customer experienceCustomer Experience Quotes #16

Customer Experience Quotes

Here is one of the most inspiring Customer experience quotes to delight customers and create world class Customer Experience Design

  


Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic.


– Arthur C Clarke

 


Take away for CX Professionals


Technology wows your customer initially.






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Author is an expert in Customer Experience Design. If you are looking for Customer Experience (CX) consultant in Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi and across India, contact us. 

		
	
				
Every Customer Interaction creates a Personal Reaction. From the customer’s perspective, if the reaction is positive, she not only desires to have more such interactions, but shares her experience with her trusted ones. If the reaction is negative, it is bad news for both the customer and the company, but it costs the company a ton because:




The real fault lines between different processes, departments, divisions and channels are exposed in each Customer Interaction.


The secret of good customer experience is seamless & consistent customer interaction, and a good measure of customer experience is customer churn rate!

		
	
				
Anand Prakash


IT products and services sector is in the forefront of B2B CX revolution. We conducted an interview with  Mr. Anand Prakash, VP – Quality, HCL Infosystems about evolving role of CX in IT sector and to share some of the industry best practices.


Mr. Prakash has over 3 decades of industry experience in HCL, Wipro, and Ericsson. He is an engineer from IIT Roorkee.


Neil:Why do you think in a country like India, very price conscious base, Customer Experience (CX) matters?


Anand: CX is about having a better understanding of your clients and delivering a good experience. In IT sector, clients want you to be faster, cheaper and deliver the right quality. One attribute cannot be replaced the other. For example, price cannot replace quality. So delivering at the right price is also part of good CX. That’s how I see the role of CX.


So I wish to reiterate that even in a country like India with a price conscious base, CX is mandatory and cannot be taken for granted.


Neil: Is CX tangible? How does IT sector measure CX?


Anand: Usually “experience”, “satisfaction”, “loyalty”, etc. is assumed to be intangibles though we can assess them through customer surveys. That’s why today many organizations are looking at metrics such as Customer Effort, Customer Productivity, etc. These metrics are also like NPS and C-SAT, they measure the goodness or quality of the experience of the customers; still not tangible to business.


That’s why what we are doing is to link these metrics to business metrics such as Net Add(new orders from existing client that increases our share of wallet), Customer Attrition and Referencibility Index (% of existing customers willing to be our references). All these are metrics make CX very tangible and a pure business driver. Many leading IT organizations are also following similar practice.


Neil: What do you think are the biggest bottlenecks companies in IT sector face when it comes to CX?


Anand: Right from the beginning, IT sector is obsessed with technology. For example, when I started my career we used to worry about whether the computer had 8086, 80186, 80286, 80386, or 80486 microprocessor. We never thought if customer needs the power of higher processor. Similarly today we talk about open source technology, .Net, Java, etc. This kind of over obsession with technology is the biggest bottleneck for CX.


IT is fundamentally an enabler, say like electricity. Electricity is not directly consumed by consumer, but instead it is used to heat water or to cool the room. This is true for IT as well.


Knowledge of the domain which IT is enabling is weak among IT professionals. I see this as this as the next biggest bottleneck. For example, in a healthcare scenario, IT professionals should have good understanding of how a hospital works, what are the challenges faced of the doctors, para-medical professionals, etc.


Without understanding of customer’s environment and appreciation of user’s situation, IT professionals can never improve CX.


IT professionals should feel the real experience of the customer! And this happens only by understanding the Customer Journey. Take for example Redbus story. During Diwali, one of the co-founders wanted to celebrate the festival in his home town. Since he didn’t know his travel schedule in advance, travelling by bus was the only choice. He ran around town hunting for a ticket, but they were all sold out minutes before he reached the travel agents. Bengaluru traffic is notorious during festive season and can grip you at the wrong time. That’s exactly what happened that day. That’s when he thought of the possibility of providing bus travelers the convenience of booking a bus ticket over the internet. And Redbus was born!


Neil: What does an IT company need to do to foster a culture of CX?


Anand: IT professionals are much more vocal and demanding. Hence having a well articulated and defined process or policy to link CX improvement to the reward and recognition of individuals & team who have contributed is very important. WIIFM(What’s In It For Me) has to clear & transparent. For example, some projects have “Project Bonus” which is directly linked to the success of the project rather than the bundling it with year-end bonus.


To sum up I would say that instant gratification is the key in today’s scenario. Delayed appreciation is denied appreciation!


Neil: Can you share one example of good CX in IT sector that is worth sharing?


Anand: We are serving Medanta Hospital in Delhi. In order to deliver superior CX to our clients, we focus on understanding the patient and care takers journey, not just the doctors’ journey. Our IT delivery team has spent time to understand the hospital well. We have worked very closely with the hospital management. We designed the whole IT system around this understanding. So if IT organizations focus on end user experience, the overall experience will automatically improve. In this case it benefited doctors, management and patients. We designed IT systems that frees up time for doctors, which resulted in doctors spending more time with the patients!


Neil: Do you think any ‘One’ big idea can transform CX in IT sector? And if so what is it?


Anand: At the end of the day, an ‘experience’ is delivered by an individual and consumed by an Individual. There is a lot of human aspect to it. So how do we personalize the experience? How do we transform the experience?


Experience personalization can be achieved only through VOC and Digital Body Language. Digital body language is digital imprint/usage behavior of customers. By non-intrusive and passive methods this data can be captured and with the help of analytics personalization in CX can be created. You will see this more often in future.


Neil: What is the future for CX in IT sector?


Anand: In today’s world, technology is getting commoditized. Business outcomes are deeply linked to IT. Business leaders are now involved purchasing decisions with respective to IT products and services rather than just the CIOs.


Business leaders are inclined to use a lens of business success measures to evaluate IT. As a result, CX is emerging as a strategic differentiator as it will lift revenue growth, repurchase and referrals. Thus CX is moving from ‘good to have’ to ‘mandatory to have’ for IT sector.


IT organizations that recognize this shift and adapt will have a big strategic advantage over their competitors.


To more about where to start CX in your organization, you can discuss with me at neil@collaborat.com.

		
	
				


I even don’t know if there is any such tool that is considered best!


I also need to quality the question first before answering it. What do you mean by “Tool”? Is it a software tool or a technique such as a ‘process mapping technique’. I’m going to answer this question by considering the latter perspective.


From my experience, I would consider Customer Journey Mapping to be the single most effective tool to design and improve your CX.


Consider the following points to appreciate why I believe so:




To sum up, I would say with confidence that Customer Journey Mapping is the best CX Tool that I think every organization should consider!

		
	
				
B2B companies are still in honeymoon when it comes to CX (Customer Experience). Whether or not you agree with me on this, it is certainly an equivocal ‘yes’ when it comes to B2B companies making CX a competition advantage.


B2B companies are lucky in a way that they deal with a reasonably finite set of customers unlike B2C companies. They don’t deal with the diversity of channel partners as in B2C, variety of customer profiles & temperaments, frequent changes to customer service policies, shorter shelf life products, high attrition of customer facing associates, etc.


But the odds against B2B companies are complex customer journeys, multiple stakeholders, outcome dependent on relationships, impacted by their customers’ processes, etc.


Today technology enables everything. But you will be surprised to know that the Single Biggest Bottleneck for B2B companies to deliver superior CX isn’t the availability of real time information, technology enablement, analytics capabilities, market intelligence, etc.


I’m associated with many companies in IT, ITES, OEMs, commercial financial services, infra, pharma, industrial products, etc. One thing that comes out clearly when we talk about improving CX is “Lack of Ownership”


Here are the top 5 issues that come in no specific order:




So it is something internal and well within the reach of any organization to accomplish.
If there is one thing that B2B companies need to do to improvement CX, then it is to find out ways to build what I call as ‘Individual Ownership and Joint Accountability” (IOJA).


Let’s examine the real reasons for this issue:



Too many priorities:


This is probably one of the most abused phrases. But the catch is in deselecting what is not important rather than selecting what is important. Of course, everything we do is certainly important, but is it urgent enough and that too right now. Our inability to deselect is an inhibitor for creating ownership.



Conflicting priorities:


Functions exists to help the clients. Unfortunately, they have become an object of power & strength. Stone walls built around functional boundaries prevent smooth flow of information and ownership. Conflicting functional strategies and disgraceful loyalty to their functions play spoilers.



Ownership for failures:


Let me be very open about this. A way to wade off failures is by keeping the ownership fairly broad and undefined; And all of us do it.



Missing sense of value:


When I have no idea how the data I’m entering in the bid management system will help the company gain deal, I rather fulfill what I have been instructed rather than go beyond the defined boundaries to win the bid. Think why this month’s shining entrepreneur was a dumb seat warmer last month when employed. It’s all about a sense of value from what we do.


Your process, your client’s process & their client’s process:


Working with clients means that B2B companies have to work through client’s processes too. This makes it doubly difficult to comply with your processes as well as client’s. On a separate note, processes both at our end and client’s end are created to help someone, may be ultimate user client or consumer. Two decades ago we were driving people to talk the language of process and live by it. But now we realize that the same process mindset is a culprit when it comes to delivering superior CX. People not only find excuses in the name of process but are genuinely bound to comply and thus knowingly create unhappy clients!


This list is bottomless, so I’m going to stop here and talk about what we can do to build “Individual Ownership and Joint Accountability”.



What is IOJA?


Here’s a simple example to define IOJA. Your 4 year old kid goes to a play school. One fine day she may injure herself. Who owns this failure? Is it you or the school? You handed over the kid to the school and so it’s the school’s problem and you don’t have to worry because this injury didn’t happen under your supervision! In fact, you will let the kid know that the school teacher is responsible for her injury and you could have done nothing to prevent it. Right:-)


As a parent we know that whether the kid is in our sight or not, we retain the Accountability for her well being, at all times. And the school should (ideally) know that they have to take the Ownership for the well being of the kid in their supervision. That’s what we mean by Individual Ownership and Joint Accountability.


Functional leaders in an organization should have joint accountability though individual ownership might reside with one function. It’s like a game of football or any other sport, where one player compensates for the pitfalls or misses of his/her team member rather than pointing fingers in the play ground. Of course they might huddle it out off the ground but in that moment they play by what is right for the team as a whole and how they can individually contribute and cope for the loss. Huddling is out off the ground is what we call as “Catch-Ball” technique. There are a variety of tools that can enable IOJA.



Building a culture of IOJA


Organizations can end up preaching this concept with no results. I’d rather work on systematic approach to build IOJA rather than work on just behaviors.


IOJA


In designing an approach for IOJA, we have to appreciate that strategic processes, business processes and transactional processes are different and needs different treatments. At transactional level it might be clarification & empowerment that matters. At business processes level it will be transparency and orientation towards common objective but at the level of strategic processes, it’s more of relationship between leaders, attitude towards the vision, WIIFM and cost of failure.


If you plan well, ownership issue can be systematically addressed to build a culture of superior CX in B2B setting.


To more about how ownership issues can be addressed in your organization, you can contact me at neil@collaborat.com

		
	
				
What things could be done in a website (apart from UI & other obvious stuff) to improve CX & more conversions?


If you want to work on Conversions, then don’t worry about fancy stuff.






Identify what are the core experience aspects of your visitors such as device sensitive, quick, easy, effort required to complete the desired task (say a purchase), completeness of information, etc and address them first.


Delights such as amazon acoustics are icing on the cake. But Core Experience is like the sponge. Amazon has got the sponge right and is focusing on icing now. Many in  e-commerce space are struggling with the sponge.







 Customer Experience

		
	
				
With large Customer base, Organizations don’t know what are the sentiments of customers. Hence gaging it through anonymous surveys will help to estimate loyalty. With smaller group of 100 or less, I assume your sales and service folks already know the reality. Using measures such as share of wallet, repurchase, intent to recommend will be a better way to estimate loyalty.

What’s important is to gain insights about how to increase loyalty. That’s much easy with smaller base. An interview or ethnographic study will help.

		
	
				
How do companies decide on pay package for their customer service executives?

Customer Service is typically measured using Service Levels. Organizations establish the desired service levels that they wish to operate at and then capacitize for that.


Compensation of Service Executives is dependent on several factors (external and internal) other than service levels.

Some of the important Service Metrics for monitoring service levels are:




Learn more about



 Customer Experience





		
	
				
Customer Experience: Are there any advantages for refunding a client for a problem he experienced before he is actually asking for it?


Refunds impacts #customerexperience. It depends on the product/service and the nature of the problem. More importantly the emotional state of the consumer.  Its a norm now is some industries to offer 30 day refund window.


Ideally, its best to address the problem and resolve it (Corrective Action First). If the problem cannot be resolved, well then, you have a bigger issue on hand than just refunding. Your organization’s reputation is on stake.


If its a one off case and if the customer is too pushy on some aspect, then proactively refund.


On the other hand, proactively refunding, when the customer shows no sign of regret for making the purchase, would send wrong signals that they are being made guinea pigs on some beta proto!


To sum up, designing the refunding policy for a large organization isn’t just putting up a document and communicating it to all the staff. Its much more than that.

		
	
				
What common problems do restaurateurs face with respect to services provided to a customer and customer satisfaction?


If one draws a continuum with Products like Commodities on one side and Coaching/Teaching on the other, Restaurant service probably fits at the center.


Unlike most services, the consumption happens right then and there and in the supplier’s premise. Shelf life is very less and customer requirement is diverse.


You will have the Buyer, Consumer, Decision Maker and Influencer all together sitting in the same desk.


I feel the waiter’s job is the most difficult one in this world.


Restaurant is all about Moment of Truth.


Coming to your question, it actually depends on the restaurant, its product and service quality.




Above 4 areas may be issuers that bother an owner when it comes to Customer Satisfaction!

		
	
				
What are best practices in terms of customer satisfaction analysis for IT services?


Most organizations in IT conduct Customer Satisfaction Surveys. So that is the first and simplest of all best practices in that sector wrt C-Sat.


Using NPS is also a common practice.


Some of the best organizations, perform exploratory and predictive analysis to do the following:




We have conducted many such studies across product and services organizations in IT sector.







Check out this for more information


Customer Analytics Pak



		
	
				


Getting to book your own flight tickets without going to a travel agent or picking food of your choice from a buffet rather than being served are self-services that all of us have done to ourselves in the past few years, if not decades.


Industries with large customer base and having multiple-frequent touch points have always been the forerunners of Self-Service adoption, be it retail, airlines, telecom, banking or hospitality.


If you are not from one of these industries, don’t dispose self-service as an irrelevant component. Dr. Robert Ersek, an Austin plastic surgeon, has taken self-service to a new level by performing liposuction on himself!


That my sound weird, but Self-service is now a growing global trend across industries that aim to help customers to get the optimal experience they’re looking for more quickly while reducing the cost of servicing to the service provider.


self service


In developed countries, more than 70% adoption to self-service channels in air travel web-check in or online utility bill payments.


Companies seriously pursue self-service adoption because it can reduce nearly 40% servicing costs. For example, telecom companies have seen that 12% reduction in call volumes when issues are resolved through web self-service.


Let’s accept Self-Service is a juggernaut that even large organizations are struggling to stir successfully. For example, HSBC had to pull off its One HSBC program that aimed to provide seamless experience to customers and encouraged self-service options. After 2 years, due to complexities such as global spread, local regulations, customer literacy levels, legacy tech systems, etc., the Bank had to step back. It is estimated that this program cost them over 20% of annual technology budget of nearly $6 Bn.


Again, Albertsons LLC grocery store chain, based in Boise, Idaho, had to pull back its self-checkout kiosks to ensure customer experience isn’t impacted.


On the other hand, Zipcar, a car rental startup (now a subsidiary of Avis) has seamlessly achieved near to 100% self-service. After booking the car through mobile app, customers get instant keyless entry to the car that is available in local neighborhood, parking structures, facility clubs, etc.


While today’s technology is amazing, be it interactive & intelligent CRM solutions,  web-analytics, interactive voice response advancements, mobile applications, self-service kiosks, etc., the ground level challenges in companies that have implemented these technologies continues to be adoption, adoption and adoption!  Front line staff driving penetration of self-service channels quite often associate low penetration to customer’s attitude.  Organizations are trying out innovative ways to increase self service adoption.


Solutions to drive adoption lie in understanding the complexity of the problem from both design and execution perspective. Here are 12 tips that can be customized to suit your environment to drive self-service adoption.


Improving Self-Service Design to Improve Adoption


1. Convenience: It is positioned as the single most important customer utility driver or self-service adoption. 24×7 support & 1 touch access isn’t exciting today’s customer. She looks at accuracy of information, her productivity, simplicity, guided, self-paced and of course easy access.




2. Design for Abuse: Self-service channels are used by customers of diverse demographics and hence the design should cover all scenarios of use, abuse and potential failure modes. Consider conducting a Fault-Tree Analysis or Design Failure Modes Effects Analysis during design phase.


3. An ‘Out’ Ability : Consider include an ability from the customer to get out of the self-service channel right in the middle of the transaction to an alternate channel such as contact center, with least effort, yet able to complete the transaction successful.


4. Nudging : Find out ways of nudging customers to adopt rather than forcing them.  For example, Bigbasket.com, online grocery chain is loud enough to let customers know quantum of time they save for other important things in life, or HDFC’s favorite withdrawal functionality in ATMs highlights 80% lesser time to withdraw cash! Self-service adoption isn’t a mere technical or awareness issue, it’s a behavioral issue and many business & social problems have been solved using Nudging. Learn more about Nudging.


5. Single Utility Express Channel: Instead of designing all-in-one comprehensive self-service channel, consider single utility self-service channel with very specific purpose. For example, consider a self-service utility for just your top call driver of your contact center. If you reduce call volume of that driver through self-service by 60 – 80%, you will have nearly 20-40% reduction in overall calls. Single utility is far quicker to attract customers.


6. Robust Search Functionality: The whole world is addicted to Google search. Ride on this wave. Design your entire alternate self service channel through just search utility. Focus on building robust search functionality in your alternate channels. Get to experiment and improve keywords, simplify information provided, fine tune language, include pictorial/visual guidance, comprehensively cover all scenarios, etc.


7. Proactive Push: Amazon proactively updates its customers on the status of the consignment through SMS during various stages of the logistics. The top call driver for any logistics company is ‘Status of Consignment’. So instead of developing exhaustive self-service channels where information is available on demand, identify important milestones in customer journey and proactively push information.


8. Customer Community: Consider the communities of Android developers, Udemy instructors, Lego Mindstorms customers, 3D printing enthusiasts, artists, etc. They are part of a community that serves their needs as customers. Products and Services that require customers to learn, adopt and apply specific knowledge during usage journey are best suited for customer community. In such cases, creating an apt environment to nurture the community is all that you have to do. Peer member network will self service itself.


9. Passing on benefits to customers: Design of self-service channels should involve a business mindset rather than a technical mindset. Consider a business case to pass on benefits to customers who move to self-service channels.


Improving Self-Service Execution to Improve Adoption


10. Customer Anxiety: Think about how you felt when you first used your Credit Card to make an online payment a decade ago. Were you anxious? In a recent survey, it came out clearly that customers initially experience an anxiety in using a new technology that is associated with insecurity and uncertainty of the outcomes. It also came out clearly that customers feel they are safe if an employee is around hand-holding them.  Organizations usually address this concern by educating the customers to use the new channel again and again. Instead consider how blended help can be provided during the early stages of adoption to new self-service channel. This would mean an increase in customer service costs as compared to a decrease. Be prepared for a short term increase in costs if want to gain on long term..


11. Polite Service Denials: When the customer reaches out to a retail outlet or contact center of a brand, explaining to the customer the presence of an alternate source of service, its benefits and letting the customer use the alternate channel right away to fulfill her need without providing service through conventional channel is nothing but polite service denials. It is a powerful way to drive quick adoption of new channel. On the contrary, organizations that provide the service through current channel and explain about the alternate channels and its benefits aren’t successful when it comes to adoption.


12. Up-times: Self-service channels with low adoption usually get poor management attention. Hence service levels such as up-time, regular upkeep of accuracy of information, etc., are also poor. This becomes a deterrent for customers who voluntarily use such self-service channels. After all, when you get customers to new channel you don’t want to let them have a bad experience!


None of these 12 tips will be permanent fixes, but they are avenues to experiment in small scale to see how your customer base reacts to these changes. But that’s how all fixes are!


References




Customer Experience a priority for you in 2016?  4 of 5 organizations across industries say their top priority is Customer Experience.

		
							
					
					


	




	

		
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