Moving from Customer Service to Customer Experience
Discoveries Report Winter 2012/13
Report Extract
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Report Extract
Contents
Foreword 3 The importance and benefits of great customer service 4 Why has there been a shift in focus from
customer service to the customer experience? 6 Developing excellent customer service 9
What role does training play? 12
A best practice approach to customer service training 15 Case studies
The customer-centric retailer – John Lewis 18
Creating FANS, not customers – Metro Bank 20
Improved client retention through better customer service - Halifax 22
Building a service strategy - Waitrose 24
Improving market share with better call centres - British Gas 26
Analysis of the supplier market 28
Which supplier should I use? 31
What next? 35
Report Extract
This shift from having script-oriented service staff to customer-centric organisations where the objective is to create an experience that surpasses expectations, means that the focus of training and development has also needed to evolve.
Rather than a piecemeal or more
‘remedial’ approach which tends to use defined processes to fix a customer service mentality or build skills to fit a more traditional proposition, training in the new world of the customer experience will be built around behaviours. It will look at changing the mindset of staff and ultimately the culture of a company, so that everyone’s focus, whether they’re customer-facing or not, is on how to improve the customer experience.
Foreword
The customer is King… and the trend in the market amongst the most successful companies is a shift in focus to the customer experience. These are organisations who have built their brand and company values around delivering the best possible customer experience.
Investing in the customer experience for these companies means tailoring their entire business; revolving it around what the customer wants. They seek to ensure that the customer is so happy with the service they receive that not only will they return, but they will also recommend the company to friends and family.
Rachel Firsht,
Strategic Market Analyst,
Training for a company with this type of culture is about making value- based decisions, viewing complaints as opportunities to deliver great service and being proactive in constantly challenging or questioning processes to ensure consistent ‘client delight’.
A customer-centric organisation will look to create a workforce that not only strives to deliver a positive customer experience, but also one that lives and breathes customer service.
Report Extract
The importance and benefits of great customer service
Higher Sales
For the first time this year, the Institute of Customer Service’s UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UKCSI) looked at the link between customer satisfaction scores and sales, and found that the two correlated. The Index is released every six months, and from the most recent figures in July 20121, we can see that most of the retailers covered by the UKCSI had seen sales increase during this period.
ASOS, which comes in at the top spot with an overall customer satisfaction rating of 91.6, reported an 8% increase in UK retail sales for the three months to 30 June 2012 and a 31% increase in global retail sales, compared to the same period in 20112. Amazon in at second place with an overall score of 90.6 announced a 29% increase in net sales over the same three months3, while gross sales at John Lewis and Waitrose4, both in the top 10 overall performers, went up by 12.8% and 6.6%
respectively in the six months to 28 July 2012.
Customer Loyalty and Retention However, the return on investment a company can see from increased sales and profit as a result of investing in a customer service approach is nothing compared to the damage that can be caused by gaining a reputation for poor customer service. This is likely to lead to existing customers leaving and will make it much harder for businesses to attract new ones.
Companies are very good at attracting new customers with incentives and special offers, but the key to retaining these customers is offering a service that ensures they remain satisfied. The UK Retail Banking Satisfaction Study from JD Power and Associates5 found that almost 40% of customers left their bank due to poor customer service and a further 43% said a low level of customer satisfaction would be the main reason they would leave their current bank. And this trend is not limited to the banking industry. Organisations across all sectors that offer consumer products and services will lose a significant amount of clients if their customer service is not up to scratch.
The consumer market is a competitive field, whichever sector you’re operating in, and there are certain types of products where customer service is the deciding factor which makes a customer opt for one provider over another. Offering a high quality of customer service has been shown to deliver significant returns in customer loyalty and retention, higher sales and improved employee engagement.
The key to
retaining new
customers is
offering a service
that ensures they
remain satisfied
Report Extract
Employee Engagement
Although it might not be the first thing that comes to mind when looking at the benefits of providing a high quality customer service, there is an undeniable link between high levels of customer satisfaction and employee engagement. Engaged organisations have strong values, as do those companies who offer a high level of customer satisfaction.
Engaged employees will have an emotional commitment to their organisation and its business goals, which means they care about their work, the success of the company and its reputation for customer satisfaction. A report entitled
“Engaging for Success: enhancing performance through employee
engagement”6 by the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) found that a number of companies with higher levels of employee engagement have recorded a better financial performance. The report also noted that 70% of engaged employees indicated that they have a good understanding of how to meet customer needs, compared with just 17% of non-engaged employees.
A perfect example of employee engagement translating into a high level of customer satisfaction is with John Lewis. The retailer consistently scores well in customer service surveys, and the partnership model of the business ensures that employees are engaged and work there because they believe in the company’s values.
1 Institute of Customer Services - http://www.instituteofcustomerservice.com/1844/UK- CustomerSatisfactionIndexresults.html
2 ASOS trading statement press release 10/07/2012 - http://www.asosplc.com/press-centre/latest-rns/
rns-announcement/11259816
Report Extract
If you have a specific learning requirement - be it to do with customer service training or another aspect of learning - then please contact our consultancy team who will be more than happy to discuss your specific need.
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What next?
About KnowledgePool
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We specialise in improving the performance of learning for dozens of global corporations, managing hundreds of thousands of training activities and thousands of suppliers on their behalf, building up unrivalled market intelligence in the process.
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