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How Zappos Affects Your Customer Experience

September 6, 2011 By 10 Comments

Who is your customer experience competition? Those of you only looking inside your own industry need to take a look around, as your competitors are not who you think they are – especially online. Organizations should be asking this question: Which companies have the best practices in customer focus across all industries?

I recently exchanged Facebook messages with Deb Robison, a smart marketing and social media gal. She wanted to share a customer service story with me and get my take on it.  Here is her story:

I got a new computer recently and needed to order some accessories. Around this same time, I needed some shoes and books. I placed orders with Zappos, Amazon, Apple, and a designer’s shop, Jonathan Adler. Of course, the three big guys sent me order acknowledgment and tracking info all through the process. I got an order notification from (ordered a laptop sleeve) Jonathan Adler, then nothing, so a few days after I placed the order, I sent an email asking if my order had shipped. Later the next day I got an email from a customer service rep explaining that they did receive my order and that “my colleague is trying to find your bag at one of their stores.” Once it ships, I would get a shipping notification. That was two days ago. And, I noticed they have already charged my credit card.

So my question is this – are my customer service expectations skewed because I have dealt with some big companies that have solid customer service and shipping systems in place? (Note: Zappos had the best and most prompt services of the three big companies, of course.) Jonathan Adler is a smaller brand, but a high-end one and kind of trendy right now, so is it fair for me to set the same expectations on them?

My expectations have clearly been shaped by the immediacy which other retailers respond & deliver. Is that fair? As customers, we never had this kind of relationship before. We used to get out the catalog, fill out the form, put a check in the envelope and wait.

Yes, Deb, customer expectations are absolutely set based on our experiences with companies such as Zappos and Amazon. In fact, every interaction we have with a company sets our expectation for the next interaction, whether with that business or with another completely different organization. Additionally, the online experiences that customers have with companies, whether on the company website or via social media, are creating a higher degree of visibility. In social media, this becomes even more important as the social customer’s friends and followers are also watching, and sometimes sharing the experience with their network (unfortunately, this is more often the case when the experience has been poor).

Customer Expectations of Service

It is important to understand the needs of your customers, as well as their wants and desires. It is also critical to understand what they expect when they contact your company. Typically, customer expectations of service tend to fall into three areas:

- Customers want fast service: They want their problems solved or questions answered quickly. “Help me get back to what I need to do.”

- Customers want friendly service: They want to feel that the company appreciates their business. “Help me know that you care about me.”

- Customers want it to be easy: They want to be able to accomplish the task in the most efficient way possible. “Help make this simple for me.”

The three areas listed above may change in priority based on who your customer is, what kind of relationship they have had with your organization, and, as mentioned by Deb, what types of interactions they have had with your company and with others. Do you know what your customers want from you?

Taking Action

What can you do tomorrow to improve the experience your customers are having with your company?

1. Ask your customers. Really – go ask them! Find out what they expect from you, what you are doing well, and what you need to improve. Your customers will probably be happy to tell you, and they will also be glad you asked.

2. Look in the mirror. When is the last time you or someone from your organization called into your customer service line? Ordered something from your website? Tried to get help via your social media channels? Find out what it feels like to be your customer; I encourage you to look for both areas of improvement as well as your own best practices to share with your organization.

3. Look at the competition – from your customer’s perspective. Understand who is competing with you for the best customer experience, keeping in mind that it may not be anyone within your industry.

A world-class customer experience doesn’t happen by accident. It takes a plan that can be executed across all aspects of your organization. Your customer experience strategy should facilitate consistent treatment of customers, cultivate customer trust, and enable meaningful interactions at all points of customer contact. Most importantly, it should meet and exceed customer expectations. Now you have a customer experience that will ignite passion, inspire brand loyalty, and cement relationships.

Filed Under: Customer experience, Customer service, Customer strategy, Featured Tagged With: , , ,

The Hidden Power of Your Customers is Launched!

August 2, 2011 By 8 Comments

I just wanted to share some very exciting news with all of you – my book, The Hidden Power of Your Customers, is now launched! It has been an exciting week with the various launch activities, including an interview on NBC TV in San Diego, a book interview video released by my friends at Lithium Technologies, and the beginning of my book tour/book signing at the US Grant Hotel in San Diego.

The book is now available in bookstores everywhere, at major online retailers, as well as in eBook format. I would be eternally grateful if you would please leave a review on Amazon.com or on another online retail site as well as say a word or two about it on your blog or favorite social network. I will be featured on various blogs in the coming weeks, either as in interview or as part of a review of my book. Be sure to come over to the book’s Facebook page to keep up with the Book Buzz and see the interviews. Of course, you can also go to my book’s website right here on the Customers Rock! blog.

Here is the video interview that Lithium Technologies was kind enough to put together. Thank you, Lithium. You rock!

The Hidden Power of Your Customers – Interview with Author Becky Carroll from Lithium on Vimeo

Filed Under: My book Tagged With: , , , ,

Killer Customer Service, or Customer-Killer Service?

June 26, 2011 By 5 Comments

A friend of mine has been a member of a particular airline’s frequent flier program (we will call this major US airline, AirlineX) for a number of years. He even has a credit card linked to that account to help accrue points. This friend had earned enough miles for a free trip to Europe but hadn’t been able to fly AirlineX for awhile since his company now required him to fly the cheapest option (which this airline never was). Knowing that his hard-earned points would expire soon, he called the airline to see what could be done to retain them. AirlineX told him that he had to fly a “qualifying flight” in order to retain his points. Unable to do that due to the aforementioned company policy (and with no other potential trips on the horizon), my friend lost his accrued points (and a future flight to Europe).

Now, this happens all the time; that is the part of the formula for points-based loyalty programs. Keep customers coming back so they will continue to earn points and hopefully continue to spend money with the business.

The real pain in this case is the monthly emails that my friend receives from the airline. Each month, AirlineX sends an email showing how many frequent flier points he has (or at this point, doesn’t have). This is most likely intended to help the airline stay top-of-mind with the customer and gently encourage them to book their next flight with the airline. However, in this case, the monthly email only serves as a reminder that this particular customer doesn’t have any more points with AirlineX – and that hurts.

Customers are watching the actions of your company. Every email they receive, commercial they view, social media site they “like”, and direct mail piece they read (or not) affects their view of your business and their overall customer service experience. It may be something that seems small to your organization which pushes the customer out the door.

What do your marketing communications say about your company? Are they helping your customers to buy more from you? Or are they painful reminders of a damaged relationship, resulting in customer-killer service?

(Photo credit: marco)

Filed Under: Customer experience, Customer service, Featured Tagged With: , ,

Expert’s Corner: Delivering Voice of the Customer

April 14, 2010 By 7 Comments

listen wallRecently on Customers Rock! Radio, I had the opportunity to have a conversation with Richard Owen, CEO of Satmetrix. We had a great discussion around listening to customers, gathering social media feedback and turning it into action inside of a company, and of course we talked about the NetPromoter score and how to use it strategically.  You can listen to the 12-minute segments here (Segment 1), here (Segment 2), and here (Segment 3).

Richard’s colleague, and CMO of Satmetrix is Deborah Eastman, and she is our guest blogger today. Deborah shares with us about considerations when listening to customers, whether online or offline, and how technology plays a part.

Delivering Voice of the Customer to Enable Customer Delight and Financial Gains

I hope we can all agree that delivering a positive customer experience is the key to building customer loyalty and achieving financial success. Countless reports and case studies have proven this linkage. A recent report that caught my attention is Watermark Consulting’s 2007-2009 performance analysis, which examines Forrester’s 2007 Customer Experience Index and shows how customer experience leaders outperform laggards in the stock market.

Now, it’s likely that the CEOs of customer experience laggards will tell you that their companies strive to deliver an outstanding customer experience. However, understanding the principles of customer experience and actually delivering them do not necessarily go hand in hand. In 2008 Bain & Company found that while 80 percent of companies believe they deliver a superior experience to their customers, only 8 percent of those companies’ customers report having such an experience. Similarly, a CMO Council study found that fifty-six percent of technology vendors perceive themselves as being extremely customer-centric, compared with only 12% of their customers.

There is a clear disconnect between the experience companies think they deliver and what customers experience, perceive and – more importantly – desire. It’s not about what you think… it’s about what your customers think.

In order to determine whether you are disappointing, meeting or exceeding your customers’ expectations, you need to continuously listen. And it’s not as easy as it sounds. It goes far beyond monitoring the chatter on Twitter and other social media platforms or performing your annual customer satisfaction survey. It requires soliciting customer feedback on a regular, ongoing basis at multiple touch points, and closing the loop to address issues and understand root cause.

You should know what your customers are experiencing every time they interact with your company. Take, for instance, a bank. You must consider your customers’ experience when they open an account, deposit or withdraw funds, overdraw their account, receive quarterly statements, use your online banking tools, request technical support, purchase savings bonds, apply for a mortgage, refinance a mortgage, and so on and so on….You get the picture.

My point is that your customers’ experience at each touch point will form their overall impression of your organization, resulting in a financial impact in terms of retention, repurchase and recommendations. In order to improve, you need to continuously listen and deliver real-time data to empower employees to take action. To gain sustainable competitive advantage, you need view data in a way that reveals trends and helps you to identify structural areas in need of improvement (i.e. policy, process, pricing, products, etc.).

So, as you can see, managing your customer experience means monitoring multiple customer interactions, aggregating and analyzing a plethora of data, and distributing role-based information across the enterprise in a timely manner.

It’s harder than it sounds. No matter how well you understand these concepts, you can’t make them work to your advantage without the help of technology.

And yet, a December 2008 study we sponsored with the CMO Council reveals that most organizations have not adopted the technology necessary to support their customer experience programs, and therefore have major deficiencies in the way they respond to customer feedback. In fact, only 23 percent of the senior marketers surveyed said they were using enterprise technology to engage, listen and respond to customers in real-time.

First-rate technology can and should:

  • Bust organizational silos and provide an enterprise view of the customer experience.
  • Capture information from multiple touch points and distribute it in real-time to initiate required action.
  • Provide sophisticated, interactive analytics and role-based reporting that allow you to quickly identify and act on performance gaps.
  • Allow you to segment data to identify trends and performance gaps across business units, customer segments and product lines.
  • Incorporate your CRM and financial data to provide a big picture view of the direct correlation between customer experience and business performance.
  • Be user-friendly. Employees will be more likely to embrace the system if it is intuitive and integrates seamlessly into their everyday tasks.

Developing and maintaining a customer experience platform demands time and resources, but there is little doubt that it will pay off. One example of this pay-off is Experian, a company we have worked with for several years. They successfully leveraged voice-of-the-customer technology and processes to identify key loyalty drivers and improve the customer experience resulting in increased wallet share in a highly competitive market. Experian’s customer experience efforts were so successful that they were awarded a Forrester Voice of the Customer Award in June of 2009. If you’re interested in other case studies of companies achieving business results by focusing on customer experience, visit satmetrix.com or netpromoter.com.

(Image credit: TommL)

Filed Under: Customer experience, Customer strategy, social media, Voice of the customer Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Focus on Customer Service in 2010 (Finally?)

January 19, 2010 By 7 Comments

focusThis may be it. This may be the year that it finally happens. 2010 may just be the year that companies start to focus on their customers and serving them well.

Now, I am cautiously optimistic about this focus on customer service, but let me tell you why I feel this way.

- Brands are using a focus on customers as a competitive differentiator in their advertisements. Frank Eliason mentions the new commercial for the Chase Sapphire credit card service. It features the ability to talk “directly to a live person when I call” rather than being routed around an automated call queue. The new Domino’s Pizza commercials talk about how they have been listening to their customers and have improved their pizza as a direct result. Phil, who Tweets for them from Domino’s HQ, talks about how they have been serious about customer feedback and been researching this for 2 years. Kudos to these two companies and the many others who are making it public that they care about their customers and what they think of their brands.

- I am hearing more and more that “Customer Service is the New Marketing” from smart folks in the social media space (including in the above post from Frank Eliason). This isn’t a new concept; in fact, I spoke at a conference of the same name 2 years ago this February (where I first met Tony Hsieh from Zappos). Every customer touch is another brand impression of the company. Each contact with customer service, whether by phone, email, Twitter, or self-service is a brand impression. Each customer service representative says more about the brand by how they treat a customer during an interaction than any marketing campaign.

- Customers are having ongoing conversations with brands and with each other about products and services. Companies are realizing how influential these conversations are now that they are starting to listen to them via social media monitoring. And it is a good thing they are doing so. As I tweeted out earlier this week,

“Customer service is more critical than ever. The combo of social media and mobile devices = the perfect storm for an angry customer.”


Think about this scenario. A customer is standing in line at a retail store. The line is very long, and the checker seems to be taking forever. The customer feels like complaining to the closest person who will listen, and it is at his fingertips: Twitter/Facebook/posterous via his mobile phone. It is imperative that brands and companies constantly listen, and more of them than ever seem to be doing so. Those who are not will fall behind in 2010.

In my opinion, all the signs are pointing in the right direction for a focus on great customer service, and with it a rockin’ customer experience in 2010. Those companies that “get it” will rebound from this recession faster than those that don’t. Those companies that “get it” will have loyal customers who shout about how great that company is to anyone who will listen. Those who don’t may just hear a lot of shouting as their customers complain very publicly and then walk away.

What do you think? Is 2010 the year for a focus on the customer?

(Image credit: michaeldb)

Filed Under: Customer experience, Customer service, Marketing Blogs Tagged With: , , , , ,

Expert’s Corner: Lori Wizdo on Improving Customer Service From the Ground Up

August 17, 2009 By 4 Comments

customer-serviceWelcome to another edition of Expert’s Corner here at Customers Rock! This time our guest blogger has a technology focus. We are happy to have Lori Wizdo, VP Marketing from Knoa Software, as our author today. Lori will share with us ways for organizations to get a handle on a major customer experience roadblock.

Enjoy the post, and let us know what you think!

Improving Customer Service From the Ground Up

In need of a new laptop, you spend hours walking around your local Best Buy comparing prices and features of endless devices each claiming to be the thinnest, sharpest and fastest on the market.  You select a winner, bring it home and it immediately begins to malfunction.  Figures.  After a dozen fruitless attempts to unfreeze the screen or retrieve your very important lost document, you finally give in and call the manufacturer’s support center.  The agent on the end of the line proceeds to put you on hold for 5 minutes, and then connects you to sales rather than support.  The following transfer takes another 5 minutes.  You explain the situation (again) to the appropriate agent, slightly annoyed but overall maintaining your cool.  The agent, furiously typing, apologizes for her system being slow today.  “I don’t know why it isn’t letting me do this today? It let me yesterday…” she mutters.  After 30 minutes on the phone, your computer is running smoothly but you hang up frustrated with the service, bitter towards the company, and just plain angry at your new computer. 

Invisible Problem

I am sure that you have felt this frustration before, if not during support calls, then paying your mobile phone bill, or waiting in a long line at a Macy’s counter.  Customers are constantly frustrated with the services they receive.  Many businesses don’t realize however, that a negative customer experience is often a direct result of the sales rep or agent’s inability to correctly execute customer service technology.  Due to the complexity of systems such as CRM, agents are frequently misusing applications or experiencing system errors which result in slow response times and inaccurate support for the customer.  

If a customer service agent does not make the experience seamless, it causes irritation and possible loss of business.  Despite the recognized importance in delivering an exceptional customer experience in this economy, companies have relatively little insight into how customer service agents are using, or misusing the technology they are given to interact with the customer. Managers have relatively little visibility into agent behavior and performance during each and every customer interaction.  This presents a major business dilemma: how can you fix a problem that you can’t see?

Taking a Closer Look

There is a new breed of optimization technology, Experience and Performance Management (EPM), which is helping to remedy these problems. This set of solutions provides a window into agent interactions with corporate customer service technology.  The software monitors the agent’s execution of processes and provides comprehensive metrics in two dimensions.  First, EPM monitors the agent experience to highlight problems with the technology itself. Then it analyzes agent behaviors and workflows to pinpoint issues with the agent’s performance. These metrics are used to identify and eliminate impediments that the technology is presenting to the agent and gives managers insight into problems with agent performance that are impacting customer experience.  With these metrics business managers are able to answer the following questions and create logical, direct solutions:

  •          Are the transactions/response times slow?
  •          Is the agent being presented with incomprehensible system errors?
  •          Are agents using the correct transactions for the process?
  •          Are they following the correct processes or creating workarounds? 
  •          Are they using the applications effectively or making errors?
  •          Are they utilizing all the tools available, such as the knowledge base?  

With these issues identified, managers can ensure that an appropriate solution, such as one-on-one training or a technology upgrade, is implemented.

Experience and Performance Management technology fills the need for a comprehensive, systematic approach for measuring agent experience and behavior with customer service technology.  These solutions can help identify the root of application problems, and improve the agent’s productivity.  Overall, the more efficiently agents are interacting with customer service technology, the better the customer service.  With a positive and productive relationship between the agent and technology, customers can receive fast, accurate service, ensuring long-term customer satisfaction. 

 

About Lori Wizdo

Lori Wizdo is a software industry veteran who, over the past 25 years, has helped launch several new technologies in emerging markets.  She has held senior positions with global companies such as BMC, Xerox, NCR and Unisys, as well as a number of smaller software innovators.  Lori was an early pioneer, championing the role of the individual in enterprise business applications. That belief inspired the launch of communities of practice and employee networking solutions at Unisys.  In her present role, she continues to evangelize the cause of the end-users as a key stakeholder of enterprise applications.  

About Knoa Software

Knoa Software was recently selected as a Gartner “Cool Vendor,” for its capabilities in end-user experience and performance management and was listed as a Leader in the “Forrester Wave: Passive Agent End-user Experience Monitoring.”

Filed Under: Customer experience, Customer service, Expert's Corner, Guest bloggers Tagged With: , , ,

Where does social media fit in?

May 1, 2009 By 8 Comments

social-media-bandwagonThis blog’s main focus is on customers and how businesses can grow organically by building their success on their customer base.  I have written posts on customer experience, customer service, and customer-focused marketing (no, not all marketing is customer-focused!). Since I have been teaching my class at UC San Diego, “Marketing via New Media”, I have been spending a lot more time speaking about where social media fits in to all of this.

Social media is the big buzz right now. Everyone wants to get their business on Twitter or Facebook without really thinking about why. Usually, it is because their manager or client read an article in the Wall Street Journal about who is using Twitter/Facebook/fill-in-the-blank and how cool it is. And indeed, there are a lot of great reasons to use social media to market a business. I believe one of the most powerful reasons to market with social media is to build and strengthen customer relationships.

Part of the Customer Experience

How customers perceive your company online is part of their experience with your organization. Whether your customers are consumers or businesses, many of them are spending time on social media regularly in order to keep up with friends, make connections, or learn new information. According to a recent study by Cone Research in September 2008, Americans using social media also want to engage with their favorite organizations and brands in that space (emphasis is mine):

  • 93% believe a company should have a social media presence
  • 85% believe a company should interact via social media
  • 56% feel they have a stronger connection with and are better served by companies where they can interact via social media

The study goes on to state this:

“…Americans are eager to deepen their brand relationships through social media.”

Customers definitely view their experience with a brand/organization via social media as an integral part of their relationship with that brand.

Connecting with Your Advocates

While many organizations are currently using social media as a way to increase awareness and do online PR, the sweet spot is in connecting with your customers and empowering them to interact with you. Per the book Groundswell (which I use as my class textbook), companies can use social media to listen to customers, talk with (not AT) customers, energize customers (especially evangelists), support customers, and embrace customers (co-create with them). These uses can all be applied to improving customer relationships.

Anyone who has heard me speak about using social media for marketing knows that I first encourage organizations to listen to what is being said about them online. Unless you first listen to the discussion, you will look a little silly jumping in to the conversation with your own agenda. It’s similar to going to a party and interjecting yourself into groups which are already talking amongst themselves. Your words will be out of context, and you may be seen as rude! However, if you listen first, you will be able to add value to the discussion by being relevant, and you will probably be a lot more interesting.

Once some listening has taken place, the stage is set for planned interaction. You can do this by having your own “party”, and inviting your customers to come and join you OR you can find out where your customers are already “partying” and go meet them there. In other words, you can invite your customers to come to your site or social media property and interact with you, or you can go and engage with them wherever they are already interacting around your brand. Either way can work, depending on your business and your customer relationships.

Companies that have well-established relationships with their customers will discover that social media is a great tool which complements their existing interactions. Companies that have only been using one-way communication with customers will have a little work to do to get them to engage, not just once in a social media campaign, but on an ongoing basis. They should find their customers are eager and ready as long as the conversation is relevant to their needs!

Social Media and Customer Loyalty

Over the past 6 months, I have had the opportunity to talk face-to-face with a number of well-respected people in business about social media marketing. I asked them each the same question:

“How do you think social media can help with customer loyalty?”

I captured their responses with my Flip video camera, and I will be featuring different videos over the next few weeks here on Customers Rock! Please let me know what you think about social media and customer loyalty, as well as about the videos in the comments below, on my Facebook page, or via my Twitter page.

Here is one of the videos, which I have previously posted on Customers Rock!, to get you started.

Frank Eliason, Comcast (@comcastcares on Twitter)

(Opening image credit: Matt Hamm on flickr)

Filed Under: Customer experience, Marketing Blogs, social media Tagged With: , , , ,

Inspiring Relationships – and Loyalty

November 18, 2008 By 5 Comments

Today was my second day here at the NACCM Customers 1st Conference, and it was filled with pre-conference summits and the official kick-off to the event by Kevin Carroll, author of Rules of the Red Rubber Ball.  Here is an overview and some nuggets from Disney Institute, nGenera, JetBlue, and of course, Kevin. (Note – if you follow me on Twitter, you already have a taste of what went on at the summit!)

Disney Loyalty

The day started with Bruce Kimbrell from The Disney Institute who keynoted with a great speech on Disney and their keys to customer loyalty. Bruce asked a great question: Who are you loyal to and why? Some of the answers included the following:

  • Nordstrom – they treat you like you matter
  • Keen shoes – high quality product, and solid customer service if there is a problem
  • Sports team – get a sense of community
  • State Farm Insurance – they are there before the police!
  • Kroger Foods – great customer service experience

Each responder had their own reason for being loyal. Bruce shared that at Disney, they believe the greater the connection, the greater the loyalty!  Relationships are built when two things happen:

  1. Customers want to associate with your brand beyond the transaction
  2. Your customers and employees interact positively with each other

Disney gets 80,000 people at their parks in one day. How do you positively interact with all of them? On average, each guest (Disney speak for customer) has 60 interactions with Disney cast members (employees) per day. This is 60 opportunities to make or break the experience; they are the face of Disney! If 59 are great, but number 60 is a jerk, what do I go home and talk about?  Disney uses experience mapping to identify all points of contact with customers, look at the experience through the customers’ eyes, and then align Disney strengths to “moments of magic”.  Key takeaway: plan it out! Identify and prioritize key opportunties in the customer experience, match specific tools to each opportunity, select partners to involve, then go make it happen!  Thank you, Bruce, for all of your Disney insight.

Swarming the Magic Kingdom

I spent most of my day in this highly interactive activity, led by Frank Capek of nGenera (Don Tapscott’s company). He laid the foundation for the day by discussing the next generation customer experience. In other words, with the potential for collaboration found in social media (such as blogs, wikis, social networks, YouTube, etc), how can we enable customers to actively co-create their own experiences?  This isn’t experience by intent (improving service levels) or experience by design (creating based on customer needs and priorities) but experience on demand (engage and co-create).

After talking about this for awhile, Frank set us loose in Disneyland to take a closer look at what customer experiences are taking place there – down to the smallest detail.  We rode rides, analyzed Main Street USA, and listened to Christmas music being aired in the park. We observed what it felt like to be a first-timer, what it felt like to stand in line, and how easy/difficult it was to get around the park. At the end of the day, we came back together and used our collective thinking to brainstorm ideas around not just improved customer experiences, but specifically how customer experiences could be different for those who are “digitally connected” (especially young people who live on social networks). Ideas included the following:

  • “Log in” at the park to learn about wait times in lines, get a personalized experience
  • Have Disney “follow you” around the park (opt-in, of course) via your mobile phone or simply your park ticket (inserted at various attractions) to log your activities and create a “storybook” of your day that could be emailed/link sent to you. You could even opt to have your log update your Facebook or MySpace status throughout the day, sharing your experience with your friends.
  • Using texting/Twitter to share issues with Disney in real-time

It was a great session to get out in the sunshine, look at things from a different perspective, then take and apply it back to our own companies: Walk in your customers’ shoes. Innovate the customer experience. Don’t forget social media!

JetBlue and “Jetitude”

Rob Maruster, Senior VP of Customer Service at JetBlue held a great session to share how they are bringing humanity back to air travel through servant leadership. Here are some tidbits:

  • JetBlue administers 35 customer surveys each flight (regardless of how full they are); 8% of customers give their feedback (a decent response rate)
  • They use Net Promoter Score (NPS), rather than just customer satisfaction, to gauge how well they are performing and look for opportunities for improvement.  It seems to be directly correlated to whether they are running flights on time in a particular month!
  • If something doesn’t go as planned, JetBlue invokes their Customer Bill of Rights and, within 7 days of the flight, they send out flight vouchers to help make up for the inconvenience. “Please, let us try again!”
  • You have to be relevant to customers in order to drive customer loyalty.

I liked the way Rob shared about JetBlue’s customer-focused thinking as he discussed one of the key inputs to their Balanced Scorecard: Drive a Low Cost Culture. He was quick to point out that it is important to be smart about costs, but not to be cheap! “Don’t touch the things that touch the customer.” Great motto, Rob!

Rob also talked about their JetBlue attitude, or “jetitude”. They have five “Be’s”:

  1. Be in Blue always (you are always on stage – see my related post!)
  2. Be personal
  3. Be the answer (don’t pass the buck; execs, please walk the talk)
  4. Be engaging (reach out to customers; don’t wait for them to come to you)
  5. Be thankful to every customer (actually thank them for their business)

Finally, Rob talked about the importance of “servant leadership”. Leadership brings all of the above together to serve the employee and, in turn, the customer. They need total transparency, and they need to be willing to get their hands dirty in order to help make it happen.  Great talk, Rob!

Oh, by the way, JetBlue collected business cards from everyone in the summit and gave away 2 JetBlue travel vouchers! Wow!  Great way to show appreciation.

The Red Rubber Ball

Kevin Carroll opened the official conference at day’s end with his inspiring speech on the importance of play. Per Kevin,

“Play is serious business!”

Kevin started out his talk by sharing his experiences as a 6 year old boy trying to find his way out of a bad family situation.  In this video clip, he talks about the power of belonging and community. Have a listen:

Kevin encouraged all of us to harness the power of sport and play in everything we do – including our jobs. What inspires you? For Kevin, a simple red, rubber ball (like a playground ball) inspired him to live differently, with purpose, passion, and intention. In fact, he has an amazing life story that took him from a difficult childhood to the military, the NBA, to Nike, and ultimately to being a speaker/author who helps others reach for their dreams. He is a life-long learner, and he shared his “lessons from the playground”:

  1. Commit to it (find what you are passionate about and commit to it)
  2. Seek out encouragers (surround yourself with people who give you permission to dream big)
  3. Work out your creative muscle (need to reawaken our creative side)
  4. Prepare to shine (create your vision, make it clear)
  5. Speak up (stand up for something, what you believe in)
  6. Expect the unexpected (be forever curious, you never know where you will end up!)
  7. Maximize the day (live each day to the fullest – don’t try to get to tomorrow too soon)

Kevin was inspiring, entertaining, and unpredictable. He even tossed out balls into the audience and shared a video of playing “tag” at Nike – with 4,000 coworkers! He challenged us to get the most we can out of each day, as well as out of this conference.

After his talk, Yemil Martinez (Director of New Media for the conference) and I had the opportunity to video Kevin’s discussion with Joanna Brandi, conference co-chair, as they discussed the future of this country and how play can help. I will upload that video later this week.  Kevin then freely gave me a nice gift for my older son to encourage him to find his passion in life. Thank you, Kevin!

Kevin was also nice enough to give me two minutes of his time to share with you, my readers, his thoughts on the importance of building community with customers and with each other. Also listen through to the end for his thoughts on the Carroll connection!

Thank you so much for your time and energy, Kevin! We will be following you.

(Photo credit: nruboc)

Filed Under: Community, Customer experience, Customer loyalty Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Putting Customers First

November 16, 2008 By 2 Comments

Whether we are focused on social or traditional media, one of the most important things I tell my students (and which I shared last week at the San Diego Social Media Breakfast) is to listen to customers before doing anything. Sometimes, we all need to take a step back and hear what our customers are telling us, and each other, before proceeding.

I will help you, my readers, do that over this next week. I am blogging at the NACCM Customers 1st Conference, being held at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, CA. You can follow me daily via live Twitter updates, this blog, or on the Customers 1st blog. I will be attending both the conference as well as the “outside the walls” sessions which take place in the Disney theme parks, and I will share with you the best nuggets from the conference and its speakers. One of the sessions focuses on creating the “next generation customer experience” for consumers who are spending a lot of time on social networks and with social media. Stay tuned!

I will also be spending time with some of the guest speakers in one-on-one interviews, so let me know if you have any questions for any of them. You can find the list of speakers here.  They include dignitaries from the customer service industry, authors, as well as customer-focused executives from many large corporations across a variety of industries.
Come follow me around the Magic Kingdom this week and learn about putting customers first!

Filed Under: Customer experience, Customer loyalty, Customer service, Voice of the customer Tagged With: , , ,

In Customer Service, You Are Always On Stage

November 8, 2008 By 21 Comments

I am sitting in my local coffee shop (a big brand, not Sbux) and wondering what I want to blog about. I am the only customer sitting in here on a Saturday afternoon, so perhaps the employees forgot about me.  What disturbs me is the LOUD conversation I am hearing behind the counter.

“Wow, can you believe three limos of high school students pulled up the other night after their dance and we had to make a whole bunch of lattes, iced teas, and frozen drinks? It took forever to close!”

“Some huge PTA group came in the other day at 8:30 pm and promised they would help put the chairs back when they were done. They finally left at 9 pm, and the place was a mess.  We didn’t get out of there for ages that night. How rude.”

“Julie was in here and was so drunk, we closed the doors early and put chairs in front of them so no one would come in.”

I am very tempted to stand up and say, “Hey, guys and gals, I write a blog on the customer experience, and I am not too impressed right now!”

I don’t think they realize that every word they are saying reflects on the business. They don’t seem to want to put in a little extra effort to service large orders late at night because it inconveniences them. They don’t seem to be glad that I am here at all; they are too busy with their own “social hour” behind the counter.

You’re On Stage

You can spend a lot of money building up your brand and creating a cool logo. You can market the latest coffee drinks and specials to all your local customers. You can build a fabulous customer loyalty program to reward your best customers.  However, if your employess are not doing their part to support the business, it is all a waste of money.

Great customer service happens every minute, even when no one seems to be looking. At Disneyland, they call their employees Cast Members (CMs) and tell them they are “on stage” whenever they go into any area where their customers (guests) can see or hear them.  A customer’s perception is a critical part of whether their experience is positive or negative.  Every employee contributes to that perception, every minute, regardless of whether they are behind the counter, a rep on the phone, or a member of the cleaning staff.  On that last item, even the janitorial staff at Disney participates in one of the park’s most popular activities, Pin Trading; check out this post from a Disney discussion forum:

At WDW (Walt Disney World) even the janitor CMs had pin lanyards on. The best places we found for pins was at Crystal Palace and Cosmic Ray’s. The manager at Cosmic Ray’s actually got on his radio and requested that all CMs that had lanyards and were available to please come over so a young man could trade with them. Talk about some pixie dust!

Customers Rock! take: Treat your employees like gold, and they will take care of your customers. Hire customer service employees who are people with a passion for serving others.  And remind them all that anytime they are potentially visible or within earshot of customers, they are still “on stage”!

(Photo credit: argus456)

Filed Under: Customer experience Tagged With: , ,
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