EEA Youtube Show: Why CX Is So Bad and What to Do About it
This candid discussion on the poor state of customer service and what to do about it with experts at the front lines provides the financial reasons for and principles to support a strategic and systematic approach to customer engagement. While the Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) movement has focused on employees and the supply chain, customers and distribution partners are every much as important to organizational success and have a direct connection with employees. This EEA Youtube Show, “Essentials in Customer Experience,” is designed for management at every level seeking to understand the principles for success. Click here for the show.
According to the American Customer Satisfaction Association (ACSA) surveys, the average level of customer satisfaction in the US hasn’t budged from the low 73% in 26 years or more, despite the Internet, social media, chat, customer relationship management technology, and large expenditures in customer service technology and personnel. Rick Garlick, Vice President of Magid, a people advisory firm and Chief Research Advisor to the Incentive Research Foundation; Alex Mead, a prolific CX thought leader on Linked in with extensive hands-on experience (including as a call center employee) and head of CX for a “stealth” digital startup in the Middle East, and Barbara Porter, Managing Partner, Customer Experience, EY, who has also owned a call center company, help explain why and how to address the opportunity to improve customer service through a strategic approach to customer experience across the enterprise in this EEA Youtube show.
While the regulatory and disclosure authorities define human capital as employees, the concepts of Enterprise Engagement, ISO 10018 People Engagement, and Stakeholder Capitalism metrics equally include customers, distribution, and supply chain partners.
Here are key takeaways from this EEA Youtube show:
•Without the enthusiastic support of the CEO and leadership team, success is impossible, because great experiences are a direct result of a clear customer-focused vision, highly engaged employees who buy into the organization’s mission and who have the autonomy and tools to build great customer relationships.
•Poor customer experience persists because companies have a short-term view of return-on-investment measurement and feel satisfied if they hit their cost and sales goals without seeing what they are leaving on the table because of employee and customer turnover.
•The return-on-investment can be clearly measured in terms of: Higher levels of customer retention, greater spend per customer, greater willingness to recommend, lower call center costs due to fewer and shorter customer service calls, higher employee retention and lower recruitment costs, higher social media ratings, and lower legal costs, among others.
•Companies frequently measure call-center productivity in terms of time spent on a call versus on the value of the outcome. With common customer relationship management tools, there’s no excuse for overlooking the total lifetime value of the customer in favor of a productivity metric that leads to the high turnover that hurts customer service.
•Recognize that great service begins with employees, whose support for internal and external customers is critical to achieving measurable financial and experiential results, and that little is possible without engaging and enabling employees to create great customer experiences.
•By failing to measure the return on investment of customer and employee engagement, companies make short-term decisions such as paying below living wages so that employees are continually looking for the next opportunity. It’s not possible to establish engagement, trust, and meaning unless people earn a living wage, and companies that track revenues, costs, and willingness to refer for customers and employees will see that addressing the pay issue coupled with a total rewards and professional development strategy will more than pay for themselves in higher revenues and lower costs.
•Define your brand and experiences based on the pains and needs of the people to whom you are trying to sell, rather than only on what you wish to sell them.
•Let people reach you the way they want to reach you by the ways they wish to interact, the web, e-mail, chat, phone, and minimize wait times--understanding that by the time customers wish to talk, they likely are already aggravated.
•Once you are ready for action, establish a clear strategic, and holistic approach under the direction of a senior executive that connects a customer-centric brand to engagement with all areas of the enterprise so that everyone has common expectations and understandable roles and metrics.
•Rather than silo-in different aspects of customer service between departments, create customer service advocates who own each customer relationship, training and empowering these employees to be the problem solvers so that the caller has one single source who is easy to communicate with. In so doing, these employees become brand advocates who not only help solve problems but who can help identify new ways to serve the customer once the problem is favorably solved.
Master the Principles of Stakeholder Capitalism And Implementation Through Enterprise Engagement
Education, Certifications, and Information to Activate
Stakeholder Capitalism Available Nowhere Else
A complete learning, certification, and information program and a course syllabus for educators.
Training and Certification
Enterprise Engagement Alliance Education: Certified Engagement Practitioner; Advanced Engaged Practitioner, and Certified Engagement Solution Provider learning and certification programs on how to implement Stakeholder Capitalism principles at the tactical level.
The EEA offers a complimentary course syllabus for educators.
Join the EEA to begin your certification process or see our other resources below.
Or contact Bruce Bolger; Bolger@TheICEE.org; 914-591-7600, ext. 230 to learn more.
THE ONLY BOOKS ON STAKEHOLDER CAPITALISM IMPLEMENTATION
Enterprise Engagement for CEOs:The Little Blue Book for People-Centric Capitalists This is the definitive implementation guide to Stakeholder Capitalism, written specifically to provide CEOs and their leadership teams a concise overview of the framework, economics, and implementation process of a CEO-led strategic and systematic approach to achieving success through people. (123 pages, $15.99)
Enterprise Engagement: The Roadmap 5th Edition The first and most comprehensive book on Enterprise Engagement and the new ISO 9001 and ISO 10018 quality people management standards. Includes 36 chapters detailing how to better integrate and align engagement efforts across the enterprise. (312 pages, $36.)
OTHER RESOURCES TO ACTUALIZE STAKEHOLDER CAPITALISM Communities: The Enterprise Engagement Alliance and Advocate and the Brand Media Coalition free resource centers offering access to the latest research, news, and case studies; discounts, promotions, referrals, and commissions, when appropriate to third-party solution providers from participating coalition solution provider members.
Enterprise EngagementResources: EEXAdvisors.com provides the only curated online marketplace to access hundreds of solution providers in all areas of human capital management and enterprise engagement throughout the world.
Online Overview: 10-minute short course:click here for a 10-minute introduction to Enterprise Engagement and ISO standards from the Coggno.com learning platform.
Services:
• The Engagement Agency at EngagementAgency.net, offering: complete support services for employers, solution providers, and technology firms seeking to profit from formal engagement practices for themselves or their clients, including Brand and Capability audits for solution providers to make sure their products and services are up to date.
• C-Suite Advisory Service—Education of boards, investors, and C-suite executives on the economics, framework, and implementation processes of Enterprise Engagement.
• Speakers Bureau—Select the right speaker on any aspect of engagement for your next event.
• Mergers and Acquisitions. The Engagement Agency’s Mergers and Acquisition group is aware of multiple companies seeking to purchase firms in the engagement field. Contact Michael Mazer in confidence if your company is potentially for sale at 303-320-3777.
Enterprise Engagement Benchmark Tools: The Enterprise Engagement Alliance offers three tools to help organizations profit from Engagement. Click here to access the tools.
• ROI of Engagement Calculator. Use this tool to determine the potential return-on-investment of an engagement strategy.
• EE Benchmark Indicator. Confidentially benchmark your organization’s Enterprise Engagement practices against organizations and best practices.
• Compare Your Company’s Level of Engagement. Quickly compare your organization’s level of engagement to those of others based on the same criteria as the EEA’s Engaged Company Stock Index.
• Gauge Your Personal Level of Engagement. This survey, donated by Horsepower, enables individuals to gauge their own personal levels of engagement.
For more information, contact Bruce Bolger at Bolger@TheEEA.org, 914-591-7600, ext. 230.
