Tag Archive of: customer review

The Definition of Customer Experience

Customer Experience: you read and hear a lot about it. But what is it exactly? What is the definition? The definition of Customer Experience that I always use is:

The perception a customer has of all interactions with you as a company throughout the customer journey, across all customer channels.

I would like to explain this to you in more detail. Imagine, we're talking about your business. And the organization you work for is a hotel. But it could just as easily be an insurance company, a car dealership, or even a large B-to-B company. The type of business is not important: the customer experience and its basics remain the same. Let's take a look. For now, we'll focus on the hotel example and step into the customer's shoes.

Perception

In this example, I'm a customer, so I'm looking for a hotel. I want to book a room. So what I'm doing is checking out your website, maybe I'm reading some reviews on independent websites, or I might have received an email from your reservations department with answers to some questions I've sent out earlier. All my experiences together form my perception. And perception is important when it comes to customer experience: everything is perception. Customer Experience is not what you think as a company or how you would like to come across to your customers. No, it's about what the customer really thinks and experiences.

All Interactions

The second word that is really important in the definition of Customer Experience is interactions. All interactionsto be a bit more precise. And by all interactions, I mean – in our hotel case – all the interactions that this customer has during the booking process (website, reviews and an email). But maybe later – after the booking has been made – this customer will come into your hotel. She or he (but for now we'll make her a she) is greeted by the receptionist, or maybe she's talking to the lifeguard by the pool. Her experience is defined by all interactions in the entire customer journey and in all channels, both online and offline. That's what Customer Experience is all about.

All Channels

This may sound pretty simple, but it takes a lot of effort and dedication to be consistent across all interactions and channels. If you have a great website, but your reviews aren't: then you've got a problem. If the receptionist is really courteous and hospitable, but the lifeguard at the pool behaves like a jerk: then you have another problem. Can you easily book through your website, but are you sent from pillar to post when booking by phone? From a customer point of view, this is an unmitigated disaster.

Your entire organization needs to be consistent in its approach to customers, across all interactions and across all channels. Of course, you can also consistently perform poorly, but every organization wants to keep its promise. Or even better: wants to deliver something extra to become and stay top-of-mind with customers; wants to stand out from the competition.

Customer Experience is all about the customer. About his or her perception of interaction with you as an organization. I recorded this video where I use LEGO to easily show what Customer Experience is.

 

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Gaming for a higher NPS

The lady on the phone from the power company closes the call; "Madam, you will receive an email with a questionnaire later. It also asks you to give a grade. This is for my personal review. What grade do you give me? Between 0 and 10?" I'm slightly bewildered, stammer 'a nine'. She doesn't ask any further questions about why this figure is made and we hang up. (this is not exactly what has been said, but certainly the gist)

Is this new? That the call center agent first asks for the grade? For me it was clearly the first time and I really don't understand it. From a CX point of view, I refer to these as weird practices.

Looking back, I recognize three instances of Gaming, which I have given my own name. (Gaming is influencing scores (NPS, CSAT, CES, and so on))

  1. The effect of asking for the grade and that this is important for her personal assessment. That's what we call bribery.
  2. The effect that I am surprised by this question and its personal does not waste so on the phone. So give a relatively high grade, while the conversation really wasn't worth it. We call this the effect of social desirability.
  3. Telling them first that I'm getting a survey and then asking me personally. We call this 'framing', with the effect that I fill out the survey. And so they get a higher response rate

What is most striking for me is that half a day after the interview, I have not yet received a survey.

I also wonder why I need to get another survey. Don't they have speech analytics that allow them to extract the number from the conversation? And what is of course even more striking is that the employee asks for the grade, but is not allowed to enter it into the system herself. Which, by the way, often also causes Gaming, because what is nicer than giving yourself a higher grade. Especially if it's accidentally low for once?

Of course, the most important thing when asking for customer feedback is curiosity about what I have experienced as a customer. Not the outcome in a number. That's where things go wrong. Sigh. Deep sigh.

Now I'm curious. What forms of Gaming have you experienced in recent weeks? Who weren't about curiosity at all, but purely about getting the highest possible grade?

 

** Nienke Bloem is an expert in Customer Experience (CCXP), both as a lecturer of a two-day CX Masterclass in preparation for your CCXP exam, as a Keynote Speaker and co-founder of the customer experience game. Do you want to read more blogs? Visit her website or sign up for her monthly CX Greetz. **

** Of course I'm curious about your reaction and please share this blog in your network! **

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F#ck the FAQ

That's not language for a lady, is it? No, that's right. Sorry in advance. But sometimes it slips my mind. Does the steam come out of my ears, when I'm looking for the answer on a website. If I get lost in the Frequently Asked Questions again.

FAQ is a widely accepted term in the world of customer experience. Now I understand that, because V.G.V. – as in Frequently Asked Questions – sounds a bit strange. It is also too similar to the TGV and let's face it, few customers experience their digital search on websites as that of a high-speed train. More of an old-fashioned bumble between tjilitjap on the heath and flapperdieflap by the sea.

So off I went. Travelling in the FAQ. Just a quick answer to a question I had: how I could convert my subscription. I didn't understand the information I was given. Also, I had the feeling that this answer was not about my question and problem. Of course, I searched further, clicked furiously and after a few minutes – yes, I'm impatient sometimes and I'm not the only customer – I decided to call. Maybe this was the shortcut I needed, because I couldn't figure it out on my own. It felt like an admission of weakness. Of course, I would have preferred to find the answer myself. The company also didn't want me to call. Not only did they try to hide their phone number (but I'm a master magician, HA!), the employee also made this clear on the phone. In no time she found the answer and she didn't understand why I hadn't gotten there myself while clicking. It could also have been done in the My environment, she told me.

If you lose me in your own FAQ, it's not my fault, is it? Too often I see that the flow is set up from an internal perspective. Or that there are words in it that I don't use as a customer. Or that I want something that is not allowed online. Like canceling a subscription. This is only possible during office hours and by phone. That FAQ remains a mystery to me. If I pronounce it the Dutch way, we also say EF, EE, KIOE. But then there should be dots in between, right? Which, by the way, few companies do. For me, it's just the FAQ. If you look at it phonetically, it looks suspiciously like F#CK. Unfortunately, I can't make anything else out of it.

 

This blog was written for CustomerFirst and published on 30 May 2018

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