Newsletter

Customer Strategy Newsletter #33 – Response Rates, CX Strategy, and more…

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Welcome to the 33nd edition of my customer strategy newsletter. The five topics this week are:

  1. New Net Promoter System Podcast on response rates.
  2. ‘Modern Day Fairy Tale’ series now complete 
  3. Latest blog posts
  4. Notable items from other sites
  5. Looking forward

New Net Promoter System Podcast on response rates

Questions about feedback response rates were among the most common during the six months when I managed the LinkedIn Net Promoter System group. There were questions about how to improve response rates and about statistical significance. Good questions!

Rob Markey invited me to record a new Bain Net Promoter System podcast on the subject. As usual, I asked most of the questions, and he answered them. He has achieved amazing response rates with his clients.

The podcast was released earlier this week. I hope you will find it entertaining, and I hope it answers some of the questions you may have on this important subject. You can find it on the Bain site here, as well as on iTunes and other locations where you may be getting your podcasts. Please let us know what you think.

‘Modern Fairy Tale’ blog series on CX strategy now complete

Thank you for the excellent feedback I have received on the unusual series of articles I wrote. The fourt and final article revealed all of the secrets and made it clear why I wrote it as a work of fiction. Some of you recognized the types of discussions and incidents I covered. One person wrote to me because he had worked out who the protagonists actually were. He was almost completely correct. He only had access to the first three posts at the time, and had not worked out who the narrator was. If you have not read any of the articles, please start with the first one here, rather than jumping to the finale mentioned in the ‘latest blog post’ section below. Each article has a link tot he following one. Enjoy!

 

Our latest blog posts

Here are the latest posts. As mentioned last week, all of these are in a new writing style and intended for you to use for CX Day on October 3rd. Older posts are still available on the blog page.

image A Modern Fairy Tale (Part 4 of 4) – You don’t need a customer experience strategy – You already know what to do

The big day has arrived. I have to present to our CEO and leadership team. I am really nervous. Death or glory?
image A Modern Fairy Tale (Part 3) – You don’t need a customer experience strategy. You already know what to do

A date with George, and I actually do the necessary customer research. Unfortunately, the customers do not confirm my own ideas about what needs to be done…
image A modern fairy tale (continued) – You don’t need a customer experience strategy – you already know what to do (Part 2)

Continuing the story of what happens when you don’t bother with a customer experience strategy. (Because you already know what to do.) In this episode, the narrator (who could this person actually be?) finds at least one person willing to help.

Notable customer experience items from other sites

Matt LeMay: On Net Promoter and Data Golems

A provocative article from Matt Lemay, writing on Medium. Has NPS grown into an uncontrollable monster? While I would say that his understanding of the sytem is incomplete, he makes some excellent points, notably on the importance of talking to your customers to find out why they gave particular ratings. (I say his understanding is incomplete because asking why is part of the stadard three-question research format.) See what you think. You can find the article here.

Forbes: 7 Steps to Great Customer Experience in Any Industry 

Steve Andriole wrote this article which appeared on Thursday. He provides some lists of best and worst companies and then proposes his seven steps. Nicely written and useful. I suppose one obvious step is missing. You need to ensure you have sponsorship for the work before you start. Otherwise you waste your time. He sort of covers this in his seventh step, but it really needs to be the first one. The article is here.

 

Looking forward

I will try to write a few new things on LinkeIn and elsewhere on Tuesday, in honor of Customer Experience Day. My experiments with Amazon Ads are continuing. I have reached a dangerous stage in that one of my ads has produced better results than the others, but I have not yet run a confirmation experiment. The temptation to stop experimenting is powerful, and I must resist it…

Please share this newsletter with your friends and colleagues and encourage them to sign up for it here. I have put links to past newsletters on the subscription page. Finally, please feel free to change or cancel your subscription using the link below.

You can also email me, Maurice FitzGerald, at mfg@customerstrategy.net.

To change your subscription, click here.

 

#32 – Writing for Customer Experience Day on October 3rd

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Welcome to the 32nd edition of my customer strategy newsletter. The five topics this week are:

  1. Writing some blog posts for ‘CX Day’
  2. LinkedIn NPS Forum update 
  3. Latest blog posts
  4. Notable items from other sites
  5. Looking forward

Writing blog posts for ‘Customer Experience Day’

Jeanne Bliss and Bruce Temkin founded the Customer Experience Professionals Association in 2011. In addition to their excellent certification work, they promote worldwide Customer Experience Day each year. This year it falls on October 3rd.

I have started to write a series of posts that you may find useful on that day. The first three are in the ‘Our latest blog posts’ section below. I have tried to write them in a style that does not require any prior knowledge of customer experience work, and that should be entertaining to your friends and colleagues who work in other professional areas. If you like any of the posts, I suggest linking to them in any message you send out for CX day.

The writing style is quite different to what I have used up to now, especially for the ‘fairy tale’ articles. It is an experiment, and I hope you enjoy it. Feel free to let me know either way.

Update on the LinkedIn Net Promoter System (NPS) Forum

Last week I mentioned that I have been pushed out of the main LinkedIn NPS group. I still don’t know why, as the owner is not terribly communicative. Thanks to those who have written to me with suggestions so far. I learned that a number of other significant NPS professionals were excluded at the same time. At the moment, I am just remaining passive about the subject. Your recommendations and possible explanations are still welcome. If you have any, just write to me at  mfg@customerstrategy.net. While I could start a new group under the old name, that is not really ideal. I think it would take a long time to build it up enough to be interesting.

 

Our latest blog posts

Here are the latest posts. As mentioned above, all of these are in a new writing style and intended for you to use for CX Day on October 3rd. The ‘fairy tale’ articles are going somewhere. See if you can work out who the narrator might be, and potential themes for the presentation to the CEO. Older posts are still available on the blog page.

image  A modern fairy tale (continued) – You don’t need a customer experience strategy – you already know what to do (Part 2)

Continuing the story of what happens when you don’t bother with a customer experience strategy. (Because you already know what do to.) The narrator finally finds at least one person willing to help…
image For CX Day: How YOU can build a customer-centric culture in your company

Your CEO keeps saying customers are important. Your own business leader says the same thing. So does your manager. So why do you still think this is just ‘lip service’…
image A modern fairy tale – You don’t need a customer experience strategy – you already know what to do (Part 1)

Don’t bother with a customer experience strategy. You already know what to do. Well, most of us think we do. Including me. We all have lots of ideas that will improve customer experience. Here is a story about how that all works.

Notable customer experience items from other sites

Business 2 Community: Leading indicators of customer churn, and what to do about it

I had not visited the Business 2 Community site in a while and just discovered this article on customer churn. While its focus is on SaaS, I believe it applies to many businesses that depend on subscriptions. One of the leading indicators they mention is ‘decreasing usage’, which is quite easy to see in SaaS, even though companies rarely react to it. Decreasing usage is a great leading indicator for gyms and fitness centers too. See what you think. You can find the article here.

Temkin Group research: 2017 B2B Tech Vendor NPS scores

I always find benchmark NPS results interesting, particularly for the indusutry in which I used to work. The link below is to a summary of the latest report. At least you can see the relative rankings and the top and bottom scores. You have to pay for the full report. The preview is here.

 

Looking forward

I need to finish the ‘Fairy tale’ blog series next week. Even I don’t know exactly what will happen next. I am also continuing my experiments with Amazon ads for our books, and considering whether I should offer an hourly phone/Skype-based consulting service. Opinions welcome.

Please share this newsletter with your friends and colleagues and encourage them to sign up for it here. I have put links to past newsletters on the subscription page. Finally, please feel free to change or cancel your subscription using the link below.

You can also email me, Maurice FitzGerald, at mfg@customerstrategy.net.

To change your subscription, click here.

 

#31 – Join the sales team – Strange happenings in the LinkedIn NPS group

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Welcome to the 31st edition of my customer strategy newsletter. The five topics this week are:

  1. Possibly the most important internal relationship for customer experience managers
  2. Negative surprise with the LinkedIn NPS Forum 
  3. Latest blog posts
  4. Notable items from other sites
  5. Looking forward

Advice for CX leaders: Join the sales team

If you are successful in measuring and improving customer experience, you will sell more. Your sales team should find that value proposition quite compelling. The customer experience leader needs to have an excellent relationship with sales and should be part of their leadership team. I am not suggesting that he or she should report to the sales leader, simply that they must be in the team.

My own approach has been to start by proposing to attend an internal sales meeting to present competitive benchmark data. Sales teams find the insights about their competitive advantages and disadvantages to be really useful, so they have always been attentive. Using that positive feedback, I then propose to be a permanent member of the sales leadership team. That has usually worked for me.

OK, that is the positive perspective. A more negative perspective is that sales teams are the ones that are most likely to try to prevent you interviewing customers or partners. The objections usually take one of two forms. The most common is “Yes, I support what you are doing, but we have a big deal going on right now [or any one of a list of ‘exceptional’ situations] so I don’t want to risk upsetting the customer in any way. I will give you a call when it is all OK again.” The second variation is “I already know everything there is to know about our customers.” That is a bit harder to deal with. Joining the sales team helps immensely with both.

Strangeness over at the LinkedIn Net Promoter System (NPS) Forum

One of the first things I have been doing at around 6 a.m. each day is to check whether there are new membership requests over at the LinkedIn NPS group. I have been managing it for the last six months. Las week Monday, I was unpleasantly surprised to discover that the name of the group had been changed, and that I had been excluded from the group. This came as a shock. I have had no communication of any kind with the group owner. He has not responded to my messages asking for clarification. Indeed, part of the reason I was asked to manage the group was that he had not posted anything for several years, and several hundred people were waiting for replies to their membership requests.

I have no ideas what is going on here. If any of you have any insights, feel free to write to me at mfg@customerstrategy.net. I raised a help ticket with LinkedIn to find out. However, they replied that they do not interfere with, or get involved in groups in any way, so they could not help me.

 

Our latest blog posts

Here are the latest posts. The top one is the first in a new series that I am writing about a (fictional) attempt to improve things for customers without having a formal strategy. Even I don’t know how it will turn out as yet. Older posts are still available on the blog page.

image  A modern fairy tale – You don’t need a customer experience strategy – you already know what to do (Part 1)

Don’t bother with a customer experience strategy. You already know what to do. Well, most of us think we do. Including me. We all have lots of ideas that will improve customer experience. Here is a story about how that all works.
image Use emotion and ‘identifiable victims’ in customer experience reporting

No strategy is worthwhile and no project is worth doing if you cannot communicate it effectively. Once the communication is about how your customers and partners feel about your company, emotion enters into play. Here is how to deal with it.
image Net Promoter Open Question Analysis – Survey Results

Thanks to those who have taken the survey on analysis of open-ended questions. I would like to summarize what I have seen, provide a link to the results, and invite analytics vendors to study the resulting text data.

Notable customer experience items from other sites

Alessandro Donetti: Extraordinary In-Store Experience? Bet On New Service Behaviors!

An interesting and detailed article on an important subject. Alessandro Donetti combines examples from Amazon and others with his own experience. I really like his points about experimentation. The examples show how it has been done at large and small scales. Personally, I think of one of his variations as prototyping, meaning trying something at an affordable scale before making a big bet. Not everyone does it this way, and Alessandro provides examples of really large experiments that have either failed or succeeded. Certainly new service behaviors exist, and consumers react in new and different ways to both existing and new services. I hope you like the article. You can find it here.

Customer service quotes database from Help Scout

I needed something to cheer me up after the LinkedIn group experience last week. This helped. A useful and often humorous set of customer-centric quotes. Have a look and a laugh here.

Looking forward

I have started my Amazon Ad experiments in an attempt to further improve book sales. I have two weeks of data about 14 experiments so far. I will start another set over the next week. So far, all I can say is that Amazon provides rich data, and the experiments seem interesting.

Please share this newsletter with your friends and colleagues and encourage them to sign up for it here. I have put links to past newsletters on the subscription page. Finally, please feel free to change or cancel your subscription using the link below.

You can also email me, Maurice FitzGerald, at mfg@customerstrategy.net.

To change your subscription, click here.

 

#30 – Airlines, Difficult Customers, Customer Growth Indicator

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Welcome to the 30th edition of my customer strategy newsletter. The four topics this week are:

  1. What is really happening to customer satisfaction with US airlines? (Not what you think)
  2. Latest blog posts
  3. Notable items from other sites
  4. Looking forward

What is really happening to customer satisfaction with US airlines?

Given the amount of negative attention about customer incidents on United, Delta and other airlines this year, there must be a serious problem, right? Customers must be angry with US airlines, right? Customer satisfaction must be going through the floor, right? Wrong!

Customer satisfaction with US-based airlines is the best it has ever been since it has been covered by the American Customer Satisfaction Index, meaning since 1994. So what gives? In reality, this is all to do with The law of small numbers. When data sets get very big, you can always find some small numbers that look very unattractive indeed. Let me give an example that is closer to home. Here in Geneva, about 7 million passengers went through the airport in 2000. This year the total will be about 16 million. The explanation is mainly a single airline: EasyJet, that decided to establish a major hub here when Swissair almost completely abandoned Geneva. EasyJet now carries over 40% of all passengers. My favorite Sunday newspaper (Le Matin) regularly carries stories about people getting stranded in Lyon when their flight was too late for the Geneva curfew, as well as stories affecting individual passengers. Always negative stories. No positive ones at all.

The point here is that when you carry 6 or 7 million passengers out of a single city, some people will have bad experiences. Since the airport has understandably struggled to keep up with passenger growth, there may be a few more of these experiences than in an airport with no capacity issues. Since the population of the Geneva urban area is just about 300,000, it is easier for the rare bad events to become known. Social media helps too.

I am not saying that United, Delta, EasyJet, or indeed any other airline is wonderful. I am just suggesting that individual incidents that are not handled well do not mean much. In the USA at least, most passengers seem to be happier than ever. Here is the ACSI results table. If a score is in green, it is the better of the 2016 and 2017 scores.

 

ACSI airlines

Our latest blog posts

Here are the latest posts. Older posts are still available on the blog page.

image Use emotion and ‘identifiable victims’ in customer experience reporting

No strategy is worthwhile and no project is worth doing if you cannot communicate it effectively. Once the communication is about how your customers and partners feel about your company, emotion enters into play…
image Net Promoter Open Question Analysis – Survey Results

 

Thanks to those who have taken the survey on analysis of open-ended questions. This article summarizes the results and hopefully provides a few insights. I was surprised at how manual it all is today.
image OK, You have given me a strategy development method… but what customer-centric strategies are actually possible?

The best strategy development method I have come across is one I learned from Willie Pietersen at his Columbia Executive Education course and is also described in his books. This Bain article complements it by suggesting there are just 30 possible customer ‘value drivers’ for consumer businesses. Choosing to be great at just a few is the secret of success.

Notable customer experience items from other sites

Inc. –  7 Powerful Ways to Deal With Difficult Customers

A Some good tips for dealing with “rude and demanding” customers. Personally, I think number two ‘Listen’ and number three ‘Apologize with empathy’ are the most important. See what you think. Read it here.

McKinsey -The Customer Growth Indicator: How to win the battle for initial consumer consideration

An interesting new article from McKinsey that includes some short video clips. At first I thought their contention that 70% of purchasing decisions depend on initial consideration was obvious and arbitrary. Then I read more and watched the videos. Some good insights relating to past customer experience in particular. Have a look here.

 

Looking forward

As mentioned last week, we decided to run some Amazon ads to see whether they have more effect on book sales than they cost. (We are happy with the sales even without advertising, but why not try?) I set up four campaigns earlier today. For anyone who is interested, my brother and I decided to use two books as our references and we are only about a third of the way through them at the moment. They are The Adweek Copywriting Handbook by Joseph Sugarman, and Mastering Amazon Ads by Brian D. Weeks. Weeks is very scientific, and we are trying to follow his methodology precisely. I should be able to let you know how it is going about six to eight weeks from now.

Please share this newsletter with your friends and colleagues and encourage them to sign up for it here. I have put links to past newsletters on the subscription page. Finally, please feel free to change or cancel your subscription using the link below.

You can also email me, Maurice FitzGerald, at mfg@customerstrategy.net.

To change your subscription, click here.

 

#29 – Benchmarking podcast, NPS research, survey design, Verizon Q&A

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Welcome to the 29th edition of my customer strategy newsletter. The five topics this week are:

  1. Podcast on benchmarking now live
  2. Research on text analysis complete 
  3. Latest blog posts
  4. Notable items from other sites
  5. Looking forward

Net Promoter System Podcast on benchmarking now live

I recently recorded a podcast on benchmarking with Rob Markey, Bain partner and co-author of The Ultimate Question 2.0. It went live earlier yesterday

The intent of benchmarking is to give you useful points of comparison with your competitors. It is quite a complex subject, and we did our best to simplify it. We started with a definition, and went on to discuss various ways of making sure your comparisons are relevant and helpful. I asked the questions, and Rob answered, for the most part. Several of his points surprised me, including new information on the relationship between NPS trends and market share trends. You can find the podcast here, or on iTunes.

Primary research about answers to open survey questions

I completed the research phase of my study on what you are all doing with the answers to questions such as “What should we improve?” in your customer research. Some of you may be surprised to learn that the majority of companies do not yet use an automated solution for understanding such responses. Most simply read the answers, exposing you to confirmation bias, among other issues.

The results are here. I have also randomly selected one winner of our book Net Promoter – Implement the System, and notified him by email. Thanks for your participation.

 

Our latest blog posts

Here are the latest posts. OK, so maybe the third one is not the sort of thing I usually blog about, but I found the topic too interesting to resist. Older posts are still available on the blog page.

image Net Promoter Open Question Analysis – Survey Results

Final results of my primary research on how companies analyze the answers to open-ended survey questions. I was somewhat surprised by how manual it all is today.
image OK, You have given me a strategy development method… but what customer-centric strategies are actually possible?

The best strategy development method I have come across is one I learned from Willie Pietersen at his Columbia Executive Education course and is also described in his excellent book. This Bain article and animation complements it by suggesting there are only 30 different ‘value drivers’ or strategies available in B2C.
image Here is why the European Commission fined Google $2.7B, and how it could have been avoided

Quite a lot has been written about the recent $2.7 billion fine levied on Google, much of it simply wrong. Here is how to think about this type of competition law case.

Notable customer experience items from other sites

Satmetrix: Designing customer surveys that drive improvement

A nice 15-page document that provides useful tips on designing surveys. The focus is on ensuring surveys ask questions in a way that makes the answers easy to interpret and use to drive improvement. Supply some personal and company details to download the eBook here. A video on the same subject is here. And you can watch a video with Catherine Gurney of Satmetrix UK on the same subject here.

Q&A with Verizon Chief Experience Officer Scott Zimmer

Marketing Daily published this interview a few hours ago. Telcos, as an industry, tend to occupy the bottom of customer experience league tables, together with ISPs and cable TV companies. Verizon does better than average, so this interview is an interesting read. Have a look here.

 

Looking forward

July was a good month for our book sales, and also set a new record for pages read in the Kindle Unlimited service. August looks like it may be better again. A pleasant surprise given the vacation period in the northern hemisphere and the fact that we have never done any advertising either on Amazon or elsewhere. The only explanation we have is your ‘word of mouth’, and the reviews you have posted on Amazon. Thank you.

Please share this newsletter with your friends and colleagues and encourage them to sign up for it here. I have put links to past newsletters on the subscription page. Finally, please feel free to change or cancel your subscription using the link below.

You can also email me, Maurice FitzGerald, at mfg@customerstrategy.net.

To change your subscription, click here.

 

#28 – NPS research and quiz

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Welcome to the 28th edition of my customer strategy newsletter. The five topics this week are:

  1. Please respond to research about NPS text analysis
  2. Full Net Promoter System quiz now online 
  3. Latest blog posts
  4. Notable items from other sites
  5. Looking forward

Primary research about answers to open survey questions

If you include open questions in customer surveys, they provide interesting insights into what customers are thinking. Customers take time to respond, but do companies honor that by taking time to understand all the input? The simple answer is that I don’t know. I would like to find out. To this end, I have put together a simple survey that should take less than two minutes to compete. (I am not exaggerating.)

There are two ‘mandatory’ questions and two optional ones. The first mandatory one just asks what size of company you are working for. It is acceptable for consultants or software companies to reply on behalf of a single customer too. It is also OK if more than one person replies for one company, so don’t worry about that. The second mandatory question is shown here and is the core piece of data:

NPS survey

After that, you have the choice of suggesting what an ideal way of handling text input would be. You can also choose to supply your email address to participate in a draw for a free copy of our book Net Promoter – Implement the System. All responses are anonymous. I will share the results and data set with everyone. Please help with this effort. I think we can all learn something from it. The short survey is here.

 

The full 29-question Net Promoter System quiz is now online

I posted the final instalment and full quiz on Tuesday here. Have fun with it, and let me know if you disagree with any of the answers. Some may be tricky to understand if you have not read our NPS book.

 

Our latest blog posts

Here are the latest posts. Older posts are still available on the blog page.

image Net Promoter System® Quiz – Final part, and full quiz

Here is the full Net Promoter System true/false quiz. How much do you actually know about NPS? Now is the time to find out.
image A Puppy! And the Net Promoter System® Quiz – Part 5 – Feedback, improvement, teams

Another puppy photo. Enjoy. And of course, it is time for the fifth in a series of six true/false quizzes about the Net Promoter System. How are you doing so far?
image A Puppy! And the Net Promoter System® Quiz – Part 4 – Your CFO is Your Ally

This quiz concentrates on financial aspects of the Net Promoter System. It comes after a book chapter that emphasizes the need to work with your finance team to ensure the numbers make sense.

Notable customer experience items from other sites

‘Why 2018 will mark the end of customer silos’ – Really?

I am including this article just to point out how much I disagree with it. ‘Silo’ is an emotional word. The Marketing Daily article is written by Steve Kerho. He starts of by stating that “Organizational silos are a blight on corporate America.” ‘Silo’ is just the word you use to describe a team, business unit or organizational focus area you disagree with. You cannot succeed in any business area without a dedicated team that works on it. What I may call a business unit, others may call a silo. The article is here.

Interesting article on packaging inserts

I have occasionally been pleasantly surprised by stores adding some free sample or gift into the package when I buy something. The first time I read an article on the subject as a tactic for improving customer loyalty was earlier today.  Worth reading on Fincyte.com here.

 

Looking forward

I will probably leave the NPS-related survey open for another week. I look forward to learning what everyone is doing and sharing it all with you.

Please share this newsletter with your friends and colleagues and encourage them to sign up for it here. I have put links to past newsletters on the subscription page. Finally, please feel free to change or cancel your subscription using the link below.

You can also email me, Maurice FitzGerald, at mfg@customerstrategy.net.

To change your subscription, click here.

 

#27 – NPS Podcasts, Customer Advisory Boards and more

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Welcome to the 27th edition of my customer strategy newsletter. The five topics this week are:

  1. Just recorded two more NPS podcasts
  2. An unusual negotiation technique – worth trying? 
  3. Latest blog posts
  4. Notable items from other sites – Customer Advisory Boards, NPS benchmarks
  5. Looking forward

Recorded two more NPS podcasts with Rob Markey

Rob Markey and I recorded two new Net Promoter System podcasts on Monday. We had planned to record three, and blocked out 90 minutes to do so. However, we got enthusiastic about the first two subjects, and over-ran. We used questions from the Net Promoter System Forum on LinkedIn as the basis for our discussions.

The first one was all about benchmarking. I hope we will bring you a bit of clarity about the use of the word itself. It is being used to designate quite a few different types of research, not all of them useful. We covered the state of the art, the relationship between benchmark trends and revenue, benchmarking alternatives for smaller companies and niche industries, and a variety of other questions. I learned quite a bit, and hope you will find it useful when it goes live a couple of weeks from now.

The second recording was about response rates to customer feedback requests. It should go live in September. I was surprised at the high response rates Rob is able to achieve with his B2C clients. We covered how to improve response rates, dealing with SPAM filters, how to talk about response rates when communicating results, and a variety of other questions.

 

The ‘Scarboro’ negotiation technique – worth trying

I recently had another opportunity to use what I call the ‘Scarboro’ negotiation technique. It is quite surprising, and it can work. I named it after a former colleague at Digital Equipment Corporation, Alan Scarboro. I am writing about it here, because one of my contacts asked me for advice on how to submit an effective customer experience budget proposal for his company’s next fiscal year, which starts on October 1st.

Alan and I were working in the Software Product Group at DEC in Geneva, around 1995. Most of the other teams had UNIX or VMS workstations. Alan felt the software team should have PCs, as we wanted to use particular software that was not available for the workstations. PCs were expensive, and central IT had started to allow some teams to have low-end models. Alan submitted his request for our team. Quite a fancy configuration. Refused by IT. Alan then wrote a nice note to IT, copying two levels of management, saying “Thank you for refusing this configuration. You are absolutely correct. We need bigger screens and more powerful graphic cards. Here is our new order.” Quite a nasty refusal the second time. Alan’s response to the second refusal was similar to the first, adding more to the configuration, based on a specification just received from the software vendor as appropriate for power users. The response from central IT: “Approved. We don’t want to fight with you.”

When you are asking for something, it is worth thinking about what you could reasonably ask for that would be even better. If your first request is refused, ask for more. It worked for Alan. It just worked for me last week, in an unrelated area. And it was fun too!

 

Our latest blog posts

We are now up to the fifth in a series of six true / false quizzes about the Net Promoter System. All questions come from our book Net Promoter – Implement the System. Older posts are still available on the blog page.

image A Puppy! And the Net Promoter System® Quiz – Part 5 – Feedback, improvement, teams

Another puppy photo. Enjoy. And of course, it is time for the fifth in a series of six true/false quizzes about the Net Promoter System. How are you doing so far?
image A Puppy! And the Net Promoter System® Quiz – Part 4 – Your CFO is Your Ally

This quiz concentrates on financial aspects of the Net Promoter System. It comes after a book chapter that emphasizes the need to work with your finance team to ensure the numbers make sense.
image A Kitten! And the Net Promoter System® Quiz – Part 3 – Survey Design

Yet another kitten, and the third in a series of true or false questions about the Net Promoter System. This time the questions are about survey design.

Notable customer experience items from other sites

Satrix Solutions on Customer Advisory Boards

I provided a link to an earlier Satrix post on CABs a few weeks ago. I consider Customer Advisory Boards to be essential for B2B companies in particular. You need to ask for and carefully consider the advice of your most important customers when you are developing and implementing your business strategy. This latest post provides guidance on CAB logistics, taking action after the meetings, and how to understand the ROI of your investment in CABs. The article is here.

Infographic – Satmetrix NPS benchmarks for US consumer businesses

Satmetrix is a co-owner of the Net Promoter System trademark. They are the reference provider of NPS training, and also provide benchmarks and other services. If you fill in a few details about yourself and your company, you can download a great infographic that provides benchmark ranges for a variety of industries, as well at the names of the best in each. You can get it here.

 

Looking forward, and a correction

Thanks to the alert readers who pointed out that I misstated the year of the HP and EDS merger in last week’s article about British Airways. The companies merged in 2008, not 1998, so Sir Colin was not in charge when BA outsourced to EDS. The lesson for me is that I should not write anything before my second coffee.

Things are quite quiet for me at the peak of summer in the northern hemisphere. If there is something you would like me to investigate or write about, I have time available to do the necessary research, so please let me know.

Please share this newsletter with your friends and colleagues and encourage them to sign up for it here. I have put links to past newsletters on the subscription page. Finally, please feel free to change or cancel your subscription using the link below.

You can also email me, Maurice FitzGerald, at mfg@customerstrategy.net.

To change your subscription, click here.

 

#26 – Loyalty Cards, Outsourcing, and more

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Welcome to the 26th edition of my customer strategy newsletter. The five topics this week are:

  1. Thoughts about loyalty cards
  2. Article on British Airways: “How cost cutting increases costs.” Really? 
  3. Latest blog posts
  4. Notable items from other sites – Jobs to be Done, Customer Support
  5. Looking forward

Thoughts about loyalty cards

I have difficulty making up my mind about loyalty cards and similar schemes. I still have not been able to decide whether they are worthwhile, but at least I am able to articulate a few thoughts. Two things stimulated my thought process recently. One was a request from a company that offers a multi-brand loyalty scheme. Another was a report on Swiss radio about the loyalty schemes the two largest supermarket chains run here.

Starting with the supermarkets, the tone of the report was that it was almost scandalous that the cards give just a 1% discount, and that the supermarkets get so much data about us in return. Reducing my attitude to this to personal anecdote, the existence of these schemes has had no effect whatsoever on my grocery shopping. I continue to do it all in the supermarket that is closest to where I live. The other major chain would be a further five minute drive away, so I don’t bother. Similarly, I when I travelled a lot for HP, I reached the highest tier on all three major airline alliances’ frequent flyer schemes. However, the existence of the schemes had no effect whatsoever on my purchases. Company policy required me to take the lowest-cost flight to any destination. I suspect many other companies have similar policies. All this makes me think such single-brand cards are nice to have, and bring no particular benefit to the companies offering them. Of course the consequences of stopping such a system would be major.

There are a number of companies that offer multi-brand loyalty cards. I have to say that I don’t see many advantages for the participating companies. Since the cards are not proprietary, participating companies do not get customers’ purchase data that way. Yes, they can say they offer a loyalty card, but the loyalty card also potentially works at their competitors’ stores.  I play golf, and have received offers for three different loyalty cards, each of which gives substantial discounts at a large number of clubs. I can get out a calculator and work out whether they make financial sense for me. In the case of golf, one of the loyalty schemes comes from a company that owns a number of the golf clubs covered. For more general purchases covering lots of different retail stores, I just don’t see what it is in it for the stores. What am I missing? Your views are welcome.

 

Cost reduction and its effect on customers – maybe – British Airways

Rowan Jackson posted an article on LinkedIn on July 19th. Eight days later, it has had over 10,000 likes and 1200 comments. I have not seen this volume on LinkedIn before. The title is British Airways: a brilliant example of how cost-cutting increases costs. It attributes the recent major computer system failure at BA entirely to a supposedly-misguided decision to outsource its IT operations. Rowan suggests that one of BA’s historic CEOs, Sir Colin Marshall, would never have outsourced IT, quoting him as saying “Our IT is so important we would never outsource it.” He goes on to say that Sir Colin’s successors did not have the same IQ as Marshall and outsourced anyway.

Let’s remember what the nature of IT outsourcing was at the time. A company simply transferred its people and equipment to the outsourcing company. That company in turn drove efficiencies that typically resulted in a 20% cost reduction. EDS and HP merged in 2008 and EDS arrived with the BA outsourcing contract. I don’t know when it was signed. Sir Colin left in 2000. EDS/HP do not have the BA outsourcing contract anymore, by the way. But the unfortunate single employee whose mistake caused the downtime could have been working for anyone, including BA..

Moving from the specific to the generic. A good business strategy is one that allows you to concentrate your scarce resources on the few things that will help you to destroy your competitors. Everything else should be cut to the bone to provide you the cash you need to invest in the few things that will let you win. Unless you have decided that superior IT operations are one of the few things that will let you win, you should therefore give it all to someone else to operate. I have no idea what was on the list of BA’s top three strategic investments in the late 90s. If IT operations were on the list, they should have kept it in house. If not, goodbye, and use the resulting savings for the things on the top three list. 

Our latest blog posts

By popular request, I have replaced the kittens with a puppy for the latest true / false quiz. All questions come from our book Net Promoter – Implement the System. Older posts are still available on the blog page.

image A Puppy! And the Net Promoter System® Quiz – Part 4 – Your CFO is Your Ally

 

This quiz concentrates on financial aspects of the Net Promoter System. It comes after a book chapter that emphasizes the need to work with your finance team to ensure the numbers make sense.
image A Kitten! And the Net Promoter System® Quiz – Part 3 – Survey Design

Yet another kitten, and the third in a series of true or false questions about the Net Promoter System. This time the questions are about survey design.
image A Kitten! And the Net Promoter System® Quiz – Part 2

Now that you have seen another kitten, it is time for the second in a series of true or false questions about the Net Promoter System. This time the questions relate to ensuring that NPS is a reliable, trusted currency / metric.

Notable customer experience items from other sites

Entrepreneur Magazine: Want to Drive Growth? Improve Customer Support

Robert C. Johnson guest wrote this for Entrepreneur magazine today. It is an interesting read. I suggest reading the statistics he quotes with care. For example “The report says that 60 percent of consumers have taken their business elsewhere due to poor customer service, and nearly 70 percent of younger consumers have moved on due to inadequate support…” This does not mean that 60% of the people who receive poor service from your company will change. What it means is that 60% of consumers who may have received poor service from many companies, have stopped buying from at least one of them. Some companies are easier to drop than others. Restaurants are particularly easy to drop, while cable TV companies and Internet Service Providers are harder. The article is here.

Jim Kalbach and Jobs to be Done

Here is another way of thinking about customer journey mapping. You may remember I provided a link to Fred Reichheld’s views on ‘episodes’ last week. Jim Kalbach brings the ‘Jobs to be Done’ concept to journey mapping. The suggestion is that customer experience can be broken down this way, each major interaction representing a job the customer wants to do. His formula is “When [Situation], I want to [Motivation] so I can [expected outcome]. I really like this way of thinking. Of course I continue to believe that customer journey mapping should be used selectively, concentrating on things (jobs to be done) that need the most urgent improvement. Jim’s article is here.

 

Looking forward

I will be preparing the contents for the next three Net Promoter System podcasts over the coming few days. Your input is still welcome. We record on Monday.

Please share this newsletter with your friends and colleagues and encourage them to sign up for it here. I have put links to past newsletters on the subscription page. Finally, please feel free to change or cancel your subscription using the link below.

You can also email me, Maurice FitzGerald, at mfg@customerstrategy.net.

To change your subscription, click here.

 

#25 – NPS Podcast reactions – 404 page fun – ‘Episodes’

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Welcome to the 25th edition of my customer strategy newsletter. The five topics this week are:

  1. Reactions to last week’s Net Promoter System podcast – Q&A with Rob Markey
  2. Summer fun (or winter fun for the southern hemisphere): 404 pages
  3. Latest blog posts
  4. Notable items from other sites – Reichheld on Episodes, Bliss on Silos
  5. Looking forward

Reactions to the Net Promoter System podcast with Rob Markey

Thank you for the many comments and questions I received after the Bain Net Promoter System podcast I recorded with Rob Markey went live last week. “A really outstanding episode” and “Another excellent podcast” are examples. Indeed, the reactions Rob Markey has had have been so positive that we agreed to record another six episodes together. One will appear per month, for the next six months. Last week’s podcast lasted close to an hour. Each of the next six will last 20 to 30 minutes and will cover a single subject, or maybe two. We will record the first three on July 31st.

So, my request to anyone interested in NPS is to listen to the last episode and help us to prioritize the subjects for the next six. You have suggested some subjects we have not covered yet, such as benchmarking, how to communicate NPS concepts simply and effectively to different audiences, how to perform great in-depth interviews with your most important customers, how to improve response rates, and more. Please send suggestions to mfg@customerstrategy.net.

 

Summer fun item (OK, winter fun if you are in the southern hemisphere)

Web designers have a semi-secret way of showing off their skills, whether or not their company or client is aware of it. I am now going to reveal their secret: they mess with your ‘404 page not found’ error messages. My brother and co-author has skills beyond art and cognitive psychology. He has done many websites for all sorts of businesses, and did most of the design work for our customerstrategy.net site. I love his 404 pages. When you click on the link, you will see one version. To see all of them, click repeatedly on the light grey reload arrow just below the bottom-right corner of each drawing. The 404 pages are here.

If you are interested in learning more about Peter’s skills, you can see his portfolio of business websites at ibusiness.website. Go to iculture.website if you are interested in his portfolio for art galleries and suchlike.

 

Our latest blog posts

Whether because of the kittens or because you like true / false questions, these posts have been popular. I realize a couple of the answers are difficult to understand without the context of the corresponding chapter of our book Net Promoter – Implement the System. The post on Journey Mapping has now had over 3,000 reads. It and all others are of course still available on the blog page.

image A Kitten! And the Net Promoter System® Quiz – Part 3 – Survey Design

Yet another kitten, and the third in a series of true or false questions about the Net Promoter System. This time the questions are about survey design.
image A Kitten! And the Net Promoter System® Quiz – Part 2

Now that you have seen another kitten, it is time for the second in a series of true or false questions about the Net Promoter System. This time the questions relate to ensuring that NPS is a reliable, trusted currency / metric.
image Kittens! And the Net Promoter System® Quiz – Part 1

Now that you have seen some kittens, it is time for the first in a series of true or false questions about the Net Promoter System. you can look forward to seven or eight short quizzes in all.

Notable customer experience items from other sites

Fred Reichheld blog post about ‘Episodes’

While it dates from March, I had not read Fred’s post titled Want Loyal Customers? Understand the Episodes That Matter until this week. Fred and his Bain colleagues are finding it useful to speak about episodes, rather than ‘transactions’ a company has with a customer. An episode can include several transactions or customer touch points. Fred defines an episode this way: “It is when a customer has a task to complete or a need to fulfill through the company. It has a clear start and end, marked by the customer completing what he or she set out to do. Episodes range from a single interaction (such as paying a bill online) to an intricate series of interactions spanning weeks (such as getting fixed broadband service moved to a new home).” I find the concept useful. It is similar, but not identical to a concept called ‘jobs to be done’ that I may cover in another newsletter or blog post.

Jeanne Bliss blog: Silos don’t have to hurt your CX, but they often do

Jeanne used to be Chief Customer Officer for Microsoft and is an authority on that job role. She has a balanced view on silos in this post. We often use the word ‘silo’ when we want to be negative about a team that has a focus on a particular area. Our intuitive reaction to ‘silo’ is negative, while the potentially identical ‘strategic business development team’ would be perceived positively. Words are powerful. You can read Jeanne’s blog here.

 

Looking forward

I will be preparing the contents for the next three Net Promoter System podcasts over the coming week. As mentioned above, your input is most welcome.

Please share this newsletter with your friends and colleagues and encourage them to sign up for it here. I have put links to past newsletters on the subscription page. Finally, please feel free to change or cancel your subscription using the link below.

You can also email me, Maurice FitzGerald, at mfg@customerstrategy.net.

To change your subscription, click here.

 

#24 – NPS Podcast, NPS Quiz, Text Analytics, Customer Advisory Boards

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Welcome to the 24th edition of my customer strategy newsletter. The five topics this week are:

  1. New Net Promoter System podcast now live – Q&A with Rob Markey
  2. Net Promoter System Quiz – Part 2
  3. Latest blog posts
  4. Notable items from other sites – Text analytics demo, Customer Advisory Boards
  5. Looking forward

New Net Promoter System podcast now live

Most of you know that I recorded a Net Promoter System podcast with Rob Markey of Bain two weeks ago. I asked readers for questions. The podcast has just gone live. The roles are reversed in this episode, in that I asked Rob a set of questions, and he answered them. The questions came from subscribers to this newsletter and from the LinkedIn Net Promoter System group.

The system has been in constant evolution even since Reichheld and Markey wrote The Ultimate Question 2.0 in 2011. Since then, the Bain podcast has been the main reference point for the changes. Among other things, a third question has been added to the standard research format (“What should we improve?”) and guidelines are now available for touchpoint / episode research.

Thank you for the questions you sent in. We were not able to get to all of them. The podcast is here, and it will also be in your iTunes podcast feed, if you have subscribed that way.

 

Net Promoter System Quiz – Part 2

Thanks for the positive feedback on the first part of the Net Promoter System true / false quiz. The second set of questions is now live. Your feedback and possible disagreements are welcome on the answers page. The new questions are here.

 

Our latest blog posts

The popular post on journey mapping is now third on the list. The others are two in a series of short true/false quizzes on the Net Promoter System. Older posts are of course still available on the blog page.

image A Kitten! And the Net Promoter System® Quiz – Part 2

Now that you have seen another kitten, it is time for the second in a series of true or false questions about the Net Promoter System. This time the questions relate to ensuring that NPS is a reliable, trusted currency / metric.
image Kittens! And the Net Promoter System® Quiz – Part 1

Now that you have seen some kittens, it is time for the first in a series of true or false questions about the Net Promoter System. you can look forward to seven or eight short quizzes in all.
image Customer Journey mapping – Use with care, if at all

Journey Mapping is probably the most sophisticated and complete form of customer experience measurement and improvement. Perhaps too sophisticated. Read what follows and see what you think.

Notable customer experience items from other sites

Survey text analytics demo from Thematic

I continue to believe that automated analysis of open text responses to customer surveys is critical to reaching unbiased research conclusions. Once great technology exists, it should also be possible for most researchers to radically reduce the number of questions they ask. Thematic has released a new demo web page that provides great illustrations of how I believe text analytics should work. The most important message I have is that analysis that just gives you single words is useless. You need multi-word descriptions of what customers like, hate, and want to see improved. The key technology is Natural Language Processing. In this demo, you can look at the results of a business school survey, a restaurant survey, or even upload your own data set. Have fun! The demo is here. Note that I have no business relationship with Thematic, or indeed any other software vendor.

Satrix Solutions: Advice on running effective Customer Advisory Board meetings

Satrix has an excellent blog and this is not the first time they have posted an article about CABs. I believe that all companies that have some large customers should invite them to participate in an advisory board. Based on my own interviews of HP CAB members, most see interacting with their peers as the main benefit of CAB membership. This means you should remember to have long breaks. You also need to remember who is supposed to do the advising in a CAB. (Hint: the CAB members.) The article is here.

 

Looking forward

While I don’t want to create the impression that the Net Promoter System is all I care about, I will indeed continue to post true / false questions about NPS for the coming weeks.

Please also share this newsletter with your friends and colleagues and encourage them to sign up for it here. I have put links to past newsletters on the subscription page. Finally, please feel free to change or cancel your subscription using the link below.

You can also email me, Maurice FitzGerald, at mfg@customerstrategy.net.

To change your subscription, click here.

 

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