Business 2012

 Three Reasons to be there…

There has been much comment on Twitter in the last 24 hours about the Business 2012 event being held at the O2 Arena in London.

Some of it has been justified, it was badly organised, it was cold it was a tad shambolic and yes there were some pretty barbed comments..one exhibitor said that it was badly organised on biblical proportions..

The feeding frenzy was by no means justified as many visitors actually enjoyed it,how do I know? Because I asked many as I went around, its sadly what I do..some were even planning on a return visit.

Customer satisfaction was not high for some but customer loyalty will see the event though to success.

Why?

Because at the heart of this event there are some fantastic speakers and motivators..the Three B’s in particular, Branson Burton and Botterill..all three are a huge success and all three have done so on the basis of being single minded and turning adversity into positive outcomes.

Learning from mistakes and being single minded epitomises the approach these three entrepreneurs take. You cannot be successful by wallowing in what has happened you have to learn, improve and move on.

That is exactly what the event will do, learn, adjust and deliver a better customer experience from today onwards.

Worth Visiting..Yes

If you have any doubts about visiting then talk your self into it rather than talk your self out of it..

There are some great exhibitors and the speakers are all on form..

Brad Burton was full of his normal enthusiasm and forthrightness, Get off Your Arse and get on with it..when in full flight the Meet, Know, Like Trust message is compelling, check out the speed networking section that 4N are running, not many gaps in that line of thirty chairs all day long.

Nigel Botterill’s 18 Points talk…you are the only person to blame when things go wrong,.. Botterill talks such common business sense that its hard not to listen..so many in the first talk of the morning were running out of pages to take notes on..the Entrepreneurs Circle area was busy all day..

If these two could share a stage tickets would sell out, it would be the cosmic event of all business motivational speaking…would they ever agree to such an event?

These were by no means the only speakers of note,my point is that mistakes can be made good, look to the positives of the day and learn to keep your eyes open to what is around you and keep Listening..these speakers made the event despite the first day hiccups.

Would love any feed back on day two of the event..

Customer Research Feedback..

Customer research is just not happening, it’s being left on the back burner…

That may come across as a huge generalisation but our experience is that it is true..

The current call to action of Social Media is distracting companies from using the basic tools of communication,one of them being the Telephone..

Let’s not forget that the telephone in the right hands is a weapon of mass discussion…it is a powerful piece of kit that makes all the programming behind FaceBook Twitter and LinkedIn look feeble…it’s the nub of Social Media

In the last week I have had meetings where the main  focus has been to get more Likes,increase Followers and get more connections on G+..there has been no thought to actually talking to existing customers to see what they want or need.

Customer Research is effortless….

That’s because it’s not happening..firms of all sizes seem to be saying they have customer feedback mechanisms in place, that they talk to existing and lapsed customers and that they do this on a regular basis.

Too much energy and vital budget is being focused outwards and not inwards.Marketing like charity should begin at home.

Conducted on a regular basis is should be exactly that.. effortless and rewarding

Listen to your Customers…

Before embarking on any new marketing consider consolidating what you have..

• Get Feedback from existing customers on your product and service
• Segment the customer base by length of relationship with you and find out why they first chose you,why they remain or why they have left
• Build a template of trigger points for each relationship group and use them as the basis for continued research
• Ask direct questions to get honest answers – How can we Improve?
• Don’t be afraid to get uncomfortable feedback – Why did you stop using us?
• Ask if they know anyone who would benefit from your companies product or service.. existing customers are a fantastic source of new business
• Be open about Competitor Intelligence – probe who else offers a similar or better service and product – you might just learn something
• Be up front and ask them to recommend you and say on Social Media sites why they use you and will continue to do so

Look for those new customers but remember to honestly look at what’s on your plate before ordering anything else…

For any further information please email on

socialmedia@customeyes-research.co.uk

      
         
        
   

Listening to your biggest customers is so important

Getting asked about how effective Mystery Customers are can sometimes be frustrating..

We help many companies understand the Customer Experience which helps in overall profitability and growth. Simple on this level,good solid customer research and Shopper Marketing.

Problem

The difficulty is that we don’t provide a standard Mystery Customer response because all clients are different and hence our response and approach are always going to be unique.

There are huge differences in customer profiles amongst a companies customers and these have to be taken into account.

Too many Mystery Customer companies have surveys the length of your arm with a zillion Yes No questions on them. A host of boxes that ask for rankings and ratings and reasoning…

All this has its place but often the wrong customer gets sent to the wrong place or is clearly not nor will be a customer of that business..its mystery shopping because the use of the feedback is a mystery…why listen to someone telling you how to improve your business who never uses your shop, restaurant,pub,cafe or firm? A person who has no idea of what you do or why you should improve.

Solution

The solution is not to bus Mystery Shoppers in but to talk to customers directly…we think we have the best possible solution that avoids the mismatch of “shoppers” not being profiled and forgetting what happened on their way home to fill in the huge survey..

Customeyes advocate being on site and talking to as many customers as possible making sure that all customer profiles are covered…it avoids getting selective feedback and ensures accuracy. The answers are genuine,it allows proper profiling of customers and it gives certainty.

By asking about Expectations, actual versus preconceived it’s possible to get a clear ROE measure – Return on Expectation which when linked to Advocacy and propensity to recommend produces powerful insights. A better picture emerges.

This picture tells you what really happened and what needs to be done to improve the customer experience to enhance Advocacy and brand awareness.

Customeyes report on solid Red Amber Green platforms and have corresponding Resistors, Acceptors and Generator customer tags to identify who is promoting and who isn’t.Where is your Social Media platform being promoted and where isn’t it? What can be dome to improve that Footprint?

What about Exit Polls? Why did they go into that shop,cafe,Estate Agent, restaurant? Was it destination or impulse? Where does this leave them in terms of Advocacy? Would they recommend based on this visit alone?

The Gift..

This approach takes the nonsense out of dull surveys that are lists of boxes that ticked without feeling or knowledge. It removes the absurdity of surveys being used to tick marketing boxes giving useless percentages that seek to flatter…

The gift is customer gold dust – real views real feedback the building blocks of solid business improvement.

The New Activity feature on Twitter is proving to be a hit with everyone I speak with at the moment.

Previously using the Favorite button was something that you may have done to bookmark a tweet that looked like it had an intersting link in it or if you were rushed and thought I’ll check that out later..

Looking at a range of my Twitter tribes profiles I can see that it has not been a massively popular option.

I have used the tool in the past as a bookmarking feature. More often than not I would have simply emailed the Tweet to myself for safe keeping.

Clicking Favorite also was a good option when I wanted to switch to another device, mostly from my mobile to my office set up.

Up until now the use of the Favorite has been a very personal thing,no one else was aware that anyone was using the tool.

Until now that is…

This very private bookmarking is now very public and it says a lot about where Twitter is headed I think.

The Activity stream not only lets you know when someone you are following retweets,when they follow but also when they Favorite something..

Now its very public and you know when someone deems one of your Tweets worthy of a Favorite..

The upside of this is that everyone can see that it has been marked as a Favorite and that in itself is good for reputation and for potential new followers.

You could see which sorts of Tweets gets a Favorite and work out which ones get more traffic to your site etc…OK its a crude methodology but one that may prove fruitful.

It is a long way off having the same currency as a Facebook Like but it is allowing a more public viewing of what others think of your Tweets..

Choosing to Favorite previously was about management,maybe now it will be about influence and who knows how the metrics behind it will or could be used..

There is of course the counter argument that the Activity stream is really nothing more than counter productive noise,a distraction which doesn’t really provide any useful information.

What do you think? Has the Activity button added anything of value to Twitter?

Shopper marketing

Recently Shopper Marketing has emerged as the new way to understand customers motivators of purchase.

It is far more focused on a strategic approach to marketing and less concerned with the short term gains of promotions and trade marketing.The long term is the objective, to increase sales but on a sustained basis.

A key plank in the thinking is that it is about selling to the shopper and not the consumer…

Radical approach given that the broadcast method of advertising and promotion has been used up until now. Generally everyone gets to hear about every offer…OK you could argue that loyalty points target your past purcahses but do they predict future decisions?

Current economic conditions make it even more imperative to make sure that customers are treated as individuals and that we are not all the same…we all have different routes to that till and getting underneath the skin of shoppers is where gains will be made.

Customer research is changing,mystery shopping and the mass of statistical information that retailers have plays a part but the approach is decidedly more shopper focused on the customer experience.

How many of us go out with the intention of buying X and come away with Y? We are brand fickle and cost concious…

This thinking is beginning to become more mainstream..O2 Rewards are catching on to the Shopper Marketing approach.

New services will undoubtedly emerge quickly but one innovation caught our eye..it’s called Beep Treat ..

It essentially allows customers to scan a Beep Treat poster and get a treat, discount etc, that can be used straight away..it also lets you post a Like to the Facebook page of the shop that you are in..

Smart technology that uses Social Media to drive sales and create brand advocacy as well as deploying new thinking…shoppers are not all the same and have differing purchase motivators..choice is important

View Angus Grady ✩Customeyes Research✩0845 6885272′s profile

There has been a lot of comment recently on Twitter in particular about customers being left for a long time without their BT service…these comments have not been good on the hole.. customer rage has been at full tilt..search #BTcare on Twitter for a sample…customer complaints have been high

As examples of good experiences they don’t rate highly.If the last few days of comments were used in customer research then BT would not be looking good..

Not being a fan of large corporates I have to hand it to BT for the diligence they displayed in getting my broadband sorted out.

There have been problems and BT have admitted this..a first perhaps.

I called a number on my phone bill and got that off shore call centre and thought here we go…to my amazement I was asked intelligent questions by the most polite of people..options were explored and  my number taken so that they could call back in ten minutes.

Call back…

They actually called back and told me that the issue was fixed and that my broadband was back up and running…they even apologised for it being down..

Since the first call some 3 hours ago BT have called back to see if everything is still working…how good is that?

How to handle a disgruntled customer..

My issue was handled brilliantly and highlights the key issues in customer service recovery..

• Be honest with the customer
• Take the blame
• Deal with the issue at once..
• Get back to the customer with the solution..
• Re contact to see if all still OK..

I am now a firm fan of BT..until my broadband goes down again….

Lovely weather and the chance to sit outside and have a light lunch with some friends…

Cafes, pubs and restaurants are having their own Indian summer as people take advantage of the late summer rush and spend more time and money on having a nice time.

This is the time when these outlets can make customers their brand advocates by going the extra mile and providing an outstanding customer experience. Doubtless some places will be at full stretch as lets face it this is all very unexpected,summer in September…

Even though the weather is unexpected the customer service should be top notch and above normal high standards..

Imagine the Twitter traffic over the last few days that must be telling people to get down to X Y or Z eatery as its so good.

Any possible complaints should be dealt with immediately so that bad feelings don’t get taken home…it is amazing how many restaurant groups still are not dealing with complaints at once,its commercial suicide not to..waiting a day to begin a service recovery process is not sensible.

Going the extra mile should be driven home to all customer facing facing staff at the start of their working day so that they know the success of their unit is down to them.

Managers and owners should be taking more time to indulge in some customer research by asking what is good and what can be improved..this is the perfect time to find out how often customers visit and what would draw them back when the normal weather returns.

Make hay while the sun shines and listen to those customers, they should be back again next week when the snow starts…

A nice meal for two on Saturday could easily have led to arguments and bad feeling….not between myself and my wife  but between us and the restaurant.

Everything started out well but then after having our drinks delivered things started to fall apart…

We were given the wrong starters, not a mix up between our own but someone else’s…when they arrived they were cold,OK if a salad but not so good as they were both soups..

The main courses were acceptable but not brilliant and nothing like our expectations…

Normally we would have done the very British thing of saying, “lovely..” when asked if everything was OK…why do we do that I wonder?

Bravery took over and we complained to the manager about the whole litany of minor mishaps that had resulted in a major shift in our perception of the venue and its offering.Our customer experience at this point was rather low.

In some ways what happened next was totally unexpected…

The Manager took control, ripped up our bill and gave us a voucher to come back with so that we would get 25% off everything we ordered…

A potentially bad situation had been rescued and no amount of customer research could have found out how happy we were with this outcome.Other guests were suddlenly looking to see what they could complain about…

We are now brand advocates and will as a result of this positive customer experience not only go back but tell friends about the place.

The key to this is that outstanding service recovery results in advocacy and loyalty intentions which are more positive than they would be had the issues not have happened.

Where is this restaurant? A small village just outside Berkhamsted…we are keeping in to ourselves,we don’t want too many people finding it…the service may decline if it’s crowded..

Tesco seem to think that Berkhamsted is a town of single person households.It is not…there are more families in the town,its a fact,you only have to look at the number of schools to confirm it.

Tesco deny consumers a choice in Berkhamsted by dictating what they can or can not purchase.

A six pack of bread rolls used to be available …not any more

It appears that the limited choice customers have is to buy 4 for a £1 …a saving yes given that each bread roll is scandalously priced at 35 pence…

If you need 6 rolls for the family that you don’t have in this town, then it costs you a mighty £1.70  for 6 rolls…

Why the fuss you might ask?

Simple…customers should be given the right to exercise choice and in this case we cannot.Tesco are more concerned with getting as much dough from shoppers as they can rather than offering food staples at a price that is accessible to family budgets.

The store manager was unable to offer a rational explanation as to this lack of choice merely saying that it was a central decision to de stock the cheaper 6 roll pack option.

Several shoppers agreed that it was a scandal and were vocal in their views that customer satisfaction was dwindling and that they were spending more money than they wanted to. If they had cars,these were elderly, they maintained that they would drive to a superstore where they could purchase that 6 pack of rolls…

Now Tesco have spent millions on an advertising campaign that tells us that “Every Little Helps”…I am guessing that this means every little squeezed out of customers by over pricing their bread helps to pay for the ad campaign…

Doubtless the response, not yet forthcoming from Twitter, will be along the lines of how wonderful Tesco are in terms of their range of offers…

All well and good but please make sure that the basics are taken care of….on that note why is the Basics range not available in the Berkhamsted store?

Don’t tell me…it’s a single person household town and the Basics range is aimed at the family segment of shoppers…

Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 has a great chrous..

It’s all takin’  and no givin’

They just use your mind