What does a company get by investing in a high-quality customer experience?
That was the central question behind Watermark Consulting’s very first Customer Experience Stock Performance Analysis, conducted back in 2009 and described in the article “Yes, Virginia, There Is A Return On Customer Experience.”
Each year since, we’ve refreshed the analysis with the latest data, watching to see if customer experience Leaders would continue to outperform customer experience Laggards. Now it’s...
The biggest risk facing businesses today is also one of the most manageable.
That’s my conclusion after reading Lloyd’s of London’s newly released 2011 Risk Index report, which ranks the top concerns of companies around the world based on a survey of over 500 C-suite and Board level executives.
So what was the #1 business concern cited by these folks? [Hint: It wasn’t “volcanic eruption,” which came in at the bottom of the list.]
It was “loss of customers” – an understandably scary prospect for any business, but also an eminently manageable risk.
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Outrageous service fees. Rude staff. Unintelligible correspondence. What would Santa say to all those businesses that are naughty to their customers?
With a nod to Clement C. Moore’s “A Visit From St. Nicholas,” Watermark Consulting Founder Jon Picoult wishes you Happy Holidays with this unconventional take on what ails businesses today:
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‘Twas the night before earnings release, at the office.
Everybody was stirring… especially Horace.
As Chief...
In their quest to deliver a warm, personalized customer experience, some companies cut corners and end up tarnishing their brand instead of enhancing it.
Take, for example, this information folder from a division of the world’s fourth largest bank. It’s given to customers who open a new account, and contains all the associated paperwork.
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Has the Ultimate Question turned into the Ultimate Letdown for you?
Lots of businesses, large and small, have jumped on the Net Promoter Score (NPS) bandwagon as a means to gauge and improve their customer loyalty. They embed the Net Promoter “ultimate question” into customer surveys (how likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague) and – voila! – they wait for the raving fans to shower them with love.
And then they keep waiting… and waiting… and waiting… baffled as to why their Net Promoter score doesn’t budge.
It’s a conundrum that’s all too common. Companies embrace Net Promoter as a measurement elixir to cure all ills, and then are disappointed with the outcome.
Now don’t get me wrong — I think Net Promoter is a very valuable business tool on a variety of levels. But here’s the catch: the most important component of a successful Net Promoter program has nothing to do with Net Promoter. No matter what loyalty metric you favor –...
What are you afraid of this Halloween? That your customers might disappear like ghosts? That your competitors might pick them off like vultures? That it’s all going to drive you batty? In the spirit of All Hallows’ Eve, Watermark Consulting brings you The Top Ten Ways To Spook Your Customers:
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...Do you remember what you ate for lunch a week ago?
Probably not. Yet many businesses seem to think that consumers have such incredible powers of recall.
Take, for example, the hotel I stayed at earlier this month. One week after I checked out, they e-mailed me a customer satisfaction survey. They asked me to rate everything from the speed of their internet service to the cleanliness of their common areas to the quality of their bellperson staff.
For real? I mean, I had trouble even remembering the name of the hotel (a syndrome any frequent business traveler has probably experienced).
Many businesses never even solicit customer feedback, so...
What do you feel when you hear those five words?
Surprise, probably… because in today’s world of online accounts, passwords and PINs, we’ve been coached to never reveal such secrets. Surely any business that asks for your password must be running a scam, right?
Well, maybe not a scam – but at the very least they’re tone deaf to what constitutes a good customer experience.
The catalyst for this post comes from a technical support call I recently had with the IT services company that hosts my firm’s website and e-mail. Now, this is no Mom and Pop business; it’s one of the leading providers of such services.
So I was quite shocked when one of their support people uttered those five words that you never expect to hear from any company’s authorized representatives.
I pushed back, asking why he needed my password in order to solve my e-mail problem. He insisted that was the only way he could access my account, diagnose the issue and resolve it.
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Few organizations in the healthcare industry score well when it comes to the quality of the patient experience.
It’s rare that healthcare providers even view their patients as true customers – electing instead to shape patient interactions in a decidedly administrative and antiseptic manner.
This is unfortunate, because the fact is that many traditional techniques for managing the customer experience can easily be applied to the healthcare space.
So how can healthcare providers turn patients into raving fans? For a glimpse of my views on the subject, check out this article from a leading magazine for healthcare practitioners. I was extensively quoted by the author, offering my...
I’ve written extensively in the past about the importance of managing the “customer” experience for job candidates and employees. Both are key constituencies that all businesses should seek to impress. Happy, satisfied candidates are more likely to choose your company over a competing employer. And happy, satisfied employees are more likely to be loyal and delight your customers.
Onboarding – the process of assimilating a new employee into your business – falls at the intersection of the candidate and employee experience. It’s a critical moment-of-truth where you have an opportunity to show new hires precisely how employees are treated within your company – what kind of support and guidance they are given to help ensure success.
A good onboarding process will encompass more than just new hire training and orientation. Rather, it will address all of the major cues and touchpoints for a new hire, ensuring that their transition into the company leaves them with a...
