Rob O’Neill’s Sunday Star Times article “Staff- more than just a cost centre” highlighted the fact that the focus in this area is about to go from staff to management and I say about time.

Leadership and the resulting culture are two things that determine productivity performance and as the Aussie research found getting staff more involved in the business and developing their skills pays dividends in business efficiency, productivity and innovation.

I am certain the New Zealand research will find the same. The big question raised in Rob’s article is will business take any notice? And will management be prepared to change?

Increased productivity is one of the rewards of a customer experience strategy, right from the start our approach has been based on gaining commitment from everyone within the organisation and the understanding that “your people support what they create”.

We have never created a customer experience strategy for a client. We know that it would not matter how good the experience was we put together it would never gain total buy in because of this fact and therefore would not be delivered consistently and we know that inconsistent experiences never gain a business key benefits like loyalty and word of mouth recommendations, no our approach has always been to work with a development team made up of representatives from every area of the organisation.

I would like to think that business and management will look at the results of this research in a positive light and we will start to see some real progress around employee engagement and the resulting productivity issue.

Chris Bell

The radio announcer right out of the blue starting talking about the dining experience he and his wife had the previous night at a Christchurch restaurant the Pegasus Arms and in particular Adam the person that had looked after them during their meal.

Here is a guy spending time on radio talking about a dining experience naming both the restaurant and the front-line person that delivered the experience totally unsolicited.

I can’t wait to visit the Pegasus Arms the next time I’m out for a meal and I’ve made that choice based squarely on that radio announcer’s personal recommendation.

That’s way more powerful than any radio advertising the Pegasus Arms could have paid for.

See you there.

Online sales currently make up 5.1 percent of retail sales but that is about to increase as retailers struggle to develop and provide an in store experience that is different to what consumers can now get online.

Right now an increasing number of consumers are using brick and mortar stores to research products and then finding the best deals online, in many cases from an off shore site.

There is no doubt that retailers should be developing the online channel of their business according to Chris Bell Managing Director of Customer Experiences a company that specialises in the development of quality customer experiences. Bell believes for many retailers the focus should also be on the development of the in store experience.

Right now retail is very much in what we call “the world of sameness” very little difference between businesses and shopping environments. The result is a bored customer who is desperately looking for a different, more convenient, faster or more valuable experience and because these kinds of experiences are difficult to find, are turning to the web.

Employees should be a business’s competitive advantage but unfortunately for many retailers they are just the opposite and another reason for us not to bother to leave the comfort of the computer screen.

Bell will be speaking and facilitating a Customer Experience Master class at the up and coming Customer Experience 2012 Auckland conference at the end of June that will focus on how to develop a customer experience strategy that will maximise a brick and mortar business and align with an on-line channel www.conferenz.co.nz/cx

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Customer Experiences is an organisation specialising in the developing of high quality customer experiences. For further information – contact Chris Bell Managing Director Customer Experiences Ltd email chris@customerexperiences.co.nz www.customerexperiences.co.nz mb 027 2792360

It was clear that very little market research had been carried out before we spent all those marketing dollars, to understand that the level of service the Japanese receive on a daily basis was far better than the best service most businesses provide in New Zealand.

The result was we tried to rectify the situation and it’s clear we are still trying to rectify the problem of poor service in the industry.

You would think that we may have just learnt something from that experience, but no not a thing.

China and other Asian countries are our new growth markets as our European markets continue to decline. Research, the Minister of Tourism and the CEO of Tourism New Zealand still see the quality of service and the lack of understanding of visitor expectations from these markets as an issue.

The question is how many more marketing dollars are we going to waste before we learn these basic lessons. We need to do the research before we spend the money and ensure we understand and deliver the tailored experiences and service levels these visitors expect, therefore avoiding the power of today’s negative visitor feedback.

We must understand that these visitors have plenty of other options, alternative destinations that understand these markets far better than we do.

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Customer Experiences is an organisation specialising in the developing of high quality customer experiences. For further information – contact Chris Bell Managing Director Customer Experiences Ltd email chris@customerexperiences.co.nz www.customerexperiences.co.nz mb 027 2792360

The number one reason why customers are not receiving better quality service experiences is the lack of understanding of this fact “your people support what they create”.

The number of times we hear employees telling us that they have made suggestions and put forward ideas on how to improve business performance only to have those ideas ignored is a direct reflection of the many negative business cultures and leadership styles in our economy.

“One of the biggest challenges”- we don’t think so, it’s simple. People want to work in cultures that encourage and motivate involvement; they want to contribute their ideas rather than just being told what to do, in many cases by managers that have little daily contact with customers.

Sixty percent of employees went to work this morning disengaged. Productivity is near the bottom of the OECD, customer loyalty is declining, significantly more money is spent trying to attract new customers rather than focusing on retention and still we struggle to understand this one simple fact- “your people support what they create”.

All this makes us feel that our approach to the development of a customer experience strategy is unique. It involves a revolving development team made up of representatives from every area of the business liaising with colleagues around a development process. They develop the customer experience, we facilitate the process. The result- total commitment to a continual process that delivers an experience that grows customer loyalty and advocacy and reduces costs.

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Customer Experiences is an organisation specialising in the developing of high quality customer experiences. For further information – contact Chris Bell Managing Director Customer Experiences Ltd email chris@customerexperiences.co.nz www.customerexperiences.co.nz mb 027 2792360

Up until now control has been the number one tool for most managers. Managers have been using processes and procedures designed to control employee’s performance. This has given managers the ability to hold employees accountable and control performance uniformity.

In a customer focused culture a clear shift of power takes place if a consistent quality customer experience is going to be delivered. That doesn’t mean that processes and systems are thrown out the door. What it means is those processes and systems are used to enhance the experience delivered to customers. Currently most are used for the benefit of the business.

Delivering a consistent quality customer experience is the result of a choice and that choice is made by the people delivering the experience. They have all the power. Everyday your people make choices that determine the experience your customers have with your organisation and the results of those choices directly impact your bottom line.

When the main goal of an organisation is to deliver excellence across all customer touch points, procedures and process need to be flexible. The days of a business delivering a one size fits all model, have gone. Customers now want to accentuate their differences and are demanding a more individualised and tailored approach. This can only be delivered where high employee empowerment exists.

Creating a culture that invites, motivates and supports such performance is the way to deliver great customer experiences, experiences that then become the everyday behaviour throughout the organisation i.e. “the way we do things around here”.

It all starts with an inspirational and motivational vision, a clear understanding of how a customer experience strategy will move the organisation towards that vision and most importantly the vital role everyone within the organisation will play to ensure it is consistently achieved.

Gaining commitment to a customer experience strategy and ensuring total engagement happens is the result of this statement – “your people support what they create”. Your people develop the strategy not management. This approach ensures not only support and commitment but the on-going development of the experience to ensure it continues to surprise, excite and add real customer value, resulting in greater customer loyalty and advocacy.

What managers can do to enhance this process is provide the resource, leadership, support and ensure they have the right people on board and then step back and let them deliver the magic.

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Customer Experiences is a NZ based organisations specialising in the developing of high quality customer experiences. For further information – contact Chris Bell Managing Director Customer Experiences Ltd email chris@customerexperiences.co.nz www.customerexperiences.co.nz

mb 027 2792360

Let’s hope more business leaders take note of the study including front-line managers

Chris

Leadership Crucial for Profit

High-performing workplaces are 12 per cent more productive and up to three times more profitable than their low-performing competitors, but what does it take to create this kind of success?

Well, the answer doesn’t lie in cost-cutting or bonuses.

According to a two-year study of 78 Australian companies, high performance is largely created through the quality and inclusiveness of leadership, as well as innovation.

The lead author of the study, Christina Boedker from the Australian School of Business, says the most important element in improving productivity is leadership.

“Leaders have the greatest impact on productivity and profitability – and this is at all levels,” Boedker says. “Frontline managers have the greatest impact.

“Those organisations where they create great connections with the staff and make people feel more valued are three times more productive.”

However, leaders often neglect this piece of the productivity puzzle because it seems so insubstantial compared with the tangible benefits they can see if they invest in a new IT or production system.

“What we are talking about is the need for a change in values and behaviours,” Boedker says. Good leaders are aware their employees must be treated fairly, she says.

Of the 78 organisations in the study, only 15 per cent were found to be high performing. And one thing all of those had in common was a focus on employee participation and involvement in key decision-making processes.

“This makes employees feel of value,” Boedker says.

She says people’s sense of identity and self-esteem are entwined with their work and this needs to be acknowledged by their managers. If people are having a hard time in their jobs, it is almost impossible not to take it personally.

“If people feel valued, that’s what makes them go the extra mile.”

The difference in profit margin between high and low performers averaged $8.8 million per organisation, or $40,051 per full-time employee.

The study, Leadership, Culture and Management Practices of High-Performing Workplaces in Australia, was launched last October and the project is now in its third stage, funded by the federal government.

The participating organisations are all in the services sector, which employs 85 per cent of the Australian workforce.

Boedker is now exploring whether what was learnt about the practices of high-performance companies can make a difference to five different organisations, which will be working with consultants for a year.

“We are working with companies in the low- and mid-performance categories and we are looking at what works and what doesn’t work,” Boedker says.

The researchers will put together a set of guidelines that can be used to help organisations improve their performance.

Other ingredients for the high-performance workplace include: its ability to respond to changes in its environment; effective use and quality of information, communication and technology; excellence in attracting and retaining high-quality people; and flexibility in employee behaviour and skills.

Profit and growth are stimulated primarily by customer loyalty. Loyalty is a direct result of exceeding customer’s expectations. Exceeding customer’s expectations is largely achieved by the value of service provided to customers.

Value is created by your engaged, loyal, creative and productive people

A few organizations have figured out how to turn customer service into a marketing opportunity and thus a profit center. They figure if they’ve got your attention, if they’re talking to you at a moment when you care a great deal, they can turn that into an opportunity to delight. And being delighted is remarkable and worth talking about.

That means that if your organization has a stall, deny and avoid policy when it comes to customer interaction, you will almost certainly be defeated if a competitor comes up with a scalable way to delight.

Overseas call centers and online chat handled by untrained workers with no incentives seem like clever ways to cut costs during stressful times. What they actually are is scalable engines of annoyance, time-sucking processeses that raise expectations and then totally dash them. Better to not even have a phone number. (You can’t call Google but you don’t want to call Adobe–which one generates more animus–the inability to call, or the promise, unfilled, of respect and thoughtful help?)

Or consider: Some airlines are starting to realize that a delayed or cancelled flight is actually a chance to earn some remarkability. In the two hours that someone is stranded, they’re paying very careful attention to your brand. What are you doing? Notifying them by email that the flight is late, offering them free wifi, even giving them a link to a free book or movie online–none of that costs more than caring…all of them important opportunities to be heard and remembered.

Investing in delight via customer service is cheap to experiment with and easy to prove. Just siphon off 1% of your calls to a trained person who actually cares and wants to help–and see what happens to customer satisfaction and word of mouth. Cancel a few TV ads and you can pay for it–soon it will pay for itself.

Christchurch based Customer Experiences Managing Director Chris Bell the author of the guide said he was greatly encouraged by the number of New Zealand organisations that downloaded the guide and took advantage of the free one hour consultation with Bell that was also offered.

Bell said it just shows how many businesses are started to understand the benefits a consistent quality customer experience get add to a business. The challenge now is to encourage businesses to work through the strategic steps and understand that they are embarking on a journey of continual improvement that will quickly become a key part of an organisations culture.

The free download was made available to business after some research clearly showed that business understood the value a quality customer service experience could add to a business but very few indicated they had the knowledge to implement such a strategy.

Bell and his team are now working on a unique Customer Experience Development programme that will be available online and will be launched internationally to SMEs in early May. Bell said that to his knowledge this will be a first.

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Chris Bell is the Managing Director of Customer Experiences a business committed to building successful businesses through the development of high quality customer experiences. www.customerexperiences.co.nz chris@customerexperiences.co.nz mb 027 2792360