Orange County Customer Experience Awards: Part 1

Over the course of the past couple weeks, I have been impressed by some local firms providing an exceptional customer experience. I’d like to highlight some of them over the next few weeks, and have thus begun the Orange County Customer Experience Awards. By the way, if you’ve recently had a great experience with a company, let me know. I’d love to hear about your experiences, and possibly highlight them here. PLEASE NO SELF PROMOTION.

While my experiences are with small, local firms, I believe enterprises should take note and evaluate how they might provide the same type of exceptional customer experience even if they are a $10 million, $100 million, or billion dollar company.

My wife and I recently had our second child, and after much research and online shopping for “dual strollers”, we decided to check out a local shop to actually see these modern engineering marvels that have ever bloated sticker prices, functions and features to see what all the hype was about.

We had been informally introduced to a local boutique firm called OC Travel Tykes that takes an expert consultative approach to strollers. I know, I know, it’s strollers for pete’s sake. But the captivating part was, once we arrived to meet Kelly (the owner and proprietor), she took the time to do a relatively exhaustive needs analysis on our lifestyle, asking a number of questions like “how often do we travel?”, “How often do we exercise?”, “How old is your oldest, and how often do they like to ride in a stroller?”, etc.

Once this initial conversation was completed, Kelly introduced us to each of the strollers that were candidates for our needs, and explained why certain strollers probably weren’t the best fit for our needs, ultimately allowing us to drive the conversation, while taking time to give background on each company, philosophy, parts and materials, frequency of returns, and pros and cons of each stroller.

The experience (regardless of the product) was one of the best I’ve been part of for quite some time. I kept thinking, “This is such a phenomenal experience. All things the same, I want to buy our stroller here.” A bit of perspective; This type of reaction happens in me about once every 4 years. Since I live and breathe CRM, I find myself being generally overly critical in evaluating vendors across the board.

Time passed, life is busy. Kelly politely placed a couple of follow up calls about a week apart.

Ultimately my wife and I stepped back into the “Stroller mindset”, discussed our options, cringed a bit at the price, and had made our choice. We planned on heading back to OC Travel Tykesthe following weekend to to pickup the stroller, but discovered that another major vendor was having a 20% off sale.

While I was impressed with the customer experience, I wasn’t about to pay a 20% tip for the experience. After all, customers are fickle, and though I hate to admit it, I fall into that category. I called Kelly and explained to her the situation. I wanted to buy from her. I would gladly pay a small premium, but I couldn’t justify paying 20% more. After some consideration, Kelly offered to meet the price, and candidly shared that it didn’t leave much margin for her since she operated on a relatively small volume, but that she was happy to do it.

THINGS THAT OC TRAVEL TYKES DID RIGHT THAT VERY FEW COMPANIES ARE ABLE TO DELIVER

1. Offered a unique value proposition
Strollers are typically offered through big box department stores with low wage employees with very little expertise is strollers. In addition, no one else that I am aware of offers the “life needs analysis” that we received.

2. Low Barrier to Entry
OC Travel Tykes offers “Try before you buy” options. I haven’t seen that anywhere else

3. Personalized Service and Flexibility
Kelly schedules one on one appointments the best that she can. This avoids the typical retail experience of talk for 2 minutes, and then off to help another customer. She also allowed price flexibility for a business case/proposition that made sense.

BENEFITS OF OC TRAVEL TYKES APPROACH

1. She earned our business
Now granted, she didn’t make a mint off of our purchase, but she did get compensated for her time and efforts. She moved one more unit for her vendor. Multiply that by dozens of customers and you begin to see meaningful profits.

2. She created a “Fan”
I am now blogging about my experience. Anyone who has been in sales and marketing will tell you that the best lead is a personal referral.

3. Free Marketing
Not only will I tell my friends and family, but also thought that this experience was noteworthy enough to write about it. I have no idea how many new strollers or associated products she might sell because of this word of mouth, but it is probably more than the one that I bought. Multiply this be a few others who comment personally or through social media, and one positive experience multiplies into dozens of sales

4. The potential for repeat business
The next time I need a stroller (God forbid we have triplets), guess where I am going to go first? OC Travel Tykes. They’ve earned by business. Depending on the longevity of the company, my kids could potentially buy strollers from there when they have kids. This is how great organizations are built.

Do you know of any other companies in Orange County (or elsewhere) providing exceptional customer experiences? Let me know. Share a comment.

How is your organization doing at personalizing experiences, providing compelling value propositions, and enabling raving fans to share their experiences through personal interactions and social media?

Sound off everyone!

Thanks again to Kelly and OC Travel Tykes for a great experience!

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Leverage the Value Equation and CRM to thrive in any economy

Graham Hill presents some great points, and sage wisdom in his post “Six Proven Rules to Beat the Recession”.

I would contend that his advice is at the core of success in business, and just becomes more clearly defined when businesses are forced to be aggressively and desperately focused  in a more challenging economic landscape.

To sum it up, “It’s all about value”. Focus on the value equation and then build/organize around it.

Point #3 below is where CRM takes center stage, though can be leveraged to execute on each of the strategic points outlined below.

Here’s to your profitability! Sound off and Happy Innovating…

May 30, 2009
Six Proven Rules to Beat the Recession
By Graham Hill, Customers & More

Type in the word “recession” into Google and at the last count, it returned over 62 million hits. Everyone is talking about the recession and many companies have already started to do something about it too. Often this means cutting swathes of staff without much thought to their long-term success: British Telecom announced it is cutting 10,000 jobs, Citibank that it is cutting 52,000 jobs and the City of London is forecast to lose over 370,000 jobs during the recession!

No Company Ever Shrunk to Greatness

Whilst job cuts are to be expected, they are by no means inevitable. Research by McKinsey showed that companies that beat the last recession in 2001/2 actually increased spending in key areas. The research tracked almost 1,000 US companies over 18 years, including during those all important recession years. The companies that emerged in the top quartile after the recession actually increased spending on sales, innovation and marketing. Although this reduced their cash reserves, the companies traded short-term profitability for long-term gain. And it worked; their book-to-market ratio was more than 25% greater than their less successful peers.

Understanding the Value Equation

The companies that beat the last recession understood the “value equation”. When times are hard, cash is in short supply and customers are in even shorter supply, you need to carry out a ’strategic due diligence’ to understand how your company creates value. That means understanding what drives sales and margin growth, how core shareholders view the company’s prospects and how the company can return value back to them. That is the company-side of the value equation. But by itself it isn’t enough. You also need to understand the customer-side of the value equation too That means understanding who your company’s core customers are, what they buy, which channels they use, how much they are willing to pay, and what jobs and outcomes they are looking to achieve at different points in the customer experience.

Only by understanding both sides of the value equation can you beat the recession. And the value equation changes a lot during a recession; just think how people are now buying own labels rather than branded products at your local supermarket. It is critical that you spend enough time during the due diligence studying how your company delivers value to customers and how that creates value for shareholders. The recession is probably going to be with us until 2010, so it makes sense to do a proper due diligence before setting out to beat the recession. And it is no use just relying upon analyses from just before the start of the recession either. The world has changed in the last few months and it might never be the same again.

Six Proven Rules for Recessionaries

Although different companies should respond to the recession in different ways, there are a few general rules that they should follow. I call these the “Rules for Recessionaries”.

Rule 1: Protect Your Best Customers, Products & Channels

As George Orwell, might have said, “All customers are created equal, but some customer are created more equal than others”. You need to understand who your best customers are and to protect the revenues they provide. As pressure mounts to make cuts, it is essential that the cuts fall on the customers who don’t provide much revenue or who lose you money. You also need to protect the products the best customers buy, and the channels they buy them through from cuts too. Paradoxically, this may be the time to consider making strategic investments in your best customers. You can achieve much more ‘bang for your buck’ when your competitors are reducing their spending.

Rule 2: Refocus the Customer Experience Around the Value Equation

Knowing who your best customers are, what and how they buy, and what jobs and outcomes they are looking for, allows you to refocus the business and provide a superior customer experience that also delivers superior results for your company. This may require refocusing resources away from your worst customers towards your best ones. The deep understanding you developed during the due diligence will identify the core touchpoints in the customer experience and the activities which support them. And the focus on customer jobs and outcomes will ensure that you don’t forget about the product in use. This is usually the part of the customer experience where most value is delivered to customers.

Rule 3: Sweat Your Customer Management Assets

Now that you know who your best customers are and have refocused around value creation, you should look to gain the maximum from the customer management assets you have. This means squeezing a bit more value from each of the core touchpoints in the customer experience. Doing this requires that all the supporting people, process, technologies and other assets that deliver the customer experience are better aligned. And that they are used a bit more intensively to create value, whether this involves better sales calls, more targeted marketing, or products that are better at helping customers get the jobs and outcomes they want. As has been said elsewhere, a recession means doing BETTER, not just doing less!

Rule 4: Cut Non-value-adding Costs while Protecting Value

In parallel with using your customer management assets to the full, you should also look to remove all non-value-adding costs using the lean thinking approach pioneered by Toyota. By following a customer order through the entire delivery process, most companies are able to identify 20-40% of the activities that don’t add any value, i.e. that neither the customer, nor the business is willing to pay for. These are all candidates for cuts. This not only saves significant costs, it also speeds-up the business, reduces errors and increases the satisfaction of your best customers.

And don’t listen to the ignorant naysayers who clain that lean thinking only works in manufacturing. Just look at companies as varied as Vodafone, Ducati and Tesco, and of course, Toyota, who have all applied lean thinking with great success to improve their service operations.

Rule 5: Support & Incentivise Staff to Deliver Value

Tough times call for strong leadership. And not only from senior management. You should carefully assess your staff and select the ones who can help lead you through the recession. And then agree tough performance targets for delivery. That may mean upsetting the old order and hierarchy as young managers are promoted above longer-serving ones. It may also mean trouble with unions more interested in maintaining the job status quo than in your company beating the recession. You should be prepared to support, coach and mentor managers responsible for running key parts of the customer experience. It will be worth it. Not only will they feel empowered to deliver against their targets during the recession, they will also be much better managers once the recession is over.

Rule 6: Focus on the Long-term while Supporting the Short-term

Many companies make the mistake of just focussing on the short-term, particularly at the start of a recession. And you will certainly face pressure to be seen to be ‘doing something’ about the recession. The whole point of the due diligence and the previous steps is to enable you to understand what creates value for customers and shareholders over the long-term, and then to develop a plan to beat the recession. This will no doubt require some tough trade-offs. And sometimes you will be forced to make the wrong ones to placate senior management. That doesn’t mean that you should ignore the short-term, particularly revenue generation. But it will allow you to strike the right balance so that you can plan to beat the recession.

Are You Planning to Beat the Recession?

Try and answer the five questions below. If you can answer “Yes” to most of the questions, you are on the right track. But you still have a little work to do? But if you can only answer “No” to most of the questions, you had better look again at your approach to beating the recession. Your best competitors already have!

Question 1: Do you understand the total value equation?
Do you know how value is created for your company? Do you understand how value is created for customers? Can you keep abreast of changes in both as things change?

Question 2: Can you protect the value created by your best customers?
Do you know who your best customers are? Do you know what they buy, at what price, through what channels? Do you know what your competitors are doing to attract them?

Question 3: Are you using all your resources to create value?
Are you sweating your customer management resources? Are you cutting out non-value-adding costs? Are the resources aligned and integrated to let value flow seamlessly to customers?

Question 4: Are you supporting your staff and partners?
Are the right people in charge of customer management? Do they get senior management support when they need it? Are they incentivised to deliver value? Are you supporting & incentivising your partners?

Question 5: Are you focussed on the long-term?
Are you preparing plans to beat the recession over the next 1-2 years? Are you pro-actively managing customers for short-term value creation? Are you measuring the health of your business on a regular basis?

If you follow the six simple Rules for Recessionaries, you will be in a good position to put together a coherent plan to beat the recession. But if you are just intending to rely on aggressive cost cuts, or untargeted investments in the status quo to save you, then “Good Luck”. You will need it.

via Six Proven Rules to Beat the Recession | CustomerThink – CRM, CEM & Social Media – Think, Feel & Connect.

A primer on Social Media: Listen, Build, Engage, Share

If you are just familiarizing yourself with social media and how to leverage it in your organization, Becky Carroll on the 1to1 media blog does a nice job of summarizing the benefits of Social Media, and how companies can leverage tools like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.  She does a nice job of separating the “cool factor” and hype from tangible benefits that can be reaped.

Has your company leveraged Social Media to deepen customer relationships?Do you have plans to? What question or concerns to you have?  Soundoff.

Guest Blogger Becky Carroll: Social Media Builds Customer Relationships

One of the most common questions being asked right now is this: “What should my company do about social media?” As more and more businesses are jumping in and creating corporate profiles on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and flickr, marketers are feeling the pressure to jump on the bandwagon. Some of these marketers plan to use social media as a cool set of tools to build awareness about their company. However, it is much more than that. Social media can be an integral part of a strategy to build customer relationships.

Let’s look at how social media can be used to deepen customer interaction and increase customer loyalty.

Social media builds trust.
It allows companies to be perceived as more human. You aren’t just talking to Comcast; Frank Eliason is there for you. You want to know more about Zappos; Tony Hsieh tells it like it is. Customers don’t want relationships with faceless companies; they want relationships with other people. The use of social media hastens the trust-building process by putting people instantly in touch with other people–critical in these days of corporate bail-outs and public uneasiness. Trust is the main component of a strong customer strategy.

Social media builds community.
Customers can’t easily rally around a website, as there is little interaction there; but they can rally around a brand’s presence on social media. What makes these communities so powerful is that many of them have been built and sustained by a brand’s fans. Fiskars, which makes scissors, encouraged the formation of a scrapbooking community. However, it is their customer ambassadors, or Fiskateers, who are responsible for driving the conversation and inviting others to join in. National Instruments uses its community, powered by social media, to bring together business customers to share technical information with each other, which is then used in National Instruments marketing materials. These communities are examples of likeminded people coming together and interacting around a common purpose; in this case, a company’s products and services. Ongoing customer interaction and engagement such as these increase loyalty and ultimately rate of purchase.

Social media increases word of mouth.
It allows information to be shared peer-to-peer at light-speed around the globe. As a result, customers are turning to social media ratings and reviews to research an organization’s offerings before making a buying decision. This is especially true in the B2B environment, where a large number of B2B buyers are participating actively in social media for business–reading blogs, writing reviews, watching user-generated videos, and joining social networks (source: Forrester). All of this enables the rapid spread of company news and information, as well as the sharing of customer success stories. Organizations that enlist their customers to help evangelize their products and services via social media find those customers to be fiercely loyal and willing to share their experiences with others who are like them. This in turn builds trust, as well as the customer base.

Social media enables two-way conversations.
This is the gold in the equation. Where companies used to have to rely on one-way email blasts, advertisements, and direct mail pieces, they can now interact directly with customers via blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and a myriad of other social media tools. More is required than simply hanging out a corporate shingle on these sites, however. Companies need to fit these conversations into their overall customer strategy and marketing communications plan. In so doing, they will be able to gain deep customer insight from these new online interactions, including an understanding of customer behaviors and needs, as well as online reach and influence.

Getting Started
The best way to begin using social media is to stay quiet. Yes, social media enables great customer interactions, but first it is important to do some listening. Once a company has spent time monitoring conversations–about the company, competitors, the industry–only then is it truly equipped to begin participating in conversation. This is the best way to be relevant when stepping forward and inviting customers into your virtual lounge to get to know them, their likes and dislikes, as well as their personal side. The foundation will be laid, and rich customer relationships have every opportunity to blossom from these online engagements.

via Guest Blogger Becky Carroll: Social Media Builds Customer Relationships – Think customers: The 1to1 Blog.

1 to 1 Marketing’s 2009 Voice of the Customer Survey Results

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.