Expectations (missed and misunderstood), communication and lack of sleep created a rough go of things.  We figured out what the problem was and fixed it, no worries there, but it reminded me about how critical it is to understand expectations well and thoroughly at the outset of a project.  All the key stakeholders need to have 1:1 interviews by the project leader.  It’s time consuming but critical.  Understanding what they need and want out of the project and what they think the output will be like are so important.  Getting a sense for their level of engagement and support will come out of these interviews as well.

Often we are eager to “get down to work” but this is a big part of the project work as well and if left undone, I think it can cause the whole project to fail or at the least cause it to miss the mark of true success.  What do you think?  Do you encounter this in your work (or personal life) as well?

One – it’s a pleasure to see how the people at the park (the heart of the Disney customer experience) respond when they see someone with the Happy Birthday button.  They could simply wish you a Happy Birthday but they take care to use your name as well.  It’s a delight, just as they intend.  And I equally appreciate that this is not an easy thing for them to do, day after day.

Two – I came out of a restroom in the park and found a little bird that seemed to be having a problem.  It was huddled against the wall and kept stretching its wings.  I kept watching the bird for a couple of minutes, trying to decide if it was okay.  Close by were two cast members who noticed my concern about the bird.  They assured me that they were there to watch over the bird until the staff vet got there to check the bird out.  That was impressive, even for Disney.  Caring for the birds that also enjoy the park is special and as an animal lover, I appreciate that even more.

Three – it’s construction time at Disney.  Main Street is getting some love, the under the sea stuff is going up, the new entrance to California Adventure is under way and Tron is under development, to name a few.  But even during all this construction, Disney takes care to ensure that you are looking at something interesting.

That is attention to detail along the entire customer journey.  Fascinating.  That dedication and focus is what makes them great at what they do.  I want the same thing for my program.  How about you?  What great customer experience’s do you want to share?

I see customer retention as a key metric and focus for a customer experience group.  I vote for leaving churn behind as a measure and developing a measure that helps focus efforts on improving the behavior we want – retention. 

I think it becomes a more interesting and actionable discussion, when you have a metric (or metrics) that focus on customer retention.  There are also different views of retention, for example –  

• # of accounts retained
• # of products/services within an account retained
• retained value

I don’t know but a “focus on reducing churn” sounds less customer focused than a “focus on increasing customer value”.  Some have said it is more about semantics (which could be right) but even so, semantics matter.  I’ve heard many versions of this phrase (Tom Peters to  Deming) but essentially you do get what you measure or at least that what’s people will focus on, so I think getting the focus on customer retention does matter, in the end.  What do you think?  And which one does your company measure?

Let’s start with Customer Satisfaction vs. Customer Loyalty (including NPS) – what are you going to use it for? 

• Customer satisfaction is all about us – the company/product/service/employees – how did we do? 
• Customer loyalty is all about your customers and their behavior – what stories will they tell about you?  What will they say when someone asks them what they think about a company/product/service?

Picking one or the other (or using both) starts with knowing how you will use the data once you get it. 

• Customer satisfaction – great for repeatable events (like customer support or field service) that need a customer based metric on the scorecard and to drive repeatable excellence in the customer experience. 
• Customer loyalty – great for determining what stories customer’s are telling about you.  Good at showing (or even predicting) customer lifetime value.  Excellent source of customer feedback for product or brand improvement suggestions.

Once you’ve decided how you want customer feedback to apply to your business, it becomes easier to answer questions like “how often do I ask?” and “what method do I use to get the customer’s feedback?” or even “at what level do I ask the question (brand/product/service)?”  **We’ll get to these questions in my next post in this series.**

I’m big on actionable information.  I like to know what business questions customer feedback will answer or what business problems customer feedback will resolve.  It helps me find the right focus for applying customer metrics.  My program team is service oriented – we are here to help our business partners across the company and improve the customer experience at the same time.  This is important because it is feedback from the customers and my business partners that help fuel how I design a program.

These are my thoughts.  What do you think?  Share your experience with me.

Here are the areas we will cover together in the next couple of weeks:

• Strategy:
  • Appetite for risk
  • Customer focus
  • Embracing innovation
• People:
  • Executive buy-in
  • Employee engagement
  • Company culture
• Metrics:
  • Satisfaction and loyalty
  • Customer retention
  • Customer lifetime value

I look forward to hearing what you think as we go through these topics.

I’m a big believer in the power of listening and how it can help you drive excellence.  The great thing is that listening gives you insights that often did expect.  Not only should you listen to your customers, you should listen to your prospective customers and your competitors customers.  Listen, show you are listening and respond – the ultimate customer feedback loop.

And being such a great versatile tool, I apply active listening to process improvement projects as well.  Starting off a project by 1:1 interviews with all the stakeholders will go a long way to ensuring engagement and getting great potential solutions.

And lets be honest, it’s a great idea for your personal relationships too.  I’m coming up on my 15th wedding anniversary next month and we listen to each other.

How do you use active listening in your life?

One subject came up as a question after a session and I couldn’t help chiming in – executive compensation on your customer KPI, most notably NPS http://www.netpromoter.com was mentioned, although others arose as well.   to be clear up front, I’m all for incenting the right behavior and having incentives that are rooted in improving the customer experience are great. 

What I’ve experienced and heard about from many in this field is that once you incent based on improving the customer KPI, you will often find an intense focus on how the number is captured, calculated and surrounded by debate on the score.  This results in a frustrating amount time spent justifying the number itself, rather than improving the customer experience.

So how do you get out of that hole?

The easiest way I’ve found is to change the focus of attention away from the number (whichever one you use) and instead focus on incenting for improvement initiatives that are based in customer feedback.  By doing this, you comfortably fit full control of the efforts and results into the hands of the executive being incented (which also encourages engagement) and you circumvent all of the arguments around the number. 

Do you have a customer based KPI?  Is there incentives for it?  I want to hear how you handle this challenge.

This concept… to me, it’s more than just delivering information when asked.  It’s understanding when key stakeholders meet, what they discuss when they meet and what information they don’t think to ask for outside of meetings.  This forms a rhythm when you map it whole.

By doing this, we integrate our customers into the discussions and decisions of the business.  It’s rewarding to see how this can lead to a customer-centric business model.  How much do you understand of the rhythm of your business?

Measuring retention instead of churn shouldn’t be anymore difficult, as metrics go.  It should be designed to fit how you sell in your marketplace and around customer behavior.  I like how retention metrics focus on the positive and language turns into more customer focused intentions rather than preventative measures.  I like how retention can be proactive (“What can we do to be even better? How would you like to see us improve?”) and gets you out of being strictly reactive (“Oh, you want to leave?  Can we do something to keep you now?”)  Being focused on keeping the customer once they have decided to leave feels like “too little, too late”.  At that point, I am often more insulted than interested in taking any offer to stay.  Why wasn’t I valuable enough to you for this discounted offer before I decided to leave you?

So I vote that it’s time to leave behind the churn metrics and move forward into retention metrics.  Let’s show our customers we care about them now, while they are still with us on that customer experience ride.  What do you say?