How do we find out what customers really want?
‘Ah’ I hear you shout, ‘that’s obvious, just ask them!’ Read full article »
Archive for the ‘Manufacturing’ Category
People buy people first
Thursday November 24th 2011
What can running a small business teach people about being customer-centric?
Tuesday October 18th 2011
Many of us have at some point in our careers helped to run a small business, or a semi-autonomous department of a larger business, which can amount to much the same thing.
Don’t you remember the buzz you had when you went to work? The excitement on Sunday evening of looking forward to getting in on Monday morning and making things happen? Read full article »
Customer Experience Pt 9. Appraisal
Tuesday July 28th 2009
Post series written by Andrew McMillan (Principal Consultant at Charteris specialising in customer experience). Before joining Charteris, Andrew had a 28 year career with John Lewis and spent the last eight years of that career being responsible for the quality of service and selling across the UK department stores.
Customer Experience Pt 8. Reward and Recognition
Tuesday July 21st 2009
Post series written by Andrew McMillan (Principal Consultant at Charteris specialising in customer experience). Before joining Charteris, Andrew had a 28 year career with John Lewis and spent the last eight years of that career being responsible for the quality of service and selling across the UK department stores.
Customer Experience Pt 1 – Introduction
Monday November 10th 2008
Post series written by Andrew McMillan (Principal Consultant at Charteris specialising in customer experience). Before joining Charteris Andrew had a 28 year career with John Lewis and spent the last eight years of that career being responsible for the quality of service and selling across the UK department stores.
This series of blogs is about what it takes for any organisation to deliver a consistent and distinctly identifiable quality of service through its employees. I would welcome, and will respond to, any comments or thoughts of your own that you may wish to add as we go.
Delivering Customer Satisfaction
I want to start by putting the customer experience factor (or whatever you might choose to call it) into some context with other business activity.
In simplistic terms the customer experience and consequential satisfaction or otherwise of a customer delivered by any organisation can be divided into 3 key areas:
- The competiveness/desirability/relevance of the product or services the organisation is providing.
- The effectiveness of the systems or processes to deliver that product or service to a customer, in other words – how easy are you to do business with?
- The way the staff in the organisation interact with its customers, ideally leaving them feeling they have been treated as an individual rather than being part of a process and, when appropriate, genuinely cared for.
If you were starting your own business tomorrow it would probably be because you felt you had an idea for a product, proposition or service that nobody else, or nobody else in your area, offered. Possibly this might be offering better quality or price than any existing potential competitors too. Consequently that has to be the starting point for all organisations as it must be the reason for their very existence. If the product or services you are offering don’t represent an attractive proposition for your target customers the organisation is destined for failure.
What’s next?
Well there is no point in having a great product or service if your customers find it easier to do business with your competitors. The systems and processes are very important as in a time pressed world nobody appreciates confusion, complication or errors. The knowledge and advice you are able to impart about your product or service are also very important as you will be perceived as an expert in what you do and customers will want to trust your advice.
Finally, you are really going to look after your customers and care about them individually as you will want the business to grow. Consequently you will want your customers to come back and bring their friends because they have enjoyed dealing with you.
So, all pretty obvious stuff, and even more obvious if you are still thinking of a small business where the owner is the person the customers interact with. Of course you are going to be easy to do business with and you are going to care about your customers and leave them feeling good about the transaction because you have a vested interest in making the business succeed.
What happens when the organisation grows to 100 employees? Well, the product or service will remain the same or perhaps diversify a little and the owner is still likely to be driving the development. The systems and processes may have become more complex as the organisation has grown but, to a large extent, the logistical challenges of the growth will have ensured the processes have developed in tandem.
So what about the people and customer experience they deliver?
Intentionally or accidentally, the organisation will have developed its own culture and that will have a significant effect on how its customers are treated as the owner will no longer be dealing with each customer personally. That will affect how those customers perceive the business when they interact with it. However, because the culture of a business is less tangible than its products, services or processes it is often the case that there is less overt awareness of how the evolving internal culture can affect customer service. This can often be to the detriment of the business as a whole, which is why I believe we have such a reputation for poor service in the UK.
So, I hope I have put business culture into some degree of context within the overall operating model. Next time we shall look at culture and how you can positively shape it in a large organisation.
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Contact – andrew.mcmillan@charteris.com
Listening to customers in a multi channel world
Thursday October 9th 2008
Understanding customer’s in-store and online shopping preferences
Whilst researching key customer needs and trends in the multi channel world, I came across this white paper published by Sterling commerce. They have produced a report full of compelling analysis and with very insightful statistics that is and will continue to affect Multi Channel retail.
Sterling Commerce conducted an online survey of 5,000 consumers to understand consumer preferences and attitudes when shopping online and in traditional retail channels. With some surprising results, the responses provide tremendous insight into the consumer’s expectations for selling and fulfilment.
Some highlights
1. Three statistics customers rated the most important when shopping across channels.
- 1. 72% of customers wanted notification of filling/shipping delays
- 2. 69% of customers wanted the store to locate an out-of–stock product at a different location.
- 3. 68% of customers wanted notification throughout ordering/shipping process
2. Three statistics customers said would affect their willingness to shop at a retail store
- 1. 74% of customers said no pricing on the item or shelf
- 2. 72% of customers said sale items out of stock
- 3. 65% of customers said unhelpful sales associates
3. 57% of consumers stating that it is important for them to be able to monitor the status of their order via the Web, free phone number, or through customer service in a store, regardless of whether that order was placed online, through the catalogue, or as a special order in a store.
4. Consumers are becoming more familiar with the experience of a single retailer offering products across multiple channels. They expect the communication and service options related to these products to be seamlessly merged. Retailers who do not provide a single face to their consumers with cross-channel execution will begin losing customers to retailers that do.
Retailers who create a customer centric seamless experience for their customers can expect increased customer loyalty, increased same-store sales, and improved margins.
Check it out, it’s free: Sterling Commerce.
The Practicalities of Multichannel Retailing – Part 4 – Order History and Returns
Tuesday October 7th 2008
The “single view of the customer†is the panacea in all multi-channel retailing strategies and enabling the customer to access their purchase history irrespective of channel has many benefits. However, the need for a single customer identifier is paramount in effectively delivering this and where the ubiquitous loyalty card holds the trump card. However, without such a device, it is still possible to draw together the interactions with a customer through other associations such as addresses (whether e-mail or physical) or phone numbers although care must be taken in reconciling this with privacy laws. In keeping though with the single view of the customer, it is the online view where the visibility of orders is paramount and providing suitable data links for delivery tracking and statuses enriches this view for both customers and cal centre staff alike.
Allowing the customer to seamlessly switch their buying decisions across channels must be suitably supported by dealing with returns and exchanges equally through any channel. This has limitations in customer acceptance and usually places extra demands on the more physically accessible channels. However, in order for the customer to recognise the retailer uniformly across channels, the processes need to be in place to deal with products not normally stocked at the point of return. This in turn aids and abets the strategy of placing the customer at the heart of the multi channel landscape.
The Practicalities of Multi-Channel Retail – Part 2 – The Product Catalogue
Thursday October 2nd 2008
By having a single product cataloguing system, each channel can select specific products or categories of products from the centralised repository that best suit their requirements. This alone though does not necessarily meet the differing requirements of the channels in terms of presenting the customer with a meaningful navigational structure. Therefore, this catalogue requires the flexibility to have multiple mappings that allow merchandisers to quickly link products and form cross-sell and up-sell relationships as well as providing guided navigation through relevant taxonomies and facets (product attributes). This is a sound approach for the base level product data but does not necessarily provide the required flexibility for differing pricing and promotion models across channel. To satisfy this, an abstracted pricing and promotional model is called allowing the creation of independent pricing structures and channel specific promotions. This facility is absolutely vital should a retailer decide to provide any sort of white label model.
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