#customer effort

Broken down into 3 labels that are easily identifiable accordingly, and fairly self-explanatory --  Customer Loyalty, Customer Effort, and Social Customer Service.

If I hear loyal, I hear royal. So if I’m giving my loyalty to the providing merchandiser at hand, you can pretty much assume I’m going to want to hear what as in store for me. As the person explaining all the nice and fine details that I’d like to hear, they had better been fairly knowledgeable to be able to answer a majority of my questions, should I have any. Credit cards linked with another business is the easiest target for this one. All businesses need clientele, some much more than others. For example, I’ll use Paris (and surrounding hotels) in Las Vegas. An opportunity to open up a Total Rewards card that offers you 1 point for every $1 spent, will easily lead to a 2-night complimentary stay when the customer has reached ‘X’ amount on their points balance, never expires. Keeping in mind that the customers who travel frequently to the Strip, as well as knowingly are financially aware to open up another line of credit to save towards their next freebie -- It will be done. 

As far as Customer Effort is concerned, my perception on this thought is more about if the customer has to engage in contacting a customer service representative after a product purchase has been made. This is where I believe that the less contact there is with the customer, the better end of the bargain will be. In the event that the customer does need assistance however, it should always be an easy transition, unless either I am confused, (hope this never happens) or unless the emergency service is absolutely horrible, which we never know how every situation will occur. Customer relations happen around the clock and practically the entire time that you are physically representing your company.The best type of care should always be provided to the clientele no matter how small or how many or needed. If I am going to you, for a problem that I am having with your product; what makes you think that I am going to want to talk more than I need to, let alone repeat myself and then not be understood again. In the event, the customer receives a better line of communication; the company may have saved another customer and provided they are satisfied with their product beyond that point, will create a loyal consumer.

by Mariette Johnson Wharton

No one will argue that customer service is not essential in an industry such as financial services where the human interaction matters as much or arguably more than the products, but consider this: according to Conference Board Research (CEB), customers are four times more likely to exit a customer interaction as disloyal than loyal customers.  Four hundred percent!

Customer service is a dangerous game.  More often, customers are attracted to purchase a product or service from a company for its innovative offerings, brand attributes and maybe perception of service.  Far more often a customer leaves and even takes revenge on a company for a negative experience with customer service. “No fair!” you cry.  “We take extra steps to exceed customer expectations.” Well, stop. Better that you focus on reducing customer effort to interact with your company.  Customer loyalty, it turns out, is created by solving problems quickly and easily for the customer and preventing customers from having to make repeated calls or seek other customer service channels to get issues resolved.

A Harvard Business School article summarized findings from the CEB and noted that customer resentment builds from customers having to repeat information, escalate to other service channels such as from the web to the phone, and not having problems resolved in one call.

To bolster your company’s ability to keep customer effort low, consider these steps from HBS:

Work on strong first-contact resolution.  Companies can “own” the customer issue like South Africa’s Nedbank does with its “AskOnce” promise that has the rep handle a problem from beginning to end.

Anticipate and forward-resolve issues to prevent greater customer effort. Train reps to address common downstream issues, for example, providing tutorials on features or products that receive calls on usage difficulties. Or, suggest next steps, such as Fidelity Investments does on its website, reducing calls per household.

Address the emotional aspects of customer interactions:

Adapt the language and style used by your reps. One company avoids negative trigger words such as “can’t”, “won’t” or “don’t” and instead focuses on alternative explanations about when and how the service or product will get delivered.  

Audit the number of times a rep says no to customers.

Increase the levels of trust and comfort with reps by training them on products and services.

Identify the personality of the caller and respond accordingly. One UK-based mortgage provider trains reps to determine and react to whether a caller is a “controller”, “thinker”, “feeler” or “entertainer”, reducing repeat calls by a staggering 40%.

Look for additional information to use to reduce customer disappointment. If a desired flight cannot be book, an airline rewards company might discover the trip is for a key business meeting and suggest that the customer take an earlier flight to avoid delays.

Not only emotional awareness, improving first-response and mitigating downstream problems helps. Companies can also increase self-service effectiveness, thereby reducing customer effort. Over half of phone calls were determined to arise from customers who have visited corporate websites first and then escalated problems to a call center.  Improving the help section of a website can head off phone calls. Travelocity eliminated website jargon, simplified its layout and decreased calls 5%.

Another technique for improving the customer effort is to leverage existing feedback. Some companies collect information and do nothing to change. Companies can also leverage information in real-time about what customers are doing on a website. If a customer is lingering on the support section, initiate a chat session.

The Harvard Business Review article implies that companies maintain incentives for the speed of handling customer interactions at their own peril. Focus instead on reducing repeat interactions.