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Giving Customer Voice More Volume
CMO COUNCIL, Jan 2009
The 'Giving Customer Voice More Volume' research initiative examines the adoption and use of customer listening, feedback, engagement and advocacy systems across all markets and industry sectors, evaluating how well senior marketing executives are leveraging their contact center, help desk, telemarketing, consulting and agency partners to integrate Voice of Customer (VOC) capabilities into mainstream operations and organizational fabrics. The report takes a fresh look at marketing's ownership of the customer experience to provide perspective on the role of marketing executives in ensuring that all operational areas and organizational processes (products, programs, channels, functions, policies, touch points and services) are harmonized and optimized to deliver on brand promises and drive customer advocacy, satisfaction and loyalty.
Customer experience is still very much a work in progress for senior marketers who participated in this study. Despite overwhelming agreement on the importance of customer experience and word-of-mouth, they admit their companies are failing to take decisive, company-wide action to integrate customer voice and experience into key business and marketing processes. Indeed, while 59 percent claim a CEO-driven culture of customer-centricity is embraced across their organizations, their actions often belie that assertion. What’s more, only 31 percent highly rate their organization’s commitment to customer listening.
Sponsored by Satmetrix, the Net Promoter Company, our study of nearly 500 senior marketers around the world reveals that companies are well aware of the need to increase customer listening to improve experience, and many are making strides in a number areas, including the integration of customer data across the enterprise.
However, formal Voice of Customer programs have yet to be adopted by three-fourths of all companies represented. In addition, 56 percent of senior marketers say their companies have no programs in place to track or propagate positive word of mouth among customers. Only 30 percent said their companies rate highly in their ability handle and resolve customer problems or complaints.
This study underscores some critical deficiencies in the way companies measure, optimize and leverage customer experience to drive loyalty, improve brand value and increase business growth. These include:
- Insufficient availability and aggregation of real-time customer experience data across touch points that can be shared throughout the organization
- Poor use of customer interactions to collect insights and intelligence or maximize up-sell and advocacy opportunities
- Lack of Internet processes and systems to track online word of mouth and drive customer advocacy
- Intermittent or deficient monitoring of customer experience resulting in failure to provide true and timely insights into problems and opportunities
- Too little accountability, with few compensation programs tied to customer experience, loyalty and satisfaction levels
Marketers do agree that customer experience is among the most critical determinants of brand strength and business growth. In fact, some 83 percent say it is either essential (54 percent) or increasingly important (29 percent) in determining brand advocacy and business performance. In addition, they point to numerous strategic advantages of effective customer listening and co-innovation.
Among the most important:
- Improved customer experience and brand affinity
- More relevant and successful products
- Deeper, more valued and lasting relationships
Yet, most organizations and senior marketers still suffer from major blind spots and gaps in the way they track experience and interact, handle and respond to customer issues or problems. As a result, they are missing major opportunities to turn customer pain into competitive gain at every touch point.
This deficiency is not for lack of the customer’s willingness to provide input. In fact, customer feedback and commentary is flooding their organizations. The major channels of customer communication, in order of magnitude include:
- E-mail
- Account representatives
- Satisfaction surveys
- Employee interactions
- Call centers
Yet, this information too often is not systematically aggregated, analyzed and shared with those in the organization who need to make the appropriate changes to customer experience. Take, for example, the valuable insights and criticisms coming through email. Nearly three-quarters of respondents say email is one of their most active channels for customer communications. Yet only about 23 percent say their companies actually track and measure the volume and nature of customer email. Just as concerning, 37 percent confess that customer experience data typically exists solely in the departmental silos where it originated.
Positively, many marketers are focusing on better monitoring and analysis of the customer experience. Some 58 percent of senior marketers say, over the last few years, they have made at least some changes in the way they capture, analyze and use customer data to improve experience. Some 49 percent say they have new initiatives underway to improve customer advocacy and experience.
Those who are addressing the issues of customer experience and listening indicate their top improvements have included:
- Better integration and analysis of customer data
- More personalized and intimate communications
- Greater use of the Internet for analytics
- Automated customer interactions to improve responsiveness
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