Creating Brilliant Customer Experience

Being the best doesn’t need to be complex or expensive

Customer expectations are constantly evolving

In the light of new technology, social media and an expectation that brilliant service should be the norm - regardless of industry - enhancing customer experience has become a major, strategic priority.  Whether looking outwards at the front end customer experience or internally at the service provided between functions and departments, the challenge of creating continuous improvements in service is a hot topic today for organisations in virtually every industry.

Consequently, budgets for the development of customer experience have tripled in the last 3 years, with organisations investing heavily in updated processes, systems and organisational change in a bid to align themselves with ever changing customers needs. 

But at the same time, organisations have been expressing frustration that large scale, complex and expensive change programmes do not always create the positive (and lasting) impact that customers require. 

Simple behaviour changes - the 80% impact

Research has shown that around 80 per cent of the improvements required to create a significantly enhanced customer experience are achieved through simple behavioural changes. These are things that colleagues can immediately 'say and do' differently.  They are easy to implement, require minimal investment and create a positive impact for customers in a very short space of time.

The process for identifying these changes can be surprisingly straight forward and cost effective - but is often overlooked

When it comes to identifying service improvements, the people with the best ideas for change are almost always the front line colleagues who interact with customers every day.  Yet the knowledge of this crucial team of resident experts is often completely overlooked.  Instead, ideas which might be developed by teams who are far removed from the everyday front line experience are put forward - but with minimal buy in from the colleagues who are tasked with implementing them and rapidly diminishing returns.   

Addressing this challenge doesn't need to be complex or expensive.  The recent experience of brands such as Starbucks, Bupa, Anglian Water and the AA is that brilliant service cultures can be achieved much more rapidly and at far less cost than many organisations had previously comprehended. 

How?

Carefully facilitated Cycle of Service workshops have helped many organisations to become industry leaders at customer experience by effectively empowering their front line teams.

The effective use of  Behaviour Change by senior leaders and team managers has helped to create environments where innovation, creativity and brilliant service have flourished. 

The rewards for implementing simple behavioural changes in customer experience can be considerable: 

  • A global retail business raised customer satisfaction (measured by Net Promoter Score) by 28 points and doubled cross selling revenue (measured by Products Per Customer) in just 3 months, across 15 countries.  The results were sustained across a 3 year period of continued improvement.
  • A UK water provider who led the Ofwat SIM (Service Incentive Mechanism) 'league table' for customer satisfaction quickly achieved a regulator incentive of £57 million. 
  • Recently a leading worldwide recruitment consultancy increased 'deals per consultant head' revenue by 105%.
  • Over an 18 month period, a European manufacturing business increased Net Promoter Score by 17 points, helping to fuel annual sales growth of 20%.
  • Ideas for enhancing customer satisfaction can also generate significant efficiencies and savings.  A leading UK utility business identified a single idea that would reduce customer complaints by 11% while saving over £6 million per year in 'Call Out' time.
  • By empowering front line teams, involving them in change and providing them with a 'voice', the employee engagement index of a Global Bank rose from 3.2 to 4.1 within a 6 month period.

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