Engage Customer Magazine Feb 2015

engagemagazineISSUE EIGHTEEN IFEBRUARY 2015

www.engagecustomer.comwww.engageemployee.com@engagecustomer

BRITISH AIRWAYS AREFLYING HIGH WITH VOC

ARE YOURCUSTOMERSBEING SERVED?FOCUS ON THESUPERMARKETS

TAPPING INTOTHE CUSTOMERAT SEVERNTRENT WATER

ANDREW STEPHENSON:THE DFS JOURNEY TOWARDSWORLD CLASS EMPLOYEE ANDCUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT

26 MARCH 2015, LONDON

CustomerEngagementin the RetailSectorThe Forum will spotlight the developingdynamic in relationships betweenretailers and their employees and theircustomers and how these fundamentaland ongoing changes in consumerbehaviour are impacting on retailers asthey strive for sustainable success

Date: Thursday 26th March 09:00 - 17:00Venue: Blue Fin Conference Venue, Blue Fin Building

110 Southwark Street, London, SE1 0SU

Yossi Erdman,Head of Brand &Social Media, ao.com

Aimia • Atos Worldline • AXA Insurance • Barclays • BBDO • lurGroup • Bosch • Brakes • Burberry • Camelot UK Lotteries Ltd • Capita • Cavendish Corporate Finance • Charles TyrwhittLLP • CitySprint • Connect2Go Limited • Crabtree & Evelyn • DBF • Dinosaur • Domino’s Pizza Group • ebuyer.com • Enterprise Ireland • Fieldworks Marketing • First Great Western •Forrester Research • French Connection • Fujitsu • Hiscox • Ingenious Growth • Interflora • Keuco UK Ltd. • Kinetic GB Ltd • Leapfrogg Ltd • Lexden Group • Maplin Electronics • Nectar• Next • Post Office • Rank Group Plc • Red Letter Days For Business • RSPB • Serco • Social Shopping Online Ltd • Somo • Talkabout Group • TSB • Vision One Research • WellKomInternational • Yorkshire Building Society

Speakers include:

Delegates from last year included:

www.engagecustomer.com@engagecustomer #EngageForums

SPONSORS

Mathis Wagner,Head of CustomerServices, CharlesTyrwhitt

Jon Copestake,Chief Retail &Consumer Goodsanalyst, EconomistIntelligence Unit

AndrewStephenson,HR Director, DFS

Marc McNeill,Director of CustomerExperience,Auto Trader

Peter Ballard,Partner, Foolproof

MatthewHopkinson,Director,Local Data Company

SPECIAL ENDUSER DELEGATE

RATE UNTIL6TH MARCH

£195

For more information contact:Speaking - Steve Hurst:[email protected] and +44 (0) 1932 506 304

Sponsorship - Nick Rust:[email protected] and +44 (0) 1932 506 301 REGISTER

Following on from our formation in 2009 we haveestablished an enviable reputation for high qualitycontent both in our events and our media offeringsoffline and online – all underpinned by ourcommitment to the cultural ethos that linksemployee engagement to customer engagement toperformance and profitability. In fact our first everlive event in the autumn of 2009 was dedicated toEmployee and Customer Engagement.

Three Summits for 2015Our Employee Engagement Summit on April 16 will be the first of threeEngage Business Media Summits during 2015. On July 16 we have oursecond Customer Services Outsourcing Summit and on November 26our fourth Customer Engagement Summit, our flagship event whichlast year attracted close on 600 delegates and universal acclaim.

We also have an exciting roster of Directors Forums including two newForums examining Digital Business Transformation and the Future ofthe Contact Centre in addition to our regular Forums covering Evolutionof VOC, Retail, Financial Services and Social Business. We will also becontinuing with our high level intimate leadership forums and largeraudience webinars covering a wide range of issues and challengesrelating to employee and customer engagement.

Are Your Customers Being Served?Also new for 2015 is our ground-breaking Are Your Customers BeingServed? initiative which kicks off in this issue of Engage magazine. AreYour Customers Being Served? Is designed to assess the experiencedelivered by the largest organisations across business sectors fromthe customer viewpoint across all channels – kicking off with thehugely competitive retail supermarket sector.

Through 2015 Engage Business Media will look at every element of thecustomer experience from organisations representing a cross-sectionof each business sector including Automotive, Telco, FinancialServices, Utilities and more. We will investigate their delivery ofcustomer experience through online and offline channels including allcustomer touch-points such as voice and social media.

We will assess whether a brand's message meets the reality of thecustomer experience. What do their customers really think of them?What are the stories about them in the news? What are people sayingabout them on social media?

Here at Engage Business Media we are entering an exciting new phasein our development and we aim to bring you, our global community ofsenior professionals, with us by providing all the information you needto deliver successful and sustainable joined-up employee andcustomer engagement business strategies.

Following a period of rapid growth at Engage Customer we are renaming the organisation EngageBusiness Media Limited and this publication simply Engage, to more accurately reflect ourburgeoning activities across the customer and employee engagement spectrum, with an earlyhighlight being our first Employee Engagement Summit in the Spring.

ENGAGE BUSINESS MEDIA: A NEW NAME AND EXCITING NEWPLANS FOR 2015 AND BEYOND

Steve Hurst,Editorial Director,

Engage Business Media@engagecustomer

a word from the editor

I S S U E E I G H T E E N • F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 53

engage

Stewart Bromley,Director, People & CustomerExperience, Atom Bank

Affinion International • Aktiv Kapital • AllClear Insurance Services Limited • AMS • ATOS • AXA • AXA Insurance • Bank of Ireland • Barclays • blurGroup • BroadGroup • Capita • Chaucer Direct• Chester & Aldgate • Clyde & Co • Covea Insurance • Crediflex • DBF • Direct Line Group • Document Capture Co Ltd • Global Payments • Handelsbanken • Heartwood • HSBC • InstinctifPartners • John Lewis • John Lewis Financial Services • Lexden • Lloyds Banking Group • Lloyds Banking Group • Local Data Company • MBNA • Metro Bank • Mulan • Nationwide • NFU Mutual• NS&I • Pexel Ltd • RBS • Ricoh Europe • Saga • Santander • Siemens Financial Services • Skandia • Tesco Bank • Towergate Insurance • Unum Limited • Vizolution • Yorkshire Building Society

Speakers include:

Delegates from last year included:

Katie Downs,Transformation BusinessPartner, Barclays UK Retailand Business Bank

Chris Brindley,Managing Director RegionalBanking, Metro Bank

Peter Sinden,Customer Services Director,LV=

Nathan Thompson,Head of Business Transformation,VW Financial Services

21 MAY 2015, LONDON

CustomerEngagementin FinancialServicesThe financial services sector is beginning to bounce back fromthe huge loss of trust engendered by the global financial crisisand dubious business practices impacting negatively on theircustomers. There is still much to be done however as financialservices organisations need to do more to win back that trustfrom increasingly technically savvy and often wary customers.

SPONSORS

SPECIAL ENDUSER DELEGATE

RATE UNTIL24TH APRIL

£195

Date: Tuesday 21st May 09:00 - 17:00Venue: Blue Fin Conference Venue, Blue Fin Building

110 Southwark Street, London, SE1 0SU

www.engagecustomer.com@engagecustomer #EngageForums

For more information contact:Speaking - Steve Hurst:[email protected] and +44 (0) 1932 506 304

Sponsorship - Nick Rust:[email protected] and +44 (0) 1932 506 301 REGISTER

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To join Engage Customer (free membership) and receive weekly Alerts, DigitalMagazines and Invitations to the Directors Forums and other Engage events go to:www.engagecustomer.com www.engageemployee.com @engagecustomer

Mainline: T: 01932 506 300

Steve Hurst [email protected] T: 01932 506 304

Nick Rust [email protected] T: 01932 506 301

Chris Wood [email protected] T: 01932 506 303

Rachel Blake [email protected] T: 01932 506 302

Dan Keene [email protected] T: 01932 506 306

contents

contents


Editorial Advisory BoardMike Havard I David Jackson I Marcus Hickman I Colin Shaw IPeter Ryan I Ben Stockman I Peter Sinden I Sean Risebrow ILaura Lee I Andrew Stephenson

Published by:Engage Business Media Ltd,Nicholson House, 41 Thames Street,Weybridge, Surrey, KT13 8JG©Engage Business Media

engage

ARE YOUR CUSTOMERS BEING SERVED?Is Engage Business Media’s ground-breaking new project designed to fully assess the

experience delivered by leading organisations across business sectors from the customerviewpoint however they interact with that organisation. Here we kick off this ambitious new

initiative by examining the hugely competitive retail supermarket sector

Cover StoryHOW DFS GOT OFF THE SOFA TO DELIVER WORLD CLASS

EMPLOYEE AND CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENTAt our Customer Engagement Summit late last year the highest rated of all the presentations

came from Andrew Stephenson the HR director for furniture retailer DFS. In this exclusive CoverStory Andrew talks Engage Business Media editorial director Steve Hurst about their journey

towards excellence

WHY CUSTOMER SERVICE IS THE LAST TRUE FORM OF COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGEDave Paulding highlights the growing recognition at board level that customer service really

is a key differentiator that can give organisations that competitive edge in a world ofwinners and losers

VOICE OF THE CUSTOMER:WHICH BRANDS ACHIEVE BEST PRACTICE?

Tim Knight looks at the evolution of VOC programmes and how the most advancedorganisations such as British Airways are using customer experience analytics to develop

winning strategies across the entire customer experience

TAPPING INTO THE NEEDS OF THE CUSTOMER AT SEVERN TRENT WATERIn a demonstration of its commitment to excellence Severn Trent Water has a

new post of Chief Customer Officer in the shape of Sarah Bentley – and here shetells Engage about her plans for an organisation in a sector she says is on the brink of a

customer service revolution

WHY 2015 COULD BE THE YEAR OF DIGITAL CUSTOMER FRUSTRATIONSteven Van Belleghem believes 2014 will be remembered as a year when there were huge

steps forward for digital. He also predicts that this year those steps forward could be followedby a step backwards – unless organisation grasp the digital mettle with both hands

WHY THE VOICE OF THE EMPLOYEE AND THE CUSTOMER MUST CONVERGEBusinesses must take a more sophisticated, automated and holistic approach to listening to

their customers if they want to simplify and streamline the entire customer experiencemanagement process says Claire Sporton

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT SUMMITThe complete resource for leading edge thinking on the issues, challenges and opportunities

relating to employee engagement and its impact on customer engagement, performance andprofitability

THE FINAL WORDColin Shaw says that Employee Experience and Customer Experience are like an old marriedcouple - when it works it is beautiful and inspiring; when it doesn’t, it is ugly and bewildering

I S S U E E I G H T E E N • F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 5 6

Are Your Customers Being Served?Is Engage Business Media’s ground-breaking

new project designed to fully assess theexperience delivered by leading organisations

across business sectors from the customerviewpoint however they interact with that

organisation. Here we kick off this ambitiousnew initiative by examining the hugelycompetitive retail supermarket sector

Through 2015 Engage Business Media willlook at every element of the customerexperience from some of the leadingorganisations across business sectorsincluding Automotive, Telco, FinancialServices, Utilities and more. We willinvestigate their delivery of customerexperience through online and offlinechannels including all customer touch-pointssuch as voice and social.

We will assess whether a brand's messagemeets the reality of the customer experience.What do their customers really think of them?What are the stories about them in thenews? What are people saying about themon social media?

This month, the supermarkets are in ourcustomer service crosshairs. Supermarketprice wars are nothing new - but with‘budget’ supermarkets Aldi and Lidl havinggained market share at a rapid rate over thepast few years how are the others coping?Has customer service suffered as a result ofan increasingly aggressive pricing strategy?Which of the supermarkets comes top forcustomer service both online and in store?Who are the winners and losers when it comesto delivering on the customer experience?

Supermarkets, the pricewar and serviceTrying to be the cheapest in the market isnothing new for supermarkets. Now however,with two discount supermarkets making ahuge land-grab for their market share, a drop

in profits for the big four supermarkets, inaddition to consumers looking for a greaterconvenience online, this strategy hasincreased to a great degree. There is a majoron-going price war.

A report from last year suggests that offeringan online delivery service is actually costingsupermarkets money, implying that they areeffectively ‘paying people to shop with them’ According to the British Retail Consortium,and partly as a result of the falling price of oil,January this year saw food prices fall at thesteepest rate in at least eight years. Such adrop is bound to have an impact on anumber of elements of the supermarketindustry - a recent article suggests that morethan 100 supermarket suppliers risk goingout of business as a result on the ever-increasing pressure on supermarket’s needfor low prices. Could it also be having aneffect on service?

Engage Business Media has investigatedwhat each of the supermarkets is sayingabout themselves, their prices, their service -and how they stack up against theircompetitors. We look at how they presentthemselves and their customer serviceonline, along with getting a view of sentimentanalysis from social media. In addition tolooking at customer testimonials, we testtheir in-store service with a tricky question,and their ability to handle customercomplaints. And we use the experience ofreal-life customers in addition to the dataavailable online to test exactly if theircustomers really are being served!

engage

Engage BusinessMedia has

investigated whateach of the

supermarkets issaying about

themselves, theirprices, their service -and how they stack

up against theircompetitors


News Feature

How we rated themIn this report we cover seven of the market leading supermarkets with a physical

location. They are Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Morrisons, Aldi, Lidl and ASDA.Pure play online retailers such as Ocado and ao.com are not included in this report.

• For each element of service - social media, online and in-store we give them a score out of five. • Websites are rated on their ease of use, the number of customer service points

available, and how easy it is to find them. • Social media is rated on their content, their attentiveness and effectiveness of their replies. • In each store, we have asked one of their floor staff if a product from their bakery is safe for someone

with a nut allergy. In-store staff are rated on attentiveness, friendliness, helpfulness and knowledge - once on the shop floor and again at the checkout, giving them a combined score out of ten.

We then combine the scores at the end to give them an overall total out of a possible maximum of 20

Where we have interacted with a brand on social media, we have done so using a series of differentpersonal accounts in order to retain our image as customers and to ensure that the brands in questiondon’t see a series of questions to other brands, giving the game away! For the results of our first AreYour Customers Being Served? Research go to http://bit.ly/1EnQB7T

David AngellDavid has worked within digital marketing and communications since 2004, holding positions across thedisciplines of online advertising, SEO, social media and marketing strategy. Notably he worked for three years atGoogle’s EMEA Headquarters as an award winning optimiser in their early AdWords team. He also launched andmanaged the Google Earth Outreach and YouTube Non-profit programmes, gaining experience in the world of

CSR as well as of the organisations his work benefited.

He subsequently ran Digital Communications for UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg from 2009 until his election tothe position following the 2010 election, he also co-authored the Liberal Democrat’s Online General Election strategy and advised ontechnology and digital policy. He has since worked in business development for a key London Creative agency, a mobilephotography stock agency and helped found two social media startups. He is Associate Director of Brand Response, co-founder ofSocial Placement and Director of Wordsmith Digital. He also consults in SEO, analytics and digital communications for the BritishMedical Association.

Ben StockmanBen Stockman Engage Customer social media blogger, is the founder of London's grassroots social media festivalSXSELondon, a charity event covering all things digital that tries to answer the question "How is technologychanging us?" Ben also created the biggest political Facebook campaign in UK history, with membership of nearly200,000 people, surpassing the number of Facebook fans of all the political parties combined at the time and

gaining national media coverage.

Formerly from a B2B marketing background, in the last few years he has project-managed for the multiple award-winning Rabbit agency, where he ran several campaigns and events for national and global clients, winning PRCA's "Best Campaign"award for AVG's Digital Diaries series. He also trained their team in community management - they went on to win Agency of theYear in 2012. More recently he was in charge of growing global online communities of nearly 2 million for AVG Antivirus, winningUseful Social Media's "most social business" award in the process.

In addition to running social media events & campaigns, Ben has recently co-founded Wordsmith Digital Ltd, a TechHaus thatconsults on social media & SEO for pharmaceutical, civic & government bodies.

OUR RESEARCHERS

8I S S U E E I G H T E E N • F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 5

At our Customer Engagement Summit late last year the highest rated of all thepresentations came from Andrew Stephenson the HR director for furniture retailer DFS. In

this exclusive Cover Story Andrew talks with Engage Business Media editorial directorSteve Hurst about their journey towards excellence

First off Andrew tell us about yourbackground and how you came to the roleof HR Director at DFS?

It’s fair to say that retail is in my blood havingstarted as a salesperson at Dixons in 1995. Iworked there (over two separate periods) fornearly 10 years across sales, storemanagement and eventually Head Office.However, it was while I was working at B&Qthat I became interested in HR and decidedto pursue it as a career. I was very grateful tothat organisation for supporting me in my HRstudies and for giving me my first opportunityto look at reward, recognition and manyelements of how we recruited people.

In early 2009 while working for Vodafone as

Learning and Development Manager for theirRetail Teams, I got the opportunity to joinDFS, initially as Head of Training andDevelopment. I jumped at the chance – itwas of course a retail environment but in myopinion it was, and still is, one of the mostinteresting retailers in Britain. This is becausethere’s much more to the organisation thanretail. We own the end to end process - wedesign, manufacture, sell, deliver and care forupholstered furniture, which makes DFS anexpert in the field and this means we have adiverse but equally talented group ofemployees across the business here in theUK. And, that was what inspired me to join. Itwas clear from my very first meeting withDFS that the team were outstanding and it isa pleasure to work with them every day.

How DFS got off the sofa todeliver world class employeeand customer engagement

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Cover Story

Andrew Stephenson,HR director for furniture

retailer DFS

www.dfs.co.uk

After two years I waspromoted to be thecompany’s first HRDirector. This was, andcontinues to be, afantastic opportunity thatallows me to ensure ourpeople, who areundoubtedly one of ourstrongest assets, canreceive the benefits ofworking for a company witha mission to be a world-classorganisation.

I understand that the DFSstrategy is underpinned by youremployee and customer centricpolicies could you tell us aboutthese please?

DFS's objective is to take the Company from beinga great British business to a world class business. Toachieve this objective, the Group has a number of proven anddeveloping levers of growth. A key component of our overallstrategy is to deliver “outstanding customer care and expertise”.

“Many companies use NPS but I’ve not comeacross anyone that has it as integrated into their

operations as we do. It’s part of the languageinternally and it means we need to constantlystrive to exceed expectations in order for our

customers to become promoters”

I S S U E E I G H T E E N • F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 5 1 0

The expertise comes from the fact we designand manufacture. We create and then handmake sofas to order, many by ourcraftspeople in our three factories and twowood mills in Derbyshire, Nottinghamshireand South Yorkshire. This means themanufacturing knowledge is within thebusiness rather than just outsourced so theexpertise filters down to the shop floor.

In order to be the best in outstandingcustomer care we have invested heavily inour employee proposition and increasedtraining and benefits across the organisation.To ensure our customers are receiving greatservice first of all we needed to be able totrack and measure it so that we can identifyareas for improvement. We worked hard todevelop a system that proactively seeksfeedback from our customers at regularpoints during the order and delivery process.The results of these customer satisfactionsurveys are closely monitored and thendirectly feed into the reward of our teamsmeaning they are greatly motivated to ensurethe customer gets exactly what they need.

The approach is paying off because I’mdelighted to say that in 2014 we wereawarded the status of “Top Employer”.

You have a close ongoing relationship withGrass Roots – how is this helping DFS indelivering on its business strategy?

Grass Roots manage our feedback systemon a day to day basis and bringindependence to the customer surveyprocess. It means the customer gets theopportunity to say what they want withcomplete transparency. In all cases thefeedback gets to the person who needs tosee it. Having a specialist agency like GrassRoots means we can speak to high volumesof customers as they can manage theprocess and highlight to us exactly where wecan focus our efforts to get the best result forthose customers.

We are able to rely on our contacts at GrassRoots as an extension of our own CustomerExperience team and by working together weare able to generate results more quickly thanwe might alone. I like to think it’s beneficial forthem as well because we are always willing totry something new if we feel it will helpcustomers get an even better experience.

NPS is one of your key drivers instriving to achieve your employee andcustomer engagement goals – how is

“We focus heavily ontraining and our

people have gainedover 800 nationally

recognisedqualifications in the

last two years. We areconfident that ourinvestments in our

team is driving greatservice in our stores

and that this is helpingus move forwards as a

business”

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the big interview

this impacting on the way DFS operatesand your culture?

The Net Promoter System (NPS) is the waywe have chosen to express the loyalty andsatisfaction of our customers. It is a simplemetric that can be applied to any part of theorganisation and gives complete clarity ofwhat needs to be addressed, or in mostcases celebrated. Because of the volume ofcustomer satisfaction surveys we receive wecan measure the NPS of individualsalespeople or, if the focus is product related,look all the way back to which teamproduced it within our factories. Because ofthe scope we’ve been able to introduce aNPS element to the majority of peoples’remuneration within the business meaningthe whole DFS team and culture is focussedon providing great service, every step ofthe way.

Many companies use NPS but I’ve not comeacross anyone that has it as integrated intotheir operations as we do. It’s part of thelanguage internally and it means we need toconstantly strive to exceed expectations inorder for our customers to become“promoters”. Whatever your position withinDFS you will likely come across NPS daily

and it’s a great way of ensuring consistency.We then use it to reward our people whoconstantly achieve high ratings by alwaysgoing the extra mile.

Tell us about your DFS PartnershipScheme and how it works - it wouldappear schemes such as this are highlyunusual in a privately owned companysuch as DFS?

The partnership scheme is about usdemonstrating to our employees that wevalue their contribution. We know the way tobecoming a world class company is byhaving a world class team. To do thiseveryone throughout the organisation has tobe focussed on the same goals and thenshare in any success that may generate.Therefore, when our business was acquiredby its current owners in 2010 we introducedour employee partnership scheme. Thismeans when or if the business is eventuallysold a proportion of any profit would beshared amongst employees. This is basedpurely on length of service rather than gradeor salary. It will be our way of sharing thebenefits of hard work and giving greatcustomer service with the whole team. �

Cover Story


Are you able to prove the businessbenefits that accrue from yourcommitment to the links betweenemployee engagement, customerengagement, performance andprofitability?

We have strong momentum in our sales andconsistently good performance in ourcustomer service scores as measured byNPS. Our team is very stable with a staffturnover that is lower than you wouldnormally find in retailers and that means ourpeople have the required amount of specialistknowledge to really look after customers. Inorder to keep this going forwards we focusheavily on training and our people havegained over 800 nationally recognisedqualifications in the last two years. We areconfident that our investments in our team isdriving great service in our stores and that

this is helping us move forwards as abusiness.

Finally Andrew it is clear that DFS is notgoing to rest on its laurels – tell us aboutsome of your plans for the future.

You’re right, we’ll continue to work hard todeliver great products at affordable value toever more people. We are continuing to openstores which is generating jobs and internalopportunities - we have recently opened inthe Netherlands and continue to do well inthe Republic of Ireland. We continue to befocused on giving back to the communities inwhich we live and work – we’ve just clockedup £5m through our partnership with theBritish Heart Foundation where every pennyraised goes to fight heart decease. And wecontinue to raise money for BBC Children inNeed and Duke of Edinburgh Award.

We’re also very excited to have announcedthat we are an Official Partner of Team GBwhich will include the period of next year’sOlympic Games in Rio. We’re extremelyproud to be able to give these extraordinaryathletes the sit down they deserve at the endof the day.

I think it’s a great time to be at DFS andwe’re very proud of what our businessstands for.

“The partnership scheme is about us demonstratingto our employees that we value their contribution.

We know the way to becoming a world classcompany is by having a world class team. To do this

everyone throughout the organisation has to befocussed on the same goals and then share in any

success that may generate”

engage

Dave Paulding highlights the growing recognition at board level thatcustomer service really is a key differentiator that can give organisationsthat competitive edge in a world of winners and losers

The aim of acquiring new customers, retainingexisting customers and keeping them happyforms the basis of any good service strategy. Acrucial part of this plan is paying constantattention to the customer experience andensuring that their needs are being met at each

point along their journey to guarantee returnbusiness and maintaining a positive image ofthe business. The customer experience isperhaps the one discerning factor that isseparating the good organisations from thegreat ones. With price and product

Why customer serviceis the last true form ofcompetitive advantage

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differentiation becoming less sustainable, it is good old fashionedservice that can give an organisation competitive advantage.

In today’s economy, retaining customers is vital to the success ofany organisation, particularly those in the service and retail sectors.However, that becomes a challenge when one considers thenumber of ways in which a customer can interact with anorganisation, and the number of steps that can be included in ajourney with that same business. Whether it is a one-offtransactional relationship, for example a purchase of an expensiveitem such as a television or car, or an ongoing one with a gasprovider, the aim for the business is to ensure long-term revenuestreams, which is ultimately achieved through providing the best,most convenient customer experience.

As a result, it is the contact centre that often provides thefoundation on which this strong customer servicer strategy is built– especially considering the way in which it is able to shape, formand change customer perceptions and attitudes. With that in mind,the challenge for organisations is to create this all-encompassingstrategy ensuring that it meets its business objectives as well ascustomer requirements and expectations.

The key drivers of this type of strategy are communications methods– that is the multi-channel interaction model – consistency of themessage, and levels of engagement. However, organisations needto understand just what constitutes a ‘good customer experience’before they can plan their strategies around it.

What is a good customer experience?A good customer experience can take multiple forms – from havinga question or query answered to their satisfaction, to speaking to acontact centre agent who is pleasant and helpful. Ultimately, agreat customer experience delivers value by not only solving acustomer’s issue, but in doing so in a way that they perceive to besimple and enjoyable.

The importance of a multi-channel platformIn the multi-channel environment this can pose a challenge andconsumer use of the Internet, smart mobile devices, touch-screendevices, and social media all encourage customers to expect it tobe easy to engage with you. They want to engage when theychoose to, and be able to use their preferred channel ofcommunication. Customers want to be recognised. They want theirissue to be resolved without having to use more than one channelor deal with it multiple times. They want to enjoy the experiencewhether they engage with a person or with technology. Companies

therefore must shift from concentrating on internal processes suchas marketing, sales, and customer service to how customers feelduring and after an interaction at any touch point. They must focuson the actions a customer takes as a result of those feelings.

To make all this work first means supporting as manycommunication channels as necessary: the corporate website,email, mobile apps, social media, text messaging, telephone (fixedand mobile), video, web-based instant messaging, and postal mail.Doing so enables customers to choose the channel of their choice,at the time of their choice. Customers can then carry out differenttasks such as requesting information, complaining about problemsor purchasing new products or services.

But that’s only the beginning. Responses must be personalised socustomers feel they are recognised as individuals and responsesare not just general-purpose answers, which many people findannoying. Responses must be in context, so if for example thecustomer tried but failed to complete a task in one channel, thecompany recognises this when it engages through another channel.

From the customer’s perspective, great customer experiences areeasy to complete, personalised, in context and consistent.

In order to accomplish this, it is essential for the organisation toprovide the channels customers expect, and to provide rapid,effective service across all touch points. While phone and emailremain the most used channels, use of web chat, SMS, socialmedia, and smartphone applications are expanding rapidly. Thegrowth of smartphone usage is increasingly causing customers touse self-services, while also expecting a seamless transfer ofinformation to a live service channel.

Consistency of the message and interactionsJust as customers expect the same service and quality whenvisiting a burger chain, for example, so too do they expectconsistency when it comes to dealing with an organisation throughdifferent channels. Delivering consistent good service can be achallenge due to staff or product changes, technology andcustomer demand. It is crucial for agents to deliver the samemessage or feedback regardless of the method of interaction.

If a customer requests information such as the balance of theiraccount through one channel, then the customer should receivethe same answer if they use an alternative channel. If it isn’tconsistent, customer satisfaction levels drop and the company’scosts increase because customers have to keep engaging untilthey are certain they have the correct answer.

“Companies must shift from concentrating on internalprocesses such as marketing, sales, and customer

service to how customers feel during and after aninteraction at any touch point. They must focus on theactions a customer takes as a result of those feelings”

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Furthermore, customers should receive thesame levels of attentiveness, helpfulness andfunctionality across all communicationsmethods – from email and web chat, totelephone and self-service options.

How to deliver great customer experiencesCompanies engage with customers in a numberof ways – through assisted service, self-serviceand connected service. Assisted serviceincludes channels where customers engagewith a person. Self-service includes channelswhere customers engage with technology, suchas IVR or the corporate website. Andconnected service begins with customers tryingto resolve their issues in a self-service channelsuch as a mobile app. If they are unable tocomplete the interaction using self-service, theyare seamlessly transferred to assisted service,such as an agent in a contact centre.

The vast majority of transactions are stillhandled by a person (agent, frontline staff, etc.)and as such the outcomes of thesetransactions depend on the skills and attitude ofthose staff. In addition to getting the technologyright across channels, it’s crucial that theseagents receive the right coaching for dealingwith customers. It is also vital for all agents orfrontline staff to make use of the sameinformation, in the same way, which links backto the importance of consistency.

The impact of new technologiesChanges in technology and communicationmethods are changing and evolving almostdaily. As a result, it is crucial that companiescontinually prepare for the impact of the newestwave of technology innovations — mobiledevices, social media, big data, and cloudcomputing. These technologies are convergingto place increased influence in the hands of theaverage consumer. Customers now havepowerful computing power in their pocket, andexpect to resolve service issues in their sparemoments via smartphone applications. In turn,the results of these interactions - be they

positive or negative - can be broadcast oversocial media channels. These technologies areraising customer expectations significantly.

The good news is that these technologies alsoprovide a new set of tools for companies todifferentiate themselves through great customerexperiences. By implementing a cloud model,you can deploy an integrated suite of advancedcustomer service applications in a very shorttimeframe while paying only for thoseapplications that add business value in yourenvironment. Social media provides powerfultools for understanding your customers’perceptions of your brand. By monitoring andreacting to customer conversations about yourbrand, you are able to shift perceptions in apositive direction. By leveraging unstructureddata from both within and outside the contactcentre, you can receive the feedback necessaryto guidance process improvements.

Shifting from good to greatMoving from delivering good customerexperiences to providing great ones can beaccomplished. It involves building a company’sbrand from the inside out – cultivating engagedemployees and empowering them with thetechnologies and supporting processes todeliver effective, easy and enjoyableexperiences. A brand is not merely the sum ofadvertising campaigns and promotions; rather itis what people say about it. Crucially, thisincludes employees and, as a result, employeebehaviour must reflect those values andperceptions when interacting with customers.

And finallyA great customer experience hinges on the rightmix of technology, agent skills and capabilities,consistency and the ability of the organisationto understand and meet customer needs.Having a strong strategy that supports this, iskey to success and importantly it is one thatevolves and adapts in response to the state ofthe market, company changes and thedemands of customers themselves.

Dave Paulding is regional sales directorUK, Middle East at Interactive Intelligence

www.inin.com

1 6I S S U E E I G H T E E N • F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 5

Tim Knight looks at the evolution of VOC programmes and how the most advancedorganisations such as British Airways are using customer experience analytics to develop

winning strategies across the entire customer experience

While it has never been more crucial for brandsto invest in Voice of the Customer (VoC)programmes, the plethora of meanings for theterm 'Voice of the Customer' has created a lackof clarity amongst many organisations.

Traditionally, it has been used to describe thewide array of technological and feedback-ledcustomer experience management solutions.But the most advanced Voice of the Customerprogrammes are much wider reaching, utilisingcustomer experience analytics to frame, modeland prioritise across the entire customerexperience.

More than just ‘dumb data’For Nunwood, a VoC programme ischaracterised by a number of key elements.Firstly, it utilises technology to disseminate the

voice of the customer across the business, fromfront line staff to senior executives. Delivered inreal time, these results are more than just‘dumb data’, but are linked to recoveryactivities, employee training, business planningand best practice resources.

Technology also underpins the ever-reducingtimescales between experience, feedback andaction. This is driven by an increasingexpectation from customers that companies willreact speedily to the feedback they offer.Customers are no longer satisfied with surveysalone, they expect the business to hear theirvoices and act upon them, often at anindividual, rapid level.

Another key element to an effective VoCprogramme is the capability to show both

Voice of the Customer:which brands achieve best practice?

Tim Knight, is a seniorpartner at Nunwood

www.nunwood.com

engage

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British Airways is a brand which has enjoyed considerablesuccess with its Voice of the Customer programme - madepossible by Nunwood's Fizz: Experience Managementtechnology. The Fizz interface has enabled British Airways to co-ordinate its customer experience, consolidating multiple datasources into a dashboard system which is accessible to 1,100multi-lingual colleagues worldwide. This dashboard boastseverything from concise infographics to touch-point analysis ofcustomer journey touch-points, affording British Airways flexibleaccess to Voice of the Customer data.

Furthermore, British Airways has also developed its own 'poweruser' analytics system, as well as a knowledge-managementplatform called Spark. The former enables the Research andInsight Team to provide live decision-making support to criticalstakeholders, whilst the latter can condense thousands ofdocuments and news feeds into a single interface.

This strategy has helped to underpin the strength of the brand.Last year British Airways received an array of customerexperience awards, including Consumer Superbrand, Airline ofthe Year and Best Long-Haul Business Carrier. This wasaccompanied by a 4% increase in passenger numbers.

Most importantly, Voice of the Customer programmes putcustomers at the heart of a brand's decision-making –guiding the business by customer priorities, rather thanoperational factors.

And with the continued integration of social media into theeveryday lives of customers, there’s a greater pressure forbrands to stay in tune with their needs and expectations.Nunwood's customer experience technology can make this possible.

Best practice Voice of the Customer programmes:

where to focus and how to create a positive change. Nunwood usesa combination of structured multivariate analysis and unstructuredroot cause tools. The benefit for the brand is an unprecedentedflexibility to 'listen more intensely' to the highlighted areas.

Flexible approach key to successHowever, even the most comprehensive Voice of the Customerprogrammes won’t be able to cover every process to the level of

detail required to derive actionable recommendations. It’s thereforekey for any programme to maintain a flexible approach to analyseidentified areas of under-performance.

This can be through verbatim deep dives, ad hoc quantitativestudies or clear links to downstream re-design activities. Thecustomer experience analytics can then be used to prioritise areasof further investigation, using financial and behavioural outcomes toensure everything hangs together.

In a demonstration of its commitment to excellence Severn Trent Water has a new postof Chief Customer Officer in the shape of Sarah Bentley – and here she tells Engage

about her plans for an organisation in a sector she says is on the brink of a customerservice revolution

First off Sarah tell us a bit about yourbackground and how you came to the newrole of Chief Customer Officer at SevernTrent Water

I have spent my career in various guises: privateequity, venture capital, the entrepreneurial hubsof Silicon Valley, New York, Texas and London,working with start-ups, turnarounds and largecorporates and more recently consulting across

a range of industries. The consistent themethroughout my career is a desire to understandhow people interact with each other and howwe can improve our lives and experiences, bysimplifying process, empowering teams andusing technology to make things easier.

For me, it is all about customers! I have beeninspired, curious and committed to improvingthe lives of customers since the early days of

Tapping into the needs of thecustomer turns on new CCO

at Severn Trent water

“This is a new role for SevernTrent and it will give the

customer another strong voiceat the top of our organisation.

We have a clear ambition to putthe customer at the heart of

what we do. My role is toensure that, as a business, we

are organised around thecustomer”


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engage

I S S U E S E V E N T E E N • N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 41 5

my career. From the call centres of theearly 90’s, to the internet boom of themillennium, to the ‘Appy’ and Analyticalworld we now live in, companies aroundthe world have talked much aboutCustomer Experience. With rapidlyincreasing customer expectations and anexplosion of technology, regulation andother macro-economic constraints, it oftenfeels to the consumer that life has becomeharder not easier. I have spent the pastfive years at Accenture helping companiesacross a range of sectors, includingFinancial Services, Retail and MobileCommunications leading Accenture’sdigital business in the UK and Irelandwhich I loved.

Severn Trent Water has all the rightingredients to take a step change in bothcustomer and digital – fabulous people, anessential resource, substantial industrytransformation, an inspiring CEO drivingchange and a compelling social agenda –so an incredibly compelling opportunityand one that matches my passionsand values.

You have one clear remit in this role – thecustomer. How is that going to manifestitself working in a sector not best knownfor putting the customer first?

Water utilities are on the brink of acustomer service revolution, driven by thegrowth in competition in our sector.Customers are driving the agenda, armedwith more information, a stronger voiceand many more ways of contacting us -increasingly through digital channels. IThas traditionally served the needs of amanufacturing, asset centric business,rather than the customer. While it remainsimportant for us to focus on our products– brilliant drinking water and really efficientwaste water recycling – there is nowanother lens on our business. Seenthrough this customer lens, we need tochange our technology to keep pace withcustomer behaviour and expectations, andbuild systems and applications that makeour business more proactive, simple and relevant.

This is a new role for Severn Trent and itwill give the customer another strong voice

at the top of our organisation. We have aclear ambition to put the customer at theheart of what we do. My role is to ensurethat, as a business, we are organisedaround the customer. Our regulatoryworld is also changing - we now have anumber of financial incentives to out-perform our customer service targets. Socustomer focus is no longer adiscretionary activity for water companies,it’s a key driver of growth.

As new CCO you have responsibilityfor three key departments (customercare, group technology, businesstransformation –how they are beinglinked?

The growth in digital has been a key factor.In a digital world, expectations of how werun our business internally and externallyhave changed. Responding quickly tochanging customer expectations and therapid adoption of digital technologies likeapps and social media requires companiesto re-think their traditional operatingmodels, including their approach totechnology. This can’t be done in apiecemeal way – customer care,technology and transformation are nowinextricably linked.

So firstly, it is about a constant andchallenging focus on the customer –looking at our business every day and in allthat we do from the eyes of our customer.This is not just about how we answer thephone or manage incidents as they occur– it extends to all parts of our business –how we work with suppliers, the assets webuild, the investment in our people, ourdaily frame of reference. So the linkbetween ‘obvious’ customer activities(billing, customer service, operationalmanagement) and transformation becomereadily apparent as we start all ourbusiness activities from the viewpoint ofthe customer.

Secondly, from a technology perspective,this underpins the world we live in today.Each day all of us interact with a myriad oftechnology – so again ensuring that thedata, analytics, systems and architecturewe develop is centered on our desire toserve our customers is critical. We need

an enterprise-wide approach to servingour customer, sharing information andinsight, and becoming more transparent.

Bringing these three areas together is aninspired move and already our teams areseeing and taking advantages of beingtogether.

Bringing your digital strategy to life is akey part of the new role Sarah – couldyou give us a flavour of how that willwork going forward?

Digital strategy is a big topic as I well knowfrom my time leading Accenture’s DigitalPractice. For me there are three coreaspects to digital:• how we use technology to simplify and

improve the experience for our customers,

• how we use technology to inspire, excite, and delight our employees and

• how we use technology to dramatically shift the paradigm of our business processes through the industrial internet.

My focus is to ensure that across all threeareas we will tangibly deliver a stepchange in the business by rapidlydeploying digital technology. The key partabout digital, and it means so manydifferent things to different people, is aboutpace. In a digital world things are movingquicker by the minute, the amount ofinformation, the breadth of channels, theplethora of emerging technologies arecoming at us all faster and faster. So at theheart of our digital strategy are two things– optionality and agility.

Social is an increasingly important partof the way customers interact withorganisations - we understand youhave some interesting social customerengagement initiatives includingtwitter?

We have some brilliant capabilities in place– our super Twitter team and our web-chatteam that are available 24 x 7 x 365 tointeract with customers on any topic fromblocked toilets, to water leaks; from billingquestions to traffic updates. Our socialagenda also focuses on helping customers


Big Interview

Sarah Bentley:Chief Customer Officer,

Severn Trent Water

www.stwater.co.uk

�

who are struggling financially and we havesome excellent programs in place to helppeople manage their finances and support themthrough difficult times. We also providewonderful services from our educationalupdates on managing such a precious resourceas water, recreational activities at our manyreservoirs, including water sports, fishing andnature watching, to our environmental activitiesincluding water management, energyproduction and sustainability. So we have ourfoothold well established in the social space.

For me this is a key focus area as we have oneof the very few essential resources – water -that it is impossible to live without. It is also onethat many of us, as I did before I joined, take forgranted – turn the tap on its there, doesn’t itjust fall out of the sky … and let’s face it, flushthe toilet and job done! I am keen tosignificantly ramp up our activities in the socialspace, expanding our channels and increasingour engagement so that together with thecommunities we serve we can deliver forcustomers today and for future generations.

What your take on the links betweenemployee engagement, customerengagement, performance and profitability -also we understand there is a need forengaged new talent at Severn Trent Water?

As I mentioned earlier we have some incredibletalent in our business. Since I started twomonths ago, I’ve spent much of my time out inthe field with our front line teams seeing ourfabulous people in action. A couple of weeksago I was out with one of our teams in a snowyfield repairing a water pipe that had beenaccidentally damaged by contractors laying anelectricity cable, and understanding thecomplex process that they carefully manage tomake sure that clean fresh water is alwaysavailable to the customers we serve.

In addition, we have teams of people managingour sewage network to keep the sewersrunning and then we turn our waste intoelectricity and gas. We have amazing people atSevern Trent Water and have been longrespected as a pioneer in our industry. My goalis to blend that talent with people from othersectors that have led in the customer and digitalareas to enable us to make a significant stepchange, so I am always open to meeting newpeople.

With regards to employee engagement, in allthe many advances in customer experienceover the last 25 years, one truth rings true – wecan’t really deliver brilliant customer experiencesunless we genuinely care about our customers.And we can’t expect anyone to truly care aboutcustomers if we don’t passionately care abouteach other. Deeply care about the big thingsand the small things.

We have all heard stories of the people who ‘gothe extra mile’ for their customers and theircolleagues, but there are few large companies –Nordstrom, Southwest Airlines spring to mind –where this is simply the normal course ofbusiness. In these cases, their employees bothdeeply care and are empowered to act.

I am passionate about this point. We have allhad those days at work where it just feels as ifwe stepped out on the wrong side of the bed.The traffic is awful, the rain is lashing down, thecomputer says ‘no’, phones are ringing off thehook, email is piling up and the whole contextfor doing your job is just in the ‘too hard’bucket. That is not a place from which to lovecustomers! So my ambition is to make surethat every day is an amazing day, for ourcolleagues and our customers.

Finally what are your ambitions for the futureand how will you measure your success infocusing on customers?

I have mentioned already the set of tangiblefinancial incentives that we are measured onnow by our regulator, OFWAT, and the impactthat this has directly on our shareholders.Clearly these focus the minds of everyone in thebusiness from the Board through to our frontline. For me there is a very simple measure ofsuccess – how many customers say ‘thank you’for making their lives easier and improving theworld they live in – and I am delighted to saythat those ‘thank yous’ are already coming in…


Big Interview

“In a digital world, expectations of how we runour business internally and externally have

changed. Responding quickly to changingcustomer expectations and the rapid adoption

of digital technologies like apps and socialmedia requires companies to re-think their

traditional operating models, including theirapproach to technology”

engage

Steven Van Belleghem believes 2014 will be remembered as a year when therewere huge steps forward for digital. He also predicts that this year those stepsforward could be followed by a step backwards – unless organisation grasp thedigital mettle with both hands

Why 2015 could bethe year of digitalcustomer frustration

Last year some organisations began to harnessthe true potential of the technology, and perhapsmore importantly, 2014 was a year wheneveryday consumers began to embrace andexperience for themselves what opportunitiesand benefits mobile technology could really offer.

Drones, robots and the ‘Internet of Things’started making a real difference to their dailylives, and businesses began to realise thatArtificial Intelligence was no longer justsomething out of science fiction.

As is the case with so many things in life,significant steps forward raise our expectationsand therefore what follows can very easilybecome a disappointment or anti-climax. Onceyou have experienced success and had aglimpse of what is possible, anything lessbecomes unacceptable. This is why I believethat unless businesses focus on the right areas,there is a good chance that 2015 will beremembered as a year of digital frustration forcustomers. �

feature


engage

feature

To put this digital frustration into context I like touse the example of my recent trip to DisneylandParis. My family and I are all big fans of Disney,and I loved the customer experience their newMyMagic+ system gave me at DisneyworldUSA. However, this has significantly raised myexpectations of the whole Disney experience,so when I visit Disneyland Paris a little closer tohome, the customer experience almost feelslike a step back into the Middle Ages.

Fortunately, this does not have to be the case.Disappointment for customers does not have tobe inevitable, and I have outlined five key pointsthat businesses can focus on to ensure youavoid making 2015 a year of digital frustrationfor your customers:

1. Intuitive technologyConsumers increasingly expect intuitivetechnology. When was the last time you lookedat the manual or used the “help” function onyour iPhone or iPad? The answer is neverbecause they simply don’t have one.

Users’ manuals written in 20 different languagesare thankfully becoming a thing of the past, andever since gadgets like the iPhone got us allused to the power of intuitive technology wealmost expect to be able to unpack our newpurchases, plug them in and for them to simplywork. Consumers now want self-guidingapplications, so if your business has to choosebetween investing resources into developing anew feature or working on improving the userexperience, the decision should really be a no-brainer – intuitive design and a user-friendlyinterface is increasingly invaluable.

2. Fast technologySimplicity and intuitive design are great, but weare all increasingly impatient consumers and iftechnology is slow then it will frustratecustomers, quickly! Research shows thatconsumers get much less frustrated withseveral quick niche applications or devices thatare continually being modified and improved,but a single one that tries to do everything lesseffectively will quickly lose favour.

Not content with continuous improvements,today’s increasingly demanding consumers evenexpect digital solutions to think ahead and pre-empt their next move. Faster-than-real-timesolutions are here, and these digital solutionsthat make our lives easier are quickly becomingthe norm.

3. Listen AND act on feedbackOne of the big advantages digital technologyoffers is a constant flow of information thatmakes it easier than ever to listen to whatconsumers have to say. While most businesseshave now adopted some form of social listeningtechniques, many are failing to take on boardthis information to actually use it to improveproducts and services. This will be what setssmart businesses apart from the competition.

One thing I would urge all businesses to do thisyear is to test new ideas. Every time someonecomes up with a new idea, feature, applicationor solution, rather than have the usual meetingwhere you all guess and argue about whatconsumers will like, simply go ahead andexecute the idea using limited resources. In acontrolled environment you can live A/B test the

Prof. Steven Van Belleghem is author of TheConversation Company and The ConversationManager, and his new book, When DigitalBecomes Human, will be published by KoganPage in April 2015. Follow him on twitter@StevenVBe, subscribe to his videos atwww.youtube.com/stevenvanbelleghem orvisit www.stevenvanbelleghem.com


�“My family and I are all bigfans of Disney, and I lovedthe customer experience

their new MyMagic+ systemgave me at DisneyworldUSA. However, this has

significantly raised myexpectations of the whole

Disney experience, so whenI visit Disneyland Paris a little

closer to home, thecustomer experience almost

feels like a step back intothe Middle Ages”

engage

feature


idea to allow you to see how people respond tothe new developments. You then have real-timefeedback and invaluable information to makemuch better decisions about future applicationsand solutions that customers will actually want.

4. Fun technologySo we know that today’s demandingconsumers now expect their products andservices to be intuitive and fast, but increasingly,the technologies that really set themselvesapart and engage customers also have anelement of fun.

This might sound strange for technologies thatwe use every day, but in this context “fun” canmean a whole range of things. Making theproduct beautiful to look at, making it funny,giving it a little bit of personality or just making itsurprising in some way all add to the enjoymentthe consumer will get from it. Google is afantastic example of how a company can leadthe market and provide great service whileembracing an element of fun.

I don’t think many people would argue that itisn’t intuitive to use, it is certainly very quick witha whole team of experts continually optimisingthe performance every day, but they also havean eye for fun that leads them to change theirlogo every day to create a little amusement ortopical surprise for users.

You might use Google every day, but this littledaily change makes you stop and appreciatesomething new or maybe learn a fact, and for amoment it stops becoming just part of thebackground. Don’t overlook the fun aspect in

the digital world, it can really add to therelationship with the user.

5. Transparent businessesOf course all of us strive for perfection in ourbusinesses, but it is important to accept thateven the biggest and slickest organisations inthe world have their occasional problems andissues to deal with. I would urge businessesthat communicating transparently about yourcompany’s plans, progress and even mistakes,can help build a relationship with customers aspeople will naturally buy into the humanelement of a company – after all, people buyfrom people.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, thosecompanies that put on a false front and claimthat their product or service is perfect are onlysetting themselves up for a huge burst of digitalfrustration when reality strikes and customerlearn that it really is a front. Your approach tocustomer experience is now a crucial part ofyour marketing plans so adopting a policy ofbeing open and transparent about your digitalplans is crucial.

“Consumers now want self-guiding applications, so ifyour business has to choosebetween investing resourcesinto developing a newfeature or working onimproving the userexperience, the decisionshould really be a no-brainer– intuitive design and a user-friendly interface isincreasingly invaluable”


Businesses must take a more sophisticated, automated andholistic approach to listening to their customers if they want tosimplify and streamline the entire customer experiencemanagement process says Claire Sporton

Listening to the customer and responding to both positive andnegative feedback has never been so important. And it’s going toget harder as the amount of data that can be collected acrossmultiple platforms, channels, countries, languages and devicesexpands to new levels.

Sifting through large volumes of diverse data will become anincreasingly complex and labour-intensive task that will be virtuallyimpossible to achieve manually. But the real problem is that wecould get lost in the analysis. There are some incredibly interestinginsights hidden away in there but businesses are already finding ithard to get the balance right between data, insight and actuallydriving action and change. All too often, key insights arediscovered too late to drive strategic change.

Automation plays an invaluable role in providing meaningfulpriorities for action to key stakeholders across the business. It canease the process of mining large volumes of both solicited andunsolicited free-form content, addressing the need forcategorisation and sentiment analysis for free-form text, verbatimand other unstructured data.

It can also help companies to keep pace with the continuing rapidinnovation in social networking, enabling them to listen to the Voiceof the Customer via social media feeds, online media feeds, forumcomments and blogs.

Social networking not just for customerHowever, social networking is not just a channel for the customervoice: it is increasingly used as a forum for employees to discusstheir challenges and concerns, whether businesses like it or not.It’s therefore an increasingly important contributor to the employeeengagement process, which in turn has a major impact oncustomer engagement. It is imperative, then, that companies areable to truly take on board the direct link between customer

Why the voice of theemployee and thecustomer must converge

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engage

experience and employee engagement ifthey want to gather insight that willmake a real impact on the bottom line.

Confirmit considers convergencebetween VoC and VoE to be the wayforward for good reason: frontlineemployees have much greater insight asto what’s happening at the customerfrontline and can provide a differentperspective on the issues impacting

their customers andclients.

Listening andacting driveschangeBy listening andacting on feedback

from employees aswell as customers notonly can companiesdrive more impactfulchange, but they canalso drive employee

engagement bydemonstrating to team

members that their opinions arevalued and that they areempowered to improve thebusiness.

How do we capturethese insights? As withVoice of the Customer,we are seeing theevolution of VoE to

include ‘in the moment’ capture,specifically via mobile devices andsocial forums. Even just sharingideas and feedback internally usingsocial channels can have animmediate impact on sentimentacross a business.

Clearly driving positive engagementamong employees is critical to achievingcustomer engagement since:

• Employees are able to engage customers on the ‘frontline’, deliver better customer experience, and drive greater profitability.

• Employees are able to provide valuable insight into customer experience and offer a view that an

organisation may not derive from customer feedback alone.

Evolution of VoCEcoming this year2015 will undoubtedly mark theevolution of VoC and VoE into the Voiceof the Customer through the Employee(VoCE). Customers and employees reallyare two sides of the same coin so weexpect to see more and more leading-edge companies building and deployingactionable employee engagementprogrammes that also drive customerengagement.

The key to setting up a successful VoCEprogramme is not only to adhere toestablished VoC best practices. It willalso lie on the ability to implement theprogramme across the entire companyand to select the best channels to reachand maximise responses fromemployees.

Do NOT silo employee andcustomer feedbackCompanies must also ensure thatemployee engagement and customerfeedback are not siloed, but analysedalongside other insights in a singlereporting hub. This will create a holisticview that will uncover the drivers ofemployee engagement and customersatisfaction in one place. It will beessential to close the loop and to proveto employees that what they do makes adifference to customers, theirexperiences and the success of thecompany overall.

I’m in no doubt that harnessing theVoice of the Employee and the Voice ofthe Customer as one combined, holisticprogramme is the best way to boost thebottom line

By incorporating factors such asrevenue performance and churn rate, it’spossible to see just how significant therelationship between employeeengagement and customer satisfactionis to financial and operationalperformance as a whole and to drivereal change across the entire business.That’s got to be the ultimate goal.

Claire Sporton is VP CustomerExperience Management at Confirmit

www.confirmit.com

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EmployeeEngagementSummitTHURSDAY APRIL 16 2015VICTORIA PARK PLAZA HOTEL, LONDONThe complete resource for leading edge thinking on the issues,challenges and opportunities relating to employee engagement andits impact on customer engagement, performance and profitability

SPECIALDELEGATE

RATEUNTIL 20 MARCH

£195

Our first Employee EngagementSummit will be held at the Park

Plaza Victoria on April 16, London.Mirroring our already hugely

successful Customer EngagementSummit held in the autumn and nowin its fourth year. The links between

employee engagement, customerengagement, performance and

profitability are clear and will beexamined in detail. Human capital

and customer relationships are theleading concerns of CEOs and taking

an holistic approach to ouremployee and customer

engagement strategies is ofparamount importance.

• Employee and Customer Engagement, links to performanceand profitability

• Internal communications• HR and cloud technology• Shared services and payroll• Evolution of Voice of the Employee, including technology/BYOD issues• Leadership and success planning• Talent Management, choosing the right managers• Learning and development• Wellbeing and engagement• Employee wellness and benefits (including reward and recognition)• Recruitment• Social Engagement• Future of Work

TOPICS AND STREAMS TO INCLUDE:

• CIO/CEO/MD/Director• HR Director/Head/Senior Management• IT Director/Head/Senior Management• Finance Director/Head/Senior Management• Employee Communications Director/Head/Senior Management• Operations Director/Head/Senior Management• Marketing & Customer Director/Head/Senior Management• HR Advisor/Consultant Director/Head/Senior Management• Organisational Development Director/Head/Senior Management• Training Director/Head/Senior Management

WHO WILL ATTEND:

The Employee Engagement Summit is organised by Engage Business Media Ltdwww.engageemployee.com @EngageEmployee #EngagementSummit

Peter Flade, ManagingPartner, Gallup

Speakers include:

David MacCleod, Co-Chair Engage forSuccess

Nigel Spencer, GlobalDirector of Learning &Development, ReedSmith LLP

Richard Brimble,Director of OrganisationDevelopment, AffinityWater

Laura Lee,Customer ExperienceDirector, MolsonCoors

Steve Clark,CEO, Calyx ManagedServices

Tim Morgan,CEO, Mint Digital

Linda Rolf,Director of InternalCommunications andEmployee Engagement,Specsavers

Nupur Mallick,Director HR, TataConsultancy Service(TCS)

Richard Spencer,Head of SupporterDevelopment, RSPB

Lucy Crowther, Headof Retail HR, Argos

REGISTERNick Brice,AMEX learning anddevelopment CaseStudy

Paul Devoy,Global Head, Investorsin People

Leadership Partner Partners Sponsor

Inspiring change to drive employeeengagement performance and profitability

I S S U E S E V E N T E E N • N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 4 1 2I S S U E F O U R T E E N • A P R I L 2 0 1 4 2 4I S S U E E I G H T E E N • F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 5 2 8

Ember is a customermanagement consultancyfocused on helping clientsmaximise the commercialvalue of their customerengagement activities byidentifying and exploitingopportunities for costreduction, revenueenhancement and improvedcustomer worth.

Our approach is unashamedlyfinancial. In every consultingproject, we will identify not

only how to make yourbusiness better, but howmuch you stand to gain bydoing so. Our services spancustomer managementstrategy, operationsconsulting, outsourcingprocurement, contracting andmediation, innovativedeployment of analyticsservices and increasingly thestrategy and deployment ofdigital channels into the mix.

We would be pleased tounderstand your challengesand explain how we can help.

Contact details: Alastair [email protected] 871 9797www.emberservices.com

EMBER SERVICES

Clicktools is the leadingprovider of premium, Cloud-based survey software forbusinesses. The companylives by its brand promise tohelp customers betterunderstand and serve theircustomers. Since 2001, theClicktools solution hasenabled organizations toimprove customer experienceby collecting, centralizing, andacting on customer feedback,leveraging the power of CRM.Notably, Clicktools was thefirst survey provider to

integrate with Salesforce™and was an original memberof the AppExchange®. Thecompany is privately held withheadquarters on the SouthCoast of England and a US-based office in Phoenix,Arizona. More info atwww.clicktools.com.

Contact details: [email protected]@clicktools.comwww.clicktools.com

Clicktools Ltd.7 Branksome Park HouseBourne Valley RoadPoole BH12 1ED. UK.

Main: 01202 761822Sales: 0800 0432587Fax: 0800 471 5273

Clicktools Inc.1661 East Camelback RoadSuite 235, PhoenixArizona 85016, USA.

Main: 1-800-774-4065Sales: 1-800-774-4065Fax: 1-800-767-2070

CLICKTOOLS

Interactive Intelligence is aglobal provider of contact centre,unified communications, andbusiness process automationsoftware and servicesdesigned to improve thecustomer experience. Thecompany’s solutions, whichcan be deployed via the cloudor on-premises, are ideal forindustries such as financialservices, insurance, outsourcers,collections and utilities.

The company’s standards-based all-in-onecommunications softwaresuite was designed toeliminate the cost andcomplexity of multi-point

systems. Founded in 1994and backed by more than5,000 customers worldwide,Interactive Intelligence is anexperienced leader indelivering customer valuethrough its on-premise orcloud-based Communicationsas a Service (CaaS) solutions,both of which include software,hardware, consulting, support,education andimplementation. At InteractiveIntelligence, it’s what we do.

Contact details: Jamie [email protected] 418852www.inin.com

INTERACTIVE INTELLIGENCE

Confirmit enablesorganisations to develop andimplement Voice of theCustomer, EmployeeEngagement and MarketResearch programmes thatdeliver insight and drivebusiness change. Confirmit’sclients create multi-channel,multi-lingual feedback andresearch programmes thatengage customers, empoweremployees, deliver acompelling respondentexperience, and provide highReturn on Investment.

Confirmit’s customer

engagement model providesthe power to listen to theVoice of the Customer,integrate it with financial andoperational data to generatepowerful insight, and takeaction that will deliver effectivebusiness change and createcompetitive advantage.Confirmit has 350 employeesand is headquartered in Oslo,with offices around the world.

Contact details: Joe [email protected]+44 (0)20 3053 9376www.confirmit.com

CONFIRMIT

QuestBack online surveys andmanaged feedback solutionsempower companies to makesmarter decisions, transformcustomer and employeeexperience and get ahead of

the market.

Contact details: Tel.: 0207 403 [email protected]/uk

QUESTBACK

COMPANY PROFILES

engage


Mindpearl is a BPO specialistfocusing on international, highquality contact centreoperations. Mindpearl wasrecognised as the‘Outsourcing Contact CentreProvider of the Year 2013’ atthe National OutsourcingAssociation (NOA) Awards inthe UK. With an emphasis oninbound, multichannelcustomer support, Mindpearlsupports global brands in theaviation, leisure,telecommunications, retail andweight managementindustries in English and 20+languages. With our highlyskilled, motivated multilingualworkforce and ourstrategically located ‘Follow

the Sun’ locations, inBrisbane, Barcelona, CapeTown and Suva, Fiji, we havethe know-how, experienceand resources to maximisebusiness performance andprofitability.

Contact details: South AfricaCandace Laubscher [email protected]: +27 (0) 21 440 6707T: +27 (0)79 514 7006

UKAlan [email protected]: +44(0)7780 115 042www. mindpearl.com

MINDPEARL

Sabio is a leading contactcentre technology specialistfocused on deliveringexceptional customer servicestrategies and solutions,partnering with leadingvendors such as AVAYA,Verint and Nuance. With over

15 years’ experience Sabioworks with many majorcompanies throughout theglobe including The AA, DHL,Eurostar, Unibet, LebaraMobile and Office Depot.

Contact details:E: [email protected]: 0844 412 3000www.sabio.co.uk

SABIO

Nunwood helps businessescreate consistently brilliantcustomer experiences.Our approach is uniquely ‘full-service’. This means we join upcustomer strategy, experiencemeasurement, feedbacktechnology and frontlinetraining. By connecting thedots, our clients delight theircustomers more frequentlyand achieve their commercialgoals more easily. To createbrilliant results, we work hardto understand what ‘brilliant’

means. Our CustomerExperience Excellence Centre isthe world’s largest customerexperience research centre.Its work ensures everyNunwood client is connectedto the cutting-edge ofinternational experiencedesign and best practice.

Contact details: Tim [email protected] 3720101www.nunwood.com

NUNWOOD

PITNEY BOWES

LiveOps is the global leader incloud contact centre andcustomer service solutions.More than 350 companiesaround the world, includingSalesforce.com, Symantec,Royal Mail Group andNeopost, trust LiveOps’technology to enable effectivemultichannel, social andmobile interactions with theircustomers. LiveOps' award-winning platform hasprocessed more than 1 Billionminutes of customerinteractions and managedoperations for the largest US-based cloud contact centre of

20,000 home-based,independent agents.Headquartered in RedwoodCity, California with Europeanregional headquarters inLondon, LiveOps has morethan 10 years of cloudexperience LiveOps is thepartner of choice forcompanies wanting tomigrate to the cloud.

Contact details: Ann Ruckstuhl,Chief Marketing [email protected]+44 (0)20 3006 8280www.liveops.com

LIVEOPS

Medallia is a leadingcustomer experiencemanagement (CEM) SaaScompany. Founded in 2001,the company is trusted bysome of the world’s topbrands — including Verizon,Macy’s, Sephora, Honeywell,Wells Fargo, Sony, FourSeasons, Sodexo, and BestWestern — to createexperiences that customerslove. Medallia enablescompanies to capturecustomer feedback across a

multitude of channels andtouchpoints (such as online,social media, mobile, andcontact centers), understandit in real-time, and driveaction everywhere — fromthe C-suite to the frontline.

Contact details: Medallia UK1 Pemberton Row,London EC4A 3BG, UK44 203 1310 200Sales: 1 844 238 37 67www.medallia.com

MEDALLIA UK

Pitney Bowes, a globaltechnology company, powersbillions of physical and digitaltransactions in the connectedand borderless world ofcommerce.

We enable data-drivenmarketing, parcel shipping &logistics, and statements,invoices & payments throughour data management &engagement software,location intelligence offerings,and shipping & mailingsolutions .

Helping clients achieve theirgreatest commerce potentialare more than 16,000passionate employees aroundthe world, our relentlesspursuit of innovation with over2,300 active patents, and ourfocus on clients, who are atthe centre of all that we do –from small businesses to 90%of the Fortune 500.

Contact details: Mr. Raj MadabushiE: [email protected]: +44(0) 1491 416835www.pitneybowes.com/us

Colin Shaw is the founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy, one of the world's first organizations devoted to customer experience.Colin is an international author of four best-selling books and an engaging keynote speaker & also recognized as one of theoriginal top 150 Business Influencers by LinkedIn. Beyond Philosophy provide consulting, specialized research & training fromtheir headquarters in Tampa, Florida, USA.

Follow Colin Shaw on Twitter: @ColinShaw_CX

Both Customers and Employees have a voice. The Voice of theCustomer (VOC) refers to the feedback you get regarding aCustomer’s expectations and their experience with yourorganisation. The Voice of the Employee (VOE) refers to howemployees participate in the decisions at your organization. If youemploy an effective listening programme to each, the voices will tellyou exactly how one affects the other.

In the past couple of years, more organisations have been listeningto their Customers. More have realised that the best way to decidewhat to do to make a Customer’s Experience better is to figure outwhat your Customers expect, what they appreciate, and what theywant to avoid.

These same organisations would be wise to listen to theiremployees as well. Too many ignore their own employees’opinions. The VOE is just as pertinent as the VOC, and fororganisations wishing to improve their Customer Experience, aninvaluable asset for specific action to take.

Who better to tell you ways to improve the various moments ofyour current Experience then the people who have those momentswith Customers every day? You may not like what they say butinvariably they know the problems you are causing Customers andalso know how to fix it. Who better to see the problems and pitfallsin your process creating negative emotions for the Customers thanthe people who walk that process day in and day out?

And guess what? By listening to them and acting, you improveemployee engagement and what the VOE is saying.

Engaged employees believe and deliverEngaged employees believe they contribute to the company’ssuccess. They also believe in the company’s brand promise andwill see to it that they go above and beyond in their efforts toensure this promise is fulfilled. Engagement at an employee level iscritical to creating a good Customer Experience.

Employees are uniquely qualified to tell you ways to improve the

Customer Experience. When we undertake our Journey Mapping,we always involve front-line employees. They know what ishappening and the issues that result as they speak withCustomers every day. Making their voice part of your strategicplanning encourages them to take ownership of their work. Duringwhat can be a painful Customer Experience implementationprocess, it encourages them to meet the challenges change canpresent, however difficult, because they helped design it.

Wal-Mart no shining exampleWe can see what happens when employees’ voices are ignored.Last summer, Wal-Mart employees were striking all across the nationdemanding better pay and benefits, more full-time employmentopportunities, and a safe environment in which to voice theircomplaints to management. I’m sure many of you would agree thatthe experience in Wal-Mart as a Customer isn’t a shining exampleof what’s possible in Customer Experience today, either.

We can also see what happens when employee's voices are valued,rewarded, and empowered. Consider the employee environment atGoogle. Google is routinely on the top of “Best Places to Work”lists. In fact just look at the organizations in these surveys andyou’ll see they all provide a good employee experience andCustomer Experience. They connect itthere for all to see.

It’s great that more companies arelistening to the VOC. Be sure to alsolisten to the VOE. As you can see,they two are inextricablylinked--and equallyimportant to creating anexcellent CustomerExperience.

the final word

3 0I S S U E E I G H T E E N • F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 5

Colin Shaw says that Employee Experience and Customer Experience are like an old marriedcouple - when it works it is beautiful and inspiring; when it doesn’t, it is ugly and bewildering

Voice of the Employeeand Voice of the Customer:

the inextricable link

engage

THURSDAY 16 JULY 2015 I LONDON

16 JULY 2015, LONDON

OutsourcingCustomerServices SummitThe Summit will offer a mix of world class local and international case studies,expert advice from leading independent industry experts, panel sessions andhigh level networking opportunities. The aim of the Summit is for delegates tocome away armed with all they need to know in terms of setting out on anoutsourcing partnership relationship or making the most of their currentoutsourcing arrangements.

Peter Ryan, LeadAnalyst - BPO,Ovum

Speakers at 2014 Summit included:

www.engagecustomer.com@engagecustomer

#EngageForums

Luke Mills, MD, UKCommunications,Media & Technology,Accenture

Ian Hamerton,Head of DonorServices, NHSBlood & TransplantAuthority

Stephen West,Director, InternationalService Delivery TransformationSpecialist, K2H

Alan Graham,Director and ChiefCommercial Officer, Mindpearl

Mark Hillary,Outsourcingspecialist,globalisation, authorand blogger

James Milner,former Head ofContracts &Programmes BBC,Director, Ember PS

Rebeca Hassan,Executive Director,NearshoreExecutive Alliance

Tim Sunley,Outsource ServicesDirector, ShopDirect

Martin Leahy, CTO,ABTRAN

Brian O’Brien,BusinessDevelopment Lead,ABTRAN

JenniferKosmalski, Head ofCustomer Service,Rank Interactive

Vit Horky, Founder,Future CareInitiative

SPECIALDELEGATE

RATEUNTIL 29 MAY

£195

REGISTER

AJM Robertson Consulting Ltdl • Belgacom • BlueLink • BlueLink International CZ • Boohoo.com • Bosch • BPeSA • BritishGas • BroadGroup • Capita • Cisco Systems • Concentrix • Convergys • CSM Consultants Ltd • DBF • Dell • Eishtec • EmberServices • Euromaster • First Data • First Rate Exchange Services • Genesis Housing Association • G-Era • Global FreightSolutions • Infovinity Systems • Intelecom • Joules • LEGO Group • M&G Real Estate • Marie Curie Cancer Care • MerchantsLimited • NHS • Ovum • Pactus • Pinchpoint Coaching • Pitney Bowes Limited • Precium Ltd • Premier Business Audio •

ProtoCall One • Qifasolutions • RSPB • Scott Galbraith Ltd • Serco • Service Initiatives • Sitel • Sodexo • South Afrcia dti •

Talktalk Business • Thames Water • Thames Water Utilities • Three • T-Impact • TURN2US • Vizolution • Webhelp

Delegates from last year included:For more information contact:Speaking - Steve Hurst:[email protected] and +44 (0) 1932 506 304

Sponsorship - Nick Rust:[email protected] and +44 (0) 1932 506 301

Engage Business MediaNicholson House, 41 Thames Street,Weybridge, Surrey KT13 8JG

2015 Directors ForumsEvolution of Voice of the Customer - 24th February

Customer Engagement in the Retail Sector - 26th March

Customer Engagement in Financial Services - 21st May

Social Customer Engagement - 24th June - BT Tower

Customer Engagement Transformation - 24th September

Future of Contact Centres - 22nd October

2015 SummitsEmployee Engagement Summit- 16 AprilVictoria Park Plaza Hotel, London

Outsourcing CustomerServices Summit- 16 JulyBlue Fin Venue, London

Customer Engagement Summit- 26 NovemberVictoria Park Plaza, London

www.engagecustomer.comwww.engageemployee.com

Mainline: T: 01932 506 300

Steve Hurst [email protected] T: 01932 506 304

Nick Rust [email protected] T: 01932 506 301

Chris Wood [email protected] T: 01932 506 303

Rachel Blake [email protected] T: 01932 506 302

Dan Keene [email protected] T: 01932 506 306

Documents

Engage Customer Magazine Feb 2015