It’s all in the connections we create.

VoC Matters.

by Wendy Sack on March 25, 2013

The technical definition of Voice of the Customer (VoC), according to Six Sigma®, is: a process used to capture the requirements/feedback from the customer (internal or external) to provide the customers with the best in class service/product quality.

The slightly less technical definition is: the in-depth process of capturing a customer’s expectations, preferences and aversions.

However you slice it, VoC means finding out what your customers really expect and want from you- and what they definitely don’t. In the simplest of terms, are your customers satisfied? If not, why? How do you fix it?

Gone are the old days and ways of thinking that if you make a great, needed product, customers will come no matter how you treat them. No sir, not in today’s digital age. You can be the biggest, baddest overnight delivery service in the country, but guess what? You’ve got smaller, more versatile competitors popping up everywhere, just waiting to gobble up a piece of your pie. You ignore your customers’ satisfaction and little by little, you’re left staring at your empty plate, fork in hand, thinking, “What happened?!”

Customer satisfaction, the other guys’, not yours, is what happened. Those agile up-and-comers swooped right in, and by using VoC like pros, took your market share right out from under you. Are you paying attention yet?

Each year, global research company Forrester recognizes companies that excel in VoC implementation. Below are the 2012 Voice of the Customer Award winners:

Barclaycard US. The credit card provider stood out for its VoC-fueled cultural transformation. Employees begin each day by listening to a randomly selected real customer call, a practice that has led to cross-functional dialogue and swift changes to policies. A newly-created Customer Experience Hopper consisting of 75 “customer evangelists” from across functional areas has already implemented 25 key initiatives, with plans for 60 more this year. This approach has even spurred a change to the way the company creates products, including a new model in which it combined social media, financial education, and online banking to craft a crowd-sourced credit card. These collective initiatives have paid off: Customer complaints are down 50%, and customer attrition has improved by 28%, adding up to more than $10 million in annual benefit.
Cisco. The network technology company stood out for its laser focus on making it easy to do business with Cisco. The program analyzes insights from surveys, social media, and a core employee listening post to identify opportunities to simplify processes and remove customer, partner, and employee pain points. For example, the online customer support website needed some help, so the company streamlined processes and improved navigation to enable customers to solve their problems quickly. The result is that 81% of issues are now resolved online, which avoids 356,000 cases per month.
Vanguard. The investment firm stood out for its ability to integrate and centralize data. Using both passive and active listening techniques, including in-depth interviews, focus groups, analytics, and client feedback surveys across channels, the company integrates all of the data sources to understand clients fully. All of this data lives with a centralized Client Insight group, members of which act as “client advocates” by delivering tailored, actionable insights and research to the rest of the business. The resulting improvement projects range from crew coaching to streamlining processes to service recovery efforts. Collectively, these improvements have resulted in $5.1 billion in additional assets, $1 million in savings, and a 33% increase in referrals of $100,000-plus leads.

So what can you do to get on the VoC track? Or if you’re already on it, improve your momentum? Here are a few key items that should be in the mix:

1. Shore up solid support from your executives.

This one is a no-brainer. Support from the top means that you’ll be able to get all of the tools needed for VoC in place prior to any action. The best way to gain this support to is to provide research and evidence of the intrinsic value of VoC activities. In other words, show them how this is going to affect the bottom line.

2. Formulate a plan.

Strategize before you implement a thing. And not just for the fiscal year. You need to set up long-term goals and plan for the next two, three, four years out. Make it scalable, and don’t forget to think about your company’s overall customer satisfaction strategy.

3. Centralize. But reach out.

For most companies, having a centralized group of people responsible for VoC activities is the way to go. Grouping these employees together, with a single set of tools, to gather, interpret and report data can result in greater process efficiency. That being said, more often than not, people from across the company, both location- and job function-wise, will need to be brought into the fold to bounce around ideas and interpretations of customer data.

4. Ensure data integrity.

Make sure your data accurately reflects your larger customer pool. According to Forrester Research, “Data is simultaneously powerful and dangerous. It’s all about striking the right balance between data that’s accurate enough and what you need for program execution.”

5. Don’t forget text analytics.

This one is my favorite.

From 1 to 1® Media:

‘Unstructured” or “indirect” data is everywhere now. There’s information spread across emails, texts, social media sites, blogs, Twitter feeds, videos, photos and online forums. Such sources account for 80 percent of collected business data.

This data provides new views into customer attitudes, sentiments and behaviors–if only we can make sense of it. However, businesses often fail to analyze this information successfully because of the ineffective, manual processes required to do so. Text analytics is a must-have if your company wants to find the customer voice needle in the unstructured data haystack.

Text analytics transforms this “noise” into real business insights on which you can base business decisions. Incorporating this information into a customer experience program that integrates with all customer engagement channels is a critical step in turning active listening into active doing.

6. Integrate.

After interpretation, all data received from VoC activities needs to be funneled back into your organization. The ways to go about this vary from company to company and depend on many variables. A great deal of companies will import customer data into existing CRM or other business systems. Smaller enterprises may rely on communications from their marketing departments to handle the task. There is no one-size-fits-all answer, but the truth is the same for any organization- your customers’ feedback should be integrated into all aspects of your business.

I’ll wrap up with this interesting statistic from Inc.com-

“When it comes to keeping your existing customers, customer service is three times more important than price–and five times more important than functionality.” Ouch.

The bottom line: Your customers’ experience, his or her voice, matters. If you’re not listening, don’t be surprised when you don’t hear them leave.

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Objection! No Budget.

by Michelle Slater on February 18, 2013

You’re past your introduction and well into the explanation of your call. Once you describe the product or solution of interest, the contact declares that a budget is not available for the purchase of any new products. That means yours, wise guy.

What does a contact mean by “no budget available?” Rest assured it’s a legitimate objection. But, before we address some possible responses, we must first familiarize some common terms. You guessed it! One response does not fit all.

“We are on a company-wide spending freeze.”

“Our department has already spent our yearly budget.”

“Our department has already spent our quarterly budget.”

“Our yearly departmental budget has already been designated.”

“Our quarterly departmental budget has already been designated.”

“Our entire budget is designated for the next two years.”

“I am not involved in the budgetary process.”

“I do not have influence in how the budget is spent.”

“Your product is too expensive. We don’t have enough of a budget to make a purchase.”

“We won’t know our budget allowance until the next quarter or year.”

Notice how some objections seem similar, but the time involved is either quarterly or yearly? What is the difference between ‘designated’ and ‘spent’? Why does it matter if your contact is not involved in budgetary decisions? Stay tuned as we deconstruct the actionable objections and practice those responses with the potential to keep your foot in the door.

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Five Ways to Create a Workplace that Fosters Innovation

by Wendy Sack on February 15, 2013

“If you want people to think outside the box, do NOT put their brains in a box.”
- Gerald “Solutionman” Haman, Thinkubator

The daily grind is named such for a reason. For many people, the daily grind is, well, a grind: Get up; get your household moving, fed and out the door; trudge to the office; assume the position in your cubicle; work; go home; do it all over again tomorrow.

What the smartest companies realize, however, is that happy employees are more productive, and that implementing innovation as a key strategy to company growth means starting from the ground up. Your employees are the lifeblood of your company, and as such, any worthwhile endeavor should start with them.

Your employees are more than likely a diverse group of individuals, each with their own unique abilities that may or may not be being used to their fullest potential. Tapping into that potential will allow everyone to grow and contribute in more meaningful ways. And a more fulfilled workforce means a more successful company.

“We operate in a global workforce 24/7 and organizations are required to perform at the multi-faceted intersection of business strategy, people, technology, process, compliance and fluctuating market conditions. At this intersection lies a unique opportunity for organizations to rethink how they manage their employees. By thoughtfully motivating and retaining their human capital, high-performing organizations skillfully add significant momentum to their bottom line.” - Nancy Mobley founder and CEO of Insight Performance

Here are five ideas to create a workplace that fosters innovation.

1. Have a weekly basketball game.

Have a basketball goal installed in the parking lot. Then, set an hour aside one day a week to have a pick-up game. Kick off the loafers and heels and go at it. The more the merrier. You’ll be surprised how quickly Joe from accounting will open up when you take him away from his spreadsheets.

If you don’t have the room or budget for a basketball goal, play hacky sack in the lobby or the break room- anything to get people up, moving and relaxed with each other. (Tip- stay away from dodgeball.)

2. Have a space dedicated to creativity.

Block off an area in the office that is dedicated solely to employee creativity- a place where people can go when they need to sort out a tough problem or flesh out some ideas. Go crazy with it. I’m talking bean bag chairs, dart boards, Rubik’s Cubes, puzzles, a pool table, an ice cream bar..heck, even a dance floor. It should be somewhere people can go to let off steam and allow the creativity to flow.

Inc.com recently asked its followers on Twitter to share some of their coolest workplace perks. Here are just a couple:

Ogilvy & Mather Midwest
Chicago, IL
Aside from office parties, the Ogilvy softball team and impromptu happy hours, public relations and communications firm Ogilvy & Mather’s Midwest division also offers massages once every two weeks to employees, free ice cream and a game room complete with a pool table, Ping-Pong and Foosball. Such activities keep the creative spirit alive in the office and create a relaxing environment for work.

Pinnacle Services
Minneapolis, MN
Pinnacle extends its mission to provide stellar services to seniors and those with disabilities to its employees by making it a family-friendly workplace. The company allows new mothers to bring their babies to work with them up to nine months old, and the office boasts a foam pit, Velcro wall, swings, arcade games and more to satisfy the inner child within all its employees.

3. Brainstorm like there is no tomorrow

Have you ever held a company-wide meeting, wrapped up your presentation and opened the floor for questions and comments, only to be met by the sound of crickets? You can practically see the protective barriers coming up. It’s because no one wants to rock the boat and say something that might be considered wrong in the eyes of their peers.

Here’s what you need to do. Have a monthly brainstorming session. Break out the sticky notes, markers, giant notepads and a gigantic silly hat. The wearer of the hat gets five minutes of everyone’s undivided attention. Go around the room and let each person have a turn to wax poetic about the topic at hand. Think of all of the “what ifs” and then some. You’ll be surprised what you can learn when employees are given the chance to voice their honest opinions.

4. Laugh.

Let’s face it. You and your employees spend way too many hours of your lives at work for it not to be fun.

Psychologist Steven Sultanoff, Ph.D., former president of the Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor says, “Humor and play are in the corporate mission statements of Southwest Airlines, Google and Ben & Jerry’s. At most places, you won’t read it in the manual, but I think companies should be thinking about it.”

Used properly, humor is a powerful tool with which to lift people up, and it’s no secret that happy employees are more productive.

Dr. Sultanoff lists three ways that humor impacts people: cognitive, emotional, and psychological. “From a cognitive standpoint, humor can help put a problem into perspective for employees, and can help people to relate to a difficult issue. Emotionally, humor can supplant stress or frustration. People who effectively use humor often have a better ability to interact and connect with others, which can lead to a more productive workplace. As for the psychological aspects of humor, people tend to work better when they are happy and feel good, and when they perceive their environment as positive.”

5. Buddy up.

One of the greatest things you can have in your professional life is a mentor- someone who takes you under their wing and puts you on a path to your better self.

Pair up your new, younger employees with those who have been in the workplace longer. They don’t even have to be in the same department. Mentoring builds a sense of community on the job. When you know there is that one person who has your back, who wants you to succeed, it’s a powerful motivator.

Hey, it works for Zappos!

“Our vision is for almost all of our hires to be entry level, but for the company to provide all the training and mentorship necessary so that any employee has the opportunity to become a senior leader within the company within five to seven years,” says Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com. “For us, this is still a work in progress, but we’re really excited about its future. Without continually growing and learning both personally and professionally, it’s unlikely that any individual employee will still be with the company ten years from now. Our goal at Zappos is for our employees to think of their work not as a job or career, but as a calling.”

The bottom line: A happy, creative workforce will ensure a constant flow and exchange of new ideas- Innovation that will nourish your ultimate goals: customer creation, expansion and retention.

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