March 2008 Newsletter

First up, happy St Patrick's Day! As the Irish say, "top o' the morning to you".

What a start to the year! For us January and February are generally very quiet as New Zealanders and Australians soak up the sun waiting to make decisions on initiatives for the coming year. Not this year, February saw us having to ramp up really quickly as organisations have displayed unprecedented activity around customer experience management. Great to see!

This week, I spoke to a very good friend of mine, Greg Magennis, who is a Senior Consultant and Subject Matter Expert in the Human Resource Industry in North America. We often talk about why focusing on the HR side of the business plays such a big part on delivering great customer experiences. Greg shared with me the following…

“Steven Covey, in his book The 8th Habit, describes a poll of 23,000 employees drawn from a number of companies and industries. He reports the poll’s findings:

• Only 37 percent said they have a clear understanding of what their organization is trying to achieve and why.
• Only 1 in 5 was enthusiastic about their team’s and their organization’s goals.
• Only 1 in 5 said they had a clear “line of sight” between their tasks and their team’s and organizations goals.
• Only 15% felt that their organization fully enables them to execute key goals.
• Only 20% fully trusted the organization they worked for.

This is pretty sobering stuff and perhaps quite abstract but let’s see what happens to the stats when Covey uses the metaphor of a soccer team with the same scores above.

• 4 of the 11 players on the team would know which goal is theirs.
• Only 2 of the 11 would care.
• Only 2 of the 11 would know what position they play.
• Only 2 of the 11 would know exactly what they are supposed to do.
• And, all but 2 players would, in some way, be competing against their own team members rather than the opponent.”

Pretty sobering indeed, imagine the impact on the customer experience!! It is essential to have engaged staff if you are to deliver great customer experiences.

This month's edition of Customer Focus Times includes:

• Customer satisfaction measurement: Can't get no satisfaction? – By Neil Davey
• A Just Cause: Creating Emotional Connections With Customers – Jackie Huba
• Market Research - Making It Useful, Not Just Interesting - by Reg Price, Neil Stewart and Katie Shaw (2nd publication in Customer Focus Times)

As always, if you would like to know more about how we can help you improve in the area of Customer Experience Management and/or Customer Relationship Management, if you have research requirements or you just want to ‘chew the fat’, give us a call or drop us an email, we would be very happy to talk.

Kind regards

Neil Stewart

Managing Director

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Customer satisfaction measurement: Can't get no satisfaction? – By Neil Davey

Customer satisfaction measurement is the most commonly used non-financial performance metric, but it is also a popular target for criticism. So is it an inherently flawed metric - or are poor measurement processes to blame?

Full article - Customer Satisfaction Measurement

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A Just Cause: Creating Emotional Connections With Customers – Jackie Huba

What does your company stand for?

If it's largely to make more money than God and pay executives outrageous salaries and perks, don't count on customers, prospects and employees to believe in you.

Who wants to support a company whose values are out of whack with the rest of society? Companies driven solely by quarterly sales figures and stock price increases demonstrate they're in business largely for themselves and little else.

But companies with a cause--how they're making the world a better place--often create emotional connections with customers. Those customers in turn tend to become its advocates and biggest supporters--its evangelists.

Full article - Creating Emotional Connections With Customers

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Market Research - Making It Useful, Not Just Interesting - by Reg Price, Neil Stewart and Katie Shaw

We thought we would re-publish this article this month as it has recently been published by a European Magazine – Return on Behaviour Magazine.

A wise but anonymous marketer once said that a market research report that gets described as "interesting" has failed. It's only when it's "useful" that it gets the pass mark. After all, what's the point of interesting research if it can't be put to use?

Full article - Market Research - Making It Useful, Not Just Interesting

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The Last Word

The man on top of the mountain did not fall there.
– Anonymous

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SRD Group - Focused on performance improvement in Customer Experience and Customer Relationship Management

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