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What People Read (Of My Stuff) In 2009 January 3, 2010

Posted by Bruce Temkin in Customer experience.
5 comments

Happy New Year (xin nian kuai le, gelukkig Nieuwjaar, bonne année, ein gutes neues Jahr, shana tova, buon anno, feliz ano novo, feliz año nuevo, etc.)!

Before I turn my focus completely on 2010, I want to take a moment to look back at 2009.

In Q4, I was Forrester’s most-read analyst — for the 12th consecutive quarter. Over the year, I ended up with 45% more readership than the next analyst on the list. It’s clear that customer experience remains a critical topic for executives within large organizations!

Let’s look at what people are reading. As P. L. Travers said:

A writer is, after all, only half his book. The other half is the reader and from the reader the writer learns. 

Here are my 15 most-read research reports in 2009 (and publication dates): 

  1. The State Of Customer Experience, 2009 (4/09)
  2. Voice Of The Customer: The Next Generation (2/09)
  3. The Customer Experience Journey (9/08)
  4. Customer Experience Correlates To Loyalty (2/09)
  5. The Experiences That Satisfy Consumers, 2009 (4/09)
  6. The Customer Experience Index, 2008  (12/08)
  7. Customer Experience Boosts Revenue (6/09)
  8. Customer Experience And Loyalty: A Closer Look (3/09)
  9. Engage Gen Y Online With Social Interactivity (6/09)
  10. Obstacles To Customer Experience Success, 2009 (2/09)
  11. How Customer Experience Drives Word Of Mouth (5/09)
  12. Experience-Based Differentiation (1/07)
  13. Customer Experience Index 2008 Snapshot: Retail (2/09)
  14. The Customer Experience Generation Gap (9/09)
  15. Customer Experience Index 2008 Snapshot: Banks (12/09)

Here are my 15 most-read blog posts in 2009 (and publication dates):

  1. Free Book: The 6 Laws Of Customer Experience (7/08)
  2. Forrester’s 2008 Customer Experience Rankings (12/08)
  3. LEGO’s Building Block For Good Experience (3/09)
  4. Free Book: The 6 New Management Imperatives (2/09)
  5. Apple Beats Windows In Customer Experience (4/09)
  6. Experience-Based Differentiation (6/07)
  7. Customer Experience Correlates To Loyalty (2/09)
  8. The Customer Experience Journey (9/08)
  9. Customer Experience Boosts Revenue (6/09)
  10. Six Trends Reshape Voice Of The Customer (3/09)
  11. Discussing Zappos’ Culture With Tony Hsieh (5/08)
  12. Don’t Confuse Customer Service With Customer Experience (2/09)
  13. Are you listening to the voice of the customer? (7/07)
  14. My Manifesto: Great Customer Experience is Free (9/07)
  15. Five Disruptive Customer Experience Strategies (7/07)

The bottom line: I hope that 2010 is a happy, healthy, and customer-centric year for you!

6 Customer-Centric Lessons From Microsoft And Windows 7 December 31, 2009

Posted by Bruce Temkin in Customer experience.
Tags: ,
2 comments

I know; you don’t often see ”Microsoft” and “customer-centric” together in the same sentence. :-)

Let me start with a disclaimer: Microsoft is a very large client of my employer (Forrester Research) and I’ve worked with Microsoft on its customer experience efforts. Hopefully my posts about Microsoft demonstrate that I take a balanced view on the software behemoth, as I do with every company (for example, see Will An Efficient Culture Destroy Microsoft? and Apple Beats Windows In Customer Experience).

I recently had discussions with several Microsoft execs about the company’s customer & partner experience (CPE) and online self-help efforts surrounding Windows 7. Overall, I think they are doing an excellent job re-orienting Microsoft more directly on the needs of customers. In particular, here are six areas that other firms can learn from:

  1. Internalize customer experience. Microsoft’s CPE team has developed programs for driving more customer-centricity across the organization. The efforts which include CPE training for new employees, CPE culture programs, CPE goals for all employees, and executive compensation tied to CPE results.
  2. Infuse customer feedback into the product. Core requirements for Microsoft products now include self-help, self-healing pillars. This ensures that supportability is designed into products from the beginning. In addition, the company actively listened to social media during beta with developers and end users to identify problems and develop fixes.
  3. Make a good first impression. A poor initial experience can set the stage for a very dissatisfied customer. That’s why Microsoft created a cross-functional team to focus more than ever on its “shipping process” for Windows 7. This team looked at all of the areas that needed to be in place for customers to be satisfied when the product shipped. One of the key areas: simplifying the installation and upgrade processes.
  4. Create customer-centric metrics. To get the support organization focused on the right areas, the company uses a “time to happy” metric — which looks at the time it takes for customers to get a problem resolved starting from the moment they have the problem. This is quite different from most companies that try to minimize the time it takes them to respond once customers come to them with the problem.
  5. Accelerate the support process. Microsoft has invested heavily in Windows 7’s support infrastructure, looking at both reactive and proactive support. Some of the key investments include Microsoft Answers (providing answers to natural language questions) and Microsoft Fix It (automated diagnostics and solutions). The company is also embedding support communities into the product and working on search engine optimization to make it easier for customers to find solutions.
  6. Take responsibility for the entire ecosystem. Microsoft tracks the satisfaction of its partners as well as the satisfaction of its partners’ end customers. This allows them to identify areas of improvement across the ecosystem. The company also invested in its Windows Compatibility Center  to identify the apps and hardware that works with Windows 7 and provide access to the latest drivers. In addition, the company is working with OEM partners like Dell to create “solution assets” that cut across software/hardware boundaries. 

This is not an endorsement of Windows 7, since I have not used or evaluated the software. I am, however, impressed by Microsoft’s attempt to shift from an engineering-driven to a customer-centric culture. While this transition won’t happen overnight, Microsoft’s CPE efforts are pushing it in the right direction. If Microsoft stays dedicated to CPE, then I am hopeful that Windows 7 and future products will be easier to use and to maintain.

The bottom line: When it comes to customer experience, Microsoft appears to be heading in the right direction.

7 Keys To Customer Experience In 2010, Part 2 December 26, 2009

Posted by Bruce Temkin in Customer experience.
Tags: ,
3 comments

Happy Holidays!

In a previous post, I discussed an article that I wrote for the December issue of CRM Magazine. Here’s the full text from the article…

Despite the economic difficulties in 2009, we’ve seen a significant up-tick in real customer experience efforts. What do I mean by real? Efforts which address systemic issues like poorly designed interactions, broken processes, outdated business rules, insufficient customer insight, and cultures that are far from customer-centric. 

2010 will likely be an even more active year for customer experience. While many companies will make substantial progress, others will falter. Here is some advice for keeping your customer experience efforts on track next year:

1) Drop the executive commitment facade. It’s very easy for executives to say “customer experience is important.” But it’s much more difficult for them to dedicate the time and energy required to make it a real priority. So in 2010, executives should either get actively involved in customer experience transformation or drop it from their agendas.

Start here: Develop a customer experience dashboard and manage the results with the same energy that you manage financial results.

2) Acknowledge that you don’t know your customers. When market research teams require long lead times and expensive projects to answer questions about customers, too many organizations go without this insight. But the path to customer experience success requires significantly deeper customer insight. So in 2010, companies need to develop voice of the customer programs that provide ongoing and continuous access to customer insights.

Start here: Create a voice of the customer program with a cross-functional team that focuses on four “LIRM” components: listening to customers, interpreting the feedback, reacting to the insights, and monitoring results from actions over time.

3) Keep from getting too distracted by social media. Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites may seem sexy, but they aren’t the only channels for customer feedback. Other channels like comments on surveys and calls into the call center can often provide even richer insight. So in 2010, companies need to learn from social media feedback, but not overreact to it.

Start here: Treat social media as one of many listening posts in a comprehensive voice of the customer program that examines both structured and unstructured feedback.

4) Stop squeezing the life out of customer service. My research shows that consumers care more about good customer service than they do low prices. It also turns out that many customer service interactions are critical “moments of truth” that drive customer loyalty. But companies often treat customer service an unwanted stepchild; focusing almost exclusively on aggressive cost-cutting. So in 2010, companies need to start viewing customer service as a strategic asset.

Start here: Measure customer service organizations based on how effectively they help customers instead of efficiency metrics like average handle times.

5) Restore the purpose in your brand. True brands are more than just color palettes, logos, and marketing slogans, they’re the fabric that aligns all employees with customers in the pursuit of a common cause. They represent a firm’s raison d’être. Unfortunately, many companies have lost this sense of purpose in their brands. So in 2010, companies need to redefine their brand and embed it in the hearts and minds of all employees.

Start here: Translate your brand into promises you will make (and keep) with customers across every key touch point.

6) Don’t expect employees to get on board. Employees are often the most critical element of any customer experience effort. But firms can’t just hope that everyone will participate in these change initiatives. So in 2010, companies need to actively focus on engaging employees at every level across the organization in their customer experience efforts.

Start here: Communicate (a lot) about “why” customer experience is important and allow employees to participate in defining “how” to make improvements.        

7) Translate customer experience into business terms. My research uncovered a strong correlation between customer experience and loyalty. An average $10 billion company can generate $284 million of additional revenues from customer experience improvements. But most companies don’t fully understand the link between customer experience and business results. So in 2010, companies need to identify how customer experience impacts their financial results.

Start here: Engage the CFO to develop a model which shows the impact that customer experience has on customer loyalty.

The bottom line: As I said before, 2010 will be a busy year for customer experience.

The 4 Key Ingredients Of Great Organizations December 22, 2009

Posted by Bruce Temkin in Customer experience, Executive leadership.
Tags: , , , ,
9 comments

I’m an avid student of business. One of my ongoing personal goals is to better understand what drives consistent success at large organizations. 

Over the years, I’ve read many great theories about how companies perform including Discipline of Market Leaders by Treacy and Wiersema, the 7-S framework from Waterman and Peters, Strategic Intent and Core Competencies by Prahalad and Hamel, Good To Great by Collins, and a number by Michael Porter: Five Forces, Strategic Fit, and Value Chain.

As I discussed in the post Fundamental Flaws In Management Education, the business world has changed. And while all of those models provide valuable insights, they don’t fully capture what makes companies successful today. 

In this environment, companies need to evolve into what I call an Aligned Enterprise which I’ve defined as:

An organization that acts cohesively and embraces change in its environment.

I’ve identified 4 key characteristics of an Aligned Enterprise (which I refer to as P.A.C.E.):

  1. Purposeful leadership. Establishing and maintaining a clear and compelling vision for where the organization is heading and why it’s going in that direction.
  2. Adaptive design. Infusing the realities of the marketplace (customers, suppliers, technology change, etc.) into the creation and evolution of products, services, and processes.
  3. Customer-responsiveness. Increasing the magnitude and speed with which an organization learns from, and responds to, customer feedback.
  4. Employee engagement. Building strong commitment from employees through alignment of hiring, on-boarding, training, coaching, communications, and incentive programs.

I’ll write more about Aligned Enterprise in future posts. Before I do, I’d love to hear what you think about the model. Does it resonate with you? Is there anything missing? What examples would you point to? 

The bottom line: How well is your organization keeping PACE?

Misleading Coupons Hurt Loyalty December 20, 2009

Posted by Bruce Temkin in Customer experience, Store/branch strategy.
Tags:
10 comments

My cousin went to Lord & Taylor expecting to use a 20% coupon. After finding a bathing suit that she wanted to buy, she went to checkout.

The sales rep, however, said that the coupon did not work for her order. They called over the supervisor who insisted that the coupon could not be used for bathing suits. Even after several minutes, the supervisor could not explain where it said that bathing suits were not included. The sale rep was nice about the situation, agreeing that it was misleading after the supervisor left. But my cousin had to pay full price for the bathing suit.

The experience was so problematic that my cousin told me about it (and she probably told other people as well).

My take: I’ve included a copy of the coupon below. Take a look at the wording. Even with the closest reading of the fine print, it does not seem to say that bathing suits aren’t included. 

There were two significant problems with this interaction: 

  • Misleading wording. Despite the large font claiming “Storewide Savings,” it has so much fine print that it’s very hard to understand. And the implementation of the coupon in the store does not seem to match how it’s worded.
  • Unempowered employees. Even after realizing that the policy was wrong, the salesperson did not have the ability to override the system. She should have been able to give my cousin the 20% discount.

Unfortunately, these problems aren’t unique to Lord & Taylor. Too many retailers still try to lure customers into their stores with less than clear promotions. This type of experience may drive short-term traffic, but it doesn’t create loyal customers.  

The bottom line: Incremental sales aren’t worth the cost of loyalty.

Improve Web Readability With… Readability December 17, 2009

Posted by Bruce Temkin in Customer experience, Online strategy.
Tags: ,
9 comments

Like most people, I have a backlog of things that I want to read. One of the items on my list was an article by David Pogue in the New York Times in November called “Cleaning Up The Clutter Online.” Pogue highlights a free tool for the Web called Readability that reformats Web pages to makes them significantly easier to read. Here’s some of what Pogue said about Readability

With one click, it eliminates EVERYTHING from the Web page you’re reading except the text and photos. No ads, blinking, links, banners, promos or anything else… The text is also changed to a beautiful font and size… It completely transforms the Web experience, turning your computer into an e-book reader. I think I’m in love.

My take: As a user-centric type of guy, Pogue’s description of Readability grabbed my attention. So I gave it a shot. Wow! The application does a phenomenal job of making sites easier to read. You configure it to meet your needs and voilà! Cluttered Web pages transform into easy-to-read pages.

To give you a sense of what this application can do, here are two screen shots of my previous blog post “7 Keys To Customer Experience In 2010” — before and after I applied the readability application.

The bottom line: Hopefully this is just the start to more usability-improving technologies.

7 Keys To Customer Experience In 2010 December 13, 2009

Posted by Bruce Temkin in Customer experience.
Tags: ,
9 comments

In the December issue of CRM Magazine which focuses on customer experience, I wrote an article called “7 Keys To Customer Experience” that provides advice for companies as they look ahead to 2010. Here’s how the article starts:

Despite the economic difficulties in 2009, we’ve seen a significant up-tick in real customer experience efforts. What do I mean by real? Efforts which address systemic issues like poorly designed interactions, broken processes, outdated business rules, insufficient customer insight, and cultures that are far from customer-centric.

After the introduction, I outline these 7 areas of focus for next year:

  1. Drop the executive commitment facade
  2. Acknowledge that you don’t know your customers
  3. Keep from getting too distracted by social media
  4. Stop squeezing the life out of customer service.
  5. Restore the purpose in your brand
  6. Don’t expect employees to get on board
  7. Translate customer experience into business terms

I’ll provide more details for all of these items in a later post. For now, you can read the CRM Magazine article if you want to see more.

The bottom line: 2010 will be a busy year for customer experience

Oodles Of Customer Experience Research December 9, 2009

Posted by Bruce Temkin in Customer experience.
3 comments

December is shaping up to be an extremely busy month on my research agenda. So I thought I’d share some of the things that I’m working on:

  • The 2010 Customer Experience Index (CxPi). I’m currently analyzing the data and writing the report which will rank 100+ large US companies across 14 industries. As you may recall, the previous ranking was the 2008 CxPi. We’ve decided to move the publication of this report from the end of this year to beginning of 2010. So we’ll now be publishing the rankings in January. Shortly afterwards, I’ll be publishing detailed snapshots of the results in all 14 industries — starting with banking and retail.
  • Channel Experiences That Satisfy Consumers. I’ll be looking at how consumers rate the same 100+ companies across a number of channels experiences: Web, phone, and in-person. The analysis will highlight the good, the bad, and the ugly across industries and companies.. This will lead to a report in early 2010. Here’s a link to last year’s version of this report.
  • Lifecycle Experiences That Satisfy Consumers. I’ll be looking at how consumers rate industries and companies across a number of customer-centric experiences: Researching a product/service, buying a product/service, using a product/service, and getting customer service. This will lead to a report in early 2010.
  • Best Practices In Mapping The Customer Journey. I’m working with a researcher on the team, Andrew McInnes, to identify the best practices in an important process: Mapping the key touchpoints with customers. This will lead to a report in early 2010.
  • Voice Of The Customer Vendors. I’ve been talking with many of the vendors that enable voice of the customer programs. Since this is a critical area for customer experience, I’ll be looking to write a lot more about this space in 2010.
  • The State Of Customer Experience, 2010. We’re currently fielding our Q4 survey with large companies to understand how they’re progressing with their customer experience efforts. I plan to use the results of this survey to write another annual report about the state of customer experience in early 2010. Here’s a link to the survey and here’s a link to last year’s version of the report.
  • Customer Experience Executive Interviews. Over the next month or so, I’ll be talking with customer experience leaders from about 20 large companies to get a sense of their plans for 2010. The information from these interviews will help define our 2010 research agenda for 2010. I’m also likely to write about some of my key findings.

What do you think should be on my 2010 research agenda?

The bottom line: There’s still a lot to learn about customer experience.

8 Ways To Boost Online Gift Cards December 6, 2009

Posted by Bruce Temkin in Customer experience, Online strategy.
Tags:
4 comments

There’s an article in Forbes about how companies like Home Depot, The Container Store, and CVS are adding electronic gift cards to their Websites. Well, it’s about time. It shouldn’t take a lot of analysis to see that gift cards can be a lucrative piece of online functionality. Why wouldn’t you help customers just give you money?!?

If you are deploying online gift cards, here are some ideas for improving the experience:

  1. Merchandise it. Make sure that customers can find a clear path to gift cards from the homepage.
  2. Make it easy to do multiples. Consumers often shop for several people at one time around the holidays, so make the process easy to generate several gift cards in a single session.
  3. Allow flexible amounts. Don’t lock customers into specific amounts for gift cards (which replicates some offline gift cards), since there’s no reason to fit into their budget. 
  4. Schedule delivery. Don’t make customers wait until the day before a key event to buy a gift card. Allow them to buy it any time they want, but schedule delivery for a later date. 
  5. Create delivery options. Some customers may want to send the gift notice directly from the company, but others may want to email it themselves or hand something to the recipient. Think through these options; even consider offering gift cards through the (regular) mail.
  6. Encourage gifting. If your company has a rewards program, think about giving customers some type of credit when they buy gift cards. Otherwise, you may want to offer some other incentives for this highly desirable customer behavior.
  7. Enhance the giftee experience. When someone receives a gift card from your company, it should be the start of a special experience — that fully reinforces your brand. So design the entire experience. A happy recipient will encourage more gifting!
  8. Don’t forget usability.  Poor usability can drag down any gift card offering. Make sure that your gift card functionality is very easy to use. In particular, watch out for the top issues we found in our evaluation of 100’s of Web Sites: text illegibility, inefficient task flow, and obscure privacy/security policies.

The bottom line: Try and capture every gifting opportunity.

Consumers Expect Poor Customer Service December 3, 2009

Posted by Bruce Temkin in Customer experience, customer service.
8 comments

I just published a research report with Andrew McInnes (a researcher on our team) called Consumers Expect Poor Service Experiences. The research, which was based on surveying more than 4,200 US consumers, looked at consumer expectations for getting an issue resolved in 10 different areas (apparel, bank account, hotel, auto insurance policy, TV service, credit card, wireless phone plan, Internet service, computer, and health insurance policy).

It turns out that consumers don’t expect much from customer service. Here are some of the findings:

  • In only one of the areas, apparel, did a majority of consumers (54%) expect to have an easy time getting their issue resolved.
  • The lowest marks were in computers and health insurance policies, where only 30% of consumers expected customer service to be easy.
  • In 6 of the 10 areas, Seniors were the most optimistic about these customer service interactions. But…
    • … in the 4 other industries, hotels plus three technology areas (wireless phone plans, computers, and Internet service), Seniors were the least optimistic about getting an issue fixed.
  • Only 23% of Seniors thought it would be easy to get a computer issue resolved — the lowest level we found.
  • Not surprisingly, Gen Yers were the most optimistic about customer service in the three technology areas.

The bottom line: Companies need to surpass customer service expectations.