Refine & Redefine

Hello 2013

A new year always brings an opportunity for a fresh start. At Onion Insights, we have started this year by signing on as the Brand Showcase Partner for the Retail Leadership Summit (RLS) 2013. RLS 2013 will bring the thinkers and doers of the Indian Retail space on one platform. This is a part of our on-going support to the Retail Industry by sharing original ideas and practices on how Retailers can better their Customer’s Experience.

Another new start will be with our blog. We will be updating our blog more frequently than before by sharing our thoughts, pen our opinions and get your views – starting now. Of course, the core would revolve around Customer Experience.

This year our calendar too reflects on fresh starts. It focuses on 12 ways to refine and re-define your customer’s experience – one for every month. Overcoming challenges with innovation is what good business is all about and we hope that our 12 steps will help you provide a quality experience to your customers while boosting your bottom line. Here is a brief synopsis of the steps:

Step 1: Lead by example – Actions speak loudly. Make sure your actions reflect your views.
Step 2: Involve Your Customers – Ask the people to whom it matters to make your business matter.
Step 3: Engage Your Team – Involving people more means less contradictions to your views (devious isn’t it?!)
Step 4: Set Expectations – Written words create belief, and belief creates the product. Write. Believe. Act.
Step 5: Solicit Feedback – Ask and then ask again. Nicely.
Step 6: Be Customer Focussed – Processes, policies and thoughts should focus on customers. Tunnel vision helps.
Step 7: Provide Tools – Use technology. But don’t forget the Emotional Quotient.
Step 8: Empower Your Team – A “Yes, I can help” fixes customer complaints faster than “I will ask if I can…”.
Step 9: Measure What You Want Done – Galileo Galilei said, “Measure what can be measured, and make measurable what cannot be measured.” It still works.
Step 10: Recognize Performance – Never forget praise, and make it loud!
Step 11: Say Thank You – To everyone you can think of!
Step 12: Have Fun – Smile, enjoy and spread the cheer… it brightens faces and workplaces!

As a special offering to all our readers, we have made our calendar images available to everyone in the form of wall papers for your deskptops, laptops, smart phones. Below are the links provided for the downloads!

Signing off and hope we have been able to kickstart 2013 on a colourful note for you! Happy New Year!

Check your screen resolution and click on the link to download wallpapers for each month.

1. Standard Square Monitor Wallpapers – Resolution 1024x 768
2. 13inch Macbook Pro – Resolution 1280 x 800
3. 15inch Standard LCD Square Monitors – Resolution 1280 x 1024
4. 11inch Macbook Air – Resolution 1366 x 768
5. 13inch Macbook Air / 15inch Macbook Pro – Resolution 1440 x 900
6. 20inch+ Widescreen Monitors – Resolution 1600 x 900
7. 21.5inch iMac / Full HD 1080p – Resolution 1920 x 1080
8. 15inch Macbrook Pro with Retina Display – 2880 x 1800
9. BlackBerry Curve
10. BlackBerry Torch Slider
11. BlackBerry Bold
12. iPad 2 / iPad Mini
13. iPad with Retina Display
14. iPhone 4S / iPhone 4 / iPod Touch 4th Gen
15. iPhone 5 / iPod Touch 5th Gen
16. Samsung Galaxy S3 / Galaxy Note 2

Mobile Brands: Customer experience a priority

To this point, mobile may have been all about the convenience factor, but new research from OpinionLab finds that moving forward mobile will be about the experience – just as online and social have become. The data, conducted during the Forrester Customer Experience Forum, found that 84% of respondents believe a customer experience strategy is ‘as important’ in mobile as for other online experiences.

Regardless of whether the platform is a mobile device, tablet or computer, online customer experience is fraught with issues,” said Geoff Galat, Vice President of Worldwide Marketing with Tealeaf. “As is the case with fixed websites, how successful companies are with their mboile channels will depend largely on their customers’ ability to complete transactions easily.”

Other interesting findings include:

1. 87% believe online customer experience management should be a top priority.

2. 50% have customer experience as a top priority now, 50% plan to adopt a strategy soon.

3. 28% are adopting a CEM strategy to improve satisfaction, 19% to attract new clients.

Meanwhile, data from General Sentiment finds two mobile brands fighting to be the top global brands. Google, primarily known as a search engine, surpassed Apple as the top brands for Q2 2011. Google’s buzz factor has been helped along by the release of Google+, an increase in adoption of Google’s Android mobile platform and Chrome browser.

“The tech sector continues to drive the top ten brands as consumers tend to follow these companies closely and discuss new technology products heavily in social media sources,” said Greg Artzt, CEO, General Sentiment. “However new product innovations and strong earnings are driving brand value for non-tech companies.”

Google, Apple and Microsoft are the top three global brands for Q2, following by Mercedes-Benz and Ford. Yahoo, Sony, Intel, Canon and Panasonic are also in the top ten.

Source: BizReport
Image Credit: Benchmark

Successful customer service has to
come from the heart

A recent survey from Colmar Brunton on the customer experience was widely reported in the media, focusing particularly on exalting the banks and caning the telecommunication companies.

The untold story is that 60 per cent of New Zealanders have had at least one particularly bad customer experience in the past 12 months. Add to that the 40 per cent who consider that business is a necessary evil (as opposed to a noble calling), and one has to wonder if some organisations don’t see their customers as a necessary evil.

There are still some organisations which are stuck in the Milton Friedman model. However, the idea of the primacy of shareholder value is obsolete.

As reported in the Harvard Business Review for Jan-Feb 2010: “It’s time to discard the popular belief that corporations must focus first and foremost on maximising value for shareholders [which] is inherently and tragically flawed …” As Jack Welch famously said, “most employees have their face towards the CEO and their arse towards the customer”.

However, I am writing on the many organisations that are trying to improve customer satisfaction, and improve the customer experience, but are frustrated.

Companies spend increasing amounts with this goal in mind, but research surveys still show disappointing results much of the time.

Why? In my view, most organisations are trying to do customer satisfaction with the head and not the heart. They try and legislate customer service behaviours, with the result that the customer service is formulaic.

The answer is to do customer service from the heart. Things are changing. There is a shift in values in a post-recession world:

* Sustainability – consumers increasingly want to know whether they are buying responsible products that were made without harming either the earth or its people.

* Social responsibility – alignment with a cause gives the consumer permission and a purpose for their spending.

* Health – there is a growing consciousness of the importance of what we put in, and on, our bodies.

* Trust – the financial crisis shook trust in institutions, leaving brands vulnerable to the general sense of betrayal.

* Personalisation – the most valuable brands go beyond product features to focus on the user experience.

Consumers are increasingly savvy. They can smell insincerity from a hundred paces. They are looking for authenticity. They have become well-informed brand advocates, and critics, fortified with knowledge about price, product and supply gained from searching the internet and sharing information on Facebook and other social networking sites.

However, much branding is a work of fiction. Effectively, organisations are searching for a fancy dress to put their product or service into – the lipstick on a pig scenario.

The ad agency attaches an emotional world to a product or service (often from an emotionally barren organisation) rather than expressing an authentic world. Who are they trying to kid?

If you want to be a “lovemark” then you’d better be loving.

This is the age of standing for something, for pursuing a big ideal. This is the new era of the purpose-driven business world.

In a new study our company has carried out, in conjunction with a major client, we found that the world’s best brand value builders have certain things in common.

The key one is a big ideal, closely followed by a relentless commitment to the customer experience.

Dove, for example, is on a mission to “make women feel beautiful every day by widening stereotypical views of beauty”. They see themselves as “an agent of change to educate and inspire girls on a wider definition of beauty and to make them feel more confident about themselves”.

Taking some examples closer to home, Kiwibank set out to create a new bank from scratch that provides better service than the Aussie banks, better interest rates and a fairer deal for Kiwi customers.

Furnware’s aim is to “make our classrooms more comfortable, high achieving areas of learning”.

These crusades, when they are sincere, deliver a richer customer experience – out of instinct, rather than legislation. They give meaning and significance to employees’ lives. It’s hard to get motivated by making money for shareholders, but a cause is different.

I remember some years back talking to a chief executive officer of a large educational organisation in Auckland. What’s your mission I asked him? To be the biggest provider of educational services, he said.

I grimaced, another inward-focused mission statement. What if you said you wanted to raise the standard of education in the region, that would be customer focused, or better still, answer the “why?” question – ie, so that the region will prosper, people will have jobs, etc. Which banner do you think your staff would most like to walk under, and if you did that, do you think you might become the biggest?

As John Seely Brown said, the job of leadership today is not just to make money, it’s to make meaning.

Source: NZ Herald

Customer service can shift brand loyalty: Survey

The quality of a company’s customer service plays a key role in building its brand image and even helps the firm win new customers, a survey conducted by American Express has found. The survey – 2011 Global Customer Service Barometer – says more than half of those surveyed (52%) would switch over to a new brand or company for want of a good customer service experience.

Customer services in this case refer to various service provisions to a consumer before, during and after a transaction.

The survey, based on a random sample of 1,002 consumers, mapped consumer behaviour on several parameters and has underlined the importance of customer services for an organisation.

The survey found that around 80% of the consumers did not complete a business transaction or did not make an intended purchase because of poor customer service.

Among those surveyed it was also found that around 90% consumers were willing to spend more with a company whose customer service could be rated excellent.

“On an average, they are willing to spend 22% more,” the survey said.

In 2010, only 76% consumers were willing to pay more – around 11% on average – for better customer services.

Source: Hindustan Times