CUSTOMER EFFORT: THE ONLY CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE METRIC YOU’LL EVER NEED? NICE Fizzback Professional Services

Natalia Piaggio

natalia.piaggio@nice.com

What is Customer Effort: The Question

How much effort did you personally have to put

forth to handle your request? *

1 – Very low

2 - Low

3 - Moderate

4 - High

5 – Very high

The Customer Effort Score Survey Question*

“How much effort have I put in to

resolve this??? Is this some kind of

joke!”

“I think what’s important here is

how much effort your agent put in –

absolutely none!”

Source: * As suggested by Harvard Business Review in “Stop Delighting your Customers”

What is Customer Effort: The Metric

33%

67%

% OF FIZZBACK CLIENTS ASKING EFFORT

Yes

No

More Relevant for Service Driven

Organisations

Means Different Things to Different

People

Heavily Dependent on Transaction Type and Customer Journey

Source: *Corporate Executive Board

AVERAGE CUSTOMER EFFORT SCORES ACROSS INDUSTRIES

Pharmaceutical & Health Products

Manufacturing

Insurance

Shipping/Express

Utilities

Consumer Products/Retail

Travel/Leisure

Financial Services

Telecommunications

Health Insurance

Tech Support (Software)

Tech Support (Hardware)

2.43

2.6

2.66

2.72

2.8

2.97

2.97

3.07

3.23

3.27

3.36

2.66

IMPACT OF CUSTOMER SERVICE ON CUSTOMER LOYALTY

Actual

Customer

Behavior

Member-

Articulated

Version CCC tested customer service interactions

against customer loyalty, discovering that

exceeding expectations in the service channel

yields little benefit to customer loyalty

Exceeds Meet Below

Loyalty

Less

More

Customer Expectations

What does it mean to Customers?

5.9

58%

Channels to interact with service

providers** Aim to self serve through your

website*

62% Non RFT*

59% Transferred*

58% Processes and Policies**

56% Need to repeat themselves*

Source: *Corporate Executive Board, **NICE Research

Additional effort to resolve their issue*

$1.7 Billion*

What does it mean to your business?

Improved Brand Perception and Loyalty

worth Billions in savings and revenue gains:

Call Reduction Customer Credit Reduction

Improved Customer Satisfaction Reduced Churn

*Source: Outside in, Forrester 2012

RESULT #3: IMPROVEMENT IN THE BOTTOM LINE

Sprint was the

most improved

in service across

47 industr ies

according to

A CSIc

QUESTION 1 OF 2: IS YOUR COMPANY MEASURING OR CONSIDERING MEASURING CES?

Is Best Service No Service?

COLLABORATIVE

BALANCED

KEY DIFFERENTIATOR

LOW

EFFORT

STRATEGY

HIGH

OPPORTUNISTIC

DIFFERENTIATED

DEFENSIVE

ASPIRATIONAL

EFFORT LEVEL

The Disputes form needed to cover all

claim types, and therefore many of the

questions were irrelevant for most

customers completing it – this drove calls

from customers needing help!

Client Case Study 1: Financial Services

I downloaded your dispute paperwork but felt that

the information required was too involved. I have

decided to write off the £95 pound payment and

put it down to experience. I am seriously thinking

of closing my account with you due to this

transaction.

Kind regards.

Day 1 Customer calls and a

dispute form is sent

Day 9 Form received

Day 14 Customer sends

form back to

Company

Day 24 Disputes work

case

I found it difficult to work out

what to do with the Dispute

Form and had to phone you

again for directions .

A pleasant young lady

sorted me through it OK .

Thanks

REVIEWING THE DISPUTES PROCESS

Day 1 Customer calls

and agent fills

in form online

Day 3 Dispute

Processed

OL

D

NE

W Timeframe for customers to get their

money back reduced from 4 weeks, to

just 72 hours in most cases

Agent error rate in using this new

process was 0%

Client Case Study 2: Retailer

58% of Comments Are Linked to Processes & Policies.

Time

Need to make multiple calls

Long call waiting time

Being transferred between

departments

Being forced to explain a query

repeatedly

Emotional

Broken promises

Lack of empathy

Physical

Having to go to the store

Uncomfortable store environment

Delayed / issues with deliveries

Challenges to return goods

Cognitive

Website difficult to navigate & provided

too much information

Promotions & discount codes difficult

to apply

Source: Professor Moira Clark’s Four Quadrant framework of customer effort

QUESTION 2 OF 2: IN WHAT AREAS IS YOUR BUSINESS FOCUSING TO REDUCE CES?

35%

65%

Customers

Do Feel

Emotional vs. Rational

29%

71%

Companies

Feel Do

EXERTION = CES

Source: Corporate Executive Board

What are companies Doing to Reduce Effort at

the Contact Centre?

Source: Corporate Executive Board

FROM SOFT SKILLS TO EXPERIENCE ENGINEERING

DEMYSTIFYING CALLS…

SOFT SKILLS

Code of behavior created to consistently handle

customer issues in a friendly, personable, and

professional manner that reflects positively on the

representative and the company.

“RELATIONSHIP-FOCUSED”

EXPERIENCE ENGINEERING

A strategy to actively guide a customer through an

interaction designed to anticipate the emotional

response and preemptively offer solutions that

create a mutually beneficial resolution outcome.

“OUTCOME-FOCUSED”

HIGH VOLUME

CUSTOMER

REQUESTS

USE OF NEGATIVE

LANGUAGE

TOP 3 “NEGATIVE

LANGUAGE” SCENARIOS

FROM NEGATIVE

LANGUAGE TO POSITIVE

LANGUAGE

PRICING DISPUTE

PROVIDE

ORDER STATUS

PRODUCT RETURN

PROCESS

“You have to talk

w ith sales for pricing

issues.”

“Our sales

department may be

able to help you

w ith this issue.”

“Your order won’t

be ready until…”

“Your order will be

ready on…”

“You need to write

your return number

on your package.”

Please be sure to

include your return

number on your

package.”

Anticipate Customer Needs

Reducing Customer Effort - Contact Centre

Properly manage the

psychology of the wait and other high effort experiences

Empower Staff to deliver low

effort experiences

Reduce Call Transfers, Call

Waiting , Unwanted Calls, and Silences

Get Ahead of Disloyalty

Sales

Change of Address

Debt

Billing Metering

Account Changes

Payment Plan

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40%

Sa

tisf

acti

on

w/ q

ue

ry h

an

dli

ng

Sco

re

Volume (%)

Utilities Company - Unwanted Calls by Call Type

Client Case Study 3:

Embrace and Enhance Self-

Serve (& Reduce Call Demand)

Keep it Simple, Be Proactive,

and Avoid Channel Switching

Reducing Customer Effort - Beyond the CC

Focus on the “Middle of the

pack”

Eliminate Self Service Failures

and Process Bottlenecks

Know your Customers

Everywhere, Regardless of the Channel Used

“…that’s right, we are actively telling

customers they’re paying us more

than they need to!”

Brent Jaye, VP of Amazon Web Services

How easy was our online banking service to use,

from 5 (very easy) to 1 (very difficult)?

1 2 3 4 5

Very Difficult Very Easy

Goal is to move “2s”

& “3s” to “4s”.

Conclusions

STRATEGISE

IT’S NOT FOR EVERYONE

WORDING MATTERS

THERE’S NO SILVER BULLET