1 to 1 was kind enough to share the results of their 2009 Customer Survey. In this are some expected responses. Others are perhaps a little more surprising. At the end of the day, the results reinforce what we all know to be true. Over time, success in business is ALL ABOUT CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE.
This Is No Surprise – Or Is It?
1to1 recently conducted its 2009 Voice of the Customer Survey. We asked the question: What is the most surprising thing you learned from customer feedback in the past year? I found some of the responses, well, surprising. What do you think?
Here’s what some respondents had to say:
Customers like to be heard
Given a chance, customers will be brutally honest about how a company treated them and ways to improve [the experience] for other customers.People wanted to be communicated to more.
Customers desire information from us, other than our direct product and service areas, e.g. partner and community information.
Customers want to be part of the overall strategy of our company.
They were willing to spend time helping me refine my offering.
Their willingness to share their feedback and make suggestions for improvement.
Customers are willing to speak if we ask them.
How willing customers are to talk about their personal experiences, challenges, and problems.
How easy it is to really listen to client concerns.
Customers Like Us!
What a great job our customer care team is doing when handling customer inquiries.We do better than we thought!
We do a better job of satisfying customers than we realized.
Most of our customers actually like what we are doing.
Or Not…
Our company is sometimes hard to work with.How difficult we are to contact if you don’t know who the right person is.
Customers really didn’t like our hold music. We saw a 3 point improvement in voice CSAT by simply changing the music.
We had a lack of knowledge about customers and what they are looking for.
Often the things we think we do badly are often not even on the customer radar screen. The things we don’t really regard as important are!
That we overcomplicate our selling model–it is really about engagement versus selling, and leveraging that engagement has been powerful!
Listening Equals Learning
Price is not the determining factor when customer buy.In an overzealous drive to deliver the best and greatest experiences it is often the basics that we don’t deliver on that crack the foundation of the customer relationship. Customer relationships are like a game of golf: The most amazingly played shot won’t win the round, but a horribly executed one can ruin all.
The same service was differently appreciated in Asia or in the Americas or in Europe.
They are close to the issue, good or bad, and bring a view that at times we do not consider.
The importance of knowing the customer by name.
Our customers were using our website to get more information about us.
How some competitors have caught up with us in replicating our “unique” product mix.
What some of our employees do to break our operational procedures.
“I didn’t know you did that!”
Listening Also Equals Results
There is an indisputable link between improvements in customer experience and its link to bottom-line results.It’s great to stop and hear what [customer] are saying; this improves our product, which translates to higher prices and revenue.
Listening to customers is a simple way of cutting costs by fixing customers problems or issues.
via This Is No Surprise – Or Is It? – Think customers: The 1to1 Blog.
