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General

Improving Survey Response Rates Through Incentives

From time to time customer experience managers will hear the following questions from their internal clients: “Is our response rate too low?”; “What can we do to increase our response rate?” or; “Should we provide an incentive for people to respond?” Like many things in research, these relatively simple questions have somewhat complex answers.

When faced with these questions, the first thing to address is what issue is really being raised. Is the question really about increasing response rates (the percentage of people who respond to a survey invitation), or is it about increasing the total number of responses at a given level of the organization (e.g., dealerships) or is it about improving the representativeness of the responses obtained? Improving the response rate is often not the most effective way to increase the total number of responses and/or improve representativeness.

Increasing the Number of Responses and Improving Representativeness

To increase responses at the unit level and improve representativeness, the first place to look is the sampling scheme. Is the program sampling only a small percentage of customers in an attempt to control costs? If so, it is often more economically feasible to sample more customers and not use an incentive than it is to provide an incentive to increase response rates of a smaller sample.

Another aspect of the sampling scheme to examine is whether important segments of customers are being excluded from 
the sample frame. For instance, in the automotive industry it has typically been the practice that customer-pay (as opposed to warranty) customers are excluded from dealership service experience surveys, even though most dealerships do much more customer-pay service work than they do warranty work. This practice started because of difficulties getting access to customer-pay records. Now that mechanisms are in place for most manufacturers to obtain customer-pay records, these customers should be included in the sampling frame.

Obviously, inclusion of these customers will increase representativeness of the returns because an important part of the dealership’s business will now be included in
the responses.

Improving Response Rates

If the question is indeed about improving the response rate or if improving the response rate is likely to be the best way to improve representativeness and/or the number of responses, providing an incentive to customers to respond is often not the most effective tactic to use. The choice of whether to respond to a survey invitation is a cost-benefit decision for the customer. How much will completing the survey cost
the customer versus what benefit will he/she receive? At 
first glance, one might think that there is no cost to the customer to respond. However, there are many costs and these costs have been increasing over the past few decades. These include:

  • Time–People are now more pressed for time than in years past and they are more often solicited for research than previously.
  • Effort–Many surveys are long and complicated.
  • Hassle/Boredom–Some customers feel “duped” by agreeing to take what they think is a short survey and then finding out it is quite long; many surveys contain boring and repetitive questions.
  • Potential for Loss of Privacy–Many customers worry that their information will not be kept confidential.
  • Potential of Being Put on Numerous Mail/E-mail/Phone Lists–Many customers are concerned that their contact information will be sold to other companies and used for marketing purposes.
  • Potential for Being Subjected to a Sales Pitch–With the increase in Selling Under the Guise of Research (“Sugging”) customers are more skeptical about the legitimacy of survey invitations.

On the benefits side of the equation, in years past customers often felt special and valued because they were being asked for their opinions. Unfortunately, as survey research has proliferated, being asked for your opinion is no longer a unique experience that conveys “specialness.” Customers also seemed more motivated to contribute to the “greater good” by providing feedback about products and services than they are today. Some argue that the younger generations are less interested in the greater good and have even labeled Generation Y the “What’s in It for Me?” generation. Also, those interested in providing feedback now have many ways of doing so (e.g., blogging, posting comments at customer-generated media sites, etc.) instead of completing a survey.

Look at Both Sides of the Customer Cost/Benefit Equation

To increase response rates, researchers should look at both sides of the customer cost/benefit equation by seeking to decrease the cost to the customer and increase the benefits of participation. Some suggestions for reducing the customers’ costs are:

  • Coordinate customer touch points. Many companies inadvertently over survey their customers because different departments or divisions conduct independent research programs.
  • Make the task as easy as possible.
  • Make the survey as short as possible, but not shorter than 
 Sometimes customers can interpret a very short survey as the company not really being interested in their opinions and just “going through the motions” of gathering customer feedback.
  • Make the survey as interactive and entertaining as possible, while maintaining collection of valid information.
  • Give customers the opportunity to choose how and when to respond.
  • Give customers the ability to “tell their story” rather than only answering a large number of specific closed-ended questions. Then use text analytics to gather insights from the customers’ comments.
  • Be very specific about how the information will and will not be used.
  • Avoid “nice to know” questions that are often included “because we have them responding anyway.”
  • Avoid sensitive questions (e.g., income, sexual orientation) unless they are really necessary. If they must be asked, explain to the customer why you are asking the questions and what will be done with the information.

Ways of increasing the benefits of participation to the customer are:

  • Send customers a “thank you” and briefly explain how the information is used.
  • Show customers how the information is being used. For example, some companies have posted signs in their retail outlets telling customers what improvement efforts are being made due to customer feedback.
  • Assure customers they will get a personal follow-up if they request it and they will not get a follow-up if they don’t request it. It is very important that companies follow-up on these promises. Otherwise, it will cause dissatisfied customers to become even more upset.
  • Consider allowing customers to see other customers’ feedback. People are social beings and they often want to know if their experience was typical or atypical.
  • Provide an appropriate reward with monetary value to respond.

Considerations When Using Monetary Incentives

In most circumstances, to increase response rates we recommend investigating the non-monetary methods listed above before considering use of a monetary incentive (or any incentive with monetary value – e.g., a free oil change or a discount coupon for your next purchase). If not done properly, monetary incentives have the potential to bias the responses. This brings us to the issue of what makes an incentive appropriate.

Generally, the smaller the incentive the better. This is not only because smaller incentives are more economical;
 it is primarily because larger incentives have more potential to bias results. There are two main concerns with large incentives. First, as incentives increase respondents are more likely to complete the survey just to get the incentive. Therefore, they may pay little or no attention to the questions they are answering and provide bad information. Unfortunately, bad information is worse than no information at all. Second, larger incentives may bias the sample by encouraging lower income individuals to respond at greater rates than higher income individuals. One thing to take into consideration when using a small monetary incentive is that it should be framed as “a small token of our appreciation” to the customer. If customers believe you are trying to compensate them for their time with a small incentive, they can become offended.

  1. If possible, provide the incentive to everyone being sampled rather than promising an incentive to those who complete the survey. In the case of cash incentives to complete a mail survey, most research has shown that inclusion of a small amount (e.g., $1) is more effective at increasing response rates than promising a larger amount (e.g., $5) upon return of the survey. There are many potential reasons for this, but probably the largest is customers’ skepticism that they will receive the promised reward.
  2. The incentive should be something of equal value to everyone, regardless of their experience. Incentives such as discount coupons for the next purchase or the promise of a free oil change have two major problems associated with them. First, they are more valuable to people who intend
to return to the retailer (e.g., those that previously had a good experience) than those that are unlikely to return. Therefore, they can bias the results. Second, they can be seen by customers as “just another marketing ploy.”
  3. The incentive must match the methodology and the geography. Inclusion of a dollar bill with mail surveys is relatively easy in the U.S. but it is obviously difficult to do for online or phone surveys. It is also difficult to include money in Canadian mail surveys because the one and two dollar currencies are coins and the added weight of including them increases postal rates.

A Quick Look at Some Common Incentives

Inclusion of a Dollar Bill with a Mail Survey. Surprisingly, when using monetary incentives, this is still one of the most effective ways to increase response rates for mail surveys. This technique is particularly appropriate for small survey programs but can become financially infeasible for large programs.

Entry into a Lottery to Win a Large Prize upon Return of the Survey. For mail surveys, this technique is generally not as effective at increasing response rates as including
a dollar bill with the outgoing survey. However, for large programs it is often more economically feasible than using a one-dollar incentive. For smaller programs it is less economically feasible. The use of a lottery is also easier to implement with online and telephone surveys. There are numerous laws and regulations concerning the use of lotteries as an incentive, and it is strongly recommended that a professional promotions management company be employed to manage the lottery.

Providing Discount Coupons. As discussed above, this is generally discouraged because of the potential to bias results and be seen as a marketing effort.

Contributing to Charity in the Customer’s Name.
 In general, this technique is not as effective at increasing response rates as either the dollar bill or lottery alternatives. If considering this alternative, it is important to include a number of relatively different charities the customer can choose from. Otherwise, the potential to bias the sample will increase because those in favor of the charity’s cause might respond at higher rates.

Conclusion

Inclusion of a monetary incentive for customers to return experience surveys is not a decision that should be made lightly. It is fraught with potential problems. In general, non-monetary ways of improving representativeness, the number of surveys returned, and response rates should be explored before considering incentives with monetary value. When considering monetary incentives, it is important to match the incentive to the size, methodology, and geography of the program. Conducting a pilot test assessing the costs (both financial costs and results bias) and benefit (in terms of increased response rates) of several different types of monetary incentives are recommended.

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The Case for Automotive Dealership Mystery Shopping Programs

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared on the CX Cafe Blog.

Being a good son-in-law, I have taken on the responsibility of finding my mother-in-law a new car.  Her lease expires soon and I have been dedicated to getting her the best deal possible—but on a car that is safe for her and for my kids (which she is frequently carting around to go shopping, go see horses, or go get ice cream).  My search has included all dealership’s channels and touchpoints:  online research, phone conversations, and in-person visits.  These interactions with multiple dealerships have all had one main thing in common:  Absolutely no two were the same (which, based on the experiences, is both good and bad).

Because of these varied interactions, I began wondering if those brands were conducting mystery shops at their locations…because if they weren’t, they should really start!  In previous blogs, I have discussed the basics of mystery shopping and how this methodology has evolved over the years.  But the one thing that has never changed is how excellent of a tool mystery shopping is for monitoring and improving brands’ service levels to customers.  Through my car-searching venture for my mother-in-law, I clearly experienced why auto manufacturers need to have a dealership-level mystery shopping program.  Consider the following reasons for implementing a mystery shopping program at your dealership:

Why do Mystery Shops?

  1. Confirm if business standards are being met—You implement business standards to address both operational requirements and the needs of those you serve.  Mystery shops then measure whether or not your dealerships are delivering on those standards.  For instance, is the customer being greeted upon entering the dealership?  Is the customer being asked about his or her need, specific models of interest, or how he or she will use the vehicle?  More importantly, are your representatives asking for the sale!
  2. Learn what customers are actually experiencing—Truly understand why the quantitative numbers from your CX measurements or VOC surveys are the way they are and how can you improve them.
  3. Identify gaps within the customer experience—Improve customer experience by identifying gaps in dealerships’ performance, as it relates to the pre-established goals and objectives set forth by the brand. This a critical component of being able to improve the overall customer experience.
  4. Determine if training initiatives are being carried out—Evaluate the changes in behavior based on corporate interventions or specific training. Is there a change in performance after additional training is received?  Mystery shopping can also help identify, initially, exactly which behaviors or processes are incorrect or under-performing to help build a more relevant and substantive training initiative.
  5. Confirm whether marketing efforts are being deployed—Determine if there are gaps between promises made though advertising and sales promotions and what is delivered. Are all locations fully stocked with sales brochures, promotional materials, and other in-store signage elements that can attract the attention of customers or provide them with more information?
  6. Assess competitor performance to establish a benchmark—Conducting mystery shops—based on your current standards—at competitors’ locations allows you to identify areas of strength and areas of opportunity compared to other brands vying for your customers’ business. It also helps identify best practices occurring at other brands’ locations that could be enacted within your own network to improve customer engagement, satisfaction, and hopefully, sales.  At a higher level, manufacturers can also learn about recommended best practices and disseminate those findings throughout their dealership networks.

Conducting a mystery shop program throughout your dealership network is a major undertaking, but the ROI you experience from it makes it a solid investment of your time and money.  When designing, implementing, and managing your mystery shopping program, you need to consider the following items to help ensure success:

Things to Keep in Mind When Considering Mystery Shops

  1. Set clear objectives—What do you want shops to accomplish and/or what insights are you hoping to learn from the results? How will these be used throughout your organization?
  2. Keep them focused—Make sure you stay focused on your objectives and that the mystery shops are driven by a single, specific scenario. In other words, don’t combine a sales shop and service shop scenario on the same visit or allow your program to become a marketing or operation audit.
  3. Do multiple shops at the same dealership—Design your program that each dealership receives multiple shops throughout each shopping period – it is not wise to base decisions on one point of time. Also, make sure you are addressing each customer touchpoint.
  4. Use results in concert with quantitative findings—Make sure you integrate your CX and VOC results into the basis for the mystery shop criteria to be evaluated. After all, this is what your customers are telling you is important to them, and it will help direct you to the most important areas on which to focus improvement efforts.
  5. Do them on a regular basis—Make sure your mystery shop program is ongoing so you are constantly monitoring performance and identifying gaps on which to improve.

Know What Your Customers Care About Most

Mystery shopping is a strong complement to any CX initiative. It reveals specific, objective issues that affect a customer’s perception of your brand and their experiences while at your dealerships and service locations.  It also helps you objectively monitor frontline performance on items you know your customers care about, based on the consumer data you are already collecting. Mystery shopping gives you actionable data for making specific adjustments such as ensuring sales floors are clean and reducing wait times so customer expectations are met. This in turn brings customers back, builds loyalty, and protects your bottom line.

By addressing the items listed above you can rest assured that your organization will have a mystery shop program that fulfills the needs of both your organization and your customers.  Now I guess I’d better get back to finding my mother-in-law a new car!

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Delighting Without Asking: A Behavioral Science POV on Customer Experience

Editor’s note: This is a chapter from the ebook, Unlock the Value of CX. You can download the entire book here.

As marketers and CX professionals, we care a lot about what our customers think. No opinion matters more than theirs. So, we often ask them for it. “What did you think about this? Did you enjoy that? Which would you prefer? Please choose, please rank, please describe…”

What if I told you that most of the time… people have no idea? That’s a theme that is consistently emerging from the field of behavioral science. We think we know what we want, but the truth is, the neural mechanisms and ingrained biases driving our decisions lie far beneath the layer of consciousness accessible to us when articulating our experiences or predicting our choices.

Thinking Fast vs.Thinking SlowA graph showing the thinking fast and slow parts of the brain

I’m talking about the emotional brain, versus the rational brain. The elephant controlling the rider. The System One process versus the System Two. In his book inking Fast and Slow,1 Nobel-prize winning behavioral economist, Daniel Kahneman establishes two parallel processes by which our brains make sense of the world and our experience within it. System One is fast, automatic, emotional, and nonconscious. System Two is slow, deliberate, rational, and “managed” consciously. Because we are consciously aware only of System Two, we genuinely feel that everything we do is governed by rational thought. We are unaware of the many hidden motivators and cognitive “shortcuts” our System One uses to make the vast majority of our decisions swiftly and automatically, in the interest of freeing up our cognitive energy for life’s more complicated decisions.

Cognitive Heuristics

There are many fascinating examples of these cognitive shortcuts, otherwise known as biases or heuristics. Perhaps the best known is the power of the default setting, made famous by its effect on organ donation in Johnson and Goldstein’s landmark 2003 study.2 The decision of whether or not to enlist as an organ donor, one would think, is both intimate and fraught with personal and cultural values. It turns out, however, that the main determinant of whether or not an individual enlists as an organ donor, is whether their governing body offers this as a default “opt-in”or “opt-out” choice. At the time of the study, Germany’s “opt-in” setting led 12 percent of their population to enlist as a donor, while neighboring, and culturally similar, Austria’s “opt-out” default seing led almost 100 percent of its citizens to choose to remain in the donor pool. In the US, by the way, 85 percent of citizens say they want to be organ donors, but only 28 percent actually are. This could be due to our country’s opt-in default setting. What’s interesting about the power of defaults is that we rationally deny their effect on our decisions. Citizens of the aforementioned countries rationalize their choices to be a donor or not, based on personal or cultural values. They don’t think about the default setting. Companies use defaults all the time: automakers display vehicles fully loaded, and it’s up to us to deselect each delightful feature, feeling the pain of loss with each “uncheck”.

Another prevalent cognitive bias is social proof. Take those placards in your hotel bathroom, for example, urging you to recycle your towel for the good of the environment. Sometimes they give you statistics on the millions of gallons of water saved when you choose to hang your towel on the hook to use another day. Behavioral science shows us that information like this doesn’t really change behavior. But social proof does. Noah Goldstein experimented with the towel placards by adding an element of social comparison. Indicating that “Most other people who stay in this hotel recycle their towels,”3 increased towel recycling by 26 percent. Amazingly, adding a layer of specificity to an arbitrary “in-group,” “Most other people who stay in this room recycle their towels,” increased recycling another seven percent! We are indeed a social species. The leading customer engagement platform for utilities, Opower, leveraged this effect by issuing Home Energy Report letters,4 which compared each household’s energy usage to that of comparable neighbors. This social comparison caused recipients to decrease their energy usage by up to 6.3 percent among the highest energy users. Lotteries are another great example of cognitive bias in action. Though it makes little rational sense, humans predictably choose a 10 percent chance at winning $30 over a sure bet of three dollars.

Lab animals of nearly every species have been shown to display a preference for a lever that rewards them with a treat intermittently, or randomly, versus providing a certain reward. Companies employ the random reward effect with lotteries and sweepstakes, as effective drivers of customer engagement.

What’s so interesting about these biases is not just that they predictably drive our behavior, but that they do so in a way that is hidden to us. Disclosing a default setting, for example, though appreciated, does not affect the likelihood of choosing the default, because the default bias is driven by our System One “shortcut” process. Asking someone to predict or describe their behavior, calls on their System Two. Our mouth doesn’t always know what our heart is doing.

Seeing What’s Easiest to Explain

There are a few other important things to consider when asking people to articulate their choices and experiences. In his research on predicted utility, Christopher Hsee asked people to choose between a small chocolate heart and a large chocolate cockroach.5 ough only 46 percent actually preferred the cockroach, 68 percent chose it. It’s more chocolate after all, the reasoning goes, and it would be rationally foolish to leave chocolate on the table. When asked to make a choice, we often default to the most justifiable option—even when it’s not what we really want. Even more troubling, this effect can cause us to enjoy our experiences less. Researchers at the University of Virginia asked students to choose a free poster from a box.6 One random group of those students was asked to explain their choices. While most students preferred impressionistic painting posters, and chose to take those home when they weren’t asked to explain their rationale, the “explainer” group chose against their preference, instead taking home funny animal posters. They found the choice of animal poster easier to articulate, than the impressionistic paintings. Consequently, one month later, they were far less happy with their posters.

Even the way we collect information from customers influences their choices and behavior. Jonathan Levav found that when customers are specking a product such as a new car, the order in which the product attributes are presented, matters.7 Subjects were more likely to choose a default option after they had considered an attribute with many choices (e.g. paint color) first, than when the first decision was one with fewer choices (e.g. engine type). It may be that we only have so much energy to burn on System Two decision-making, before we give in to the default bias and accept what’s presented to us.

The point is this: we care about our customers, and must learn as much as we can about their needs, preferences, experiences, and desires. But asking them gives us only part of the story. Behavioral science gives us a peek beneath the layer of conscious awareness, and a reliable set of principles to use as we explore the creation of experiences that appeal to people holistically: through both their Systems One and Two.

SOURCES & NOTES

  1. Kahneman, Daniel. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow.
  2. Eric J., and Goldstein, Daniel G. “Do Defaults Save Lives?” Science Vol. 302. (2003): 1338-1339.
  3. Goldstein, Noah J., Cialdini, Robert B., and Grizkevicius, Vladas. “A Room with a Viewpoint: Using Social Norms to Motivate Environmental Conservation in Hotels.” Journal of Consumer Research Vol. 35. (2008).
  4. Allcott, Hunt. “Social Norms and Energy Conservation” Journal of Public Economics Vol. 95. Issues 9-10 (2011): 1082-1095.
  5. Hsee, Christopher K. “Value seeking and prediction-decision inconsistency: Why don’t people take what they predict they’ll like the most?” Psychonomic Bulletin & Review Vol. 6. Issue 4 (2011): 555-561.
  6. Wilson, Timothy D.; Lyle, Douglas J.; Schooler, Jonathan W.; Hodges, Sarah D; Klaaren, Kristen J.; LaFleur, Suzanne J. “Introspecting About Reasons Can Reduce Post-Choice Satisfaction” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin Vol. 19. Issue 3 (1993): 331-339.
  7. Levav, Jonathan; Heitmann, Mark; Herrman, Andreas; and Iyengar, Sheena S. “Order in Product Customization Decisions: Evidence from Field Experiments” Journal of Political Economy Vol. 118. Issue 2 (2010): 274-299.

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5 Ways to Guard Against Survey Manipulation

I’ve been in the automotive industry for some time and concerns about dealership attempts to interfere with the customer satisfaction measurement process have been around for a long time as well, but lately they seem to be intensifying. Do you know how to guard against survey manipulation? My hope is this blog will give you some things to think about, start a conversation, and help you understand my perspective on how manufacturers can work towards addressing survey manipulation.

Here’s what I’m seeing. The first step most manufacturers and suppliers take is to put processes in place to identify dealerships that attempt to manipulate survey results. While this step is extremely important it only addresses part of the problem. To effectively address this issue, manufacturers, dealers, and customer satisfaction measurement suppliers need to work together.  And how they do that is by:

  1. Establishing, communicating, and consistently enforcing consequences and a strong anti-manipulation policy
  2. Designing survey systems that make manipulation of survey results difficult
  3. Setting up systems and processes to identify dealerships that attempt to manipulate survey results
  4. Defining acceptable practices and working with dealerships to implement them
  5. Designing reward and compensation programs that minimize the motivation to manipulate customer experience measures 

Establishing Consequences

Consequences of engaging in unacceptable practices need to be specified in advance and communicated to dealerships. These consequences need to be enforced if dealerships are identified as engaging in survey manipulation. Manufacturers will need to utilize consequences which they have the ability to enforce. Effective consequences include:

  • Assigning the lowest score to manipulated surveys
  • Requiring dealerships to reimburse the manufacturer for the cost of conducting their CSI surveys for the time period under which manipulation occurred
  • Denying customer satisfaction-based compensation or rewards to dealerships that have manipulated their scores
  • Subjecting dealerships that have been identified as manipulating their scores to audits of all or many of their manufacturer programs
  • Including language in the manufacturer/dealer franchise agreement that customer satisfaction survey manipulation is grounds for removal of the franchise 

Making Manipulation Difficult

Manufacturers and their customer experience suppliers should design systems that make survey manipulation as difficult as possible. These systems need to be continually monitored and updated to address new methods of survey manipulation.

Some ways to make survey manipulation difficult include:

  • Use contact information that can be verified
  • Use manufacturer databases, not dealership management systems, as the source of sales and service samples
  • Don’t conduct point-of-purchase/point-of-service surveys
  • Use contact information that can reach all, or almost all, customers
  • Use multiple contact methodologies
  • Allow customers the option of remaining anonymous

Designing Processes to Reduce Manipulation

The less likely dealerships are to get caught manipulating survey results, the more tempting it will be for some of them to try. Therefore, processes need to be put in place to identify potential survey manipulation. These processes will be specific to the given project and the methodologies used, but can be broadly categorized as follows:

  • Examine customer contact records for suspicious mail or email addresses and phone numbers
  • Examine incoming materials including IP addresses
  • Examine customer comments
  • Examine contact resolution reports
  • Examine the actual data
  • Randomly audit survey responses
  • Include a survey manipulation question in the survey

Implementing Acceptable Practices

There are many practices dealerships can implement that both increase customer satisfaction scores and improve the customer experience. If manufacturers embrace these practices and work with dealerships to implement them, dealerships will have less need to engage in unacceptable survey manipulation. Some practices I have seen encouraged by manufacturers include:

  • Showing a blank survey to all customers and requesting that they fill it out honestly and return it
  • Asking customers if they are unsatisfied about anything regarding their experience and attempting to resolve the issue
  • Telephoning customers within a few days of a sales or service event, inquiring about their satisfaction, and engaging in appropriate efforts to resolve any dissatisfaction
  • Explaining the importance of receiving customer feedback for both the dealership and the manufacturer

Minimizing the Motivation to Manipulate

While it is important to hold dealerships accountable for their treatment of customers, and compensation based on customer satisfaction scores is the most obvious way to do that, I believe the way in which some reward and compensation programs have been designed has exacerbated the problem of dealerships attempting to manipulate the system. Some suggestions for setting up programs that minimize the motivation to manipulate results while still holding dealerships accountable for customer satisfaction are:

  • Compensate/Reward based on several desired business metrics of which customer satisfaction is only one.
  • Use a tiered compensation strategy rather than an “all
or nothing” strategy.
  • Separate the dealership performance appraisal process from the dealership diagnostic process.
  • Require large sample sizes for determining scores.
  • Keep monetary rewards at a reasonable level so they remain rewards and do not turn into business necessities.
  • Consider non-monetary rewards

While many of these concepts and steps to reduce survey manipulation are all being done by most manufacturers, few are doing all of them together.

Don’t Forget You May Be Different

Survey manipulation is a systemic issue, but it affects vehicle manufacturers differently. Each manufacturer, with input from its dealerships, needs to decide what practices are acceptable and unacceptable. Each manufacturer needs to determine how seriously it wants to pursue this issue and how serious consequences should be to its dealerships who engage in unacceptable practices. This blog offers some guidelines and ideas manufacturers may want to consider when making these decisions. I’m always open to answer questions and I would enjoy hearing what you’re doing or your thoughts about survey manipulation, feel free to join this conversation on CX Café or check our webinar on survey manipulation.

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Customer-to-Employee Recognition: A Revolutionary Approach to Engagement

This blog was originally posted on CX Cafe’. 

Customer centricity is the idea that organizations should not only serve their customers, but also get “close to them” — understand what they value, deliver exceptional experiences and memories, and work to build relationships.

In a 2011 article in Fast Company, author Brian Solis wrote:

“It’s not just about communicating with customers, it’s about showing them that listening translates into action within the organization to create better products and services and also foster valuable brand experiences and ultimately relationships with customers. It’s about empowering employees to improve those experiences and relationships in the front line and to recognize and reward their ability to contribute to a new era of customer engagement and collaboration.”

This concept is different from traditional approaches to customer satisfaction (CSAT) scoring, and it shows how we need to change how we look at measuring the customer experience. When customers are represented by scores in a spreadsheet or dashboard, it can be all too easy to detach from the visceral experience customers receive when they buy. Those experiences are delivered or indirectly impacted by employees all across your organization, of whom 71 percent are currently not engaged with their work, according to Gallup.

Another study showed 78 percent of customers have bailed on a transaction because of a poor service experience. There is an additional cost to loyalty from those who have unremarkable service experiences with employees who feel indifferent toward their work. And it’s no secret it costs up to 6-7x as much to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one.

While every organization is at a different place with varying employee engagement scores and CSAT scores — most organizations have a significant disconnect in the perception of customer experience. In one study, 80 percent of companies claimed they deliver great customer service, but only 8 percent of customers agreed.

Among the first steps to improving customer satisfaction is addressing employee engagement. Employees who are personally invested in their work deliver better experiences to customers, who then return higher satisfaction, loyalty, and lifetime spend.

How to Deploy a Holistic Employee Engagement Strategy to Achieve Your Customer Experience Goals

A recent Forrester Research study showed 79 percent of organizations don’t connect formal reward structures to performance on customer experience (CX) metrics. Most companies aren’t quite sure how to go about aligning employee incentives and rewards with customer outcomes.

If you are ready to set goals for your customer experience, begin with the end in mind. What do you want to accomplish? What strategic objectives do you have for the next year? With that foundation, consider drafting goals in the following three areas:

 

  • Customer Experience-Oriented — Specifically target aspects of the customer experience. For example: Aim to improve an aspect of or the overall customer experience and respond to and alleviate negative experiences.
  • Employee Engagement-Oriented — Build a culture of customer centricity. For example: Raise awareness and sensitivity to the customer experience and connect employees to strategic objectives.
  • Organizational Objectives & Key Results (OKRs) — For example: Improve customer retention and increase upsell and renewal rates.

 

With your goals in mind, begin connecting those goals with the specific behaviors your employees.

8 Tips for Connecting Customer Satisfaction Goals and Employee Engagement

No. 1 — Connect Your Employees: When you focus on connecting employees to customer-centric and organizational objectives, ask how your employees can help you accomplish these goals. How will you observe, track, and measure those activities? Employees should consistently demonstrate the behaviors that support a positive customer experience. For example: Encourage employees to engage in positive and open dialogue by asking if a customer is satisfied with a resolution.

No. 2 — Provide Feedback: Employees should be able to consistently provide feedback to their leadership that will improve the customer experience. For example: Employees can identify environmental issues negatively impacting a customer experience or submit ideas to improve processes.

No. 3 — Improve Knowledge: Employees should know enough about products and services to support any customer needs. For example: Support employee participation in product or prescribed online training courses.

No. 4 — Show Responsiveness: Employees should have the awareness, tools and autonomy to respond proactively to negative feedback. For example: Employees can anticipate client needs and deliver solutions or proactively provide alternative choices and opportunities.

No. 5 — Praise Progress: Employees should identify and praise positive feedback or overall satisfaction improvement. For example: Managers and peers should be able to efficiently recognize employees who demonstrate behaviors that positively influence the customer experience.

No. 6 — Extend Learning into Daily Work: Provide training on values-based behaviors and educate on customer experience optimization processes and practices. Reinforce and praise newly learned and demonstrated behaviors.

No. 7 — Improve Proactive Response Processes: Define methods for employee-enabled interventions in the customer experience. Establish and refine case management processes based on customer feedback and clarify steps needed to resolve. Build processes to reward employees for outstanding feedback.

No. 8 — Provide a Channel for Praise and Reward Progress: Recognize employees when they appropriately demonstrate customer-centric behaviors. Communicate positive customer feedback to its source and establish reward programs for progress and achievements related to the customer experience over time.

Next Steps

If you’re attending CX Fusion, don’t miss the Customer-to-Employee demo from CultureNext. Check out our breakout demo session at 3:30 p.m. PST on Wednesday, April 12 to learn more. Visit us at our booth and connect with us to take the Engagement Potential Index  as well!

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Getting Real Business Value from Customer Journey Mapping

I spend a lot of time with client organizations that have invested both time and resources into mapping their customers’ journey so I have seen the gamut of touchpoint maps, emotional curves and even on one occasion, the stunning graphical portrayal of the path taken by a certain Persona, frustrated with trying to return a laser printer.  Of course, some are better than others, some are based on data, some on opinion but the real question is a simple one: What impact did they have in helping the company create greater value for shareholders?

Some might argue that is asking too much of journey mapping. After all, they are just one of many tools experts trained in Design Thinking use to better understand the functional and emotional roller coaster that is associated with what we deliver to customers.

I disagree. In my experience, when done well, and leveraging mobile technology, customer journey mapping can provide a powerful platform for greater customer-driven innovation, generated faster and with higher quality.

To achieve tangible business value from journey mapping exercises, I suggest you answer three questions:

  1. Does your journey map tell a powerful story from both employees and customers?
  2. Does your journey map align your whole organization toward a common view of your collective performance in delivering a competitively superior experience?
  3. Does your journey map go beyond telling the story, to actually doing something about it?

Let’s take them one at a time.

Does Your Journey Map Tell a Powerful Story from Both Employees and Customers?

Certainly, the core idea of a journey map is that it visually highlights the customer’s view of their experience. Good journey maps do more than just describe what happens, they actually uncover those things that were previously invisible to us. They explain the reasons for a customer’s specific behavior or the alternative path they took when confronted with an unexpected roadblock. But for most organizations, there is another journey that is just as important and that is the experience of the front line employee.

In fact, we would suggest that there is a level of risk that is taken if you view the journey solely from the customer’s perspective.  There are three reasons why this matters:

  1. Frontline employees provide additional context: Although they can’t tell you what the customer is thinking or feeling, they do have helpful insight into what customers are doing, and they provide great insight as to what is happening, especially around those touchpoints that represent chronic problems in the experience.
  2. The gap matters: Understanding the gap between how customers versus employees see the experience is really important. It is not uncommon to see a clear divergence between what customers see as important and how you are performing from the employees’ view of the same experience. Closing these gaps is vital. The “satisfaction mirror” that exists between frontline employees and customers is often a critical driver of loyalty and advocacy.
  3. Clues to future experiences: Hidden in this information are clues to exceeding customer experiences in ways that you would never imagine if you hadn’t seen it for yourself. I will never forget what Danny Wegman of Wegmans Food Markets told me in describing the relationship between his employees and their customers:

“If you measure the service you get at Wegmans compared to some other place, we always come out pretty good on that. But I think it’s gone to a new level. I hear that when some folks are in a bad mood, they go to Wegmans to cheer up. People greet you with a smile and ask you if you want a taste of something. Customers get a happy fix and that makes our people feel spectacular. It’s circular.”[i]

We have seen this countless times in the caring and skilled interactions of our clients’ high performing frontline employees as they carry the heart of their firm’s brand promise to every customer interaction.

Perhaps I have overstated this point. Well good, it deserves to be overstated. As more and more digital channels are introduced to intermediate the customer experience, employee interactions become even more critical, not less. Let’s never forget the words of Fred Reichheld who told us back in 1996 in The Loyalty Effect, “If you wonder what getting and keeping the right employees has to do with getting and keeping the right customers, the answer is everything.”[ii] For your journey map to treat front line employees as merely silent witnesses to the customer experience is to ensure you are learning only half of the story.

Does Your Journey Map Align Your Whole Organization Toward a Common View of Your Performance in Delivering a Superior Experience?

The problem with most customer journey maps is they aren’t terribly portable. If you convert them to a PDF, they are usually so detailed it is hard to view them on anything smaller than a 60 inch monitor. Printing them out as posters is a good idea, but as with one client, the only way we could view their recently completed map was to visit their head office. Even if the map was developed using an online tool, often reviewing what it says can be like viewing a map of the London Tube. You know Piccadilly Circus Station is there somewhere, but it takes a while to find it.

Like many tools that over time, find themselves over engineered, many journey mapping tools suffer from trying to communicate too many things through too small a window. No wonder so many line managers can’t find the value in journey maps.

The way journey maps overcome these limitations is perhaps obvious. Follow three principles to ensure the product of the hard work of developing them translates into tangible impact:

  1. Bring the story to life through media: If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth a million. Present a journey map not informed by fancy graphics, but by the perceptions, voices and emotions of actual customers and employees. It is one thing to review a score about your “lost package” performance, or to read a few customer comments – it is another thing entirely to hear the impact it has on the person who was counting on its delivery.
  2. Combine quantitative and qualitative: It helps to tell the story with both media and facts. We believe presenting both, side-by-side, adds color and insight to help focus on real improvement opportunities and to test new ways to innovate that would create measurable changes in consumer behavior.
  3. Make it easily shareable: By shareable I mean throughout the organization, but also to key trusted advisors as well. Being able to easily share the journey map invites comments and insights from the best experts in the world on your particular topic and provides significant business value.

CX Journey Maps that provide this level of transparency and leverage rich media to tell a compelling story, not only create alignment, but additionally they generate energy and enthusiasm toward a common purpose.

Does Your Journey Map Go Beyond Telling the Story to Doing Something About it?

Remember the point of all of this? When do we start to see the business value?

The best journey mapping tools don’t just capture the nuances, emotions, and often hidden opportunities to improve the customer experience; they provide a platform to engage directly with customers to co-create solutions to the gnarly problems they uncovered.

Speed matters. Taking weeks if not months to take action based on the data collected from journey mapping can be a fool’s errand. It’s essential to move right from priority issues identified by customers into brief, targeted online discussions with those same customers. As a result, you can better understand their issues, brainstorm solutions that weren’t obvious, and test solutions that will regain their trust and loyalty instead of waiting six weeks to hire a market research firm.

CX Journey Maps that achieve real business value actually aren’t “maps” at all. They are really an “always on” qualitative research platform, allowing an organization to deeply understand what customers are experiencing and take action that positively influences desired behaviors. Married with a robust CX management system, they provide a comprehensive solution to harness customer-driven innovation in about half the time of traditional methods.

Move Forward

Technology continues to advance our ability to understand the customer experience with greater granularity and insight. Traditional barriers to engaging with customers are no longer an excuse for taking months to implement improvements that exceed targeted expectations and outperform competitors. Journey mapping tools of the past served their purpose, but it is time to acknowledge the value they added and move forward to a new standard that is enabled by digital devices and SaaS-based platforms that are themselves re-writing the rules of competition.

The Internet of Things is not a buzzword. It is how the world works; it is time customer experience journey mapping caught up.

[i] James Heskett, W. Earl Sasser and Joe Wheeler, The Ownership Quotient, Harvard Business Publishing, 2008 pp. 104-105

[ii] Frederick Reichheld, The Loyalty Effect, Harvard Business School Press, 1996, p. 91

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Wootric & Google Cloud: Using Natural Language Processing (NLP) to Analyze Qualitative Feedback

Wootric has begun to leverage the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) to solve the challenge of qualitative feedback analysis for our customers. Wootric utilizes the Google Cloud Natural Language API to complement its own machine learning to analyze qualitative feedback our customers receive. The goal is to use text and sentiment analysis to surface and aggregate insights for our customers, helping them to prioritize resources and follow up action.  

Our approach is interesting enough that Google recently blogged about it, and they chose to highlight Wootric’s work at the recent Google Next conference in San Francisco. Check out the video below:

 

Want early access to InMoment’s analysis of survey responses using NLP? Contact Us

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Maximizing the “Uncontrollable” in the B2B Customer’s Journey

For many business-to-business (B2B) companies, relationships with customers are ongoing, which gives these companies the opportunity to improve on relationships over time.  Typically, these companies first take the information they obtain from customer journey mapping to make internal improvements to their own processes with an eye toward making the customer experience better.

In addition to the experience that a company creates for its customers, journey mapping also uncovers dynamics that customers go through within their own companies during their journey.  Within the B2B space, there are many things your company can do to improve the customer experience drawing on customers’ internal dynamics. Doing so can be extremely powerful in cementing a client relationship.  The ability to do this will provide a means for your company to differentiate itself from competitors who struggle to use this type of information.

What We Often Learn About the Customer’s Internal Struggles

MaritzCX’s experience in customer journey mapping indicates that the following dynamics within B2B customers’ own companies tend to be the most likely to make their journeys more difficult:

  • Unclear communication with end users: End users can be in a variety of departments, e.g., production, research and development.   Sometimes end users do a poor job of communicating what they want, and thus the person charged with making an order can be hindered by miscommunications.  This leads to wasted time and frustration on the part of the customer.
  • Dealing with angry end users when something is wrong with an order: Sometimes a company shipping an order or fulfilling a service will get it wrong. This can create internal chaos for the customer and his end user.  The customer will expend more time and energy, and the end user may well unload his or her frustrations on the ordering individual.
  • Dealing with accounting and purchasing departments: The individual charged with ordering typically has to deal with accounting and purchasing departments that have very specific requirements about how things must be done.  This can result in the ordering individual having to work with a vendor to make adjustments to their typical protocols to satisfy his or her accounting and/or purchasing departments. This can be very challenging because of the extensive communication it sometimes takes to get things right.
  • Leaving the ordering individual out of communications with the company from which they are ordering: When someone within the customer’s organization reaches out to the company from which the ordering is taking place and leaves the purchaser out of the loop, this too can result in internal problems, including the ordering individual repeating tasks already done, contributing to even more confusion, and feeling usurped.

Using Internal Customer Challenges to Improve the Customer Experience

Most companies have had to deal with customers who had the kinds of internal challenges just described.   Though you cannot ever eliminate all these situations, we believe that a B2B company can work with its customers to better understand these challenges, and help them in managing the internal difficulties they encounter.  Doing so will not only provide your customer with a better experience, but provides you with the opportunity to develop a stronger relationship as you help them to work through their problems.

MaritzCX’s experience with customer journey mapping has led us to recommend the following strategies for aiding B2B companies in better understanding and helping their customers to deal with difficult internal dynamics.

  • Proactively ask your customers what their biggest internal challenges are. By asking this question, you are indicating you have empathy for and understand the challenges your clients face. This is how the sales force can begin to form stronger relationships with customers.  The more the salesperson knows, the more potential problems can be averted.  If a customer has an end user who is not providing clear direction, proactively deal with this ahead of time by helping your customer to clarify matters with their end users. If you know your customer has an anxious end user, don’t be afraid to communicate frequently to ease the situation.  In short, find out what the problems are and help your customer to find a solution.
  • Learn about your customers’ accounting and purchasing departments’ needs and the formats in which they use. You can then work with your own accounting department to produce documents that will line up perfectly with your customers’ purchasing and accounting needs.  This will make both the salesperson and customer’s lives much easier because everyone will save time in the long run.  Your customers will particularly appreciate it.
  • Close the loop with customers that have been left out. Further, if a salesperson becomes aware that both they and their customer are being left out of the loop, the salesperson needs to communicate that. The salesperson should encourage anyone within his own company to let him or her know that someone from a client organization has reached out to them.

A Prime Differentiator

Learning about the internal dynamics that get in the way of customers having an easy and pleasant customer journey puts the company in the best position possible.

When an organization completes a journey mapping exercise, it should not draw the conclusion that it will not be able to use the information on the customer’s internal challenges during the customer journey.  Far from it.  In fact, the organization can use this type of information as a tool with which to build solid relationships with the customers.

The ability to help your B2B customers with their own internal problems in the customer journey can also work as a prime differentiator between you and your competition.  Many companies make the faulty assumption that they can exercise virtually no influence over their customers’ internal dynamics.  By failing to recognize that they can accomplish much in this area, they allow companies that use this type of information to thrive and often become industry leaders.

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12 Steps to Create a Memorable Dealership Experience for Women

There are basically two categories of vehicles currently driving the greatest profits for automakers and their retailers, trucks and SUVs. A majority of truck sales come from men while SUV/Crossover sales are driven mostly by women.  Some even go as far as to say that SUV sales are being driven particularly by single women.

It is easy for the mostly male retailer front line to connect with male customers. The matching of the two similar “natures” is obvious.  But what about engaging with women?  Women and men  have different wants, needs and desires when it comes to vehicle purchasing and service.  And they generally communicate those wants differently.

Perceptions are the Problem

In my first post for the Maritz CX Cafe, I spoke of the historic disconnect between women customers and the auto industry. In the same post, I made the case for a more gender-personalized CX experience.  Automakers are paying a lot more attention to women customers these days, but mainly via their marketing. So why are we still reading articles, both past and present, stating that a substantial number of women still feel disrespected and misunderstood when buying and servicing vehicles at the dealership? Many of those “perceptions” result from past “experiences”. But OEMs, including auto retailers, know that women customers are critical to the future of the industry. Drew Harwell makes an excellent case for this in his Washington Post piece titled, “A Tension for America’s Auto World: Winning Women Behind the Wheel”.

Too many women still enter the dealership with the perception, or maybe even the  misconception, that she is in dangerous territory. Is it deserved? Who cares? Because perceptions eventually evolve to reality if they are not diffused by a “memorable customer experience”.  As Customer Experience Manager for a large Buick GMC service center, I believe that most retailers are doing a better job of delivering satisfaction to all customers, including women. But, in my opinion, it really doesn’t matter how we are doing with women these days with “satisfaction”.  We have to do better with women in order to combat those nagging perceptions from the industry’s past. Besides, in the future, delivering “satisfaction” will only provide a “chance at bat”. The hits and home runs will come from memorable experiences.

A Change in Behavior is Required

How do we deliver more memorable “experiences” for women customers? First, I believe we need to assume that women and men usually communicate on different channels. Therefore, it might benefit the (mostly male) retail front line to begin to differentiate the way they communicate with women customers from their male customers.

I made the case for a more Gender-Personalized CX Design in my first CXCafe post. But design is easy compared to changing the behavior of the mostly male retailer front line. However, when it comes to modifying behavior, 12-step programs have a solid track record. Here are my suggestions, after almost 2 decades of monitoring this challenge.

“Traditional” Decision Steps

  • Step 1– Assume that men and women communicate differently, until you learn differently on a customer by customer basis. Learn to accept** that a substantial number of women assume that they are not going to be treated as fairly as men, even before they enter the dealership. And that perception/misconception will evolve into a reality unless she has a memorable experience.

** they say that if you can’t accept the first step…the rest of the steps are much less effective

  • Step 2– Make a commitment to learn more about how women communicate differently from men. Most experts agree that they do.
  • Step 3– This one is for management. If you don’t believe that the differences between how men and women communicate are real, your crew won’t either.

Action Steps

  • Step 4– Eye contact always.
  • Step 5– Interruption guarantee. Count to 3 before responding to women customers. (my wife & daughters say I need some help here)
  • Step 6– Suggestions…not solutions. By nature, most men tend to rush to the bottom line. Staying in a “suggestion” mode will differentiate you dramatically with women.
  • Step 7– Explain to them how it works…explain the process in their terms…break down the steps…mange the expectations.
  • Step 8– Nod your head to affirm you are listening. And remember, when women nod their heads positively…. it’s not necessarily a closing signal. Quite often it means “tell me more”.
  • Step 9– Make an extra effort to seek referrals from women. It’s a proven fact that women refer more than men, when they have a great “consumer experience”.

Maintenance Steps

  • Step 10– Continue to practice steps 4-9.
  • Step 11– Assume difference with women customers until you find out otherwise. In addition to a more gender differentiated communication style, safety, personal security and practicality are generally of more interest. And be prepared to provide expanded information.
  • Step 12– Having worked all of these steps, you’ll come to realize that when you meet the expectations of women customers, you exceed the expectations of every other customer group…men, multi-cultural, millennials, etc.

Now is the Time

There has never been a more critical time for the retail front line to connect better with women on their channel. Why? Because women, in addition to millennials, are the world’s fastest growing audience. Whether it’s a reality or a perception from the past that women perceive a disconnect with auto retailers really doesn’t matter.  If retailers are going to be successful with SUV/Crossover owners, they better change their behavior with women customers.

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CX Lessons from 2016 (And Why You Should Stay Curious in 2017)

Earlier this year I shifted my priorities and focus, and chose pleasure and purpose over other engrained habits and needs.

I was so “busy being busy” that I had forgotten the evident importance of slowing down and taking stock. The basic need to actively listen and properly connect with the various voices and opinions available to me had been neglected. As someone who delights in identifying patterns, sharing theories, and having an opinion, I had found myself too often recycling old narratives. I was running the risk of becoming stale or too comfortable with my long established talk track.

I needed to set some new goals, and decided to set deadlines that would force me to both focus on freeing up time to learn, and also create the right environment to get energised, so I decided to create regular “industry sessions” for my colleagues, where we could discuss the hot topics of the day.

Out of this year’s sessions came some very intriguing stories and lessons from the customer experience (CX) industry. Here are just a few that I’d like to share with you.

Personalisation

Often seen in relation to targeted marketing, we as consumers have appreciated brands’ efforts to personalise our experience. And brands know that establishing a connection (friendliness, trust, being made to feel valued) drives customer satisfaction, loyalty, and increased spend.

But being “personal” has also created some opportunities to strengthen important links, even if not always executed perfectly. Starbucks—as a global brand—is the antithesis of local, and yet they tapped in to the importance of being valued in a unique way through the “Can I have your name?” approach. At first disruptive and peculiar, it is now hard for other brands to copy.

My local train station has a Starbucks franchise, and whenever I approach the counter they know I want a flat white. Unfortunately, despite having tried on a number of occasions to tell Eddie that my name is not Matt, that is the name that appears on the cup. Despite being wrong, my “Britishness” can only allow it roll on now, and secretly I enjoy the regularity of this wrong. It is human and therefore wonderfully imperfect, and in many ways more effective than communication based on algorithms.

Emerging Labels And Transparency

We have perhaps already grown a little weary of contemplating millennials, and are now seeing more articles hypothesising on Gen Z (“the hyper millennials”), and what they will bring to the party. How different will their customer expectations be to us Generation X-ers? Are they really that much more sensible?

A requirement for authenticity, and brands doing the right thing may however be the needs that bond us all together, less XYZ and more Generation C (more connected to each other through social reviews than ever before). In the space of a few months two hip brands saw the polar effects of how quickly word of mouth can kick in.

Airrbnb was impacted by the news that customers who had left part way through their stays were seeing their reviews cleansed as they were being treated as having been cancelled. Their spokesperson described these as “isolated incidents.” In contrast, Patagonia’s promise to donate all of its Black Friday sales to local environmental causes not only swelled their tills, but boosted awareness and equity as the positive word spread.

Language Shifts And Meaning

Back in April we were debating FOMO (fear of missing out) and how brands use this emotion to drive increased traffic—and paranoia—amongst their competitors. I doubt many of us saw, however, “post truth” (apparently the Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year) coming up the rails.

The definition of post truth is, “Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”

When the Temkin Group labeled 2016 as the year of emotion, I doubt they expected System 2 parts of our brain (slow, effortful, infrequent, logical, calculating, conscious) to be so heavily defeated by System 1 (fast, automatic, frequent, emotional, stereotypic, subconscious).

I should probably out myself here as a Guardian-reading, Radio-6-listening type, but I was certainly not the only person to view the recent UK and USA votes in a state of disbelief. Out of this darkness the team was at least able to properly understand two things:

1.    Negativity Bias: Humans are significantly more likely to remember the negative experiences, and far more people pass on a bad experience than a good one—so reduce the chances as well as you can, and don’t under estimate how motivating anger can be.

2.    Confirmation Bias and our manufactured echo chambers: This is a description of the situation in which information, ideas, or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by transmission and repetition inside an “enclosed” system, where different or competing views are censored, disallowed, or otherwise underrepresented. The moral being to listen to your electorate/ customers / colleagues, and don’t ignore feedback that simply does not match your own take on the world. It could well come back to bite you.

Story Telling And Journeys In Experience

Finally, something that we have further built on is our love of stories, a recognition of their importance, and how best to narrate ideas to connect with an audience.

For example, we have agreed on the right structure for delivering meaningful communication. Set up the situation that we, or our customers, find themselves in; share the catalyst that requires a change; explain the purpose and the central question that you will be answering; give your answer; provide the evidence; summarise and provide the call to arms.

Part of the reason that story structures work so well to get a message across is that this is how our brains have evolved to take in important messages. And looking at experiences from a behavioural science perspective also provides learning for how to structure any interaction for greatest effect. Get the difficult things out of the way early (but try not to churn), spread the pleasure, and end on a high.

We can all benefit from taking care of our opportunities to communicate.

Before I conclude, for all those commentators out there who take the time to share and contribute to the mix of opinions and learning available to those willing to listen, I thank you.

We should all continuously remind ourselves that CX does not exist in a bubble. Where my team originally started looking at more CX-specific emerging topics, such as a focus on customer effort metrics, we soon felt diverted and started to explore the outer reaches of behaviour and motivation in general. And this is because we recognised that many factors can influence a brand’s ability to deliver against its customer promise, its employees’ capacity to deliver this proposition consistently, and indeed its customers’ appetite to appreciate and be motivated by these efforts.

My resolution for 2017 will be to stay curious, but contribute more. I will therefore leave you with a message that resonated with me this summer. It wasn’t from the usual sages, but the English RFU as part of their Level 1 Coaching course. Whilst aimed at how we work with young rugby players, and their development, the argument works for all of us who are in a position of influence:

“Our players have the capacity to outgrow us if we stand still. We may restrict them from achieving their full potential if we fail to recognise the need to continue our own development.”

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CX Lessons from 2016 (And Why You Should Stay Curious in 2017)

Earlier this year I shifted my priorities and focus, and chose pleasure and purpose over other engrained habits and needs.

I was so “busy being busy” that I had forgotten the evident importance of slowing down and taking stock. The basic need to actively listen and properly connect with the various voices and opinions available to me had been neglected. As someone who delights in identifying patterns, sharing theories, and having an opinion, I had found myself too often recycling old narratives. I was running the risk of becoming stale or too comfortable with my long established talk track.

I needed to set some new goals, and decided to set deadlines that would force me to both focus on freeing up time to learn, and also create the right environment to get energised, so I decided to create regular “industry sessions” for my colleagues, where we could discuss the hot topics of the day.

Out of this year’s sessions came some very intriguing stories and lessons from the customer experience (CX) industry. Here are just a few that I’d like to share with you.

Personalisation

Often seen in relation to targeted marketing, we as consumers have appreciated brands’ efforts to personalise our experience. And brands know that establishing a connection (friendliness, trust, being made to feel valued) drives customer satisfaction, loyalty, and increased spend.

But being “personal” has also created some opportunities to strengthen important links, even if not always executed perfectly. Starbucks—as a global brand—is the antithesis of local, and yet they tapped in to the importance of being valued in a unique way through the “Can I have your name?” approach. At first disruptive and peculiar, it is now hard for other brands to copy.

My local train station has a Starbucks franchise, and whenever I approach the counter they know I want a flat white. Unfortunately, despite having tried on a number of occasions to tell Eddie that my name is not Matt, that is the name that appears on the cup. Despite being wrong, my “Britishness” can only allow it roll on now, and secretly I enjoy the regularity of this wrong. It is human and therefore wonderfully imperfect, and in many ways more effective than communication based on algorithms.

Emerging Labels And Transparency

We have perhaps already grown a little weary of contemplating millennials, and are now seeing more articles hypothesising on Gen Z (“the hyper millennials”), and what they will bring to the party. How different will their customer expectations be to us Generation X-ers? Are they really that much more sensible?

A requirement for authenticity, and brands doing the right thing may however be the needs that bond us all together, less XYZ and more Generation C (more connected to each other through social reviews than ever before). In the space of a few months two hip brands saw the polar effects of how quickly word of mouth can kick in.

Airrbnb was impacted by the news that customers who had left part way through their stays were seeing their reviews cleansed as they were being treated as having been cancelled. Their spokesperson described these as “isolated incidents.” In contrast, Patagonia’s promise to donate all of its Black Friday sales to local environmental causes not only swelled their tills, but boosted awareness and equity as the positive word spread.

Language Shifts And Meaning

Back in April we were debating FOMO (fear of missing out) and how brands use this emotion to drive increased traffic—and paranoia—amongst their competitors. I doubt many of us saw, however, “post truth” (apparently the Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year) coming up the rails.

The definition of post truth is, “Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”

When the Temkin Group labeled 2016 as the year of emotion, I doubt they expected System 2 parts of our brain (slow, effortful, infrequent, logical, calculating, conscious) to be so heavily defeated by System 1 (fast, automatic, frequent, emotional, stereotypic, subconscious).

I should probably out myself here as a Guardian-reading, Radio-6-listening type, but I was certainly not the only person to view the recent UK and USA votes in a state of disbelief. Out of this darkness the team was at least able to properly understand two things:

1.    Negativity Bias: Humans are significantly more likely to remember the negative experiences, and far more people pass on a bad experience than a good one—so reduce the chances as well as you can, and don’t under estimate how motivating anger can be.

2.    Confirmation Bias and our manufactured echo chambers: This is a description of the situation in which information, ideas, or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by transmission and repetition inside an “enclosed” system, where different or competing views are censored, disallowed, or otherwise underrepresented. The moral being to listen to your electorate/ customers / colleagues, and don’t ignore feedback that simply does not match your own take on the world. It could well come back to bite you.

Story Telling And Journeys In Experience

Finally, something that we have further built on is our love of stories, a recognition of their importance, and how best to narrate ideas to connect with an audience.

For example, we have agreed on the right structure for delivering meaningful communication. Set up the situation that we, or our customers, find themselves in; share the catalyst that requires a change; explain the purpose and the central question that you will be answering; give your answer; provide the evidence; summarise and provide the call to arms.

Part of the reason that story structures work so well to get a message across is that this is how our brains have evolved to take in important messages. And looking at experiences from a behavioural science perspective also provides learning for how to structure any interaction for greatest effect. Get the difficult things out of the way early (but try not to churn), spread the pleasure, and end on a high.

We can all benefit from taking care of our opportunities to communicate.

Before I conclude, for all those commentators out there who take the time to share and contribute to the mix of opinions and learning available to those willing to listen, I thank you.

We should all continuously remind ourselves that CX does not exist in a bubble. Where my team originally started looking at more CX-specific emerging topics, such as a focus on customer effort metrics, we soon felt diverted and started to explore the outer reaches of behaviour and motivation in general. And this is because we recognised that many factors can influence a brand’s ability to deliver against its customer promise, its employees’ capacity to deliver this proposition consistently, and indeed its customers’ appetite to appreciate and be motivated by these efforts.

My resolution for 2017 will be to stay curious, but contribute more. I will therefore leave you with a message that resonated with me this summer. It wasn’t from the usual sages, but the English RFU as part of their Level 1 Coaching course. Whilst aimed at how we work with young rugby players, and their development, the argument works for all of us who are in a position of influence:

“Our players have the capacity to outgrow us if we stand still. We may restrict them from achieving their full potential if we fail to recognise the need to continue our own development.”

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CX Lessons from 2016 (And Why You Should Stay Curious in 2017)

Earlier this year I shifted my priorities and focus, and chose pleasure and purpose over other engrained habits and needs.

I was so “busy being busy” that I had forgotten the evident importance of slowing down and taking stock. The basic need to actively listen and properly connect with the various voices and opinions available to me had been neglected. As someone who delights in identifying patterns, sharing theories, and having an opinion, I had found myself too often recycling old narratives. I was running the risk of becoming stale or too comfortable with my long established talk track.

I needed to set some new goals, and decided to set deadlines that would force me to both focus on freeing up time to learn, and also create the right environment to get energised, so I decided to create regular “industry sessions” for my colleagues, where we could discuss the hot topics of the day.

Out of this year’s sessions came some very intriguing stories and lessons from the customer experience (CX) industry. Here are just a few that I’d like to share with you.

Personalisation

Often seen in relation to targeted marketing, we as consumers have appreciated brands’ efforts to personalise our experience. And brands know that establishing a connection (friendliness, trust, being made to feel valued) drives customer satisfaction, loyalty, and increased spend.

But being “personal” has also created some opportunities to strengthen important links, even if not always executed perfectly. Starbucks—as a global brand—is the antithesis of local, and yet they tapped in to the importance of being valued in a unique way through the “Can I have your name?” approach. At first disruptive and peculiar, it is now hard for other brands to copy.

My local train station has a Starbucks franchise, and whenever I approach the counter they know I want a flat white. Unfortunately, despite having tried on a number of occasions to tell Eddie that my name is not Matt, that is the name that appears on the cup. Despite being wrong, my “Britishness” can only allow it roll on now, and secretly I enjoy the regularity of this wrong. It is human and therefore wonderfully imperfect, and in many ways more effective than communication based on algorithms.

Emerging Labels And Transparency

We have perhaps already grown a little weary of contemplating millennials, and are now seeing more articles hypothesising on Gen Z (“the hyper millennials”), and what they will bring to the party. How different will their customer expectations be to us Generation X-ers? Are they really that much more sensible?

A requirement for authenticity, and brands doing the right thing may however be the needs that bond us all together, less XYZ and more Generation C (more connected to each other through social reviews than ever before). In the space of a few months two hip brands saw the polar effects of how quickly word of mouth can kick in.

Airrbnb was impacted by the news that customers who had left part way through their stays were seeing their reviews cleansed as they were being treated as having been cancelled. Their spokesperson described these as “isolated incidents.” In contrast, Patagonia’s promise to donate all of its Black Friday sales to local environmental causes not only swelled their tills, but boosted awareness and equity as the positive word spread.

Language Shifts And Meaning

Back in April we were debating FOMO (fear of missing out) and how brands use this emotion to drive increased traffic—and paranoia—amongst their competitors. I doubt many of us saw, however, “post truth” (apparently the Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year) coming up the rails.

The definition of post truth is, “Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”

When the Temkin Group labeled 2016 as the year of emotion, I doubt they expected System 2 parts of our brain (slow, effortful, infrequent, logical, calculating, conscious) to be so heavily defeated by System 1 (fast, automatic, frequent, emotional, stereotypic, subconscious).

I should probably out myself here as a Guardian-reading, Radio-6-listening type, but I was certainly not the only person to view the recent UK and USA votes in a state of disbelief. Out of this darkness the team was at least able to properly understand two things:

1.    Negativity Bias: Humans are significantly more likely to remember the negative experiences, and far more people pass on a bad experience than a good one—so reduce the chances as well as you can, and don’t under estimate how motivating anger can be.

2.    Confirmation Bias and our manufactured echo chambers: This is a description of the situation in which information, ideas, or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by transmission and repetition inside an “enclosed” system, where different or competing views are censored, disallowed, or otherwise underrepresented. The moral being to listen to your electorate/ customers / colleagues, and don’t ignore feedback that simply does not match your own take on the world. It could well come back to bite you.

Story Telling And Journeys In Experience

Finally, something that we have further built on is our love of stories, a recognition of their importance, and how best to narrate ideas to connect with an audience.

For example, we have agreed on the right structure for delivering meaningful communication. Set up the situation that we, or our customers, find themselves in; share the catalyst that requires a change; explain the purpose and the central question that you will be answering; give your answer; provide the evidence; summarise and provide the call to arms.

Part of the reason that story structures work so well to get a message across is that this is how our brains have evolved to take in important messages. And looking at experiences from a behavioural science perspective also provides learning for how to structure any interaction for greatest effect. Get the difficult things out of the way early (but try not to churn), spread the pleasure, and end on a high.

We can all benefit from taking care of our opportunities to communicate.

Before I conclude, for all those commentators out there who take the time to share and contribute to the mix of opinions and learning available to those willing to listen, I thank you.

We should all continuously remind ourselves that CX does not exist in a bubble. Where my team originally started looking at more CX-specific emerging topics, such as a focus on customer effort metrics, we soon felt diverted and started to explore the outer reaches of behaviour and motivation in general. And this is because we recognised that many factors can influence a brand’s ability to deliver against its customer promise, its employees’ capacity to deliver this proposition consistently, and indeed its customers’ appetite to appreciate and be motivated by these efforts.

My resolution for 2017 will be to stay curious, but contribute more. I will therefore leave you with a message that resonated with me this summer. It wasn’t from the usual sages, but the English RFU as part of their Level 1 Coaching course. Whilst aimed at how we work with young rugby players, and their development, the argument works for all of us who are in a position of influence:

“Our players have the capacity to outgrow us if we stand still. We may restrict them from achieving their full potential if we fail to recognise the need to continue our own development.”

Tell us more about yourself so we can tailor your demo for you

See InMoment in Action

Check out a quick demo video to learn more about how our solutions can help your team grow your business.

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