Whoa… scandalous, @jtwatkin!
I'm literal with that (oftentimes ridiculous) top-line question, but then always offer much more constructive insights in the open-text (for those willing to read it!) pic.twitter.com/7MXhxqsZ7w— Nicholas Zeisler, CCXP, LSSBB, CSM (@NicholasZeisler) January 28, 2021
Dear Customer:
Thank you for your recent feedback. We always enjoy taking the time to better understand where we fall short of expectations as it offers us the opportunity to do something we love to do: Improve how we serve our Customers. As such, your insights and thoughts are incredibly valuable to us.
Incidentally, although it may seem counter-intuitive, we’re also grateful that you’ve told us explicitly that you’re “never going to buy anything from [our] terrible company again.” While we regret to see you go, by making it abundantly clear (from that statement as well as the other quite colorful things you had to share with us in your letter) that we’ve lost you “forever” as a Customer, you’ve actually saved us resources and energy in attempting to make things right for you in particular with this specific situation. Since, thanks to your telling us so unequivocally, we know there’s “no way on this green Earth or the entire Universe” that you’ll “ever spend another red cent” on our products, our Customer service and support teams can better concentrate their limited resources and time on other priorities—and our remaining Customers—instead.
So again, thank you especially for saving us those resources.
Furthermore, and quite helpfully, the specific problem you brought to our attention highlighted an issue that we discovered is bothering a lot of our (otherwise, still existing) Customers. Being so dedicated to our (again, existing) Customers’ satisfaction, we very quickly went to work and not only fixed that problem in our processes, but made the entire experience even better!
In fact, this improvement we’ve made to our system won’t simply make things better for those Customers we still have. It actually saved us money as we uncovered not only these things that are aggravating from a Customer’s perspective, but also inefficient and wasteful of our own resources, time, and money in and of themselves. It’s a win-win! As a result of these improvements, we’ve been able to pass along these savings to our enduring Customers by way of issuing them a 25% voucher when they return to buy from us again. Come to think of it, since it won’t be necessary to extend this goodwill gesture to you (since you’re no longer a Customer, and according to your decision never again will be no matter what we do), you’ve saved us even more money!
Of course, the irony here is that we also recognize that none of this would have been possible were it not for your—vivid—note to us calling our attention to our initial failing. So, as a token of our appreciation, please find enclosed a $20 gift card for Starbucks. There’s likely a location near your home where you can take it to enjoy a drink or snack. You see, we hold a weekly contest here for our front-line team members to come up with thoughts on improving our Customers’ experiences…this is the usual prize we award to the best idea. We hope you enjoy it because with your efforts you certainly earned it!
Thanks again, and have a wonderful day!
Mgmt
Can I start a controversial article being completely uncontroversial? Thanks. Here goes: Good employee engagement is an absolute requirement in order to drive good CX. Okay… now, feel free to refer to that as you read on, because I’m not trying to say that engagement isn’t fundamental; in fact, it’s a bedrock necessity if you’re going to provide a good Customer experience that you first ensure you are providing a good employee experience.
With that throat-clearing out of the way, I was shocked (shocked!) when a nontrivial number of contributors (all CX pros) to a forum in which I recently participated seemed confused about the difference between Customers and employees. (more…)
Recently I fielded a question about NPS survey data: How do you process it? How do you use it? I popped off a quick response, but I’d like to go a little deeper on the topic here.
First of all, it’s not a specific NPS question. It doesn’t matter what sort of survey you send out or (exactly) what sort of question(s) you ask. I’m also limiting this article to a discussion about survey data per se. There are tons of other sources of data that should be part of your broader Voice of the Customer (VoC) program. But this is just about the data that comes from your surveys. From those surveys, at the end of the day, you’ll likely be faced with two different types of data, each with its own purpose: Score data and Amplification data. (more…)
Have you ever had to say to a friend, “it’s not what you said, it’s how you said it”? I remember a client who used that to describe some of the interactions their managers would have with front-line employees as an example of the need for a professional communications course I offered at the time. But aside from your partner or spouse or personal relations, it’s surprising how frequently we come across businesses that seem not to grasp the concept of simple politeness. (more…)
We hear all the time that hiring is destiny: You have to be very careful when looking for new team members—especially those who are on the front-line and Customer facing—that they’re empathetic, Customer-focused, and just plain nice. In fact, there’s an entire cottage industry growing around hiring for your support/services/sales teams to ensure you’ve got the right fit. Once they’re in the door, we spend tons of time (and money!) explaining our processes and procedures to our new hires so they can make an impact right away. We may enable them with some of the greatest technology, give them awesome benefits packages, and even stock the fridge in the break room for them. Volleyball pits, shuffleboards, ping-pong, you name it. We’ve given them everything they need for work, and play, it seems.
Then they sit down at their desks, put on their headsets, and take calls.
And the wheels fall off. (more…)
I wrote recently about an incident at a local grocery store that sparked some thought about how sometimes we provide excuses instead of offering solutions. Likewise, sometimes at my gym, I come across a piece of equipment that’s out of order for some reason or another. Usually, there’s a note pinned to it alerting us that it’s not to be used. To some degree, I’m sure the team member whose job it is to put that sign on the equipment considered his job ‘done.’ The person whose job it is to fix it? That’s another story.
Anyway, the punchline of these and other similar experiences is that Customers aren’t as interested in hearing about why their experience can’t be better (what we’d call in other scenarios “excuses”), they just want them to be better. (more…)
There are lots of places to ask… but just as important, don't insult your Customers by asking when/where you know you won't be doing anything about their concerns: pic.twitter.com/uAvdiVllCT
— Nicholas Zeisler, CCXP, LSSBB, CSM (@NicholasZeisler) January 7, 2021
I’ve written about Customer Effort Score (CES) before and kind of chided the intractability of defining it specifically. Of course, it’s not fair to pick on CES, as I’ve written in other instances, even common definitions like First Contact Resolution runs into definitional problems when they encounter actual Customer opinions (we all have our own definitions).
But specifically, when it comes to Effort (or, as I sometimes will call it, “hassle”), I remember a wise Process Engineer who used to work for me once noted: “we’re defining ‘hassle’ from our own perspective.” And he was correct to point it out in that instance. I wonder: Are you doing the same? (more…)
I was on Nancy Munro‘s podcast this week to ring in 2021. She’s the brilliant CEO of Verbal Transactions. Check out the recording at this link.
Been There. Done That. Now get the t-shirt!
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