CX, The Wheel of Fortune

-- By CB Rajesh--

“As you turn the wheel of CX with empathy and hope, First spin overwhelms you with expectations and grievances, Second spin sprinkles trust and gets your worth higher, Third spin honors your name and swell your caravan.”

On one of those unassuming days, I received a survey from a brand I have been engaging with for years. As usual, the questions in the survey were related to my satisfaction with a recent transaction, and I happily gave them a thumbs-up! To my surprise, another link popped up and asked whether I would buy their yearly membership for exclusive benefits. This put me in a fix, and even before I could reason with myself on an additional spend, I had already clicked it, and the payment option was blinking for my next swipe.

The exhilaration of thumbs-up was so high that I ended up subscribing to it. I never had to regret my decision even once post facto as they served even better. Sometime later, I found myself promoting this brand to my friends and family as an ardent fan. In short, this brand moved me from loyalty to enrichment and advocacy. They kept focusing on me despite being a promoter and extracting more value; this is what I call a classical CX: the wheel of fortune at play where you gain on each cycle.

It is natural for any organization transacting with B2C or B2B customers to measure customer satisfaction periodically. The measurement tools / CX metrics could vary depending on the strategy and suitability of the business. Once the feedback is received, how do we deal with it? We mostly dive into fixing issues of dissatisfied customers, and evolved ones deploy service recovery models to win back. The majority of our attention gets directed toward detractors or unhappy customers. Instead, can we also focus our energies on promoters and satisfied customers? This segment offers a huge opportunity to enhance new usage, uses & users if targeted smartly with customized offers. The idea is to create more value without diminishing experiences.

I am a proponent of replicating our strengths and hence highly recommend a promoter-driven program alongside fixing issues, processes, and technology to improve customer feedback. The idea here is to focus on the customers who are satisfied with your product or services and giving you a promoter; why not focus on creating more promoters by replicating insights from satisfied customers. In short, do not convert your CSAT or NPS programs exclusively focusing on detractors; we must have the plan to sustain, expand the satisfied base and improve customer lifetime value (CLTV).

The initial phases of the CX journey are a discovery process; here, the organization and its people understand the feedback and create an issue redressal mechanism. This stage is more transactional, and as the process matures, it gets upgraded from support and service to experience-related actions. The enhanced customer experience increases customers’ likelihood to remain with the brand, driving retention substantially and protecting current revenues.

This stage can be achieved through,

1. Quality of the product at the right price

2. Reducing friction during engagements

3. Creating loyalty through emotions

The second phase is measuring customer experience, knowing our promoter base and the key levels behind their satisfaction. We need to then focus on how we can increase their wallet share. Hence it is critical to identify avenues to increase usage and new uses through smart promotions. What is important here is that we focus on value creation for both the customer and the organization. This will require us to find answers to the following questions,

1. Who are our promoters?

2. What are the reasons for their satisfaction?

3. Can we replicate the best practices?

It is essential to assess customer needs using feedback and applying intelligence to create customized products and services by showing enhanced benefits to customers. e.g. once, I received an email from my telecom provider to enroll on a higher rental plan to save on international calls/roaming, which resulted in an overall cost saving. This was a sudden spurt of usage last year, and they wouldn’t have noticed without an in-depth analysis. There is always an opportunity to analyze customers’ habits and usage patterns to identify fringe benefits that can be used to create a tailor-made offer to a satisfied customer. A time-bound and effective communication strategy to promote these customized solutions are also imperative to its success.

The third phase involves using the power of promoters as our brand ambassadors and acquiring new customers through their clout. Once we reach the stage of advocacy, it is about adding value creation through smart incentives for referrers & referees. There are numerous ways to use this set of customers for onboarding new users and promoting the brand. A few are listed below:

1. User referrals

2. Product or service testimonials

3. User reviews

4. Social media shares

5. User forums

6. Community events

In summary, some of the recommended best practices are,

1. Survey all, this might be a relationship-building opportunity

2. Get a bigger data sample for a better data science model

3. Stay focused on customers instead of scores

4. Always close the loop

5. Measure the value of promoters