A Swing and Miss for Sales and Marketing
March 14, 2012I had the opportunity to fly Delta airlines recently. Never been on that airline before (really) as I’ve been stuck in a stupid “loyalty” program elsewhere. Imagine my surprise when I found pleasant service-with-a-smile, and genuinely helpful staff! I was in the unfortunate position of having to check luggage this time around. You know what happened next: yes, they lost my luggage. But that’s NOT the interesting part…
Delta’s baggage-service staff were AMAZING. I’d guess those folks have a difficult job, dealing with upset people all day long. These folks were friendly, thorough, showed genuine concern, and very knowledgeable. They alone could’ve made me a Delta “Promoter” BUT THAT’S not the interesting part …
Align Marketing (expectations) with service delivery, or risk creating Detractors
The baggage-service staff knew why my bag was lost: I had to change airplanes in LAX, a huge, complex airport. Lucky for me I only had a 35-minute layover. Unfortunately 35-minutes isn’t enough time to transfer luggage on a busy day. The baggage-service folks frequently see this problem.
Companies spend millions (billions?) on service recovery. Why not invest similar amounts into addressing the root-cause? At minimum, why not warn people when they ticket that short LAX-layover might cause baggage problems (never mind the checked-baggage fee)? Or, why not turn those spammy emails about “my upcoming trip” into a genuine cross-sell? For example, make me aware of this potential problem, suggest some simple work-arounds, and offer me “baggage insurance” or FedEx delivery? Intuit provides a potential example: TurboTax offers an “audit protection” service when filing (seems to me that the $30 could save anyone lot’s of time in that unhappy event).
I’ve written about this before. I’m no airline expert, but with a little cross-functional collaboration and creative thinking I’d think Delta’s Marketing organization could actually be aligned with delivery. At least I’ve now learned never to check any bags with a short layover through LAX.
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Posted by Steve Bernstein
Turbo Charge Marketing: Do Something Different
February 9, 2012We had the opportunity this week to publish an article in FunnelFacts, a new and focused publication from the folks at DemandCon. The periodical features innovative strategies and tactics for marketers concerned about increasing profitable growth rates.
Here’s an excerpt:
You’ve undoubtedly heard about Net Promoter – a research-based method for defining which customers are “with you” (called “Promoters”) and which aren’t. The Net Promoter ‘system’ has been around for nearly 10 years and has unequivocally proven the link between customer loyalty and profitable corporate growth. Loyal customers buy more, stay longer, refer others, and provide valuable market intelligence. And while many companies hype their Net Promoter scores – just as they did in the past with “customer satisfaction” scores – there’s far more opportunity here for marketers than just PR.
Here’s the link to the full article and we’d love to hear your counter-points, thoughts, and challenges!
http://www.demandcon.com/2012/02/turbo-charge-marketing-do-something-different/
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Posted by Steve Bernstein
Too Much of a Good Thing?
February 8, 2012Is it possible to have “too much of a good thing” when it comes to customer experiences? My ongoing experience with a frozen yogurt franchise screams “yes!” Sure, the staff greets me upon my entry through the door, asks me if I have been there, offers samples, is attentive, promptly provides me with my yogurt, etc. But it is how they do it that really grates on my nerves. I barely open the door a crack before I’m pounced up with greetings that feel rushed, forced, and insincere. Inevitably they ask me if I have been there before right after the greeting. Two things go through my mind each time: Do they really think I’m incapable of ordering frozen yogurt and don’t they know me by now? Each time they act as if I haven’t been there before so they explain the process. Even when the same person serves me several times in a week (yes, I’m an addict), the routine is the same. It’s like the movie Groundhog Day. I see they recognize me but they stick to what I can only assume is a script, probably closely monitored. It’s eerie. Imagine if you went to Starbuck’s daily for your coffee and the same person helped you and every time, they asked you if you had been there before. The lack of recognition really takes the intended personal element away. The result is a feeling of being disconnected. I won’t bore you with specifics of the script, but I have it memorized. What’s even crazier is when I give a non-standard answer or ask them how their day is going, they get tripped up. They usually double-back and ask the same questions again, start at the top of the script and fumble their words. I keep imagining smoke coming out of their ears like they are in system overload from a “non-conforming” customer.
So, why share this strange ongoing frozen yogurt experience? It is because it is a reminder that you can’t beat a genuine authentic personal experience. Presumably, some well-intended manager developed this scripted approach with a positive, consistent customer experience in mind. The problem is their staff is forced to respond in such a rigid way, it comes across insincere, contrived and actually takes away from the experience all together. When we develop tools to help our teams interact and improve customer experiences, keep the people element in there. Empower your teams, don’t control them. Something gets lost when we don’t put ourselves in the customers shoes. In fact it may be that what gets lost is the point of the experience altogether.
How do you wow your customers in a sincere, authentic way? What is that personal touch that makes the difference in your customer interactions? How do you empower front line employees to provide that experience?
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Posted by cherylgutierrez
Response Bias Strikes Again
January 10, 2012Great article here in VentureBeat, Why the Internet was wrong about Ron Paul. We’ve written many times in the past about how response bias — only looking at survey results from people that respond to your survey — skews customer feedback results (most recently here: Net Promoter & Statistics: When Accuracy Goes Haywire, and 5 Ways to Proceed).
“Paul dominates positive tweets in an atmosphere that is incredibly negative,” said David Rothschild, a Yahoo researcher focusing on event prediction and individual behavior.
“But,” he continued, “tweets originate from an unrepresentative segment of the electorate who can ‘vote’ many, many times… These are not representative samples of the relevant electorate.”
Ever wonder why your company’s financial performance may not be as strong as the marketing hype around your “customer satisfication” would lead you to conclude? Pay attention to who ISN’T responding: there’s gold in understanding who’s engaged with you… and who isn’t.
Leave a Comment » | Lessons Learned, Loyalty Research | Tagged: CEM, Customer, customer loyalty, customer satisfaction, market research, NPS, survey | Permalink
Posted by Steve Bernstein
Marketing is DEAD. Here are 5 Steps to revive it.
October 20, 2011I used to be a proud VP Marketing. These days ‘marketing’ seems to be all about spamming people with as much noise as possible. Many Marketing organizations plod along with ~5% open rates, ~3% conversion rates, and little-to-no ability to report the real business value (results) they bring to the company. And then they complain that Sales doesn’t take action on the great leads they throw over the wall.
In other words, times have changed yet most Marketing organizations haven’t.
Most Marketing departments have become zombies. They seem to stalk their prey, occasionally scoring a hit, and otherwise spend a lot of time wondering around (a 3% conversion rate is a 97% miss-rate).
So when I write “Marketing is Dead” I’m not saying that the marketing discipline is no longer needed. Marketing is more important than ever exactly because of all that noise and the need to get noticed. Marketing needs to evolve. How?
Ask yourself 2 questions:
- Where do the best actionable leads come from?
- What is my own process when I buy something?
For most business, the answer to both these questions is essentially the same: The best “leads” come from personal referrals and references. Likewise, when I buy I talk to colleagues that I trust.
So the obvious key is to create an army of Promoters. Get people (customers and partners) talking positively about your business. I was fortunate to participate in a Net Promoter program in which the client executives wanted to understand how their Customer “Insights-to-Action” program was helping the field. Here’s the summary from 800 sales people after just 3 months:
Enhanced Customer Relationship
|
67% |
Met New Contacts: |
70% |
Identified New Late-Stage Sales Opportunities: |
29% |
I’m not aware of any other marketing campaign that resulted in a 29% direct-success rate. And that doesn’t even count the “soft” side whereby Sales was able to increase their wallet-share in key accounts and generate more references and referrals.
Marketing needs to take the lead in creating, developing, and engaging Promoters – people that love the company and speak to their friends and colleagues about their experiences. How?
- First, prepare mentally. Recognize that unless you personally are paying the bills your own voice and opinions don’t matter. Don’t be a Hippo (HIghest Paid Person’s Opinion). Your customers matter more. Then, before you start, commit to action and not just measurement.
- Now begin by identifying customers that are “with” you and those that aren’t. Whether you use the Net Promoter model or not, segmenting customers into those that are “with” you and those that aren’t can only lead to good things… if Marketing is prepared to act.
- Engage those customer contacts that are “with” you. Find out what they like and why, what they’d like to see improved and why, and what they know about their industry (and who they know) that can help your firm.
- Open dialogs with the folks that aren’t “with” you. Find out Why? You’ll discover that the problem here generally isn’t with Sales or Support or Services or Product – it’s most often the interplay with all of them: gaps in customer experience that are a result of missing customer expectations. Marketing, Sales, and Competition (industry dynamics) set expectations. Know how the company delivers on those expectations and understand where and why
expectations are missed. - Act. Use customer quotes and hard evidence to amplify the voice of the customer so everyone can hear exactly what you are hearing. Quantify the benefit (here are several posts on ROI) of addressing those gaps, and work collaboratively within the company to create more Promoters.
You can swing for the fences, trying for that 3% conversion rate by sending 10,000 emails that lead to 3 new deals one year later. Or you can face facts that you win customers over one at a time, and can be a part of the team that wins 15 new deals in 3 to 6 months.
Which metric would you like to report:
1. I sent 1000 emails to prospects, which led to 30 new names that we can contact.
2. I identified 30 Promoters that will help us with references and referrals.
3. I helped engage 30 Promoters that enabled the company close 15 new deals worth $3.2 million.
I hope someone can help me to understand why Marketing doesn’t get more involved in creating and engaging Promoters. Why isn’t it part of Marketing’s job to help with that?
2 Comments | Lessons Learned, News | Tagged: B2B, CEM, customer experience, customer loyalty, lead gen, market research, marketing, Net Promoter, NPS, revenue growth, survey | Permalink
Posted by Steve Bernstein
Net Promoter & Statistics: When Accuracy Goes Haywire, and 5 Ways to Proceed
October 12, 2011As a practitioner in the field of Customer Insights / Customer Experience / Net Promoter / Voice-of-the-Customer (what are we supposed to call this field, anyway?!?), I am frequently asked, “How many responses do we need to be statistically significant?”
Statisticians often use a “margin of error” calculation. Depending on your population size this often suggests ~300 responses per analysis segment. But we can answer the question of “how many do we need” in different ways, with pros and cons for each. Here are my findings, based on my 22 years of real-world experience in this area (and this is certainly a larger topic that I think would be better served as a series of discussions!):
Pros: Confidence intervals are generally familiar and accepted by anyone that sees market research data in the media. People seem to appreciate the idea that “we can be 95% certain that the score is X% +/- Y%.” You can report it and move on.
Cons: Confidence measures assume that you have a representative and random population. Much like in the world of Economics, where textbooks start off, “Assuming a rational world…” we know from experience that most customer feedback programs are not based on random samples that represent the total population. Why?
- People are people, not instruments. We have emotions and biases that can’t always be known.
CONSIDER: If you wanted to build a bullet-proof airplane, would you want to examine the airplanes that successfully returned from their bombing runs, or would you rather examine the planes and pilots that didn’t make it back in order to improve? Don’t you need to make sure you get feedback from disengaged customers? (Image courtesy of http://www.wwi-models.org/Images/May/Art/index.html)
- Who is responding? That is, who is “opting in” to provide feedback? In our experience, scores generally skew positively. That is, happy customers respond more than unhappy customers, who are otherwise likely to be “checked out” or see no reason to participate.
- Whom are you inviting to provide feedback? Many programs suffer from bias and unintentionally select “happy” customers. Face it – where you have good customer contact data, you will tend to also have stronger customer relationships. And, especially if you compensate your employees based on customer feedback scores, then the program is certainly going to try to seek out happy customers to provide feedback. Just use your car-dealer experience as blatant example.
- What is the right confidence level, anyway? We often see statements like, “At 95% confidence…” That ruler can be generally accepted in the research world where we might be making life-or-death decisions. But would you rather base your decision on evidence or just a hunch? Would 50% confidence be better than 0%?
5 recommendations:
- Pay attention to your sampling strategy – whom are you inviting to provide feedback? – and also examine who responded. Make sure both areas represent your business in ALL segments that you intend to act upon. Are you seeking out and acquiring feedback from those who matter most? (And how do you know…? We’ll have to address a response to that in a separate post…)
- Recognize that some customers simply are more important to your business than others. Especially in business-to-business (B2B) situations with complex buying cycles, make sure you are talking to the people that matter most.
- Pay attention to everyone. While this might seem contradictory to item #2 immediately above, no business wants negative word-of-mouth that destroys growth and profitability. A sample size of 1 can be telling, especially if you leverage that 1 person to understand root-cause (that looks like yet another potential topic for a future post…)
- Leverage your strengths. We often tend to focus on the negative. Now that you’ve identified your promoters, engage them! Whom do they know? What are the cross-sell opportunities? What can those customers tell you about your competition?
- Context is everything; scores can be meaningless. Whatever you use — net promoter, customer effort, customer satisfaction, etc – you will always need relevant metrics for comparison in order to understand what actions to take. Example: If you step on the scale this week and weigh 170 lbs (~77 kilos), and the week before you weighed 168 pounds (~76 kilos), is that a good thing or a bad thing? In order to answer that I’d need to know more – percent of body fat / BMI, goals (‘thinness’? muscle?), and how you compare to your “peers” (defined by your goals). Scores don’t say much on their own. Similarly, in the “Customer Feedback” world you need to understand your sample and make sure you are comparing apples-to-apples.
As one of my mentors always says, there are a lot of edges to this work. One short blog-post isn’t going to close this out. Bottomline for me is that if your primary goal is to present data then use confidence measures. On the other hand, if you want to drive profitable growth then consider doing more. After all, between this ‘word-of-mouth’ age of the Internet and the need to keep our existing customers coming back for more, don’t you ideally want 100% of your customers to be with you (and not against you)?
Leave a Comment » | Lessons Learned, Loyalty Research | Tagged: CEM, customer loyalty, customer satisfaction, market research, Net Promoter, NPS, survey | Permalink
Posted by Steve Bernstein
Just One Tip to Avoid Disaster
October 10, 2011So much has been written about Netflix, including my post below, so this letter to Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, will be short.
Dear Reed,
I’ll bet you’re feeling pretty embarrassed after yet another beating from Wall Street today as you changed direction yet again. Here’s one tip:
Listen to your customers.
Kind regards,
Steve Bernstein, Former-Netflix customer
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Posted by Steve Bernstein
Is this more evidence that Netflix doesn’t get it?
September 6, 2011[Update Sept 22: Check out the link at the bottom of this post for a funny trail from like-minded customers! - Steve]
Like many Netflix subscribers I was incensed at how Netflix treated me as a customer and so I canceled my subscription today (my billing date is in 2 days). I was pleased that they made it easy to cancel (unlike many of subscription services that create even more detractors by setting up confusing and time-wasting cancelation processes). And then they directed me to their cancelation survey…
- It’s 3 pages long when printed. It’s generic and doesn’t respect my time. Many options aren’t even relevant to my subscription plan. If they don’t care to invest time in this, why should I?
- They start off with the Recommend question. I’m all for Net Promoter-based segmentation, but I wonder why they think this is the right question to start off a cancelation survey? And I’ll refrain from over-emphasizing their proprietary scale… how on earth are they going to use this?
Why does Netflix use "Recommend" when someone is canceling...and why corrupt the scale?
- They ask me why I canceled and the reasons presented show that it’s all about them. I mean, every one of the options starts with “I,” as in “I needed to cut costs” (which is the first choice). It’s not about me; it’s about how you treated me.
- Then they ask me a bunch of market research questions. To what extent do they think they’ll get trustworthy data from this survey? I’m sure they have other market research channels and they merely want to triangulate the feedback here, just seems like a misguided way to treat customers that you want to win back.
To what extent am I over-reacting?
Update Sept 22: I thought this was a funny response to Reed Hasings’ email… perhaps much better than my rant above! Check it out:
1 Comment | Lessons Learned | Permalink
Posted by Steve Bernstein
10 “Voice of the Customer” quotes: One-liners that every executive will love
August 4, 2011Do you love these as much as I do? Any votes for which of these you like best?
Or, better still, please share some of your own “nuggets”…!
1. Whoever understands the customer best wins.
- Mike Gospe
2. Are you using information for evidence-based decision making, or for decision-based evidence making?
- Joey Fitts
3. It’s hard to do one thing 100% better than everyone, but you can do 100 things 1% better. It all adds up.
- Jay Steinfeld
4. Never cross a river that is, on average, 4 feet deep. You will drown.
- Simon Lyons
5. I am the customer experience.
- American Airlines banner as noted by Bruce Temkin
6. 95% of companies collect customer feedback. Yet only 10% use the feedback to improve, and only 5% tell customers what they are doing in response to what they heard.
- Gartner Group
7. Deal with the world as it is, not how you’d like it to be.
- Jack Welch
8. Hippos are not only the #2 largest source of humans killed by animals, but they also kill ideas, as many companies suffer from Highest Paid Person’s Opinion.
- Joey Fitts
9. Customer service starts where customer experience fails.
- Chris Zane
10. We had clients that wanted kitchens and we were selling them pots and pans.
- Eric Murphy
2 Comments | Lessons Learned | Permalink
Posted by Steve Bernstein
Top 3 Reasons Why Customer Satisfaction Surveys Hurt More than They Help…and How to Fix Them
August 2, 2011We’ve all seen those customer satisfaction surveys in one form or another. “Bank X has a 96% Customer Satisfaction rating!” “Please rate your satisfaction with your most recent experience…” Companies spend millions of dollars on those every year. Are they getting their money’s worth?
Certainly not. Here’s why:
|
Current Practice: |
ROI-Generating Practice: |
| 1. Focusing on Scores Companies often use “customer satisfaction” to prove how great they are. Isn’t it annoying when that car dealer asks you to give all top-box scores? |
Instead, Focus on Improvement Who cares what happened in the past unless you learn from it. Use customer feedback to know where the organization is performing well, and where it can improve. Since nobody is perfect let the people who know what they want (our customers) provide the needed guidance. |
| ACTION: Stop reporting aggregate scores. Instead, report changes in scores over time (assuming you are collecting your data accurately and consistently), by customer segment. Is there improvement in the areas of the business that matter most? Then, ask yourself, “What am I comparing, and do I know why those changes happened?” | |
| 2. Reporting “Satisfaction” What the heck is “satisfaction” anyway? “Gee, that product is sure satisfying!” I don’t think I’ve ever heard that word used in real conversation. |
Instead, Report Behavior Deliver customer experiences that matter and let customers do the shopping and talking. Good companies do the talking themselves. Great companies know that their customers will come back for more, and will also refer others.Are you reporting and acting on improving those metrics? |
| ACTION: Make sure your sales and marketing set the right expectations about what you can actually deliver. If the truth hurts, then spend your time and resources helping improve. Provide trustworthy and conclusive customer feedback to the rest of the organization, since your customers’ opinions are what matter most, not yours. Start by changing your internal dialogs from, “I think that we…” to “Our customers love that we…” or, “Our customers leave us because…” | |
| 3. Focusing on Transactions It’s true that individual customer interactions are important. But who cares if a caller was happy with their service call if the call should have been avoided in the first place. |
Instead, Focus on Relationships Don’t all businesses want repeat customers and word-of-mouth referrals? Stop reporting within your organizational silos, and understand the relationship from your customer’s point of view. A focus on a transaction might help you check an item off your to-do list, but it’s not likely to bring that customer back for more. |
| ACTION: Want to stand out? Deliver customer experiences that meet expectations. Start with delivering what you say you are going to deliver. Think RyanAir – the no-frills airline that ensures its customers know that all they get is a ride to their destination in exchange for the lowest price – and check out their great financial performance. Not everyone has to be the Ritz Carlton or the iPhone. But if your sales and marketing sets that expectation, then you better be sure you are delivering it. | |
By the way, more of our “Top Tips” can be found in our resources
section at http://waypointgroup.org/news/index.html
with a direct whitepaper link http://waypointgroup.org/news/VoC-Assessment-Whitepaper-WaypointGroup-20100416.pdf
1 Comment | Lessons Learned | Permalink
Posted by Steve Bernstein
