Wow what a weekend!!!

This weekend I had the pleasure to host and facilitate a number of customer co-creation workshops for a client. We brought together both customers and frontline staff from the client organisation to design new customer service experiences through utilising new technology and channels. And I must say it was brilliant.

The workshop structure itself was straight forward. We broke the groups into 4 groups of 3 people, with each group consisting of two customers with 1 member of staff. We asked them the map out a recent experience using the traditional customer journey mapping technique, across the channels they used to resolve their issue.

We then introduced new channels and technology and asked them to redesign the experience.

What can I say? The customers really got into it. The frontline staff really got into it. They came up some great ideas for smartphone apps, how to use sms more effectively for different situations and there was even some great ideas for how to utilise the voice channel more effectively.

There are two keys things that I really took away from this. Firstly the frontline staff that participated were so excited to be able to hear directly from customers, to understand how they go about things and the problems they face. They were a little nervous to start with. I think they were expecting the customers to whinge but this was not the case at all. The feedback was constructive and thoughtful and from an employee’s perspective hugely insightful.

Secondly the customers felt empowered and engaged to help the organisation. The workshop format was very different to a traditional focus group. We gave them problems to solve and they really got into it. They felt compelled to try and help the organisation overcome the issues. So from a customer engagement perspective this approach to understanding customer needs is highly recommended.

And who can argue with this evidence:

“After previously thinking “what have a got myself into?” it was an enjoyable and enlightening event”

“I actually had a lot of fun and found the whole thing very interesting. I came away with more knowledge. This has alleviated a considerable amount of anxiety. Good luck with the outcome and I look forward to seeing the fruits of the exercise.”

So for a weekend spent in 12 hours of workshops. . . it was brilliant fun.

Despite 62% of organisation across Australian and New Zealand citing Customer Experience as one of their top strategies for 2013, very few involve customers or employees in the customer experience design process. In many cases, it appears that organisations will often invest significant time and resources in a customer experience design that doesn't create any significant benefit for the customer or the business. To design differentiated experiences that actually meet customers' needs, organisations must bring together people from across the customer ecosystem to:

1. Assist in the design of innovative Customer Experience solutions
2. Collate and synthesize customer research data

This collaborative process is called co-creation.

Customer Co-creation aims to design differentiated experiences that actually meet customers' needs because they have been designed in partnership with the customer. Typically the experiences are co-created to be: useful, usable, desirable, effective and efficient.

When embarking on a customer experience design programme that utilises co creation techniques, thought should be given to the following:

A huge Happy New Year to everyone!!

Over the course of the past 12 months we have had many conversations with a range of clients regarding Customer Experience and Customer Engagement. What are they? Are they the same? How are they different?

In most instances there is a good appreciation and understanding of what Customer Experience is. As the importance of Customer Experience has grown, the role and scope of Customer Engagement has possibly become less clear.

Customer Engagement was first defined by the Advertising Research Foundation as:

"Engagement is turning on a prospect to a brand idea enhanced by the surrounding context."

By this very definition one can see the clear historical link Customer Engagement has to traditional marketing. Since then this definition has been broadened out to also take into consideration all the stages customers may go through as they interact with a particular brand, and this is where we start to see the confusion and overlap with Customer Experience.

Wikipedia defines Customer Experience as, "The sum of all experiences a customer has with a supplier of goods or services, over the duration of their relationship with that supplier." Below is a simple model we use to represent Total Customer Experience:

But what about Engagement? Based on the definition above, we would argue that traditional Customer Engagement strategies and initiatives would sit within this Total Customer Experience Model. But we like to think about things a little differently.

In summary, Fifth Quadrant defines Customer Engagement as a customer's cognitive and emotional response to their Total Customer Experience. It is an outcome of Customer Experience. The model below demonstrates how Customer Experience and Customer Engagement work together.

As the model highlights, customers will feel a sense of Engagement with an organisation based on their combined Experiences. The reason why Engagement is important is because a customer's level of Engagement will ultimately determine their Future Behaviour with that organisation such as Retention, Re-use, Consider as First Choice and Recommend.

You can read more about this by downloading this paper on the Fifth Quadrant CustomerEngage Model.

This week we will be releasing our latest Analyst Report on the fascinating subject of Enterprise Feedback Management strategies and practices. And I don't mean that sarcastically....it really is fascinating research.

I wanted to pull out one of my key highlights regarding the future intentions of organisations regarding their customer feedback practices, and this relates to the role of cultural change programmes. Overall, 45% of organisations indicated that implementing a cultural change programme is a top three initiative for the next 12 months. What is interesting.....and this really is the fascinating part.....amongst organisations that we classified as having more advanced or mature enterprise feedback management practices, 33% indicated that a cultural change programme was a top three initiative. And to me this makes a great deal of sense.

Most organisations are collecting some form of customer feedback. Some organisations have actually indicated that they are hindered by having too much information, but that is a different story. So if organisations are collecting this information, why aren't customer engagement scores improving. What is clear from the research is that organisations are not necessarily very effective in using this information. They do not have the right organisational structure and governance in place to effectively bring decision makers together from across the business and take action based on customer feedback. This is a simple fix right? However, the biggest barrier to customer feedback having a positive impact on business performance has to be a deeper issue. And this is the reason why cultural change is imperative. Organisations may be collecting vast amounts of insightful feedback but if there is no appetite or appreciation for its importance in decision making....what happens?......nothing right?

More and more organisations are recognising the importance of customer experience and customer feedback should form a more important piece in this evolution. As an advocate of customer insights I would argue that organisations need to put in place the right frameworks and decision making processes that places customer needs at the heart of the model. Supported by training to help all areas of the business understand the importance of customer insights, this should lead to a significant shift in the cultural appreciation of customer feedback.