General
The field of Customer Experience Management is driving a new wave of innovation through businesses. Innovation is often about fusing different disciplines together to generate new ways of thinking and ways of solving problems creatively. A major innovation trend today is the mixing of business strategy and design to form new ways of thinking to create compelling and valuable customer experiences. In the past, designers and business leaders would go to different schools, work at different professional services firms, work in different parts of an organization and belong to different professional associations. They were completely separate sub-cultures of the business world. Today, leaders are mixing those two worlds and the result is greater innovation, better customer experiences … resulting in greater business success. Venture capital funds, top business schools, leading customer experience executives and innovative service firms are all moving to harness this fusion. (more…)
One of the best metrics for monitoring your customer experience value is to measure customer satisfaction. Most companies do that. Most managers also look at the combined top two scores on a five point scale that includes “very satisfied” and “satisfied” and as long as those two categories are at a high percentage of answers, things are viewed as successful. After viewing Apple’s performance in mobile devices in terms of very satisfied customers and market share growth, maybe we should move to a two point scale that only includes Very Satisfied and “Also Ran” as the only two choices. That seems to be all that matters.
72% Very Satisfied Customers
Being satisfied with customers who say they are just “satisfied” is not the way to achieve market leadership. With competitive intensity so high in today’s markets, the only relevant measure is to drive up business performance is to focus on creating “very satisfied” customers as a majority. The bell shaped curve is after all average, or otherwise a commodity. A recent report published by CNET (and conducted by ChangeWave) on customer satisfaction with the iPhone 4 experience shows that Apple has achieved a 72% very satisfied rating. That is a rare accomplishment and demonstrates Apple’s commitment to customer experience excellence. Not just mere average “satisfaction.”
115% Growth in Market Share
The result of having such high “very satisfied” ratings is that Apple’s market share of mobile devices grew by 115% in the first quarter of 2011 according to a new study from IDC Research. That is growing from a single digit market share base, but the company above Apple’s share fell by almost 10% in the same quarter.
When setting success metrics, the benchmarks you set should not be done in a way to make you and your employees feel good and satisfied that, “at least people don’t dislike us.” Set the bar high, customer experience is an area of the business that can’t merely satisfy, it needs to wow, surprise, and delight customers every day and at every interaction. The result will be very satisfied customers and market leading growth.
In our strategic transformation work we are often asked the question, “why should we limit ourselves to just three major initiatives?” Executive teams feel that a short list of initiatives is not a stretch for the organization or that it is too limited to create transformational change. The truth is that when it comes to execution, transformational change comes from making major progress on a small number of things. It is about stacking up the resources on the most high impact initiatives that will have meaningful impact on customer value and the customer experience.
Harvard Business Review just published research from Booz Allen & Company that was based on a broad executive study of 1800 global executives. Here are some of the highlights for you to consider and to use with your stakeholders and team to make the case for focus.
* Most executives (64%) report they have too many conflicting priorities.
* The majority of executives (56%) say that allocating resources in a way that really supports the strategy is a significant challenge, especially as companies chase a wide set of growth initiatives.
* 81% admit that their growth initiatives lead to waste, at least some of the time.
* Nearly half (47%) say their company’s way of creating value is not well understood by employees or customers. (more…)
In the past five years or so, our transformation work is experiencing a major shift in how to generate the engagement and alignment of all employees in an organization. It is now more common that teams at all levels may not be co-located in a single office, people collaborate across global time zones, and we have learned how to develop social clusters of expertise that extend both through and beyond traditional organizational boundaries and connections. In this post are the beginnings of a list of solutions that are worth exploring. (more…)
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What’s get measured gets done. That statement can be true, but how many of us see countless reports coming out monthly, weekly or even daily, that take hours to produce, and nobody even looks at them? Metrics can be one of the most powerful tools for generating tight focus on execution if used correctly. Or, metrics can be a complete waste of time and distraction to the real running the business and delivering value to customers. What seem like slight differences make the difference in driving high-impact and valuable work.
One challenge that seems to have come up repeatedly in our work through the second half of 2010 was the issue of setting success metrics. So, it is probably worth sharing one key insight here that can help to focus and improve the use of metrics in driving success. (more…)
There has been much discussion recently about the generational shift in the workforce. The central concept is that millenials have to be managed completely differently than others and want different things. There are definite differences. However, a recent study by Aon Hewitt on employee engagement showed some interesting outcomes that shows more similarities than differences. Before you launch your next special project for 2011 to engage millenials, consider the following. (more…)
While everyone is talking about the need for innovation to serve as the growth catalyst for U.S. businesses, job growth and the economy overall, a group of leaders in the Tri-Valley region is taking action.Last week, the Innovation Tri-Valley initiative (ITV) was launched at a gathering of over 300 regional business, educational, civic and political leaders (news story and press release).
Marty Beard, the key executive leading the Innovation Tri-Valley effort and President of Sybase 365, a subsidiary of Sybase, In., recently explained that, “What we are doing in the Tri-Valley may very well be defining a new model for regions around the U.S. to get moving again as leaders in innovation. It is not only an opportunity to leverage the tremendous assets we have, but also a need and an obligation as leaders to do this for our companies and for our country.” Marty’s enthusiasm, determination and drive have helped rally a highly diverse group of leaders into what has become a collaborative effort across the region. (more…)
In doing analysis for web company that provides online solutions for managing commercial and residential contractor bids and work processes, we were looking for examples of great technology integration stories. We immediately raised up the seamless integration between the iPod and iTunes as a great customer experience. It is so easy that there is no user manual needed, but this is a rare exception.
In looking for other ideas, I was thinking about integration between Google Maps and GPS devices and searched Google for examples. (more…)
It is interesting to see how the complex system of consumer spending, retail and the general economy are playing against each other this holiday season. Helen Bulwik, our retail expert at Bedrock Dissero, was recently interviewed for an ABC-TV report on retail trends in 2009. In this she pointed out that in 2008, there were 70+ percent discounts on products prior to Christmas. This was necessary to get shoppers into stores and behind the scenes, there was a great amount of excess inventory that retailers knew needed to be reduced quickly in the face of weak consumer demand.
As the economy continues to remain in tough shape, companies have held to the mantra that “cash is king.” This is certainly true as companies use cash reserves to maintain operations, while revenues falter. However, there is a second “king” that is emerging in importance as well. That is the customer.
During the booming economy, many companies were able to take consumer demand for granted at a macro level. The more products offered, the more stores opened, the greater the revenues. It was simple. This translated into less attention to truly delivering great customer experiences in terms of meeting true needs or offering excellent customer service. There is a building awareness of the need to re-focus companies from solely driving on internal operations efficiencies and financial structures and into delivering great customer experiences.
Some companies, such as Apple and Southwest Airlines were already focused on customer experience well before the economic meltdown and are faring the downturn much better.
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Michael Kanazawa shares recent insights and tips about the no-nonsense, results-driven approach to driving business breakthroughs found in his new book Big Ideas to Big Results.