Syed's Customer Experience Blog

ResponseTek's 1st Annual Customer Exchange!

Hi everyone,

I am very excited to announce the first ever ResponseTek Experience Exchange CX Forum taking place in Vancouver, Canada on May 14^th.

This event creates an opportunity for customer experience professionals from various industries to come together in one venue to network and share expertise and best practices. Key themes we’ll discuss include CEM program design, engaging front line employees, and using customer data to improve everyday business practices.

Other exciting events we’re sponsoring and speaking at this quarter include:

• Customer Experience Strategies  Summit West – May 15-16^th in Vancouver
• CXPA Member Insights Exchange – June 19-20^th in San Diego
• 8^th Edition Customer Experience – June 17-18 in Chicago
• Customer Management Leadership Group Anniversary Forum – July 25^th at the Manchester Business School, UK

We have been in the CEM space from the beginning (1999) when we coined the term "Customer Experience Management". During this time we have seen the CEM space go from being ignored, to seen as a novelty, to becoming one of the most important areas of focus for today's large businesses.

We have learned a lot over the past 12 years and worked with many great companies in many different industries.  We have always tried to give back to the industry by supporting events and talking about our experiences with clients. However, this year we have really made a big commitment to sharing our learnings and talking about the best practices we see all over the world. Our first annual Customer Exchange is a really exciting opportunity for us to spend time with CX practitioners and leaders from our clients and get them to spend time with each other. I know that we are all looking forward to next week's events in Vancouver.

Let me know if you want to attend future events we organize.

Regards

-Syed

 

Integrating Voice Analytics with ResponseTek's Listening Platform

Thought I would post a short note on our recent partnership with Call Miner in the field of real-time voice analytics software. 

We have been working for several years in the call centre to help agents connect with the "real" customer experience and seen some fantastic results when agents receive closed loop feedback in a memorable time frame (24hrs or less). However one of the challenges for our large enterprise clients has always been call volume.  When you are dealing with thousands of calls on a daily basis how do you identify the right customers to follow up with?  This is where voice analytics comes in.  ResponseTek integration with Call Miner now helps clients identify if the a customer was happy or unhappy during the call and before the ResponseTek feedback solution is triggered.  This allows us to better target customers with the right questions sets that are contextual to their initial call experience. It also allows the ResponseTek Listening Platform to manage sample rates and quota's more intelligently so that clients are getting the right levels of feedback from the right types of customers. 

Integrating voice analytics into ResponseTek's Customer Experience Management solution is a really exciting new offering for us and the CEM industry. The great thing about ResponseTek's open software platform is that our clients can also integrate their pre-existing voice analytic solutions form vendors such as Call Miner, Nice, Verint or Nexidia relatively easily into the ResponseTeksolution as well.  This allows them to get a step increase in the benefits they can get from their existing investments in voice analytics software by adding a customer experience monitoring by ResponseTek.

As we roll out solutions with clients we hope to create some case studies to share with the CEM community.

 

Syed

ResponseTek selected as one of Canada's 20 most innovative companies

We received some great news that the Canadian Innovation Exchange (CIX) today announced that ResponseTek has be selected as one of the Top 20 Most Innovative Companies in Canada.  

ResponseTek has always prided itself on having a culture of innovation and that is apparent in the all solutions we have released relating to Customer Experience Management over the past 10 years. Therefore this is award will mean a lot to everyone at ResponseTek who work so hard to redefine the parameters of what Enterprise Customer Experience Software is and should be in the future.

Read more:

Globe and Mail

Tech Vibes

Synovate & ResponseTek

Really excited about formalizing our relationship with Synovate to deliver Customer Experience Management Solutions to the Research Market. Synovate have shown a real awareness of how the research world is changing and how technology solutions need to be used to change the distribution and actionability of Customer Experience information. Looking forward to expanding the relationship and working with Synovate teams and their clients. Read more here:http://www​.youtube.c​om/watch?v​=RN1InydJy​hw

 

EFM or CIA? the answer is CEM

It has been refreshing of late to see some of our friends in the analyst community have an open debate  regarding whether it is appropriate to continue to categorize solutions such as ResponseTek as EFM (Enterprise Feedback Management) or by a newer term CIA (Customer Insight & Analysis). You can read more about Forrester’s perspective on EFM on Andrew McInnes’blog here, and Bruce Temkin’s perspective on the terms on his great Customer Experience Matters blog here.  EFM is a term formalized by the CRM group at Gartner back in around 2001 and you can read all about its genesis here.

In 1999 when ResponseTek started using the term CEM (Customer Experience Management) and we defined it as, "the people, process and technology strategies focused on monitoring all customer experiences across the customer lifecycle with the aim of connecting frontline employees and management to the actual customer experience to improve the quality and consistency of those experiences."

Back in 1999 no one else was talking about CEM, it was all CRM and when Gartner did start looking at the kinds of things ResponseTek and a few other companies were doing they eventually defined it as EFM in 2001. I always had a problem with Gartner definition of EFM and what it encompassed as I found it way too narrow a definition compared to the actual conversations we were having with clients. EFM always seemed more like a proxy for a ISO 900x system than something focused on customer experiences and employee behaviours.  In 10 years I can't remember a single client that has talked about their objectives as being the implementation of a EFM system. Our clients have always spoken about their goals in terms of "connecting to customer, improving quality, satisfaction, consistency, etc." I believe everyone has been aware of the framework that EFM embodies but always recognized it as a subset of the broader goals covered by CEM or VOC strategies. At ResponseTek, we have always considered EFM to be a subset of CEM and EFM solutions are a subset of the capabilities that most leading enterprise CEM vendors can offer.

As for CIA I think it is too early to tell whether this has legs (read more here). I know and respect Bruce and he has done a huge amount to getting the customer experience space understood. If Bruce's objective was to start a dialogue and challenge the relevance of EFM then I think he has done the job. However, I am not sure we need another term when CEM and VOC are still ill defined and expansive in the topics they cover. I believe that Bruce and Ed Thompson over at Gartner have some of the best thinking on how the CEM space fits together and I hope they can find a way to rally around a single point of view in relation to CEM.

As for the EFM vs. CIA  debate I would say the answer is irrelevant at the moment because clients are not using either, EFM because it is outdated and CIA because it is too new. For me and our clients it is all about CEM and Voice of the Customer but I am not an Analyst so you don't have to listen to me ;)

Syed

 

Sorry for the delay.......

I have committed the Number One Sin when it comes to writing a blog, NOT BLOGGING!  

Not blogging regularly has to be one of the worst things a blogger can do. It seems that it doesn't matter what the quality is of what you write or even if it is relevant, the number one rule is "Write" ! At least you can tell from my absence that I really do write my blog posts and it isn't someone from marketing ghost writing for me. The last six months have been absolutely crazy for everyone involved in the customer experience space and especially for us at ResponseTek. I can make excuses about time, travel schedules and client commitments but I know it doesn't matter in the world of blogging (at least that is the cold hard truth that Anita from our marketing department shared with me). So I am back and I am hoping to avoid another visit from the marketing department heavies at ResponseTek.

Things have really changed in CE over the past 12 months and I really believe we are in a time of transition where voice of the customer programs are moving from the realm of "innovative" and "cool" to something that is becoming accepted best practice. At ResponseTek we have been working with some of the most amazing companies around, that really get customer experience and are pushing the definition of "best practice" further forward almost everyday.  Over the coming weeks I will try and give you some insights into what is going on at the bleeding edge of this incredibly exciting space.

Again sorry for the delay i'll make sure it doesn't happen again.

Syed

Getting beyond the honeymoon with NPS

I came across this article in Fast Company Magazine today asking if Net Promoter (NPS) was really the ultimate question in customer experience management.

It is refreshing to see that there are companies out there willing to look past the hype of NPS and tailor their approach based on the unique needs of their own organizations. NPS has always been a great way of getting companies to rally around the voice of the customer, but its simplicity has been both, its greatest strength and weakness. NPS is simple to understand and explain; however, perhaps it is so simple that it doesn't allow for obvious actions or improvements. 

I believe that companies that use the NPS and/or customer advocacy questions as part of their short but continuous customer feedback system are far more likely to see more obvious business results than those that follow a pure, single question approach. This is a trend we have seen in most of our clients’ businesses where they use an advocacy question in combination with other business relevant questions that can drive change and action.

Take a look at the article and join the discussion.

The amazing effect of a call for help

While we're all busy trying to figure out Apple's Ping, using Google Instant and trying to get our hands on the new Blackberry Torch - there are people on the other side of the world worrying about where they're going to sleep tonight, what they're going to eat for their next meal and how they're going to get medicine for their sick child.

I'm talking about the floods in Pakistan. A single tragedy that is going down in history as one of the most devastating disasters in the world - displacing more than 21 million people from their homes. This is bigger than the Indian Tsunami in 2004, the Kashmir Earthquake in 2005, and the Haiti Earthquake in 2010 - all combined. Now, that’s big.
Here at Responsetek, an employee initiated an internal challenge to raise money for the flood victims. They had seen firsthand, the beauty of the landscape and kindness of the people, ten years ago when they had traveled to Northern Pakistan; the area most severely hit by the floods.

We took the challenge seriously and in less than a week, we raised over $8,500 in actual aid to help the flood victims in Pakistan with more than 75% of our employees participating. Our chosen charity, World Vision Canada, will be able to provide aid and support to over 140 families and their children in the affected areas.

One of the unexpected outcomes of this process has been a really positive effect on moral. Several employees have taken the time to talk to me about how positively they felt about us, as a company, giving back to help those less fortunate. Although it was merely a week, it was a great experience centered around the simple act of giving.

We spend so much time these days preoccupied with shareholders, sales, expense management, the economy and so on and so forth, that it’s easy to forget that most of us started our businesses in order to make a difference at some level. This past week has reminded me that we can make a difference to those people in need, and that too, in a relatively short amount of time. We just have to look in the right places.

Thanks again to all the ResponseTek employees that helped us support World Vision Canada and the flood victims in Pakistan over the past week.

I hope this reminds or at least, inspires you to encourage your company to give back to those who need it most. Take it as a challenge, and I promise you'll feel good about it.

How do you recognize great service? Meet Frank.

I was recently traveling on a business trip from Vancouver to Kansas City on United Airlines. It was a fairly typical business trip, listening to cab drivers talking about the weather and traffic, witnessing check-in agents typing fanatically into a system that really shouldn't need that much typing, looking at border control officers trying not to judge you while they judge you, etc, etc. Now, I travel a lot so I am used to being treated as a seat number rather than a person and I tend to be on auto pilot. 

On this trip I was connecting through Dallas (one of the most mundane airports I have ever visited) and after my one hour layover, it was time to board my second flight. This is where I met Frank. Frank was the agent whose job it was to run our boarding passes through the scanner and let us board the flight. He was in his late fifties, of African American decent and looked like a long term United Airlines employee. However there was something different about Frank, as I watched him call up the different sections of the plane. He greeted every passenger by their name, shook their hands, and took the time to make a unique comment or greeting. Frank was making people laugh, he was getting high fives and even some hugs from complete strangers! And as I watched, I was amazed and impressed by what this normal employee based in the Dallas airport was doing to delight customers and turn a mindless experience into something that was fun and enjoyable. Now, if I were an executive at United or any airline for that matter, I would spend a day or even a week with Frank to figure out what makes him tick and how I could replicate that X factor.

Unfortunately the reality is that Frank is probably an unsung hero at United, management probably do not know what a unique experience he is delivering, and passengers like me don't have any easy way to tell them. 

This story demonstrates the importance for investing in customer feedback loops that are easy and timely for consumers to use. Forget about comment cards and 1-800 numbers, we are a Facebook and Twitter generation. If I can't let you know my feedback and comments quickly, and preferably through my smart phone, "right now" I probably never will. The disappointing thing here is that all the technology required to be able to recognize employees like Frank exist today, but companies have their heads in the ground and are not embracing the possibilities.  

Until companies start to recognize the role of real-time feedback in their operations management systems, employees like Frank will continue to be overlooked and companies like United will continue to be perceived as delivering weak customer experiences. So you have to ask yourself, how many Frank's do you have in your business? and how long before they leave to join a company that does recognize their contribution?

Finally, I just wanted to say, "Well done Frank, where ever you may be."

Syed

The power of text messaging for customer feedback

The last 12 months have been really exciting when it comes to use of text messaging/sms as a tool for customer feedback. At ResponseTek we have always held the opinion that the closer you are in time and channel to the customer experience the better the information you will collect. This has been easy in the web and call center channels but in the retail channel it has been a big problem. However there is good news, there is a quiet revolution happening in retail feedback management that is being led by the European Telco's and they are quickly being followed by other retailers. The revolution focuses on the use  of SMS to capture the voice of the customer at the point of purchase.

Text messaging is a great technology for certain types of retailers to collect large amounts of timely information that can be used by the front lines almost every day. In Europe the use of text messaging as a feedback tool is rapidly accelerating as companies move away from more problematic or expensive  programs such as outbound calling or receipt back messaging/surveys. It is also very effective, we have seen clients that can expect a 20-30% response rate from text message feedback programs if designed intelligently. The feedback can also be quite rich, with both quantitative and qualitative information being collected across up to 6-10 questions.  Where text messaging feedback was an experiment for lots of companies in Europe 12 months ago now it has become their core retail satisfaction monitoring method.

One thing I do still find surprising is that although North America is the icon for the iphone/smartphone generation there is very little (if any) adoption of this exciting technology this side of the pond. Even though this approach is an obvious fit for companies like Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, etc.  they don't seem to be connecting the dots yet and continue to spend big on more expensive yet less timely research approaches.

Regardless of the differences in North America and Europe relating to text message feedback programs, what we have seen within clients is proof of a technology and approach that is here to stay and one that can dramatically change the way a company connects with it's customers and employees.

Syed