feature the image of an actor who starred in other movies you’ve watched. For what it’s worth, Stranger Things has nine different cover art options.
There’s more need – and competition – than ever to deliver meaningful and powerful customer experiences. Fortunately, technology like AI is helping bridge the gap, creating more value for both companies and customers, and allowing brands the opportunity to truly differentiate on customer experience.
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