November 2007 Newsletter

eZines: October 2007 > November 2007

No slowing down is there? We at SRD Group are flat out working on various Customer Experience Management initiatives and are doing work on some new customer experience research called Re-contact Research.

As the usual stress of trying to get everything done before 2008 is in the air, we thought it would be worthwhile for you to see how you will deal with Christmas stress this year! Take the Quiz: testing for festive stress. Clearly my score says I need to make more time for golf over the holidays!

This month's edition includes:

• The challenges and opportunities underpinning customer strategies – By David Rance
• Mining the Gold: Listen Hard to Detractors – By Jeanne Bliss
• Unlocking The Value of Your Customer Satisfaction Surveys - By Craig Bailey

Shaw and Ivens, in their first book ‘Building Great Customer Experiences’, said that "71% of senior business leaders say that the Customer Experience is the next competitive battleground." ... their latest research however now says that "this figure has now increased to 95%"! Have you included a Customer Experience Management initiative in your planning for 2008?

If you would like to know more about how we can help in planning for performance improvement in Customer Experience and/or Customer Relationship Management just drop us an email and we will get right back to you.

Kind regards

Neil Stewart

Managing Director

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The challenges and opportunities underpinning customer strategies – By David Rance

Much of what is said by David in this article SRD Group has experienced and agree with. A couple of comments that stood out for us were:

"Some leading organisations have developed sophisticated models to create individual customer strategies, but these are predominantly marketing-led, focusing on identifying the ‘next best offer’ and providing this to all the engagement channels. Whilst this is a major step forward, they do not embrace the whole service experience in all parts of the company. All customer engagements play a part in creating and sustaining loyalty and value. Any customer strategy focused purely on driving customer sales is ultimately doomed to fail. Customers are too smart and becoming too discerning."

"It also means ‘competition’ is no longer your direct competitors; it is anyone creating good customer experiences.

Banking customer service is now compared with transport, utilities and even hospital trusts."

Customer strategies are beginning to mean 'exactly what it says on the tin’ - a defined customer strategy for each stage of the lifecycle and for every customer that is applied in a consistent manner across the whole organisation.

But there is still a lot of work to do for most firms...

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Mining the Gold: Listen Hard to Detractors – By Jeanne Bliss

In all of SRD Group’s work in the area of Customer Experience Management we talk about customers who fall into three categories: ‘Promoters’, ‘Ambivalents’ and ‘Detractors’. We believe it is important to listen to all three groups and understand the ‘why’s’ behind their experience ratings of an organisation.

We also agree with what Jeanne Bliss says "If you pay attention to what the people who don't promote your product say, you'll find a wealth of information for making improvements." Listen Hard to Detractors - Copyright 2007, CRM magazine/destinationCRM.com

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Unlocking The Value of Your Customer Satisfaction Surveys - By Craig Bailey

In today's business environment companies cannot afford to lose a single profitable customer. By effectively leveraging results from a customer satisfaction survey an organization can respond to their customer's needs in ways that increase revenue as well as improve customer and employee, satisfaction and loyalty. Unlocking the value of your customer surveys

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The Last Word

Minds are like parachutes. They only function when they are open.
– James Dewar.