Uncategorized Archives - Page 2 of 3

British Gas and United: learnings from their customers with special needs

Understand where customers and companies meet

Understanding what happens when customers and companies meet

Companies who treat Special Needs customers with genuine empathy, supported by internal engagement and education, not only do the right thing but see benefits for all their other customer segments too. There are two contrasting stories here about how companies deal with the same type of customer in completely different ways; the differences being understanding and communication and clear answers to “Would you buy from us again?”.

There is no upper limit on how strongly I feel about how organisations should really understand their customers; and for personal reasons, even more so when those customer have special needs. Those people have conditions that may not necessarily be visible but are nonetheless extremely real for them and the people they are with. They see, and interact with, the world in different ways and a company that is genuinely customer-led will get it. Others will try to shoe-horn round pegs of customers into the square pegs of their processes and wonder why – or worse, not realise – they do more damage than good.

This is not just about it being the right thing to do. Companies can be so much more efficient and profitable with the right thinking and attitude. And for those companies saying it’s a customer segment too small or complex to worry about, neither the planning nor delivery is expensive but can be so rewarding in many other ways. Elite athletes and leadership gurus say that we need to exaggerate what we are trying to do and stretch our imagination if we want to get anywhere near our goals. If you want to fly above the clouds, shoot for the stars. The brilliant thing about people with special needs is that they can teach us so much about ourselves, put what we see as the norm into perspective and really challenge the way we do things. If we get it right for them, we get things right for most other people too. I wrote more about that in a blog on customer experiences for people with special needs last year.

I’m highlighting two very recent examples here to illustrate what an unintended (to give them the benefit of the doubt) lack of empathy looks like compared with one where they have it sorted.

United Airlines were once again in the headlines this week for less than good customer experiences. According to the headlines a pilot made an emergency landing and had police officers remove an autistic 15-year old girl and her family – because she had been displaying behavioural signs that most autistic people do. I’m not privvy to the facts and I have every admiration for pilots who get me home safely and are making life and death decisions day-in day-out. However, the airline knew about the girl’s condition, the family had let them know that before flying. Flying with an autism is a brave thing to do, for the family aswell as the child. That anxiety-filled experience would have started as soon as planning the trip began. People with such conditions rely on routine, on understanding what will happen step by step and can live moment-by-moment so if certainty and boundaries are absent, any emotion becomes amplified. Autism isn’t a rare condition and for me, the airline and crew should know that and be able to respond accordingly.

So being in a state of heightened anxiety, maybe just about getting through life emotionally and probably not having had a good night’s sleep for years, how must they have felt at being ‘responsible’ for diverting the aircraft and delaying others while trying to keep calm and the situation under control? How must they feel to have police officers escort them off the plane? How did the airline then help them cope with the unplanned visit to another destination when they are so dependent on routine, familiarity with the environment and certainty?

From a personal and a commercial customer experience perspective I would love to understand what happened and what the airline did. The airline itself says “The United brand vision is more than just words on paper. It is shaped by every aspect of our customer and co-worker experience“. Very true. The brand is what customers tell each other it is.

Other airlines know it’s an issue and deal with it well. Even Los Angeles International Airport now lets customers with special needs pick up a discrete sticker badge to wear, so that staff can be quicker to anticipate issues and help when it’s needed.

Continuing on that more positive note and with the other example, it was refreshing to see that a switch can be flicked to send a company into a different mode when they know they are dealing with someone with special needs. A British Gas engineer came to service my boiler at home. He was very polite and got on with the job quickly, leaving with a message to say all was well. I then left for a meeting and returned later that afternoon to discover that not only was there no hot water, there was no water coming out of the hot taps. That’s not a great scenario heading into tea-time and bath-time for the kids. I rang the helpline, who told me I could not have an engineer out until tomorrow at the earliest. Things were not looking great, feeling that I am now having to pay for their mistake. “Really? There’s nothing you can do? You’re leaving us with two kids and no hot water?”. “Sorry, I’ve checked again but no.” was the reply.

I’m lucky to live in a country where we take fresh and hot water for granted and there are bigger problems people face day-in day-out. But at that point in time I was concerned – my son has special needs that mean he needs a wash each day, something he can’t do by himself. And like the position the girl on the plane found herself in, without the routine and at the tired end of the day, things were now predictably going to be stressful and unpleasant. I mentioned it in passing to the lady on the helpline, thinking out loud and not to get any special favours but just because I wanted her to know the consequences of their actions. “Special needs?” she asked. That changed things immediately. She asked about the condition and then for what they call “vulnerable” customer, all the stops were pulled out. “It won’t be a problem, we’ll get it sorted tonight. Leave it with us”. Sure enough, an engineer rang back and was able to talk me through fixing the problem – the previous engineer had left a valve closed, which needed turning 90 degrees to open it. Simple. All sorted, over the phone.

I appreciate what British Gas did in the end and am grateful the evening remained calm. But I couldn’t help wondering why they keep that process tucked away for vulnerable customers when it’s what any type of customer needs if they are in a predicament, especially one created by the company in the first place. That will remain the prerogative of their commercial decision-making.

But in one of many sectors where differentiation is sought as much as it is a necessity, the companies that show their employees how to genuinely understand customers will be the ones who get more people coming back, spending more and telling others to do the same. By paying attention to those with special needs, the treatment of all customers will benefit. The companies that don’t will simply have all the wrong headlines and wonder why their customer base and profitability is shrinking.

If you’d like to know more about this subject or how I might be able to help with any other aspect of customer experience do please get in touch – I’m on +44 (0) 7917 718 072 or can be contacted by email at [email protected].

Thank you, I hope you found the post interesting and thought-provoking, and please feel free to add your own views below.

Jerry Angrave

Customer experience research; turning brands into favourite brands

This research post is about which companies have used customer experience to turn their brands into favourite brands, and how that happens. I am delighted to have co-authored it with Ian Golding, hugely renowned and respected customer experience specialist. The piece here is therefore also at his blog ijgolding.com where he has built a rich library of customer experience insights. To paraphrase what one of our top brands says, if you like this you’ll like what Ian has there too.

Ian introduces the research findings:

#1 CX Brands

As I quite literally travel the world talking, listening and working with individuals and organisations who have an interest in Customer Experience, I am regularly asked who the world’s ‘best’ Customer Experience brands are. ‘Who is good at CX?’ is a pretty typical question. It is a good question to ask and one that I can most certainly answer ‘in my opinion’. However, having been asked the question so many times, rather than me just citing my opinion, I thought I would go a significant step further and ask as many people as possible for their opinions.

In January 2015, I conducted an independent survey of people across the world to find out who their ‘#1′ Customer Experience brands are and most importantly WHAT makes them their #1. In this blog post, I am delighted to officially reveal the findings of the research. Some of the findings may surprise you……some of them will not. What you can be certain of is that the findings are likely to provide validation of the things that are the most common reasons for these brands ‘delighting’ their customers.

Customer Experience is not just for the big, bold brands

The first big surprise for me was that 94 different brands were mentioned as people’s #1 Customer Experience brand in just over 200 responses . It is fascinating and encouraging to see that great Customer Experiences are not exclusively the preserve of those with huge budgets. Many of the companies named by respondents are small, independent businesses who share a similar mindset with brands we’re more familiar with. What is not a surprise though is that the top four favourite brands accounted for 40% of the responses. We’ll find out later why it is that the same brands keeping topping this kind of poll, but first, let me acknowledge the top 10 #1 Customer Experience brands coming out of the research:

Top CX Brands

Other well-known brands such as Emirates, Premier Inn, Argos, Airbnb, USAA and Sky all received endorsement as a #1 Customer Experience brand. In the interest of balance, some of the names mentioned by respondents that you are less likely to have heard of are as follows:

Sixthman Music Festival Cruises
Jabong.com
Dutch Bros
Discount Tire
Hatem Shahim (a barber’s shop!)
Dyreparken i Kristiansand
Spear & Jackson
Wegmans
Firebox.com
e-bolt
Container store

Different countries and a variety of industries – the sheer number of organisations receiving a mention suggests that there are many doing something right – the question is – what exactly are they doing that warrants a customer such as you citing them as their #1 Customer Experience brand? Before we find out, let us just have a quick look at the commercial performance of the top 10 CX brands coming out of the research.

The right customer experience is commercially rewarding

The sheer mention of ‘Customer Experience’ and ‘Customer Centricity’, is still often greeted with a rolling of the eyes by those who are more focused on sales targets, operational efficiency and tasks. The irony though is that the former makes the latter much more successful. And it’s no coincidence that each of the top 10 brands has recent performance milestones to be proud of:

Amazon Q4 14, net sales increased by 15% over Q4 13
Apple 39.9% profit per product (3 months to end Dec 14)
First Direct Moneywise “Most Trusted” and Which? Best Banking Brand
John Lewis profit before tax up 12% in 2014 vs 2013
Disney Earnings per share up 27% in year to Dec 2014
Air New Zealand Earnings before taxation up 20% in H1 15 vs H1 14
Mercedes Revenue increased 12% from 2013 to 2014
Starbucks Revenue rise 13% in Q1 FY15
BMW 7% increase in vehicle sales in Jan 15 vs Jan 14
Boden Shipping 12,500 parcels each day

Pretty powerful stuff. Is it just a coincidence that the brands you are saying are the best at Customer Experience all seem to be faring pretty well on the commercial front? It appears as though all of the brands that are ‘great’ at Customer Experience share common characteristics – in fact the research identifies 13 common characteristics that are the reasons WHY these brands are #1 in your eyes. Lets us have a look at the ‘lucky’ 13!

These organisations have common characteristics

I wanted to know what it is that your favourite brands do to make them your #1 at delivering consistently good Customer Experiences. I asked for up to three reasons from each respondent and received 575 comments. Following verbatim analysis, 13 categories were identified, each distinct but interlinked. They were, as follows (with the percentage frequency they appeared):

Corporate attitude 15.9
They’re easy to do business with 14.9
They’re helpful when I have a problem 11.4
The attitude of their people 9.4
Personalisation 8.0
The product or service 8.0
They’re consistent 7.5
The way it makes me feel 6.3
The way they treat me 5.1
They’re reliable 4.4
They do what they promise 4.2
They’re quick 2.6
The technical knowledge of their people 2.3

We will look in more detail at what we mean by each of these in a moment but to view at any one in isolation would risk limiting what is being achieved by these organisations. This diagram shows how interdependent each area is in aligning with the corporate attitude and ultimately organisational goals and the very purpose for why the business exists:

characteristics of #1 cx brands

So what do the most favourite companies do, exactly?

Focusing on these attributes is what moves companies from fighting a rear-guard action to fix issues of their own making to creating a compelling a sustainable brand for the future. It also means that customers are increasingly exposed to better experiences as they go about their daily lives and that’s important because it keeps nudging the bar of expectations higher. This is why the brands that do these things are ones that people consider to be the very best at delivering consistently good Customer Experiences. Digging deeper into each of the 13 areas we can build a picture of how the companies who get it right control the way they do business.

1. Corporate attitude

It’s another way to describe organisational culture and it underpins everything that happens to or with a customer. More specifically, in the words of those who responded to the research, companies who have the right attitude:

put people before profits and non-human automation
know they’ll make more money in the long-run with this approach
test all experiences thoroughly (to eliminate unintended consequences)
listen and demonstrate they understand their customer
pay serious attention to detail
empower their staff to makes decisions and act straightaway
stay true to their values, admit when things go wrong and fix them
ensure their staff are fully trained and informed
recruit for attitude and alignment to brand values

They also said: “…they treat each customer as we would a guest in our home” and “…they balance customer obsession, operational excellence and financial rigor”. Almost every other category is a sub-category of this one; it shows how important the right culture is.

2. They’re easy to do business with

It’s obvious to say a company should be easy to do business with and yet that’s not always the case. What respondents meant by “easy” included:

there are no barriers in the way for doing what a customer needs to
it’s simple to get information, purchase and use the product
needs are anticipated and catered for
customers don’t need to repeat information
they can switch from one channel to another with no impact on progress
products can be returned or fixed with minimum effort on the part of the customer
they are available when and where customers want; they can be reached without waiting and won’t limit the hours of their support functions to office hours if customers are still using their products and services all day every day
they are proactive in taking responsibility, eg finding products at other stores and having them delivered
customers have no objection to self-service because it has been well thought through
information is presented in a timely, clear and relevant way

3. Helpful and understanding when I’ve got a question

Being easy to deal with is critical when a customer needs help or simply has a question. On the assumption that good companies do respond (a recent Eptica survey found more than 50% of online inquiries go unanswered), helpful companies are ones who:

listen to understand before acting
give a customer the feeling that they are trusted and respected
will provide an answer and additional, relevant help
provide certainty and manage expectations about what will happen next and at each stage
empower employees to make decisions
resolve issues first time and quickly
have employees who are happy to give their names and direct contact numbers
preempt problems and solve them before customers are aware
fix customers’ mistakes without blame or making them feel awkward
follow-up afterwards to check everything was sorted and is still as it should be
are not afraid to apologise when they get it wrong

4. Attitude of the people

Individual employees who are interacting with customers become a proxy for the brand. If they demonstrate the wrong behaviours the damage can be hugely expensive but getting them right does not cost a huge amount of money. Most often a function of the corporate attitude, the most appreciated characteristics are:

being courteous and friendly
a positive, “I’ll sort it” attitude
they are good at listening
it’s obvious they care about, and are proud of, the product/service
they are professional and not pushy
they are helpful and proactive
they are genuine and humble
they smile
hey are engaging and interested in the customer
they have personality, not a corporate script
they are patient
they show respect for their fellow colleagues

5. Personalisation

We are all individuals and like to be treated as such. Having “big data” was seen as the answer but as these companies demonstrate, it’s not only more important to have the right data and do the right things with it, but it’s also linked again to corporate attitude. Those who get the personalisation right:

understand, anticipate and are proactive
keep customers informed with relevant information
shows they listen and act, not just collect feedback
create a relaxed environment because a customer’s needs fits neatly into what they are offering
create a feeling of respect, that they care and have “taken the time to know me, to make things easier for me”
make it feel like dealing with a person where there’s a connection, not just a transaction
allow their customers to control the degree of personalisation in terms of frequency and content
remain flexible and adaptive to the circumstances, not scripted

6. The product or service itself

Making it easy, personal and rewarding will be wasted effort if the core product or service doesn’t live up to expectation. At the end of the day, your business has to have something of value to the customer to sell! When it comes to products and services, the #1 Customer Experience brands are those who:

the right mix of choice, relevance, quality and innovation
well designed, so it is easy to get it to do what it’s supposed to
quality is complemented by relevant innovation, not technical innovation for the sake of it
obsessive about the detail
paying as much attention to secondary products, such as food on airlines
good at turning necessary evils into compelling attributes – Air New Zealand’s legendary on-board safety briefings, for example
adept at keeping up with, ahead of and shaping basic expectations

7. Consistency

As customers we like certainty and predictability. It means that the decisions we make carry less risk because we can confidently trust the outcomes. It also demonstrates stability of, and a shared understanding of, strategy. For our respondents, consistency is about experiences that:

look and feel the same
can continue easily wherever, whenever and however
match or build on the positive expectations created last time
have continuity in not only what happens but how it happens; tone of voice, quality, different locations, store or franchise, people and processes, performance
provide the same reliable answers to the same questions
integrate with other services

8. The way it makes me feel

Emotions are a function of how good the other two cornerstones of Customer Experience – function and accessibility – are. How they were made to feel, whether intentional or not, is what people remember. Being the personal consequence of most if not all the issues covered here, it is what drives our behaviour about whether or not we will do the same next time and tell others to do the same. If people think they are part of something special, connected to a company that lives by like-minded values, they will FEEL special. And as human beings, we appreciate that. Survey espondents cited a number of great examples:

“get on an Air New Zealand flight anywhere in the world it already feels like you’re home”
“the packaging increases the anticipation when opening a new product” (Apple)
“interactions with employees don’t feel like processes out of an operating manual”
“there is (the perception of) a genuine relationship; it’s not just about them selling every time they are in touch”
“they make me feel as if I’m their only customer” (Land Rover)

9. The way they treat me

At the root of how we feel and therefore behave is often down to how we are treated. Good and great companies have experiences that:

demonstrate respect
show an empathy with customer needs
don’t do things like asking a customer to repeat information if handed from one colleague to another
keep customers posted on feedback they’ve given
recognise their customers both by staff individually in-store and organisationally
have a consistency of treatment even when not spending money in-store
create relevant retail environments so that customers feel they are treated as if they are somewhere special
develop meaningful loyalty programmes that acknowledge past purchases and reward future ones
are not patronising in tone

10. They’re reliable

Not surprisingly, reliability is cited as a key attribute. Although we simply expect things to work as they did last time or as it was promised, we probably won’t get too excited if that is the case. However, the consequences of it not happening will result in additional time, effort, inconvenience and sometimes cost to the customer; not what a brand would want to be blamed for. There are some markets where the mere hint of a lack of reliability in its truest sense has serious consequences for a brand. More generally, reliable customer experiences are ones that

give confidence and a level of trust that what we ask for when we buy is what we get; there are no nasty surprises
understand that they are key to repeat purchases and advocacy. No-one will put their own reputation on the line to recommended any brand product or service that is unreliable

11. They do what they promise

Again, this is a character trait we appreciate in friends, family and colleagues and it’s no different when dealing with a business. It can be seen as a subset of “the way they treat me” but it is also critical at a strategic level too; the brand is what people say it does and so that has to be consistent with what it’s promising, just as its employees need to keep their own promises to customers too. There’s a real financial benefit here too where unnecessary and costly rework can be avoided. How many enquiries coming into the business are because “You said you’d get someone to call back”, “You said you’d send me a copy of that statement” or “Where’s my fridge, I’ve had to take the whole day off work and there’s still no sign of it”. Customer experiences that do what they promise:

live up to the expectations they set
have employees that do what they say they will do
do it all consistently
fix it quick if they fail
are good at managing expectations

12. Quick

As customers, time (alongside money) is a commodity we trade with. A company who appreciates the finite and precious nature of it will create a distinct advantage. In today’s everything-everywhere-now life it’s not surprising that speed is an issue. Expectations are rising all the time where customers interacting with other brands see what can be done. Quick customer experiences are ones that:

move at the right speed for customers
show respect by having have good reaction times once a customer has initiated part one of a two-way activity
manage expectations, so if it’s not “quick” as defined by customers there are also, no disappointing surprises
are not just focused on speed of delivery but are quick to answer the phone, flexibility to find ways around rules and respond to questions

13. People knowledge

Having people who are technically competent with their product knowledge is another character of top brands. Companies that possess employees like this have an invaluable asset who are:

able to translate the concerns and questions
able to articulate complex issues in simple language
are not patronising
are proud that their knowledge can help someone else

So what?

There is no shortage of good and great experiences to learn from and they bring favourable commercial results to the companies that do have them. They don’t have to be high-tech out-of-this-world experiences; simply knowing what the basic expectations are should not be that hard and delivering them well time after time should just be the norm. This independent research also shows that it’s a combination of characteristics that matter, not one in isolation. That said, experiences, customers and balance sheets are always given an essential boost where having the‘right attitude’ is the common thread running right through the organisation.

Thank You!

A huge thank you to all those who participated in this research – without you giving up your valuable time and insight, I would not be able to share such valuable output.

An even bigger thank you to my friend and colleague, Jerry Angrave. Not only has Jerry co-authored this post, he also conducted the detailed analysis of the research results. A brilliant CX mind, he is also one of the most genuine Customer Experience practitioners I have ever met. You can read more of Jerry’s work at empathyce.com – I strongly encourage you to do so!

… and thank you to Ian too. I hope you found the post interesting but if you have any questions or other brands who you think should top the list, do get in touch. We’ll also shortly be looking at the opposite side of things and what customer experiences turn brands into our least favourite so watch this space!

Thank you,

Jerry Angrave | [email protected] | +44 (0)7917 718 072

Did City Link’s customer reviews predict failure?

Customer experience reviews are a rich source of information for companies wanting to improve. They also contain vital signals for companies needing to survive.

On Christmas Eve, the UK parcel courier City Link delivered itself into administration. A few days later on New Year’s Eve, the absence of anyone wishing to pay the right price to pick up the pieces dealt the final blow. The company collapsed and took with it the jobs of over 2,300 people. Timing – whether delivering parcels or news – would sadly not appear to be one of their strong points.

Being aware of the changing environment is key to survival

Could they have seen it coming? Maybe they did, but it sends a message to other companies that the early warning signs of trouble and what needs to change are not hidden away in an elusive, impenetrable vault. Customers themselves are a reliable barometer of the pressure a business is under. A quick look back at City Link’s customer reviews in the months and weeks leading up to the company’s failure should have set alarm bells ringing far beyond learning about niggles and gripes.

Take what was being said on Trustpilot for example. There, just under 1,300 customers have taken the time and trouble to share their thoughts. 69% of them gave a 1-star rating; 22% gave 5 stars. So while some things were being done right, there was clearly a dangerous groundswell of very unhappy customers.

Scores are one thing; more telling is the level of negative emotion that customers talked about. Over two-thirds of their customer reviews were not just people with a complaint; the depth of emotion about their experience was raw and they made sure other customers knew about it. Other review sites are available but if you want to read what customers said on Trustpilot about being on the receiving end of the wrong customer experiences, click here.

In short, the problem was not that customers felt underwhelmed by the lack of any “wow” experiences. Of greater concern was the lack of basic expectations – unmet promises, conflicting information and being treated with contempt by rude staff. Things that are arguably not hugely expensive to put right, but all of which created a lack of trust and customers warning other customers not to use them.

City Link was owned by a private equity firm who will have had a clear idea of what they wanted in return for their investment. It’s not my money that’s at stake so I’m not in a position to pass comment on the business decisions and focus. But, those reporting on the collapse cite operational efficiencies and intense competition as key reasons for the demise. And while neither issue is insignificant it will be rare to find a business that doesn’t share the same challenges. Worse still, customers have been shouting about the solutions from the pages of review sites.

I’m privileged to work with a variety of organisations across a variety of markets and countries. It’s also my job to learn from others who are pushing the bar higher or dragging the bar up to where it needs to be to survive. I see three factors that are common in many cases, and with City Link here too. One: detail. People talk about surprise and delight, exceeding expectations. Nice idea, but “WOW” stands for a complete Waste of Work and cost if the basics are not in place. Two: consistency. Those basics need to work time after time, whoever, wherever and however the experience is being delivered. Three: listen. Customers are saying what can, and needs to, improve.

So as we finish our reflections on last year and head into the new full of ambition, maybe first up on our 2015 to-do list is to make sure we’re listening properly and acting on the right things that will ensure there is a business for customers and employees to come back to.

Assessing the shape of customer experiences

To assess customer experiences is to embark on a complex but profitable journey. The desire to make improvements is compelling and yet the starting point and finish line are not always obvious. The Customer Experience Triangle concept has been designed to help shape the thinking that makes planning easier and direction clearer.

Is your Customer Experience Triangle a perfect 10-10-10?

Whatever the customer experience, it can be deconstructed into three key, interdependent components: functionality, accessibility and emotion. Three simple dimensions to quickly assess how good – or not – an experience is.

As customers, we do this subconsciously when we do business with a company; it’s important because the result affects whether we’ll do the same again.

As customer experience professionals, it’s a powerful way to understand how well we do the things that are most important to our customers and our business. It then becomes a structured and visual way of thinking about where the priorities, investment and resource should be focused next.

The three elements are inextricably linked. In other words,

Functional: was the customer able to do what they needed to do?
Accessibility: how easy was it?
Emotion: how did it make them feel?

Fellow CCXP and Custerian colleague Ian Golding writes excellent customer experience reviews using this as the basis – do make time to check him out at ijgolding.com. The premise is that the whole experience is a combination of the three elements. It might look something like this, where the sweet spot is in the middle.

Customer experience evaluate

If we take the concept a stage further it becomes a very useful tool to assess how well we do the things that really matter – and therefore show where the focus for what to do next lies. To assess each element in its own right and against the other two, we can use another simple visualistion of the same three dimensions.

Customer experience evaluate

By giving each element a score, the customer experience starts to take shape. We, our colleagues, customers and stakeholders will all have a view. Indeed, customers surveys are finding answers to these questions more useful than surveys that have metric-focused outputs. The scale, radiating out from the centre, can be whatever works for your business, but may for example be

Functional: 1 (not as expected) > 5 (as expected) > 10 (better than expected)
Accessibility: 1 (huge effort) > 5 (ok) > 10 (very easy)
Emotion: 1 (Angry) > 5 (satisfied) > 10 (elated)

The best result is when the shape is the largest, equilateral triangle possible: 10 out of 10 for each. That means that none of the critical dimensions can be improved upon. If it’s anything smaller or skewed, we have a clear visualisation of where there is room for improvement. Here are some examples, with what customers might say and what might be done:

Customer experience assessment

The Customer Experience Triangle ^TM concept can be overlaid with a metric to track the progress of improvement activity over time. In reporting schedules, it holds people to account for change. Rather than sharing one generic headline number around the organisation, a score of say 3-7-5 (for function – ease – emotion respectively), immediately points to areas that are in need of improvement.

However, the real value in this approach is in organising the thinking and in the visualisation of what to do next. Without using it to drive change, it will be just a vanity project. In the same way, a score is a nice-to-have but that’s not the ultimate goal – as I always say, get the experience right first and the score will take care of itself.

So as a new year looms over the horizon I hope this gives you some food for thought about how to get your customer experiences in shape for 2015. The perfect 10-10-10?

(The Customer Experience Triangle is subject to Trademark and Copyright, Jerry Angrave, UK, 2014)

Customer experience in the boardroom

Corporate change leads investors to rethink the potential for future income streams. But, by putting customer experience in the boardroom, can it improve that decision-making process?

This week has seen some significant corporate activity in the UK. BT is making a play for the mobile market by talking to O2 about a return to its fold; Harriet Green made a surprise departure from Thomas Cook that sent its shares tumbling; And the East Coast Mainline rail franchise is coming out of public hands and into a combined Stagecoach and Virgin operator.

To make sense of these moves, we generally look to the stockmarket to see whether it’s good news or not. Fund managers crawl through a jigsaw of balance sheets, management profiles and annual reports to predict how this latest change will affect a company’s future cash flows, profitability and dividends. Within seconds, the outcome of that opinion is reflected in the share prices of those directly – and indirectly – involved.

There is though, a missing piece in that jigsaw and a critical one at that. I would say this wouldn’t I, but it’s the opinion of the customer. Why? A couple of reasons jump out.

Firstly, it is the customer who is going to be handing over the money that creates the revenue that underpins the profit that delivers the dividend. They can answer some very telling questions: How will these changes affect what they do? What else has it prompted them to share with others that will influence a wider audience? Why do they have the perception (whether rational or not) they do?

The answers to many of those questions arguably must provide a better forecast of a company’s future value. At the very least, an indication of what is going on at that front-line of that company. Or, early warning signs that having the strongest of capital ratios doesn’t necessarily mean that customers will come, come back, spend more and tell everyone they know to do the same. Here’s some examples of reactions this week; they have been selected to illustrate the point about underlying issues but have all been in the public domain.

That last line about changing provider sums up the issue nicely. Investors might be seeking the short-term profit but customers play the long-game, the implication being that investors will eventually lose as customers do have a choice. Two interdependent but not always aligned views.

The EastCoast rail franchise focus has been on the winners, yet other operators who were unsuccessful also get caught up in the conversations.

Secondly, these key stakeholders can just as easily be shareholders either directly or by association. They are just as informed, just as quick to pass judgement and, at the end of the day, are the ones who will determine whether the stockmarket called it correctly.

Investors are in the business of forecasting the future. So should they be better at listening to customers as if they were in the boardroom? Should they seek greater reinforcement or challenge to their investment decisions from the very people who will deal in reality, not predictions?

The best and the worst of customer experiences

In Europe this week, the travel industry provided me with two quick stories that illustrate the best and worst of customer experiences.

The first was a perfect example of ease and empathy. Having been at an event in Brussels where rail operators were showcasing some great case studies on how they are using customer experience thinking to create better and more profitable organisations, I needed to return to the UK a few hours earlier than expected. Somewhat ironically for being at a rail conference I was flying so headed to the BA customer desk in Brussels airport. At that point in time my expectations were low; at best there would be extra cost and hassle, and that was assuming there was room on an earlier flight. Still, I needed to get back so took a deep breath and asked what could be done. Less than two minutes later, I was checked in on a flight that (luckily for me) left in 45 minutes. No cost, no judgement, no hassle. Just smiles and when I asked if there was a catch, there was a real sense of “No, you wouldn’t have asked if you didn’t have a need to change, it’s just what we do”. From a customer experience perspective, it was one that allowed me to do what I wanted, it couldn’t have been easier and it took away a whole heap of anxiety about not being where I needed to be.

Contrast that then, with an horrendous experience I was told about earlier that same day. It concerns a European rail operator whose trains operate across borders and therefore has an added layer of airport-type security as part of its boarding process. On this particular day there was a delay in processing people (an awful expression, but that’s for another blog, another day). With departure time rapidly approaching a call went out to try and fast-track passengers but that was not sufficient. The train left on-time, with some passengers left behind to get the next one. Even those who had managed to board the train had been in a state of stress and were now perplexed and angry that fellow passengers had been stranded. According to on-board staff at the time, it was not a one-off event. Just as concerning was the suggestion that, while any disruption is ideally avoidable not least because of the costs and logistics involved, the enthusiasm to leave at the scheduled hour whatever the circumstances was driven by keeping on-time departure metrics high.

The lesson is clear and yet is as old as the hills; if we measure things without the context it is meaningless. There is a board of directors somewhere looking at the on-time departure figures thinking “Aren’t we giving our customers a great experience!”.

And yet with a little empathy, open lines of communication between stakeholders and a smile, things can be so much better for the business because it’s better for the customer. Good and bad experiences will get shared; the good ones are not always about money but they will make more money in the long-run. The bad ones however will always be about cost and end up being very costly. For me, I’ll fly next time for sure.

Mapping the journey of Mapping the customer journey

(This was first posted as a guest blog for Custerian)

If an organisation has customers, by definition it also has a customer experience whether it realises that or not. May as well make it the right one, then.

To fix the problem, much faith is put in mapping customer journeys. Done properly they are powerful tools but there is also a significant risk that without applying “customer experience” as a way of thinking, the customers’ way of thinking, experiences can remain process-driven, unmeasured and somewhat unintentional.

For example, if you were lost in a city needing to be somewhere else quickly, you probably wouldn’t walk into a shop and rely on the first map you see to tell you exactly where you are, where you need to go and how to get there. Chances are, it either won’t tell you or it will give you what you later learn to be misleading information, making the whole situation worse.

Finding the right place to start the journey mapping

Finding the right place to start the customer journey mapping

In the same way, the mapping of a customer’s proverbial journey cannot be done in isolation. Sure, we can pick what we think is the most obvious issue to map and we’ll see some results. But that is like me going surfing with an ironing board. It would work, but only to a degree.

As someone who mapped customer journeys as a practitioner in the corporate world, and now as a consultant working with a variety of organisations, all too often I see the enthusiasm to map a customer journey trample the need to put the journey into context. The result is that we either get a linear process map or a nicely drawn graphical journey that everyone admires but, well, that’s it.

Hence the need to map the journey of mapping the journey. There are three key stages, which might be labelled design, doing and delivery. In each of those stages are a number of events and without proper thought for each, the middle stage that most organisations jump to – the “doing” – is potentially rendered a waste of time and resource.

So, how do we stop that happening? Let’s look briefly at each stage.

Design: before setting out to map a customer’s journey, be absolutely clear that it’s the most important one for you and your business. Gather the insight that will tell you what customers value most, what is most critical to the delivery of your customer strategy and how well you do it.

Then, make the scope as narrow as possible. If you have four customer types, six products, five channels, ten things that people might be contacting you about, you very quickly get into having hundreds, if not thousands of permutations for journeys. Pick one of each, the most important ones and do one at a time. Anything more than that will take additional time and get in the way of findings becoming genuine insights.

Doing: when it comes to the mapping itself, it’s time to get forensic. Talk to your customers and your employees about what it’s really like; the process map won’t tell you that your customers think your people are rude, yet your people don’t get why customers can’t follow the process. Think like a customer; what does it say if when you put a customer on hold, there is no on-hold music. First touch resolution metrics for complaints but no mechanism to put right the root causes. Little things, they all add up.

Effective journey mapping relies also on having the right employees involved. People are keen to tell their story to someone internally who will listen. Every organisation has people who know their way around the systems, what the causes of unreported customer niggles and gripes are and where money is being wasted through the efficient processing of things that don’t matter. Have them on the team and tap into them.

Today’s customers will readily share the story of what it was really like

Delivery: even with the best journey map in hand, it is meaningless if there is not an improvement framework into which it can be plugged. Having robust governance in place to take insight from the mapping and prioritise it alongside all the other issues competing for the same resource is essential. Cross-functional participation is also essential, and not just from the customer-facing areas. Finance, Legal, HR and IT all have their own role to play too. That needs strong influencing skills on the part of those leading and managing the customer agenda especially where there is no direct authority, but their interest and input will help themselves as well as you – and the wider business.If not, money will float out of the door on initiatives and projects that fall short. A brand campaign for a telecoms company promising “We give you back time” will have little in the way of ROI when customers have to wait an average of 20 minutes to get through to the call centre. A train operator relying on business travellers and commuters will lose customers to the car and video conferences because realistically these days they can’t work on a train without wi-fi.

In a highly task-oriented world then, where it’s all about outputs, tick-boxes and providing evidence for scorecards the thinking around journey mapping can easily take a back seat. But this is one journey where those driving the agenda need to be firmly in the front seat, at the controls, aware of everything around them and taking everyone with them.

Customer experiences highlight the danger of businesses taking relationships for granted

The sage advice “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you” needs no introduction but it clearly infers that one party is more needy than the other.

It’s a sentiment that’s always been true in a commercial context since the earliest days of trading. In today’s world though, while the business side is becoming increasingly reliant, the experience they present in search of short-term results can push their customers away rather than bringing them closer. What’s worse, is that it’s especially magnified – not to say ironic – when the hand that’s doing the feeding has made a commitment, with the inevitable result that the business gets dropped and the customer turns away to move indifferently on.

The very mention of a “relationship” conjures up different meanings to different people yet it is a ubiquitous byword for underpinning success. Our focus on customer experience, on what it’s really like to do business, is helping to explain why that potential misunderstanding can have serious consequences.

Let’s be honest, it is really only the organisation that wants or even talks about the proverbial relationship. The P&L and share price are much more dependent on their customer than the other way around. At its core, it means that the client simply plays along until a better offer appears or they have reason to suspect a lack of value, trust or respect.

What is intended by one party as a commitment to be in it for the long-haul can be seen by the other as an opportunity to take advantage of, worrying about tomorrow, tomorrow. Harsh? Well, customer experience feedback is showing that even where – or because – a client does commit, they are made to feel that the business is a bit too needy, being greedy, embracing the relationship with the grace of a pick-pocketing bear-hug.

Whether necessitated by the economic environment, organisational complacency or driven by the personal short-term agendas of those in charge, there are signs emerging where such conditions serve only to increase the likelihood of a customer choosing an alternative next time, defeating the point of a business creating the relationship in the first place.

To illustrate the point let’s take two examples.

Firstly, legal services. There are many law firms and other B2B companies who are exemplary at managing their client experiences and will do so for a long time. There are some however, who, having worked hard to win a new contract, will try to extract as much revenue from that arrangement as quickly as possible because it might not be there in three years when it’s due to be renewed.

Patently, that short-term approach of ignoring what clients really value – things like charging hourly rates for what should be fixed-price work, showing a lack of understanding and having nasty surprises or a lack of information on invoices – is a self-fulfilling prophecy and will actually make sure the client will not renew in three years. At best there won’t be a happy exchange of testimonials and worse, the client may pull the plug before the contract expires and explain why to all of their contacts.

Secondly, rail operators. One would think that securing a fixed-term franchise is great news, and it should be. A foot in the door for all those future contracts too. But reading passenger reviews of one particular rail company in the UK reveals evidence that one person’s short-term is another’s long-term. Investors rightly expect a return on their investment but those behind the franchise operators may have tipped the balance in extracting so much jam today that they now risk having no bread and butter tomorrow.

If their trains are filled with more people than there are seats, is it because their passenger experience is so good or because there’s a coach missing as a result of cheaper but longer maintenance schedules? Or, that they don’t care about charging full price to stand for an hour in a draughty, noisy place?

For some, the basic but unmet needs of reliability and cleanliness are still objectives and talking points for franchises rather than being the norm. And, despite broadband wi-fi being available everywhere from my local café to an Airbus A380, we were told yesterday that rail companies in the UK should be able to offer wi-fi by 2019. I know that’s more of a capital-intensive offering than getting staff to smile but still, 2019?

So, while some operators have fans rather than passengers, why is it that others are failing? The word on the seats about this one major operator is that service has not improved noticeably since the franchise began – there are still broken doors on carriages and paid-for extras don’t materialise. Even worried staff are saying everything’s on hold until (if) it is renewed, due in a year. It’s easy to see how even just an ‘ok’ service then in turn breeds a shared cynicism; it is also believed, rightly or wrongly, that a key metric in that renewal pitch is on-time arrivals – something that’s easy to achieve high scores on if you’re also in control of the timetable.

We know that with the right experiences, customers will choose to come back next time and it is that – the accumulation of many very short-term affirmations – which gives longevity to what businesses see as the elusive relationship.

So even where a contract, commitment or lack of choice exists, the company being fed would do well to act as if there is no long-term nature, no assumption about next time.

Their customers don’t make rash assumptions or see it that way; what they do see is that on the other end of the hand that is doing the feeding they also have a pair of legs, ready to run at the first sign of a bite to a more appreciative recipient…

Do aviation investors need better sight of the passenger experience?

This article, written by Jerry Angrave, first appeared in the BlueSky blog for Terrapinn ahead of the World Low Cost Airline Congress held in September 2013

There’s no doubt that airlines are having a tough time at the moment for reasons that are well documented. And, in common with many other industries, it’s also fair to say that some are handling the situation better than others.

Investors can therefore be forgiven for asking “Why is that? Why do some cope and adapt while others make hard work of it?” Searching questions, for which answers and reassurance are sought.

Understandably, at times of commercial pressure the message to employees, investors, partners and regulators has to be as positive and realistic as possible. That inevitably means keeping a spotlight shining firmly on costs and revenue streams and on unlocking strategic value in the organisation. When it comes to reporting past results and future plans, much of the communication then becomes metric-oriented to prove that it’s working.

Yet that potentially myopic focus is only telling part of the story that stakeholders want and need to hear. Increasingly, investors looking to judge the long-term value of an organisation are demanding more visibility of the link between what it was like to be a passenger today and how that affects where tomorrow’s revenue will come from.

Alongside the numbers, future profitability lies in the ability to make flying with a particular brand an experience that doesn’t give people any reason to look elsewhere next time. It doesn’t always have to be the proverbial “wow” experience; at the very minimum though, it does need to be one that plays to what passengers value and what they see as value for money.

In recent weeks there have been financial reports and strategy papers from airlines where I’ve seen little or nothing about the deliberate management of what it’s really like to be a passenger. If that’s intentional, so be it. But, when today’s passengers are having dinner tonight and sharing stories about what their journey was really like, giving the impression of not caring about what they say and how it makes them feel doesn’t seem right.

It’s an obvious thing to say but investors know that they will only get their money back with a yield on top if passengers keep spending, irrespective of what measures are reported. Selling landing slots, achieving 100% on-time performance or reducing mis-handled bags by 1% will count for nothing if the things that passengers value most at every touchpoint – a helpful employee attitude, clean aircraft or good information when there’s a schedule change, for example – do not enjoy the same level of attention.

Perceptive, qualitative insights help shape what needs to be done differently for passengers but metrics have their place here too. In a recent blog, one of the father-figures of the Net Promoter Score (NPS), Fred Reichheld, made the point that such a measure is a “useful gauge for investors”. The score is predicated on being a proxy for how likely someone is to recommend a brand to others and, implemented in the right way, it is indeed a useful tool. In my view NPS has its limitations, but not without reason are external stakeholders asking for visibility of such measures to increase the reliability of their assessment about the core health of a business.

Wider economic evidence about the relevance of a focus on customer experience came recently from Watermark Consulting in the US. They studied the performance of organisations in the S&P 500 over a five year period and found that those who led in terms of customer experience programmes enjoyed a 22.5% return. Compare that with a 1.3% drop for the index overall and for those who lagged behind on customer experience, their return was down by 46.3% over the same period.

I get that the commercial stakes are high and that it’s critical for investors to know that the right financial and strategic choices are being made. But I do believe they would feel even more reassured about debt financing abilities if the messages about revenues, costs and alliances were balanced with the articulation of robust customer strategies and effective customer experience programmes.

Some airlines will no doubt be doing this already; there’s an old piece of career advice along the lines of “Do a good job and let people know you’re doing a good job”. So maybe, it’s not just about showing that the financials are being managed effectively. At the very least, investors deserve to have a line of sight to the impact that an airline’s commercial and operational decisions will have on what their passengers think, say, do and spend in future.
Jerry Angrave
Managing Director, Empathyce
Customer Experience research and advisory services
[email protected]

Do we, and banks themselves, have the appetite to change current accounts?

The Post Office announced today that it is to launch a current account into the UK market, supplied by Bank of Ireland. It will therefore go some way to allaying the Office of Fair Trading’s fears that because 75% of the market is sewn up by just four banks – Lloyds, RBS, Barclays and HSBC – the restricted choice is not good for competition. post office atm But, what will customers make of it?

Current accounts are notoriously sticky, perpetuated by the perceptions of how difficult it is to change and lack of differentiation. Research by JD Power says that switching is more likely to be triggered by a change in a customer’s circumstances such as a new job, marriage or moving home, than by the attraction of special fees or by suffering bad service. So it’s no surprise that, according to MoneySupermarket, eight out of ten people have no plans to change in the next 12 months.

So is another current account the answer? Is the reason why there’s so little switching because it’s the “Same old same-old” rather than a different new?

To paraphrase Bill Gates, we don’t need banks or even bank accounts. Rather, we need an easy, efficient way of allowing us to exchange money for goods. Earlier this year, the Payments Council reported that over 90% of our transactions are for a value of under £25, making the adoption of contactless payment technology ever more attractive.

With a branch footprint that is larger than all other banks combined, the Post Office sees that as an opportunity to go back to more personalised, community banking. But time will tell whether it’s a reliable point of differentiation in today’s channel-agnostic world.

A quick look at a recent survey by Which? on how bank accounts are rated shows that three of the top four – First Direct, Smile and the One Account – do not have a high street presence. Tellingly, the fourth, the Co-Operative Bank, is not one of the ‘big four’ either.

At the other end of the scale, reaffirming that price is not the be-all and end-all, Santander scored the lowest despite having the highest interest rate on credit balances. So the challenge, for customers to decide if they should switch and for providers to offer the right value, is not insignificant.

But that may be changing. Choice is growing and with it the opportunity for new entrants to clear away the complexities of fee charging structures, to start with new technology that gets the basics right every time and to position themselves to take full advantage of the more stringent switching mandates coming into effect later this year. The energetic Metro Bank is opening new branches and getting good reviews from its customers and – literally – their dogs too. The purchase by the Co-Operative Bank from Lloyds Banking Group of a ready-to-go operation made up of customers, accounts, staff and branches is also drifting to a conclusion.

And two others to watch. In the background, the shy but highly effective Handelsbanken. With 150 locally-focused branches, a decentralised decision-making philosophy and a belief that banking is about customers and not products, the Swedish bank has quietly created greater, genuine loyalty among its customers, a stronger reputation in the markets and a higher average profitability than its competitors.

In the United States, Simple has created an invitation-only banking proposition that is making a few C-Suite Executives sit up and take notice. Being purely technology-based doesn’t create lasting differentiation but its attitude is hard to replicate by established banks. There are no fees, the revenue is generated by the spread between asset and liability pricing. Their call centres are very light on scripting, encouraging conversations rather than transactions – humanising the experience again. Their debit cards arrive presented as a gift, not tucked inside an A4 tri-fold covered in barcodes.

Meanwhile, back in the UK, current account providers are seeing the revenue generated from an active account reducing. The OFT calculates a fall from £152 per account in 2008 to £139 in 2012. So what’s the appeal for those wanting to play? The real opportunity lies in the ability to use the account as a foundation for deepening the relationship, otherwise known as “selling more products”.

That’s where the likes of the Post Office may be able to grab an advantage; to make the most of their face-to-face interactions, building trust and empathy that do lead to additional sales and revenue, just in a less adversarial way. One of the biggest gripes about banks is that every time we are in touch with them, it seems they are always in a rush trying to sell us something. It’s probably not without reason either. Highly complex algorithms have been trawling through vast data warehouses as they carry out their propensity modelling. In a thirst to meet balanced scorecard objectives, they generate more sales leads than the front-line can handle.

The writing on the wall for current accounts: how, will they evolve?

What that looks like to a customer is, hopefully, what the new entrants can avoid. It’s ok to get what’s labelled as a customer service call saying “I’m just ringing to check that everything’s ok?”. But when it’s followed by “Ah, sorry to hear the kids are playing up right now, but would a personal loan be useful so you can all go on holiday?” that’s not very helpful. What’s worse, is when I say “Actually, yes, I want to talk about that duplicated direct debit last month, which no-one has contacted me about” and I’m told I have to call someone else about that.

Evidence suggests that most providers are still heavily reliant on looking to transactional current accounts in order to create relationships. More of the same isn’t really a sharp enough stick with which to poke ambivalent and inert customers into switching. But for some, innovation based on having an absolute understanding of what it’s really like to be a customer and what they are looking for will see them evolve from same-old to different-new before their competitors.

And when banks change their current account, that is when we’ll change our current account too.