11 June 2015

Is your business creating the best Customer Experiences in your industry?

Submitted by: Peter Grobbelaar

Keeping regular track of customer experience indicators is a valuable and vital part of your business’ daily operations. If you’ve answered no to this insightful question, it’s time to get thinking and start planning your attack.

1. Knowledge Reigns Supreme - How do you keep track of your customers’ experiences?

Accurate data is a vital part of measuring Customer Experience.

Various touch points within your business require different tools or platforms to engage with your customers. Short, pointed questions are bound to deliver substantial feedback while detailed questions will give you greater insight. Making it easier for customers to engage with management should be your primary focus. Service Systems makes it as easy as pressing a button or scanning a QR code.

This should be important to you and your business, because a great Customer Experience drives interest and loyalty. Imagine the power of 1 + 1. Just one negative experience has a knock-on effect for your reputation.

While the power of a positive experience is considerably lower, by monitoring your Customer Experience you are given the tools to actively eliminate bad experiences from your business. 

2. Measuring Up - How can you get this information?

Want a lot of data? Make it easy for your customers to engage with you.

Service Systems offers a wide range of feedback pads - from asking one question like “How was my service?” to asking up to five and including questions like “Did you find our staff knowledgeable?” and “Is our fresh produce of good quality?” - helping you drill down and analyse the real-world experiences of your customers.

Response and interaction times are important analytics, too. Monitoring how long customers need to wait for assistance gives you vital insight and tools to improve staff readiness and attitudes.

Don’t be shy to increase this engagement by asking for more. Prompt customers by asking targeted questions on till slips, posters, and other touch points. Let them use their own device to tell you how they feel, by scanning a QR code and provide feedback using Telus.io.

It’s a win-win - you get their details for opt-in marketing and can do your best to right any wrongs or fix any situations that could affect your business negatively.

3. Implementing Change - Yay for data! Now what?

What you do with this data is very critically important. If you hit ‘Del’ on daily reports emails, shame on you. But if you share results with your staff and focus training and support efforts, you’ll see real change in your staff, your customers perception of your business, and ultimately your bottom line. Simple KPI’s make it easy to monitor overall Customer Experience levels.

Consistently achieving high levels of customer service will benefit your business in many ways. Monitor your results often and react to spikes - good or bad. Acknowledgement and a pat on the back goes a long way when staff perform well. Constant coaching and nurturing when results are poor, will have the same effect.

What tools and measures do you currently have in place to measure and manage Customer Experience?