MalcolmSays

Malcolm Says

I start from the premise that customers expectations are never unrealistic.  We may think they are but with the odd exceptions customer are reasonable and believe that their expectations are realistic.  The challenge for companies is to understand the specific expectations of their customers and ensure that where it makes business sense those needs are met. 

One of the myths is that meeting customer expectations or proving a better customer experience means spending lots of money.  In a lot of situations it costs very little or even nothing. It’s not untypical for me to make at least three or four recommendations to a client that have a high positive impact on customers at zero cost them.  (I have specific examples for anyone who is interested to know more).

The second major point that many companies miss is that improved customer experience leads to better customer retention. We’ve seen many different surveys that claim that 50% - 70% of customers leave due to how they have been treated by their supplier or their by staff.  I use this information to do a very simple ROI for clients to demonstrate the value of investing in improving customer experience.  In several cases the ROI based on improved customer retention was in excess of 50%.

There are a few articles on my web site that give a bit more background to my thinking and some example of what customers really care about rather than what we think they care about.   http://www.simpleplans.co.uk/7.HTML

I’d suggest looking at the behaviors and features that builds trust in the first place. To me the top 5 are:

1. Honesty
2. Consistency
3. Professionalism
4. Excellent service
5. Great staff
Therefore any action that a company plans to take should be assessed against the impact that it would potentially have on any or all five of the above and features. If the action would result in a negative reaction simply don’t do it because that would damage trust. If you still decide to go ahead with a particular action HOW you plan to carry it out should then be assessed against the top 5 list.

The model for the most trustworthy retailer is always John Lewis and their supermarket chain Waitrose. Interestingly Waitrose are rarely the cheapest and in spite of the John Lewis promise to never be knowingly undersold some of their own products are quite expensive. But, since everyone trusts them on all 5 points price becomes much less relevant.

There are two sides to this question. The first is about the mechanics of collecting feedback and the second side is about motivating people to give you feedback. To me the motivational aspect is much more important that the methods of collection.

Customers and staff will give you feedback if they perceive that the information they provide will ultimately be helpful to them. If you don’t have a relationship with a customer or you only have a poor relationship they are very unlikely to give you feedback. The main exception is when they believe you have really messed up and are not giving them the product/service that they expected. A tool to help is my RET factor approach. The higher the RET factor rating the better the feedback. (More on www.simpleplans.co.uk ). RET stands for Relationship, Expertise and Trust which I measure using a survey and produce simple numerical results. I have one client with a very high rating who gets 80% return whenever he asks his customers for feedback. Others with much lower RET rating are lucky to get 10% to respond. As a quick indicator simply ask yourself about how your customers feel about each of the RET factors (Relationship, Expertise & Trust) in dealing with your organisation. It will give you an indicator about what level of results to expect.

Finally to be helpful to the person giving you the feedback you must tell them upfront that you will share results with them. You then must share those results along with what you will do, or will not do, based on the results you have received. Organisations that don’t do this will get declining levels of feedback from staff and customers.

Malcolm says:

I do a lot of customer relationship surveys and when we ask what customers really care about the same top three points come up almost every time.

1. Your… see more expertise

2. The quality of your product/service

3. Your price positioning

Get these three things right as perceived by the client and they will be happy.  But, that is just the cost of entry. To make her/him so happy that they continue buying from you needs digging deeper into other aspects of what they really care about. These additional factors relate to processes, relationship and trust and will be very specific to your company and your customers. So you have to ask and not assume what makes them happy or unhappy.

Malcolm says:

I recommend to my clients that they start by understanding why people became their customers in the first place. This gives you a base of… see more things to keep doing. In reality most purchase decisions are based on how a prospective customers regards you based upon three factors: Relationship, Trust and Expertise. To understand more about what these factors mean to your specific customers you have to ask them about their views on the relationship they have with you. The best way to do this is via a third party because many customers will not tell you what they really care about. The worst way to do it is to ask your our sales force. They are too close to the action and have too much to lose from negative comments.

By asking the right questions in the right way a lot of valuable information will be uncovered. My advice is to first ask your own staff how they think customers will rate their relationship with the company. Then go out and ask customers. Comparing the answers highlights the differences and because of the personal involvement of staff and customers improvements are more likely to be implemented. These improvements could both encourage existing customers to stay and buy more but in many cases also presents opportunities to reduce cost.  Get the balance right and your company will stand out from your competition. Several papers on my website explain more about this approach and has some examples of the benefits.

www.simpleplans.co.uk/7.HTML

Malcolm says

I recently carried out a survey of over 60 companies that asked which marketing tools are best for acquiring new customers. In #1 slot was Face to face networking. In #2 & #3 slots were Partners & agencies and Articles & white papers.

As we know many prospects use their perception of Relationship, Expertise and Trust (RET) to help select suppliers. The top 3 certainly help support this view.
By comparison the bottom three marketing tools were: Call centres, Price cuts and Cold calling. None of these are very likely to help anyone’s RET rating.

We carry out RET customer surveys for individual clients and while results do vary the results of this multi company survey are pretty consistent. I can certainly see that RET is becoming increasing important to prospects as the economic environment becomes harsher. Hence the increased drive to be more customer focused in everything that we do.

To read more about the survey results on the best marketing tools visit www.simpleplans.co.uk/7.HTML   Be interesting to hear if you get similar results.

Malcolm says

Everyone agrees that companies need to better understand what their customers are trying to tell them. Often it’s only by having this type of knowledge that real differentiation from the competition can be made. Many companies are starting to gather this intelligence in a variety of different ways, some successful and some not.  

I’ve asked many companies how they are gaining this type of information about customers and the answers range from hiring consultants, to surveys and employing ex customers. I very rarely hear someone say that they are carrying out qualitative research. Unless they have a history, like P&G, of carrying out this type of work many companies don’t even know what it means. Harsh words but this is my experience. Just think about it. Getting something labelled “research” through the marketing budget approval process would be nigh on impossible in these difficult times. Add the word “qualitative” which is difficult for many people to say let alone understand and you can see why its avoided.

There is lots of “qualitative research” being carried out to better understand customers but much of it hidden under a variety of different labels. Perhaps if we just changed the name, it would be better understood!

Malcolm says

In my experience often the most interesting and useful customer feedback does not come through Sales or Marketing. It comes from functions that deal directly with the customer such as Customer Services, Logistics and Finance. I ask these people what customers are saying and often get some amazing information that by its very nature Sales and Marketing would have no way of capturing. For example the customer whose main reason for using one supplier was the way that they invoiced. (It fitted in well with their own internal systems.) Then there was the customer who didn’t like the way that boxes were opened for testing by the supplier. They thought they were faulty. These customers had told people in their suppliers company about these things before but the people in Logistics and Finance didn’t know who to tell or that this type of information was important.

So my recommendation is to forget trying to further automate stuff that Sales and marketing collect and focus on asking staff at the main customer touch points what they are hearing.