European Customer Experience World – the premier event for Customer Experience professionals in Europe – is being held at the new Hilton Hotel, Terminal 5, Heathrow, on the 22nd-23rd May. With over 40 speakers attending, and 29 hours of content crammed into two days, ECEW features presentations from some of the biggest brands: Ford, LV, innocent, Virgin Atlantic, Aviva, Sky, Marks & Spencers, Lloyds and Vodafone amongst many others. Keynote speeches will come from Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones aka the Black Farmer, and Dave Carroll, whose tale of the time United Airlines broke his guitar made him the first poster-boy of the YouTube technique of reporting on poor customer service. 

Now in its fourth year, ECEW offers a mixture of content that enables delegates to tailor their own programme, to focus on aspects of Customer Experience such as the financial benefits, the impact on employees, and how to engage with Social Media. Award-winning journalist and Sky News presenter Gillian Joseph will be interviewing the speakers and conducting Q & A sessions with the audience, to emphasise the interactive feel of the event. 

”We’ve found delegates return to the event year-on-year because ECEW offers a unique opportunity to get pointers from the experts in the field that have practical value once the event is over” said Maggie Wheeler, organiser of ECEW and Director of The Focus Group. “Looking at our testimonials from past events, the common theme is ‘it’s given me so much to think about’, and let’s face it, learning lessons from people who’ve been there and done it beats pure theory any day of the week.” 

“That’s why the event grows in numbers year-on-year; with Customer Experience impacting so many areas of a business, delegates want to bring everyone from the CEO downwards to the next event so they can ‘get’ what Customer Experience offers to any organisation. It’s not some trendy business philosophy, it makes hard financial sense, which in the current climate has to be a key consideration.” 

Tickets for the event are still available, priced at £1074 including VAT – however, by using discount code CSN on the booking form, you can get a 10% discount off the price – book here: https://tfgevents.worldsecuresystems.com/BookingRetrieve.aspx?ID=14197

European Customer Experience World – the premier event for Customer Experience professionals in Europe – is being held at the new Hilton Hotel, Terminal 5, Heathrow, on the 22nd-23rd May. With over 40 speakers attending, and 29 hours of content crammed into two days, ECEW features presentations from some of the biggest brands: Ford, LV, innocent, Virgin Atlantic, Aviva, Sky, Marks & Spencers, Lloyds and Vodafone amongst many others. Keynote speeches will come from Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones aka the Black Farmer, and Dave Carroll, whose tale of the time United Airlines broke his guitar made him the first poster-boy of the YouTube technique of reporting on poor customer service.

Now in its fourth year, ECEW offers a mixture of content that enables delegates to tailor their own programme, to focus on aspects of Customer Experience such as the financial benefits, the impact on employees, and how to engage with Social Media. Award-winning journalist and Sky News presenter Gillian Joseph will be interviewing the speakers and conducting Q & A sessions with the audience, to emphasise the interactive feel of the event. 

“We’ve found delegates return to the event year-on-year because ECEW offers a unique opportunity to get pointers from the experts in the field that have practical value once the event is over” said Maggie Wheeler, organiser of ECEW and Director of The Focus Group. “Looking at our testimonials from past events, the common theme is ‘it’s given me so much to think about’, and let’s face it, learning lessons from people who’ve been there and done it beats pure theory any day of the week.”

“That’s why the event grows in numbers year-on-year; with Customer Experience impacting so many areas of a business, delegates want to bring everyone from the CEO downwards to the next event so they can ‘get’ what Customer Experience offers to any organisation. It’s not some trendy business philosophy, it makes hard financial sense, which in the current climate has to be a key consideration.”

Tickets for the event are still available, priced at £1074 including VAT – however, by using discount code CSN on the booking form, you can get a 10% discount off the price – book here: https://tfgevents.worldsecuresystems.com/BookingRetrieve.aspx?ID=14197

Organisations listed in the ‘Worst Top 10’ can always call into question the validity of the research or point to their strong performance in other areas – but the reality is that lengthy queue times and expensive call charges continually top the list of issues that generate the highest levels of customer dissatisfaction.

 Of course there’s lots that organisations can do to improve their wait times: schedule their agents more effectively, train them better, improve the routing of calls to the right agents, or implement call back capabilities.

Source: Stuart Dorman, Head of Consulting, Sabio

Details were revealed yesterday as Britain’s biggest retailer confirmed sales in the UK continue to show an annual fall.

The company is scaling back on building large supermarkets in favour of peppering the nation’s streets with hundreds more Express convenience stores.

Tesco – slogan Every Little Helps – is planning new-look own-label ranges and hopes to build customer numbers by ‘carpet-bombing’ homes with money-off vouchers.

Chief executive Philip Clarke admitted that Tesco had failed to pay sufficient attention to its UK customers and to stores which are seen as having become shabby, cluttered and confusing. Instead the company concentrated on expanding in Europe, the U.S. and the Far East.

He said: ‘We fully recognise that we need to raise our game in the UK. As we improve the shopping trip for our customers, it will follow that our sales growth and financial performance will improve too.’ 

Profits in this country dropped 1 per cent to £2.5billion in the year to the end of February 2012. But improvements overseas meant overall group profits were 1.6 per cent higher at £3.9billion.

More than £5billion has been wiped off Tesco’s stock market value in the last six months. Some City analysts questioned whether the new strategy is bold enough to deliver real improvements.

But Tesco said it was happy that it will meet City profit expectations for the current year, allaying fears of another profits warning after it shocked markets in January.

Source: MailOnline

So he had called me in to help because he wanted to approach customer service the way he would if he had a concern about health and safety. This, I must add, was a manufacturing company. 

He said he would call in external expertise and get them to do an “audit” of the current situation and tell him what he needed to do to improve it. Then he would use the external report and recommendations as a basis for his next steps. 

One of his biggest concerns was budget. “The Finance Director thinks this customer service stuff is all fluffy,” he continued. “He can’t see a benefit from customer service, only the cost”. So we discussed some options around creating a business case. 

His FD is probably not alone. I am always amazed, but not surprised, when an organisation will throw hundreds of thousands at a new computer system yet baulk at the thought of spending a fraction on improving their service delivery (whether this be via people development, customer feedback or process changes, for example). The very notion that customer service is an income generator simply does not feel right to those with their hands on the purse strings. But of course they miss a key point … 

One of the key elements of service excellence is understanding what customers (the ones with the money, remember!) want and improving what you do to match or, where possible, exceed that. Successful companies who do this will keep customers and bring in new ones through word of mouth advocacy and reputation. So there is a direct benefit to the bottom line. 

But it doesn’t end there. Great customer service also means eliminating the things that customers don’t want, like or simply don’t care about. This in itself will create huge savings and allow an organisation to focus on what really matters. 

So there are two examples of customer service excellence increasing revenue. The hard part is turning that logic into pounds and pence that will get the money men onside. 

They need to remember that poor customer service is just as likely to get rid of customers as poor health and safety!

In fact he expanded on this on the YBS website when he said “”Looking forward, we will continue to develop and invest in the attributes of the Society that make it successful and differentiate us from our competitors. It is clear to me that when trust in banks is at an all-time low, the Yorkshire’s success is based on our operating principles as a trusted independent mutual, our financial strength and the commitment, attitude and skills of our people. I would like to thank my colleagues for the way in which they have continued to prioritise providing our members with excellent customer service across all brands throughout a period of considerable change.”

In this difficult economy they have prioritised delivering excellent customer service. If any organisation out there is wondering if service excellence is the right path for them, has there ever been a better business case for doing so than the one above? Customer service has long been viewed as quite an intangible subject, with many organisations failing to invest properly in it because they could not see the financial benefits for doing so. Well here it is in black and white, and right on the bottom line!

Customer service is more important than ever right now. Who can afford to lose customers, see a drop in income or profits or suffer from a poor reputation? No organisation wants this in any circumstances but at a time when consumer confidence is low and expectations high, the service is a clear differentiator. It’s often the only one. And if a customer knows they will get a guaranteed, great level of service they are not going to risk giving that up to save a few pounds. As Yorkshire Building Society have seen this week, high levels of service and security go a long way to securing long term customer loyalty, the key to increasing sales and profits in the market conditions we are in.

There is also the cost of getting new customers, which we all know is incredibly high in contrast to keeping existing customers and selling more to them. CSN once worked with an organisation, topically another from the financial services sector, who told us they “could not afford to be excellent” so were happy to work to a strategy of being “good”. Which is fine until you realise that they were winning a large percentage of new business purely on price (they often appeared in Best Buy tables) but were losing them just as quickly when a better offer came along. The “good” service just wasn’t enough to make the customer think twice.

So which should organisations choose? That approach, or the Yorkshire Building Society way of delivering consistent customer service excellence and increasing their profits significantly? Do I really need to ask?

The next CSN event is Service Excellence: Starting Your Journey. Click here for more details 

Hilary Whitaker, Service Excellence Manager, NCFE

In 2005, national awarding organisation NCFE had low customer and employee satisfaction scores and very high employee turnover. Their service excellence journey has transformed the business into a Top 100 company to Work For and winners of the UK Customer Experience Awards (medium sized organisations) in 2009 by focusing on the simple concept of ‘happy people = happy customers = £.’

Adam Stewart, Head of Insight and Development, Home Group

As one of the UK’s largest social housing providers, Home are on their journey to service excellence right now and Adam, as Head of Insight and Development has been instrumental in getting them on course. Adam will be reflecting on what made Home decide this was the right journey to embark on, and the practical issues faced and the way he has overcome them.

Jo Giles (formerly Customer Experience Executive at RM Education)

For the last eight of her 15 years with RM, Jo headed up what became an award winning Customer Experience Team. Within this time, she took RM Education through a journey of discovering how to collect feedback and use it effectively across the group including in offices in India, America and Australia. She will talk through some of the pragmatic approaches that I helped RM customers know that they were truly different to deal with.

Click here for full details on this event

Certainly social media is a new and exciting way of capturing and acting upon customer feedback. Twitter and Facebook have opened up a world where customers can do what they have always done – moan about bad service. The big difference is that now it reaches hundreds or thousands of people, rather than a handful of friends and family. The smart organisations have seen this as a positive too, because, whereas once they would never have known about it (remember that the majority of dissatisfied customers don’t tell anyone, they just leave), they can now view and even engage with these customers.

But, for some organisations, this is literally years away. For them, it is not about whether social media is better than traditional research, but whether they are gathering any feedback at all. And, if they are, is it effective and adding any value?’

And that’s just customer feedback. Delivering excellent customer service relies on a high level of customer intelligence, but it’s only useful if the other aspects are there too. For example, does an organisation have the right strategy? Do they have the right people? Are the processes and policies right? All of these need to be considered and put in the mix to be a service excellence provider.

It’s little wonder that organisations don’t know where to start. But for all the apparent complication, it really is quite simple. Organisations need to understand their customers and what they want. What steers their behaviour. What makes them stay, come back and tell others to do the same?

Then they need to put the strategy, processes, policies and above all, people, in place to deliver it. It’s not really complicated at all. That’s not to say it’s easy. It requires commitment and resource and a significant amount of patience (you don’t always see results – even in the first year!). And that’s a challenge in a world where we want everything now, including instant gratification for our efforts.

The reality is that it has to become cultural and that will only happen in the longer term, when the right strategy, people and processes meld together using the information about those customer “moments of truth”.

The truly excellent service organisations have understood this for a while. But for many more it’s only just beginning to sink in. So the starting place is surely to take a look at where you are now, identify the gaps and put a plan in place to fill them. It may take six months, or even six years, to get there but the journey will be worth it and the organisation that emerges will have a sustainable framework that means they can grow and develop their brand and reputation long into the future.

The next CSN Event “Service Excellence: Starting Your Journey” is on 15 March 2012 in London. For more details click here

How to make benchmarking effective for your organisation

Just how good could your organisation be? To find out, make sure you book your seat at our next event in London on 28 February. “Benchmarking Your Organisation” will give you the insight you need to understand how to compare with the best – both inside and outside your sector. 

Key speakers are David King from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme and Tim Hughes from Welsh Water. “It’s all very well having data but it has to have some context. This event will help you to make benchmarking effective,” says CSN’s Darren Young. 

Interested? For more information or to book your place, click here or call us on 01902 311641 

Who are your customers comparing you to? Read the latest CSN Blog to find out

Events for 2012                                                                                                                        

The next key date for your diary is 15 March 2012 – don’t miss “Service Excellence – Starting Your Journey”. For any organisation that wants to be excellent, or to move to the next level, the key is to know where you are now and what to do next. Take your next step at this insightful event by clicking here for more details. 

Or, if you just want a quick preview of CSN’s service excellence events for the coming year, go to http://www.customernet.com/customer-service-events/

Learn from the best on YouTube

Did you know that poor customer service is costing the UK economy £15 billion each year?  This scary statistic set the scene at our annual conference, sponsored by eGain, in November last year. If you missed it – or want a quick recap on The Business Case for Service Excellence – then watch our short video on YouTube 

Andrew McMillan, who headed up the Customer Service Programme at leading UK retailer John Lewis, tells you how they built their reputation for great service and looks at other big brands that are getting it right.

Highlights of our year

If you missed the CSN headlines from last year, here’s a quick reminder.

• Over 100 people attended our Annual Conference on “The Business Case for Service Excellence” [see highlights…]
• We launched our CSN Starter Pack for organisations who want to start their journey to service excellence [read more…]
• We won our a contract to provide Home Group with all of their customer surveys  [read more…]
• John Hughes, CSN’s MD judged at the Customer Experience Awards
• CSN presented and hosted a round table discussion at ECEW

Are we ready to let the games begin?

We have just passed the “six-months-away” marker for the London Olympics. There can be fewer greater experiences than that, and over half a million people are expected to visit the UK during the games.

But in a survey by People 1st, it emerged that almost three-quarters of business leaders believe the UK needs to improve customer service delivery and very few (14%) of those think that this will be one of our strong points as hosts for the games.

In fact, regardless of the Olympics, how many organisations are committed to improving their customer’s experience in 2012? [For the full article, read the CSN Blog] 

This was my own personal benchmarking system whirring into action. It could easily compute into a league table – by recalling my experiences and how they felt. And like most people, I will use the organisations at the top of the list more often when I need that service in future. 

But this kind of “apples with apples” comparison is not always possible in reality because, as customers, we don’t always get to compare service directly with a range of providers in the way we can with, for instance, hotels. 

Yes, there are exceptions, mostly in retail where we can compare the experiences when we use various stores in the high street or on-line. John Lewis or House of Fraser, Costa or Starbucks, Amazon or Play.com to name but a few. But in other parts of our lives it just isn’t practical. 

We can only compare the service from our local authority if we have moved house. And if we don’t like the service we now get, short of moving again, we are stuck with it anyway! It’s the same with water companies, our GP and dentist or our social landlord. 

We can compare our providers of gas, electricity, telephone and broadband for service but only when it’s too late and we have already moved around. I do recall being visited once by a customer representative of a very large utility company who (whilst trying to handle a serious complaint) said “yes our customer service is bad, but it’s better than our competitors”. Well that’s alright then! 

So we begin to compare every service we receive against the other service we encounter – regardless of what it’s for – because it’s our point or reference. And it’s easier than keep moving house!

 It’s not always fair but if I have emailed Amazon to find out where my book is and get a response in less than half an hour, I am left frustrated when an email to my council telling them they forgot to empty my bin is still unanswered after a couple of days. The council may have a five-day SLA and consider that perfectly reasonable, but for the customer, surrounded by great practice in other walks of life, it’s not. 

I ordered a toy for my daughter from a small on-line toy shop. The service was phenomenal because they had clearly identified what best practice looked like and made sure they matched it, or even tried to better it (a text message saying they would be delivering within the hour, for example). I was delighted with the experience, but it did make a lot of other organisations I use look pretty poor by comparison. And that’s the point. 

If organisations continue to compare themselves to their competitors, they are going to fall short of customer expectation in many cases. That’s because the customer simply isn’t making the same comparisons. 

And a further advantage of benchmarking outside of the sector and comparing to best practice is that it gives an organisation the opportunity to see what CAN be achieved. Aiming to be the best, not just the best of a bad lot, will differentiate service excellence organisations from those that merely talk about it.

For details of the next CSN event, “Benchmarking Your Organisation” click here