| Delighting customers does not build loyalty. Reducing | | | | customers: |
| customers' effort does. | | | | 1. Don't just resolve the current issue but head off |
| These were the findings from a large customer | | | | the next one |
| service survey conducted by the Customer Contact | | | | 2. Address the emotional side of customer |
| Council (CCC), and featured in the July edition of the | | | | interactions |
| Harvard Business Review. The survey's aim was to | | | | 3. Minimise channel switching by boosting self serve |
| get answers to three questions: | | | | channel stickiness – 57% of complaints came |
| 1. How important is customer service to loyalty? | | | | from customer trying to resolve issues online but |
| 2. Which customer service activities increase loyalty, | | | | couldn't |
| and which don't? | | | | 4. Use feedback from unhappy customers to |
| 3. Can companies increase loyalty without raising their | | | | enhance issue resolution rate |
| customer service operating costs? | | | | 5. Empower the front line to deliver a low effort |
| After conducting structured interviews with customer | | | | customer experience |
| service leaders and a study of more than 75,000 | | | | 3. Customer Effort Score (CES) tops the charts with |
| customers, the CCC uncovered three findings: | | | | the highest predictive power |
| 1. Exceeding expectations during service interactions | | | | In the customer service environment, Customer |
| has negligible impact on customer loyalty | | | | Satisfaction (CSAT) is a weak predictor of customer |
| Of the 75,000 customers surveyed, they were more | | | | loyalty. Net Promoter Score (NPS) is slightly better. |
| interested in how well a company delivers on their | | | | By decreasing customer effort to purchase you can |
| most basic and/or vanilla promises rather than being | | | | get increases in repurchase, increase spend and |
| dazzled and having their expectations exceeded. | | | | willingness to tell others about their experiences. |
| However, 89/100 customer service department | | | | The survey asked customers to rate how much |
| heads had ‘to exceed customer expectations' as | | | | effort they personally put forward to handle their |
| their main strategy. This is not new. As I wrote | | | | request. They were asked to rate on a scale of 1 |
| back in June 2007, living by exceeding customers' | | | | (low effort to purchase) – 5 (high effort to |
| expectations doesn't add up and ends up costing us | | | | purchase). 94% of participants reporting ‘low |
| more in the long term. | | | | effort' stated their intent to repurchase, 88% stated |
| 2. Service organisations create loyal customers | | | | their intent to increase spend, and 1% stated their |
| primarily by reducing customer effort | | | | intention to speak negatively about the experience. |
| In other words, helping customers solve their | | | | Versus 81% reporting high effort stated their intent |
| problems quickly and easily – not by delighting | | | | to spread negative feedback about the experience. |
| them in service interactions. Given these findings, | | | | Outcome: CCC advises that we should move from |
| we need to reframe around making the customer | | | | increasing customer satisfaction to decreasing |
| experience easy. | | | | customer effort. |
| 5 ways to lower the effort and make it easy for | | | | Remember everybody lives by selling something. |