CEN Issue Sep 2011

cust mer engagement issue five

The official magazine of the Customer Engagement Club www.customerengagementclub.com

September 2011

Customer Engagement in Financial Services 13th October 2011, London Speakers todate include: • Nadege Genetay, Head of Redress Unit, FSA (Keynote) • Andrew Fisher, CEO, Towry (case study) • Anthony Thomson , Chairman, Metro Bank (case study) • Rod Butcher, Head of Customer Experience and Insight, Aviva Group plc • Peter Flade, Senior Managing Partner, Gallup Consulting • Deborah Eastman, Global Head of Business Consulting, Satmetrix • Paul Scott, Director, Global Consulting at Merchants Ltd • Andy Scott, Director, Firstsource • Conrad Simpson, Director, Interactive Intelligence

Time:

The Future for Customer Engagement in Financial Services in the light of further regulatory changes, the loss of customer trust and the economic backdrop The Customer Engagement Club Directors Forum on Customer Engagement in Financial Services will highlight the key issues and challenges facing the financial services sector as it strives to get its customer relationships back on track, and will examine what the future holds for this much maligned sector in the light of further regulatory changes, the loss of customer trust and the economic backdrop.

Delegates will learn: • The strategies financial services organisations are employing to regain customer trust • How the FSA is bringing in new regulations aimed at ensuring the sector improves its customer service outcomes • What world class organisations in the sector are leading through genuinely customer centric strategies • How to differentiate your organisation and win customer trust and gain competitive advantage • How to measure and quantify the business benefits of engaging customers across channels • What the future looks like in a troubled sector and what customer strategies are needed to succeed

9:00am – 5:00pm

Venue: Gallup Consulting, The Adelphi, 1-11 John Adam Street, London, WC2N 6HS For more information contact Chris Wood: chris@ictcomms.com and +44 (0) 1932 341828 or visit our website: www.customerengagementclub.com

FREE TO ATTEND FOR SENIOR CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT AND EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT PROFESSIONALS

directors forum C U S T O M E R E N G AG E M E N T IN FINANCIAL SERVICES

Host Partner

Sponsor

Sponsor

Sponsor

Sponsor

customer engagement The official magazine of the Customer Engagement Club www.customerengagementclub.com

Customer Engagement magazine is published by the Customer Engagement Club, the organisers of the Customer Engagement Directors Forums.

To join the Club (free membership) and receive weekly Alerts, Digital Magazines and Invitations to the Directors Forums go to www.customerengagementclub.com Editorial Director: Steve Hurst steve@ictcomms.com Sales & Marketing Director: Chris Wood chris@ictcomms.com Tel: +44 (0) 1932 341828 Customer Engagement ©ICT Communications Ltd

4-7 The whole dynamic of how organisations interact with their customers has changed irrecoverably over the past decade as a proliferation of channels to market and technologically savvy customers have combined to create a perfect storm where customer insight is the key to bottom line success. Kieran Kilmartin at Pitney Bowes reports

14-16 Karine del Moro, founder of imPACT International Marketing, shares with Customer Engagement her 15 years’ experience with clients, and more specifically in the field of ‘localisation’ and the part it should play in any customer-centric strategy

18-19 We are experiencing a rapid increase in the availability of technologydriven products that facilitate a platform that we will interact with on a daily basis.

The suppliers of these products are also providing us with an expanding array of channels to provide feedback and give our opinions of the quality of the solution and the experience. Michael Hill of complaintsrgreat reports

9-11 Cloud based solutions and the benefits they can bring in saving costs and improving customer service are some of the hottest issues but can the cloud really deliver on the hype? Dave Paulding of Interactive Intelligence reports

22-23 The latest Customer Engagement Club Directors Forum drilled down into the nitty-gritty of how organisations can deliver a joined-up customer experience across all channels for competitive advantage. Editorial director Steve Hurst reports

20-21 Customer satisfaction is now firmly commoditised says Alan Zorfas of Motista - organisations must move beyond satisfaction and on to connection if they really want to win in the customer engagement stakes

C O V E R F E AT U R E

ISSUE FIVE • SEPTEMBER 2011

4

“The corporate notion of the ‘dumb’ consumer who merely exists to buy products and services via the traditional channel of the high street has been demolished by the explosion of online and mobile technologies”

Kieran Kilmartin is marketing director EMEA at Pitney Bowes

customer engagement

The whole dynamic of how organisations interact with their customers has changed irrecoverably over the past decade as a proliferation of channels to market and technologically savvy customers have combined to create a perfect storm where customer insight is the key to bottom line success. Kieran Kilmartin at Pitney Bowes reports

From having their choices restricted by what was available from local stores and service providers, customers now have access to a global cornucopia of retail and service options. Similarly, marketing is no longer just restricted to advertising in traditional media and direct mail - a multi-channel communications world has opened up that makes the task of reaching target audiences both more dynamic and more challenging than ever.

The customer redefined The very notion of the customer is being redefined. With so much choice available, companies are finding it harder than ever to engender a sense of loyalty in the people who buy from them.

Yet the rewards for those companies who can retain and grow their customer base today are many - for instance, the influence and power of online resources

5

such as Trip Advisor and Amazon reviews amply demonstrate how happy customers can quickly become hugely valuable brand ambassadors.

Conversely, unhappy customers can just as easily damage a company’s reputation through negative word of mouth.

What’s clear is that customers can no longer be treated as a mass demographic – the key to successfully maintaining customer loyalty is personalisation. Ironically, the rush of multi-channel communications and the low cost mass marketing capabilities of email have often caused companies to lose sight of the fact that the most effective customer interactions are conducted oneto-one between individuals.

Insight key to building lifetime customer value Retail and service provision is no longer about one-off transactions, but about enabling lifetime customer relationships, a long-term, personalised dialogue which is consistent no matter which channels of communication are being used This type of relationship is only possible through the adoption of meaningful and actionable insight in order to discover what makes each individual customer tick.

M

Since the dawning of the 21st century there has been a dramatic shift in the commercial relationship between organisations and individuals. The corporate notion of the ‘dumb’ consumer who merely exists to buy products and services via the traditional channel of the high street has been demolished by the explosion of online and mobile technologies.

ISSUE FIVE • SEPTEMBER 2011

C O V E R F E AT U R E

It is only by gaining this level of understanding that companies can answer such questions as: who are we actually talking to and why might they be interested in what we have to offer; what should we be talking to them about and when do they make buying decisions; where are they located and which selling channel should we be using to reach them?

The information required to build the type of sophisticated profiles that our customer-centric century demands is out there, but despite the best efforts of CRM technologies, it hasn’t previously been pulled together in a way that is genuinely adaptive or holistic. However, this is beginning to change with the emergence of customer analytics solutions that seek to uncover important data relationships within organisations’ customer databases And sophisticated predictive capabilities that will pre-determine outcomes.

Organisations can now develop a much clearer and more delineated picture of their customers, enabling them to predict profit-impacting behaviours and propensities such as customer churn, cross-sell and up-sell opportunities, campaign planning and segmentation, customer satisfaction and loyalty, and customer lifetime value.

Contact centres critical This insight is especially critical in respect to inbound calling, where a company must capitalise on the limited customer access time they have. Research suggests that a customer will contact an organisation just twice a year and with many opting out of direct marketing approaches such as mail, email or text messages, it is vital that organisations make these interactions count.

Nationwide has the know-how The Nationwide Building Society is a good example of an organisation that has enhanced customer relationships through deploying real-time decisioning technology. The company has experienced real returns, with incremental sales running more than 200 per cent on original targets. The company has also been able to up-sell and cross-sell more effectively to existing customers through inbound service conversations than through all of its traditional outbound direct marketing.

Knowing who and who not to approach is also a vital part of maintaining profitable lifetime relationships with as many customers as possible. One successful segmenting technique is an analytic approach called uplift modelling, which predicts the difference or lift that a marketing campaign will have over what would have happened in the absence of the campaign.

This segmentation empowers companies to focus efforts only on the “Persuadables,” those customers who are likely to respond positively to a marketing campaign. Similarly, uplift modelling prevents businesses from wasting time and money targeting customers who are already a “Sure Thing” and will buy regardless, as well as those who are a “Lost Cause” and will never buy no matter what they are offered.

In addition, Uplift helps marketers avoid the “Sleeping Dogs” – those customers that don’t want to be disturbed and are likely to react negatively to marketing outreach by perhaps opting out of marketing lists or even taking their business elsewhere. For example, when a retention mailing campaign actually increased churn from 9 to 10%, mobile operator Telenor, used uplift modelling to turn this around and reduce churn by 1.2%, gaining $8.8 million per year! The combination of increased retention rates and lower marketing costs has also enabled Telenor to realise improved campaign ROI.

M

“Organisations can now develop a much clearer and more delineated picture of their customers, enabling them to predict profit-impacting behaviours and propensities such as customer churn, cross-sell and up-sell opportunities, campaign planning and segmentation, customer satisfaction and loyalty, and customer lifetime value

Customer analytics can be enhanced through the use of realtime decisioning applications that sit behind an organisation’s existing CRM systems to provide frontline staff with the “best next offer or service” when dealing with a customer. By having a 360° view of the customer, analytically-driven recommendations both personalise and take the guesswork out of interactions, whether through a call centre, within a store or branch, or on the website.

ISSUE FIVE • SEPTEMBER 2011

6

customer engagement

While much retail activity has shifted online in the past ten years, companies cannot underestimate the importance that physical stores still hold in the customer psyche. Even customers that intend to buy online often still want to appraise goods in the real world beforehand – highlighting why a properly integrated multi-channel customer strategy is vital.

identify exactly which type of store from its portfolio needs to be in which location, and what the correct allocation of products should be. By ensuring its customers are best served according to their individual profiles, the company can maximise its profit and market share both on the ground and online.

Using customer analytics to understand the bigger picture of why and how customers engage with companies (beyond their buying histories) encompasses real world factors such as geographical location, social and economic class, age, gender and ethnicity. If this information is analysed correctly, it can have a major impact on the siting of stores, the range of products and services offered and, in turn, the longevity and profitability of customer relationships.

As technology continues to evolve, new ways for organisations to communicate with their customers will undoubtedly emerge.

But a return to the bad old days of mass marketing is unlikely – the customer in the 21st century is an empowered individual, not a faceless consumer.

Dixons are doing it For example, Dixons Retail has applied drive time and demographic analysis across its customer base in order to

7

However, one thing that will remain a constant is the need for an ongoing, personalised dialogue between an organisation and its customers. Through the insight it provides, customer analytics will play a vital role in ensuring this relationship is beneficial to both the company and the individual.

ISSUE FIVE • SEPTEMBER 2011

Customer Engagement Strategy & Measurement 3rd November 2011, London How to gain a robust insight into your customer operations and strategy for maximum return The Customer Engagement Strategy and Measurement Directors Forum will look at the issues and challenges facing organisations operating in a multichannel environment - where obtaining a single view of the customer is an increasingly complex yet vital component of customer engagement strategy and measurement.

r

ome t s u C

Delegates will learn: • How gaining a single customer view can enhance your engagement and measurement strategies • How world class organisations are using engagement measurement and feedback to improve service and gain competitive advantage • How to gain the customer insight and understanding needed in a multichannel environment • How to differentiate your organisation from others through effective customer engagement and measurement strategies • How to measure and quantify the business benefits that come from effective engagement and measurement strategies Speakers todate include: • Simon Russell, Head of Multichannel, John Lewis (case study)

t

Measuremen

y

eg Strat

• Richard Sedley, Commercial Director, Foviance & Director of Social Media, CIM • Ed O’Boyle, Global Practice Leader, Gallup Consulting, • Dr Guy Fielding, CEO, Horizon • Nigel Goodarce, Head of E-Commerce, Camelot Group (case study)

Time: 9:00am – 5:00pm Venue: Gallup Consulting, The Adelphi, 1-11 John Adam Street, London, WC2N 6HS

• Michael Blastland, BBC, Guardian, journalist and internationally renowned economist • Google • Omniture (case study)

For more information contact Chris Wood: chris@ictcomms.com and +44 (0) 1932 341828 or visit our website: www.customerengagementclub.com

FREE TO ATTEND FOR SENIOR CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT AND EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT PROFESSIONALS

directors forum C U S T O M E R E N G AG E M E N T STRATEGY & MEASUREMENT

Host Partner

Sponsor

customer engagement

M

Cloud based solutions and the benefits they can bring in saving costs and improving customer service are some of the hottest issues but can the cloud really deliver on the hype? Dave Paulding of Interactive Intelligence reports

9

ISSUE FIVE • SEPTEMBER 2011

F E AT U R E

A survey of c-level executives conducted by Interactive Intelligence nearly 12 months ago revealed that 64% of companies have already deployed or are looking to implement a cloud-based solution within the next five years – and that many also recognised the advantages of moving their business communications applications to the cloud.

encompasses cloud based voice services, IP telephony, unified messaging, call centre and unified communications services.

The CaaS offering was designed to provide companies with all the advantages of a hosted solution, while providing the functionality, reliability, security and control of a premise-based solution.

This major shift throughout the IT industry seems to be typically driven by the need for companies to cut costs. Yet cloud computing offers much more than reduced up-front costs and faster implementation. Companies can actually innovate in the way they communicate with the outside world and to their customers, creating a whole new way of conducting business.

The cloud could effectively be the ultimate customer relations tool. No one is going to dispute the fact that joining the cloud cuts costs, but looking beyond that, its flexibility and scalability also allows companies to respond more flexibly to their customer needs.

Not just about cutting costs

A simple concept The idea behind cloud computing is simple. It is about putting IT processes on shared resources off site. It makes for great flexibility, with service providers able to provide increased capacity far faster, and at a much lower cost, than a company could scale its own systems. The obvious economic benefits come from savings on IT equipment, such as servers, and also because migrating systems to the cloud means companies switch from a capital-expenditure model for investing in technology, to one based on operational expenditure.

Individual companies benefit as facilities are purchased by a service, typically a shared service.

The cloud computing systems were originally designed to increase collaboration and efficiency within real, or virtual, office environments. There is a vast array of cloud technology available today and most can be customised to the unique needs and structure of an individual business. The logical step for businesses that have seen the benefits of moving their main computing and software to the cloud is to consider migrating their business communications systems.

The benefits to the customers and, ultimately, the end users are wide ranging, and while many companies say they initially consider cloud computing as a way to scale down costs, it is benefits such as flexibility that are also helping to improve customer service.

It is the flexible scalability that suits many businesses, particularly for customer-led companies that need to be able to cope with varying levels of demand. Moving communications to the cloud enables businesses to ‘scale up’ for peak seasons which results in both lower running costs and satisfied customers. This flexibility also means that in a volatile economy companies can quickly add more functions so they can rapidly adapt to changing business requirements, while only paying for what they need.

One US-based ticketing and marketing company, New Era Tickets, moved to cloud computing to scale down costs across its three contact centres and to make its communication with customers more efficient. The company was looking to expand its touch-points beyond the phone and chose the CaaS model as it wanted a hosted service that could provide a multichannel functionality.

Thatcher Young, director of Call Centres for New Era tickets said: “The system we had in place meant we could respond to emails but couldn’t place them in a queue, and we didn’t have chat capability – so we needed a solution that would help us move into the 21st century. Also, we provide ticketing for sports and entertainment venues so our typical customer interaction volume is a series of peaks and valleys, so we were looking for a hosted contact centre service that offered flexible pricing to correspond with these cycles.”

Labelled Communications-as-a-Service, or CaaS, as we like to call it, it has become the fastest growing part of our business as more and more companies are realising the advantages of using communications in the cloud to enhance their customer service.

New Era chose a CaaS offering that provides contact centre services such as IVR, ACD and call recording, and clients pay only for the capabilities and business users they need.

The Interactive Intelligence CaaS offering includes applications for contact centre automation and enterprise IP telephony. It

Young continued: “It resulted in significant cost savings and a reduction in call processing time by as much as 15 seconds per call. We now have the support of a hosted solution, but we

ISSUE FIVE • SEPTEMBER 2011

M

Flick through the business pages of any newspaper or magazine and you’ll find a wealth of articles telling us that more and more companies are moving their businesses to the cloud. The headlines contain a thesaurus load of cost-cutting phrases, but beyond saving money do organisations actually realise the full potential of moving to the cloud?

“A survey of c-level executives conducted

by Interactive Intelligence nearly 12 months ago revealed that 64% of companies have already deployed or are looking to implement a cloud-based solution within the next five years”

10

customer engagement

still have control over our contact centre applications so we can adapt to changing business requirements as well as offer superior customer service.”

Customer service getting a boost The virtualisation element of cloud computing is also boosting customer service for businesses. A hosted service can support backup and recovery for remote offices which means that business continuity is more affordable. Virtualisation means that companies have the ability to work remotely, whether it is a few members of a customer service team or the whole department, it has a positive impact on a company’s productivity.

By enabling agents to work from home, organisations have the ability to be able to protect themselves against a host of unforeseen events such as weather related crises or power surges and outages, by preventing any unwanted interruptions in customer service.

Philips Healthcare replaced a premise-based system in one of its contact centres, which handled queries about its scan systems, to a more cost effective hosted solution that could scale to hundreds of users across global sites and manage multichannel interactions.

Erwin Thomas from Philips Healthcare explained: “The premise-based system limited the number of virtual engineers we could have available to callers at any one time so by moving communications to the cloud we now have true virtualisation. During a recent snow storm we were able to have our agents work

11

at home, preventing any interruption to customer service and as the hosted solution acts as a common global platform we can give customers 24/7 service regardless of where they’re located.”

The cloud and collaboration

Dave Paulding, regional sales director UK, Middle East & Africa, Interactive Intelligence

Virtualised resources also have a lot to offer companies getting back on their feet after taking severe financial hits. One of Interactive Intelligence’s long-time financial services customers had a need to downsize its operation and outsource what it could during difficult economic times. Accordingly, the company moved its existing contact centre platform to the cloud to have the vendor manage it for them.

The cloud is also opening up ways for new forms of collaboration and there is a greater emphasis on shared services to boost productivity. Advanced collaboration is enabling fundamental changes to the way companies work as businesses collaborate dynamically via the cloud to extend innovative new services to customers.

Companies are starting to look beyond the economic benefits of the cloud and recognise the benefits that this solution can bring to their customers. During these times of economic uncertainty, cost savings are always going to be top of the agenda for businesses but cloud computing is more than that – it paves the way for businesses to be more flexible, more responsive to the market and what customers are asking of them.

ISSUE FIVE • SEPTEMBER 2011

F E AT U R E

Karine del Moro, founder of imPACT International Marketing, shares with Customer Engagement her 15 years’ experience with clients, and more specifically in the field of ‘localisation’ and the part it should play in any customer-centric strategy

Karine del Moro, founder of imPACT International Marketing

Follow Karine on Twitter @KarineDM LinkedIn – KarineDelMoro Web www.impact-im.net E-mail Karine@impact-im.net

The key challenges are the same as always: budget and resources, and the eternal question of prioritisation. But there is one added hurdle: the compromise of global branding vs. local execution. For international B2C organisations such as McDonald’s, the importance of maintaining brand integrity whilst developing in virtually every country in the world is paramount to their global strategy.

And they’ve been very successful at implementing it.

Other companies have gone a different way.

Despite being present internationally, Philips decided it was best to leave their slogan “sense and simplicity” in English for all markets, to avoid the risk of losing its meaning in translation. Which doesn’t prevent them from localising everything else! There are many ways to approach localisation – the key is to find the one that’s fit for your organisation.

So what about companies which haven’t quite achieved the level of globalisation of McDonald’s and Philips? Well, that’s where the compromise - and resource prioritisation comes in. If you take a B2B company with limited marketing funds, it will face a much more draconian choice. The truth is, without

ISSUE FIVE • SEPTEMBER 2011

localisation, they will probably experience moderate success in going global. If they’re not faced with aggressive local competition, their customers will have no choice but to stay loyal. But what kind of loyalty is that? We all know a customer who feels like a hostage won’t hesitate to jump ship at the first opportunity.

What do you need to consider before localising your assets?

I’ve seen many cases where the decision to localise is made arbitrarily – because it fits the skills of some people in the organisation, because a major account signed up in a particular country, because the potential market size looks promising... All valid starting points, but it’s amazing how quickly the basic rules of marketing get dismissed when faced with an executive decision or a seemingly logical move. The four P’s, SWOT analyses, a solid financial plan with targets and requirements... All this needs to be done from scratch for every region before a localised plan is agreed upon.

Many organisations already translate their material, e-mail campaigns and website into the language of their target market. But localisation is not the same as translation.

What really matters is making sure your customers understand your message, regardless of where they are. You want them to feel connected to your brand, to feel they can trust you to respond to their specific requirements. And beyond the language and the necessity for a proper translation and review process, there are other questions to answer. Is the product/service fit for the region? If you were successful, would you be

M

What are the main challenges faced by companies going ‘global’ Karine?

First of all, there are many ways to go global.

Some companies choose to carry out their campaigns in their own language, regardless of where their customers are. Others just translate their material for core markets, but only the more mature organisations have a truly “localised” marketing plan.

14

customer engagement

able to support new clients there? Do you require a local sales and delivery model? Will you be able to measure and improve your customer experience in the region, including localising closed-loop processes?

Are there differences in requirements between different parts of the world?

Yes and no. If we take Europe as an example, some regions respond well to English-speaking campaigns, such as the Nordics and to a lesser extent Benelux and Eastern Europe.

This doesn’t mean you don’t need to localise your material for these countries, but they might be lower down in the list of priorities if you need to spread your costs. Conversely, France and Germany don’t tend to respond well to Englishspeaking messaging – in both cases language is viewed as a strong cultural differentiator, and the level of fluency in English is usually quite low in France. If you intend to market in these territories, localisation will give you a much higher chance of success.

These are fairly straightforward examples. It gets much more difficult to analyse these requirements for places like tri-lingual Switzerland, or for Asia-Pacific regions, which most organisations can’t afford to ignore any longer and which pose greater issues for Western companies unfamiliar with vastly different cultures and customs.

M

So how do you prepare a global launch plan?

First - take a step back Let’s face it – very few companies can afford to localise 15

ISSUE FIVE • SEPTEMBER 2011

F E AT U R E

“What really matters is making sure your customers understand your message, regardless of where they are. You want them to feel connected to your brand, to feel they can trust you to respond to their specific requirements” everything for every region they’re targeting, no matter how eager they are to engage with their customers. An initial assessment should look at where your customers and prospects are currently situated, internal expansion plans, local competition, available budget and resources, product fit, etc.

Most of the time, the executive, marketing and sales team have a good idea of “where to go next”, but this only reinforces the need to conduct a thorough market analysis and build a regional business plan.

Second - engage your organisation Just like a customer engagement programme, you can’t do it alone. And as always, it starts at the top. It takes money and resources to implement a localised marketing plan, and getting commitment early from the executive team is a pre-requisite for success.

At the management level, alignment between the sales and marketing teams is paramount, particularly when it comes to selecting which regions to prioritise and focus on. Getting your regional teams involved early and throughout the localisation process will ensure they stay engaged and responsive. What if you don’t have a regional team? Well, in some cases, you should question whether you should really venture in the region. But if you can serve your customers there, then get partners or local industry experts to help you, at least to review translated materials before they’re published. Translation services are critical but are never enough on their own!

Third - focus on brand integrity A successful localised plan relies on a successful brand. It is almost impossible to retain your brand integrity if you leave your regional teams in charge of localising your messaging and campaigns. This is not to say that the “corporate” team should have sole control. Without the input, or rather the active engagement of the regional team, your localisation efforts are likely to fail. For this reason, the central team needs to ensure it’s using the right tools to enable regional representatives to easily and quickly proofread, edit and even create content.

Change management is also a critical part of the process. You don’t want your regional teams to have to review everything whenever the core site gets changed, or a technical brochure gets amended.

Brand integrity doesn’t just involve marketing materials. It is also about organisational culture, and how you are able to

ISSUE FIVE • SEPTEMBER 2011

carry your values and messaging to new regions, which often feel disconnected from “head office”. Regional front-line teams can often transmit these negative feelings to their prospects and customers, often without realising it. It is definitely worth looking at employee engagement strategies for remote staff, to ensure they become local ambassadors of the brand.

Fourth - consider the “locale”, not just the language A localised approach will probably mean new product specifications, pricing, advertising plans... It also needs to take into consideration the country’s own laws and regulations (e.g. data protection, product safety), cultural aspects (tone, local industry) and finally regional knowledge (using specific events or news to relate your products to your customers).

Translating the right materials in the right language is obviously a good start, but putting together a truly localised plan goes much deeper than that. All these efforts will pay dividends, provided you’ve done your homework of course!

Fifth - monitor the results Of course measurement is a basic requirement for all marketing campaigns, whether “domestic” or multi-lingual. But it is particularly important to set up the right metrics and tools from the start when entering a new market. Websites need to be optimised before launch, with the right analytics in place. Email campaigns need to be linked to detailed reports. And customer experience needs to be valued just like it is in your core market, and aligned with your corporate strategy.

New regional plans should be reviewed often, as they will be partly based on “trial and error”. But this is no excuse for failure. Issues need to be picked up early and there should be contingency plans in place to allow for quick and continuous improvements.

And finally Karine?

Remember that there are many ways to approach localisation.

No pre-determined toolset I’m afraid! It starts with caring about your current and future customers everywhere, and ensuring they understand your message. According to a report by the Common Sense Advisory (2008), more than 80 percent of buyers indicated that they would not give full consideration to a product that does not contain localised marketing materials.

This isn’t just about caring, this is about the bottom line! If you decide to take your brand beyond your own borders, there’s a lot to consider. And to make matters even more interesting, new marketing methodologies, including social media, videos and podcasts, webinars, blogs and forums, bring in new challenges to your localisation efforts. It all sounds complicated, but with the right partners and the right mindset, localisation can be a very efficient path to growth for most organisations.

16

Employee Engagement & Customer Engagement 8th December 2011, London How to forge the link between employee and customer engagement, performance and profitability The Customer Engagement Club Directors Forum on Employee and Customer Engagement will lift the lid on the employee engagement strategies that are helping make some organisations winners and where the links between employee and customer engagement are being leveraged to provide benefits to all stakeholders and to gain competitive advantage.

Delegates will learn: • How world class organisations are using employee and customer engagement strategies for competitive advantage • The latest thinking on the links between employee and customer engagement and the strategies that guarantee success • How to get the best from our people to guarantee consistent delivery of customer service excellence across channels • How economic conditions are determining employee engagement strategies and how to keep your best people • The performance and profitability advantages that result from aligning your employee and customer engagement strategies

Speakers todate include: Prof Katie Truss, Employee Engagement Expert, Professor of Management at University of Kent David MacLeod, Author of the Macleod Report, 'Engaging for Success' Peter Sinden, Director, LV= (case study) Gary Tomlinson HR Director, Kia Motors (case study) Angela Baron - Head of HR Practice Development, CIPD Ed O'Boyle, Global Practice Leader, Gallup Consulting Francis Goss, Head of Reward Services, Grass Roots

Time:

9:00am – 5:00pm

Venue: Gallup Consulting, The Adelphi, 1-11 John Adam Street, London, WC2N 6HS For more information contact Chris Wood: chris@ictcomms.com and +44 (0) 1932 341828 or visit our website: www.customerengagementclub.com

FREE TO ATTEND FOR SENIOR CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT AND EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT PROFESSIONALS

directors forum EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT & C U S T O M E R E N G AG E M E N T

Host Partner

Sponsor

F E AT U R E

We are experiencing a rapid increase in the availability of technology-driven products that facilitate a platform that we will interact with on a daily basis. The suppliers of these products are also providing us with an expanding array of channels to provide feedback and give our opinions of the quality of the solution and the experience. Michael Hill of complaintsrgreat reports If I look around in my own home, we have several games consoles, interactive TV screens, computers, smart phones, ebook readers - all providing plenty of opportunity for interaction and of course distraction! I'm going to focus on one of these products, our x-box 360, that is used as a multi-media entertainment unit - we use the console to watch and experience films, listen to music, play games and also interact with friends online (using the x-box live subscription service).

Our x-box also allows us to connect with friends and also people we don't know (although we can and do control the extent to which our younger children connect with 'strangers') but may have a shared interest - such as owning a particular and encountering that person in a multi-player environment. We then also have the opportunity to not only join this online community but also to rate the 'quality' of people we connect with and file a complaint if we find their behaviour to be inappropriate.

If we look simply at the games element, we can connect to x-box live and experience a games marketplace - allowing us to watch previews of upcoming games, download trial versions (the online version of the traditional 'try before you buy' approach), view the customer feedback ratings of games we might be interested in purchasing and, of course, rate our experience of the games we own.

No feedback in a one way street

ISSUE FIVE • SEPTEMBER 2011

M

Given all of these feedback tools, you might be expecting my family to be avidly rating the games we play, media we access and online associates we connect with. But none of us have ever used these feedback tools! The process appears to be simple enough but what do we get in return for providing our feedback - not a lot. We probably consider that our rating of the game will

18

customer engagement have little impact if any - there is no sense of reciprocity being achieved. We are also not going to elicit a response from the producer of the game and neither are we going to have an opportunity to vent about a poor experience because there is no facility for sharing our verbatim comments.

If we compare this to the app markets on smartphones, we see a different proposition - and effect. If I am checking out the latest apps on the Google Android marketplace then I will be reading both ratings and the comments left by other customers alongside their rating of the product. I'll also be happy to see some criticism if I can also identify that the app designer is addressing those concerns. The process of rating and providing feedback is also slicker. I'm often reminded whilst using the app to leave my feedback and will occasionally do so - especially if I have encountered a problem and want the problem fixed. Here we see that a greater sense of reciprocity is achieved.

However, game producers do listen and act on the feedback of their core customers. Game producers are responsible for developing incredibly complex products that involve the management of vast resources to deliver the millions of lines of code. Indeed, the production of top games now resembles film production - screen writers, actors and musicians all increasingly involved in the process of delivering the multi-media gaming experiences. This games industry makes $50bn a year worldwide and an estimated one third of UK adults are now active consumers within this market.

Customer loyalty is the key Customer loyalty is very important given how important the concept of brand is to games - and the value of the associated premium content and add-ins. Game producers understand that a successful game will build a thriving online community of gamers that will be capable of inspiring future development of the game and expanding the customer base through positive word of mouth and sharing of positive experience but also quickly highlighting problems and defects. The produce will make sure that games are heavily play-tested before release and targeted groups of actual customers are also often involved in rigorous testing prior to official release but - remembering the complexity of these products - faults and defects are likely to exist in the product when fully released but the gaming community will identify and report these and if not having a significant impact on the overall game experience - will be sufficiently forgiving if the producer reacts appropriately. Gamers will also provide their feedback on 'game play' - a more intangible element that is difficult to quantify but has a considerable impact on the overall gaming experience.

The challenge for game producers is to continue to listen to the community, respond to concerns, distribute fixes and improvements, define acceptable and unacceptable behaviours - if the producer hosts the community (such as providing online forums for games to join) - but not to take control of the community or ignore the community. If a game producer loses the trust of the gamer community then the reputation of the brand is quickly tarnished and loyalty eroded.

Therefore, if we have little or no attachment to a product - as in my family where we enjoy playing games from time to time but consider games to be disposable items - we choose not to use the product again. We simply don't continue playing those games that give us little or no enjoyment. We do rely on our own research of review sites and magazines - therefore, successful game producers rely on those communities that bring core gamers together and provide a platform for them to provide feedback and drive product 19

“New technologies provide business with new opportunities to engage also with communities of customers that are able to discuss and debate products and new offerings and provide feedback on what needs to be improved” improvements. The game producer needs to understand how to effectively interact with a community and to become an important part of that community rather than controlling and managing the community. The business value is that the community will be a loyal and trusting community of customers that will purchase subsequent offerings but also be a direct source of feedback and quality assurance.

Customers getting closer to products Outside of the gaming industry, we are starting to see other business models develop and attempt to bring the consumer closer to the core of the product design process. In the telecoms industry, Giff Gaff have been incredibly successful with their community driven business model that offers community members a free SIM card - but no hand set - that provides them with access to cheaper mobile calls and texts. Many members also earn revenue by recruiting new members (£5 for every member recruited) or earn payback points for helping other members in the community therefore, the community actually takes on some of the customer service aspects of the business.

In the finance industry, First Direct is taking some steps towards getting customers more involved in the development of new product offerings. First Direct will be involving customers in the design process for a new web site but will also get customers to give their opinions on a new mortgage comparison application for smartphones. The company are launching a "First Direct Lab" to share information about developments and collect customer opinions.

First Direct's marketing head, Paul Say, says that the feedback the company gets from consumers could drive decisions about developing new products and services. "Social media conversations can go anywhere … the real test is taking feedback and translating that into ideas," Say said.

Business has been told for many years that customer feedback can be a vital source of information that a business can tap into and use to drive both product and service improvements. New technologies provide business with new opportunities to engage also with communities of customers that are able to discuss and debate products and new offerings and provide feedback on what needs to be improved.

However, all of these are only successful where a company also shares with those communities how their feedback has been considered and acted on. When we complain about a product problem or a service failure, we expect the company concerned to listen and address our concerns and hopefully take action to prevent the problem from happening again. This provides us with a sense that our feedback is reciprocated and communities also need to achieve the same level of reciprocity.

Michael Hill is managing director of complaintsrgreat ISSUE FIVE • SEPTEMBER 2011

F E AT U R E

Customer satisfaction is now firmly commoditised says Alan Zorfas of Motista - organisations must move beyond satisfaction and on to connection if they really want to win in the customer engagement stakes

As a financial service marketing executive recently shared with me, "We're seeing our 'loyal' customers leaving at a higher

ISSUE FIVE • SEPTEMBER 2011

rate." A retailing executive also confided to me that they "just can't squeeze anything more out of satisfaction. Our people can only smile so much!"

The fact is that while business has obsessed over satisfaction to the great benefit of the consumer - it has reached commoditisation. We "expect" to be satisfied.

The best brands "connect" beyond satisfaction As marketers, we envy brands like Apple, Nordstrom, Nike, Four Seasons, and others. What do brands like these have that others don't? Larger valuations and P/E ratios year after year?

Sure. But these brands also enjoy high percentages of their

M

Managing to customer ‘satisfaction’ is no longer driving improved business performance for many companies. Over decades, companies have profited from increased attention to quality and service. Those with the most satisfied customers have outperformed their industries on a variety of financial metrics, including Wall Street performance. But today, many marketers, especially those in mature industries like banking, retail, automotive, and hospitality - where customer satisfaction has long been the front-and-centre metric - are seeing evidence of waning return on investment when it comes to satisfaction.

20

customer engagement customers "connecting" beyond measures of satisfaction.

Consumers don't just recognize these brands' quality and service; they feel the impact in their lives.

While some of Apple's satisfaction scores are relatively close to Dell's, Apple surges beyond Dell on measures like, "The brand makes me more creative or gives me a feeling of belonging." Sixty-eight percent of Apple iPad's customers "connect" beyond satisfaction. In retail, 42 percent of Nordstrom's customers connect at a higher level compared to 29 percent for Macy's and 23 percent for Walmart, according to Q2 connection intelligence reported on Motista.

And when consumers perceive their brands as changing their lives, making them feel happier, more successful, or a myriad of other personal connections, they are far more likely to buy, pay more, stay loyal, and become brand advocates. As we see in the chart below for the banking industry, customers who connect with their banks beyond satisfaction are three to four times more likely to buy more products and services, stay loyal, and tell friends. Connected bank customers are also five times more likely to blog about their brand and more than twice as likely to forward information directly to a friend or family member.

The numbers are pretty clear: Connect beyond satisfaction and boost business performance.

introduce connection into the company in a way that "business" understands and can act on. They have to make the more "fuzzy" human side something they can build and leverage, every day.

New methods of determining consumer connection are emerging to help companies build and leverage connection across more of their marketing and customer experience touchpoints and programs. Not all connection intelligence is created equal.

Good connection intelligence should be actionable.

Actionable intelligence should: • Identify connections that drive outcomes like purchase, loyalty, pricing, and advocacy for your category; • Provide current, high-quality data on your brand and competitors; • Let marketers zero in on which connections most motivate specific segments; • Enable companies to apply connection to a wide range of campaigns and programs, including TV, digital, social media, cross-sell, and customer experience; • Reveal which tactics and touchpoints help create the strongest connections; • Allow easy use of and on-demand access to the intelligence.

Companies like Apple, Starbucks, Virgin, and Nike also have one asset most companies don't: a CEO/founder visionary.

Jobs, Schultz, Branson, and Knight have created brands that "connect" beyond their respective categories. Every company can measure and operate against Customer Satisfaction Index (CSAT) metrics. But these companies feed off a passionate culture that makes every employee mindful of the "human connection" between the brand and customer. They translate these values into outstanding products, services, and value propositions.

Leading financial, electronics, home product, and retail brands are using this new breed of connection intelligence to gain advantage. Recently, a prominent U.S. bank was able to align agency and internal constituents around a campaign to acquire new customers while driving messaging via social media and customer advocacy programs. They also cut three months off the normal campaign planning process by having this intelligence on hand. A leading competitor in the tablet computing space gained on the pack by driving more meaningful connections through advertising and the brand experience.

The takeaway here shouldn't be that you can only build consumer connection if you have a one-in-a-million CEO (something we can't fix tomorrow), but that it can be done. So, stop admiring and start acting!

Marketers generally agree that connection matters. We read about it. We talk about it. And we admire the brands that do it. As the age of satisfaction comes to a close, it's time to act on connection.

Building consumer connection isn't so easy, of course, or we'd all be doing it. For one, people operating inside large business organisations often lose touch with the human side and the things that really move customers. We know the consumer rules, but we're spending most of our time driving transactions and counting numbers. We're more mindful about what delights the CFO than the consumer. That's business.

Banking Customers, Q2 2011 Performance by Connection on Advocacy, Loyalty & Purchase Intent 100% 90% 80% Top 3 Box Score

Make connection actionable

70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20%

Companies also shouldn't rush to replace current satisfaction measurement. Brands must deliver satisfaction to stand a chance at building higher levels of connection. Rather, they

10% 0%

“Connected”

Satisfied Only

Fail to Connect

© Source: Motista, Q2 2011 Banking Study

Alan Zorfas is cofounder and chief marketing and product officer of Motista

21

ISSUE FIVE • SEPTEMBER 2011

REVIEW

REPORT

Multichannel Customer Engagement The latest Customer Engagement Club Directors Forum drilled down into the nitty-gritty of how organisations can deliver a joined-up customer experience across all channels for competitive advantage. Editorial director Steve Hurst reports The Multichannel Customer Engagement Directors Forum was held against the backdrop of a huge disconnect between the importance that both organisations and customers place on the delivery of a seamless customer experience across channels and the actual delivery of that experience.

A meagre three per cent of organisations think their multichannel service delivery is excellent and one in four admit it is poor or very poor. A soberin g set of statistics if ever there was one.

One of the key issues that emerged from the Forum held at

“A meagre three per cent of organisations think their multichannel service delivery is excellent and one in four admit it is poor or very poor. A sobering set of statistics if ever there was one”

Gallup Consulting’s London HQ was the paucity of organisations who are able to take a genuinely single view of their customers and who use that single view across channels to deliver a consistent service experience. Certainly none of the delegates to the conference seemed to believe their organisation was delivering a genuine single view.

Huge disconnect Keynote speaker Paul Blunden CEO of Foviance, publishers of the industry’s most influential report on Multichannel Customer Engagement highlighted the disconnect – where 90 per cent organisation say they think a multichannel strategy is important yet only one in three have the capability to deliver one and even fewer do - and pointed to organisational silos and lack of customer centricity and effective leadership among many organisations as key factors.

Paul’s keynote scene setting remarks were echoed and amplified by many of the fellow presenters in a wide ranging debate that looks at diverse areas including emotional engagement of employees and customers; designing a multichannel engagement programme for success; how customers are choosing the service channel; the changing face of customer contact, and the emergence of a new breed of ‘autonomous’ customer who live and work in a multichannel environment and only do business with organisations who mirror their lifestyles.

Single view the Holy Grail The day included case studies from organisations including BSkyB and a lively panel debate where once again the challenges of delivering a consistent experience across channels were examined alongside the seeming inability to obtain the Holy Grail that is the single view of the customer.

Organisational culture and the importance of a customer centric approach led from the top emerged as key issues around this latest Customer Engagement Club Directors Forum, hosted by Gallup Consulting and sponsored by Foviance, Grass Roots UK, Interactive Intelligence and Satmetrix.

Director level delegates are giving the Multichannel Directors Forums a big thumbs up and the Customer Engagement Club is now gearing up for a busy autumn schedule of Forums covering subjects ranging from Customer Engagement in Financial Services to Social and Online Engagement and Employee and Customer Engagement.

For more details of our upcoming Directors Forums go to www.customerengagementclub.com

ISSUE FIVE • SEPTEMBER 2011

22

customer engagement PRESENTATION

Directors Forum a singular success Keynote - Multichannel customer experience - from consumers to clients Paul Blunden, CEO, Foviance Multichannel customer experience means different things to different people. This keynote presentation will consider how different stakeholders define the issue, with examples of how they approach solutions to the various challenges they encounter.

The presentation will include real consumer examples from Foviance research practice as well as examples of what Foviance clients are doing.

Download presentation

The Changing Face of Customer Contact Pauline Cochrane, Head of Partnerships, Customer Contact Association (CCA) Customer contact operations today are a complex blend of multi-channel operations, often distributed globally. This is a far cry from the simple first generation call centre which emerged in the late 1980’s. Meeting the needs of a more challenging customer base during an increasingly uncertain economic climate creates a need for continual review of strategy and operations. Pauline will explore the key drivers of change in today’s contact centre market, key trends being seen and how these will impact on how service is delivered in the future.

Download presentation

Emotionally engaging customers in a multi-channel world Ed O'Boyle, Global Practice Leader, Gallup Consulting Engaging customers across multiple-channels requires focus on changing market conditions, behaviours and processes in order for companies to anticipate and respond to customer needs. Ed will look at how companies who optimise each customer touchpoint to align and improve the experience, are significantly outpacing their competitors in terms of growth.

Download presentation

Designing your customer experience programme in a complex multichannel environment Paul Turner, Director International, Satmetrix Successfully embedding the voice of the customer in your organisations decisions making processes can be a catalyst for driving growth and enterprise wide-change. However many organisation’s fail to the reap benefits from their customer satisfaction or loyalty programmes. Paul will talk through common reasons that business struggle to build momentum and introduce some key components for achieving success.

This will include a look at the complexities provided by multiple communication channels and how this can drive many companies to focus disproportionately on their internal operations rather than improving what really matters to customers.

How customers are choosing the service channel Mike Murphy, Head of Business Development, Interactive Intelligence Mike will incorporate case study examples to illustrate how customers are expecting more channel choice and how building separate contact silos is expensive and also fails to deliver great customer service. Mike says organisations need to rethink and re-design their complete contact strategy to cater for emerging channels and at the same time invest in their people Download presentation

Case study: Moving from voice to digital - the importance of understanding your customers across channels Wendy Schratz, Director of e-experience, BSkyB Wendy will share the context of Sky’s e initiative and headline the strategy to achieve a significant channel shift away from telephones and towards digital, bringing out the experience and learnings to date from starting to get into action. Wendy will talk about the customers perspective and how Sky see the channels performing complementary roles and the importance of having a cross channel view.

Download presentation

Download presentation

Multichannel communication strategy Anthony Monger, Solutions Development Manager, Digital Marketing & Loyalty, Grass Roots UK Having the technology is one thing, knowing how, when and why to use it is another. In this session, Anthony Monger from Grass Roots looks at how multichannel communications can drive customer engagement, and demonstrates the thinking behind choosing the right media for the right person at the right time - and with the right message. He looks at how multichannel communication works when blended with dynamic customer segmentation models and how "moment of truth" touchpoints can alter the customer journey to help drive acquisition, retention, growth, loyalty and advocacy.

Clouds, Crowds and Autonomous Customers: Doing 'Business as Unusual' Dr Nicola J. Millard, Customer Experience Futurologist, BT Exploring the behaviour of a connected, smart and autonomous customer who is placing some unique demands on organisations that are serving them. How does customer service need to change in the face of these often challenging and informed customers?

Download presentation

Download presentation 23

ISSUE FIVE • SEPTEMBER 2011

Customer Engagement Club Directors Forums for 2012 • Multichannel Customer Engagement for Contact Centres, January, London • Customer Feedback/Measurement/Voice of the Customer, March, London • Social Media and Mobile Customer Engagement, May, London • B2B Customer Engagement, June, London • Multichannel Customer Engagement, September London • Customer Engagement Global Summit, 20 - 21 November, London • Employee and Customer Engagement, December London For speaking opportunities please contact Steve Hurst: steve@ictcomms.com For sponsorship and other enquiries please contact Chris Wood: chris@ictcomms.com and +44 (0) 1932 341828 Join the Customer Engagement Club and benefit from: • Weekly News Alerts • Customer Engagement Magazine, 6 issues pa, available in digital and print • Free and discounted access to Directors Forums and other Events • Access to all areas of the web site, news, features, reports, videos, white papers, archive

For free club membership and information on Directors Forums go to: www.customerengagementclub.com