Search results matching tag 'customer service'

EODB Assessments and Anniversary

christina.sullivan — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:45:00 GMT

I can't believe that I have been blogging a year! I'm not a super-blogger by any means and certainly don't have the volume of posts that most bloggers do, but I'm pretty proud that I've stuck with it a year. It has been challenging, interesting, and a very positive experience overall. So, here is to 1 year. The goal for the next year is to post more and collaborate more with other bloggers in my subject area.

I've been toying with the idea for quite a while to develop an assessment that companies can use to evaluate how easy they are to do business with at a more detailed level and from a customer's perspective. I have tons of survey data that includes “How easy is it to do business with (X company)”?; however, very few actually break "easy" down into components

I've reviewed the Forester's Customer Service Innovation Framework and Self-Assessment http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/0,7211,47688,00.html and think Natalie L. Petouhoff has done an excellent job of defining 150 best pratice capabilities. Although I like her framework, I'd like one that could be applied to any business process.

A former boss of mine, Jerry Wittig, developed a draft assessment that I think could provide an excellent starting point. It had the following categories which could be rated on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest score and 5 being the best. The idea is that the customer of company X would rate their company interactions based upon the following categories and sub attributes:

Effortless - less time, fewer steps, fewer decisions

Comfortable - friendly relationships/dialogs, free of embarassment

Informal - fewer worries, less rules/constraints

Unforced - per my timeline, few demands

Rewarding - high benefit for effort, unexpected pleasures

Jerry passed away some years ago and I'd like to think his legacy and work continues. What assessments have you seen/used for assessing ease of doing business? What other characteristics do you think should be included in such an assessment? Send me your ideas/comments.

What To Do About the Meltdown in Media

Scott Berg — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 01:44:00 GMT

Apocalypse is one of those words that I remember from bible study as a kid. The word itself just sounds scary – even if I didn’t know what it meant it would freak me out. But it seems everyday we’re hearing about media companies making massive layoffs, shutting down publications, cutting costs and the like. Even the agencies are cutting staff because of client budget cuts and the need for leaner expenses on the income statement.

So as a client what should you do? Here are a couple of thoughts:

Lock in Low Prices. Just like the stock market – you buy low and sell high. So why not negotiate hard with media suppliers for lower CPM’s and lock those prices in for 2-4 years and with the ability to further reduce if thing get worse. When the economy does turn-around, you’ll get a higher ROI aka make more money.
Renegotiate. Why not renegotiate your contracts with agencies and suppliers? Think about it… if your media/marketing spend has gone you’re paying more fixed and variable costs as a % of media/marketing spend. So renegotiate the costs and contracts in order to keep those “non working dollars” as low as possible (or at least even). While you’re at it, why don’t you put in some clauses that put some of the supplier/agencies income at risk? If your company or campaigns do well… the agency does well.
Step up the SEO. Get your webmaster to increase the SEO terms on your web site so you’re not paying for terms that your own website should drive.
Fish Where the Fish Are. Dig deeper into your database and determine who those best customers are and start using a Recency, Frequency, Monetary Value model to determine who is likely to response. To learn more about RFM I recommend you read the book “Libey and Pickering on RFM and Beyond” by Don Libey and Christopher Pickering.
Get Closer to Your Customer. If you haven’t been talking to your customers – get to it and start. If you’re not talking to them, odds are your competitor is.
Listen, Listen, Listen. Do I need to say more? If your customers are telling you they want x from your product… give them x. Stop listening to 30 person focus groups and start listening to the entire web, including blogs, social media, etc. There’s a number of software available… many free some that you have to invest in. Check out a product from a company called Aubice.
Look Deep into Your Organization for Recommendations. I’ve often found the best ideas from the deepest parts of the company. So start having lunch and coffee with a new group of folks and start asking them for their ideas.
Get Even Leaner! You’ve probably had to cut budgets, perhaps even some headcount… but start eliminating or reducing costs. Couple of areas to think about: Ad Serving Costs, Agency/Supplier Costs (see points 1 & 2), get rid employees who are deadwood and replace them with many of the outstanding professionals looking for employment, conferences (do you really need to go?), stop traveling all over kingdom come and use technology and the good old phone.
Shift Channels. If your customers costs are getting out of hand – for instance they’re calling your call center a ton…. Perhaps you should start to direct them to the web where they can self serve themselves.
Lead. If you’re not stepping up to make the tough decisions… start. If you’re planning on “keeping under the radar” until the current economic environment turns, then I’d recommend you refresh your resume.

Scott

Help Needed

christina.sullivan — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 22:30:00 GMT

What do customers want to make it Easy to do Business With? I recently reviewed a study that indicated the most important attribute for Enterprise Customers in the IT Industry is quickly receiving help during the ordering and purchasing process. Obviously, the easier we make it for our customers to order the less likely they will need to request help. But, if they do need help, it is important to provide a variety of options to customers ranging from online mechanisms inclusive of chat features, support line phone numbers to talk to real people, to assistance from individual sales representatives. There is no one-size fits all for Enterprise customers (or any customer for that matter). What has been your company's most satisfying "assistance" received during the ordering or purchasing process?

Customer Service During Hurricane Ike

Scott Berg — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:37:00 GMT

Having lived through a few hurricanes now I can personally tell you the destruction we Houstonians have seen with Ike is incredible. With a great deal of luck my family didn’t suffer any harm and although we had trees down, water, sewer and electricity issues the overall situation is good. A tragedy like this makes you appreciate those friends and colleagues you know – and I’d like to thank all of you who have emailed and phoned to check in on us… it is greatly appreciated.

I’ll tell you of a FANTASTIC experience I had and it has a marketing and customer service angle to it. I’m an Allstate customer – have most of my insurance coverage with them. What I found amazing is that within 24 hours after the hurricane hit, I had voice mails on my cell phone & work number regarding the claims process. For instance, the message instructed me who to call, the number, that they were overstaffed to help answer the increased calls, etc. In fact, I didn’t even need to have my policy number they said they’d find it for me.

And when I called…. I waited a mere minute or two before I was pleasantly greeted by a Customer Service Rep. Wow – what an experience… proactive help and what do you bet I’ll think twice about ever switching insurance based on that proactive marketing and assistance.

We should all look at these types of “digital” solutions to assist our customers… from the use of email, text messages, etc. to drive better experience.

Congrats to the Allstate Customer Service and Marketing Teams!!

Scott

Some Things Never Die

christina.sullivan — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 19:09:00 GMT

A colleague of mine recently handed me an article from a technology magazine, Digital Leader. It was a special report entitled: "Quality Needs Work" and there was a small box containing the phrase "Ease of Doing Business", which of course peaked my interest. I quickly scanned the article subheadings:

Integrated Customer/Partner Support
Contracts and Licensing Simplification
Service Contract Simplification
Communication Initiative

It seemed like a reasonable list and very close to the areas our customers often cite when describing needed improvements. Then my colleague brought my attention to the date, "1996". That's when I started to get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Could it be what one company was addressing 12 years ago are the same issues customers face today? With all the technological advances it seems hard to believe, but it's true. In our industry, we struggle with the ever changing landscape. It's hard to make processes more simple when our business is getting more complex and our customers expectations continue to climb. I'm a perpetual optimist though and believe we can eventually drive improvements in these long-standing issues. Never give up.