Bell said one of the areas holding most organisations back when trying to improve their service is they lack the knowledge and experience to put a long-term strategy in place. The result is a short-term hit and miss approach and continued inconsistent service at the front counter.

Bell said that the companies that are delivering consistently high quality experiences, have a long-term strategy in place that is very much a part of their DNA, it’s their culture “the way they do things”

These businesses understand it’s the service they are not obliged to give, that customers value the most.

Bell’s advice to business is-

1) Make a long-term commitment to improving the quality of experience delivered to both employees and customers.

2) Gain the knowledge and advice required to develop and implement a strategic approach

3) Clearly define the experience you will deliver and involve as many staff as possible in that process, especially those that have the direct contact with customers.

Bell has just launched a programme designed to give customer experience managers the skills to develop their own customer experience strategy, a first in New Zealand and is linked closely with Customer Experience Tracker, an effective customer experience measurement resource.

For further information chris@customerexperiences.co.nz www.customerexperiences.co.nz mb 0272792360

Chris Bell Managing Director of Customer Experiences a company that specialises in the development of high quality customer experiences said it was not rocket science especially in the present tough economy.

Bell said it can be more difficult to motivate people to step it up a notch when business is slow, that’s where the experience of someone that has a good knowledge of a customer experience strategy and the leadership skills to change attitudes and over time the business culture, come into their own.

Bell has developed a successful customer experience formula that shows the importance of working on the internal experience before developing the customer experience.

The Customer Experience Formula is what our new development programme CED is based on said Bell.

Customer Experience Formula:-

Involvement = Engagement

Engagement = Commitment

Commitment = Loyalty

Loyalty = Increased productivity

Bell said disengaged front-line employees don’t deliver consistently high quality experiences. In a recent survey it is estimated 67 percent of employees go to work everyday, disengaged.

Unless this improves customers will continue to receive ordinary, annoying and in some cases frustrating customer experiences that will motivate them to look for other options and they will make sure others hear about the experience.

The key is total involvement in the development of a customer experience strategy, WHY, because everyone plays a role in what is eventually delivered at the front counter.

For further information chris@customerexperiences.co.nz www.customerexperuiences.co.nz mb 027 2792360

Customers are sick and tired of being phoned right on dinner time, stopped in the street when they are running late, or having cards thrust in front of them as they check out of a hotel and asked to complete yet another survey.

We are well and truly over the novelty of completing surveys according to Chris Bell Managing Director of Customer Experiences a company that advises business on customer experience improvements.

Very few businesses act on the information customers provide and actually do something about the issues that have been raised and the reason for this especially when the feedback involves customer service and customer experience issues is, they don’t know how to act on the information or there is so much information they are just overwhelmed.

“Stop continually annoying your customers by asking them to complete surveys unless you are totally committed to acting on the results” is the message we would like to get across said Bell before customers get even more annoyed with being asked.

His message to business is that if you are genuine and really care about your customers, get back to them and advise them of the action you intend to take as a result of a survey. At least you can then be held to account. Then get professional advice if unsure how to improve performance.

Bell said that if customers can see that some effort is going into improving the customer experience most will be more than happy to take the time to provide feedback. His advice is to make sure the commitment to action is in place first.

For further information chris@customerexperiences.co.nz www.customerexperiences.co.nz mb 027 2792360

That was the question only 13 percent of respondents could answer in a recent US survey, however, 80 percent understood the importance of a customer experience strategy to their business.

Chris Bell Managing Director of Customer Experiences a company that specialises in developing customer experiences said he believes less than 13 percent of New Zealand businesses could answer that question.

Bell said this was concerning in todays highly competitive market where building employee & customer loyalty and positive word of mouth should be a priority.

To improve business knowledge and expertise in this vital area Bell has developed a two day programme called Customer Experience Development (CED) designed to give customer experience managers the methodology and skills to put in place a long-term customer experience strategy.

Bell said the programme will be available via both public and in-house workshops and includes on-going support as participants work through the development process.

The benefits to a business are many including:-

• Increased employee engagement & loyalty

• The ability to attract the right people

• Increased customer loyalty & word of mouth

• The ability to capitalise on the creativity of employees

• Takes the focus off price, increasing margins

• The ability to reduce marketing & recruitment costs

Bell said business is starting to realise that in a world of excess, uniformity and repetition, people buy experiences, not products or services. When people feel good about their experience they will not only return, they will tell their friends. To turn a financial exchange into a rewarding experience, businesses have to be creative and they have to be fully committed to seeing the world through their customers’ eyes.

chris@customerexperiences.co.nz mb027 2792360 www.customerexperiences.co.nz

I’m talking about word of mouth. That’s it – customers talking about your business and products. I started thinking differently about this powerful (and free!) marketing channel a while ago after reading Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking by Andy Sernovitz.

I applaud this book because it shows why customer service (or customer satisfaction as I call it) and marketing must go hand-in-hand. And explains that deceptive marketing is a very bad policy and that listening and talking to your customers are the best practices you can follow.

We have all heard of B-to-C (business-to-consumer) marketing. And we have all heard of B-to-B (business-to-business) marketing. We have even (more recently) heard of C-to-C (consumer-to-consumer) marketing. But what Word of Mouth Marketing explores is the new world of B-to-C-to-C marketing – business-to-consumer-to-consumer! It’s all about the second hop, the third hop, the fourth hop, and so on.

You may be thinking, “Word of mouth isn’t a new concept. It’s been going on forever. So what’s the big deal?”

What’s new is that with the popularity of social media, word of mouth has evolved from anecdotal to actionable, from something that “just happens” to something you can influence. In fact, because we now have the tools and knowledge to work with it, word of mouth marketing has become the fastest growing form of marketing.

Word of mouth is about authentic consumer conversation. That means marketers join in a conversation with their customers, participating in it but never manipulating, faking, or degrading its fundamental honesty in any way.

The Five T’s to Word of Mouth Marketing

1. Talkers: Finding people who will talk about you

Talkers are any group of people who have enthusiasm and the connections to relay your message. Talkers are regular people, your best customers.

A while back, I attended a seminar in Atlanta – along with about 2,500 other people. Jim, the very first person I met, asked me what I did. When I told him about the company I was running at the time, he said, “Oh, I know them. The only publication I read is their flagship newsletter.” We spoke at length about how that newsletter has helped him grow his business, how he has told friends and industry colleagues about it, and how many of those folks are now fans.

Jim is a great example of a talker.

You just don’t find talkers … you cultivate them. People talk about you for two reasons: They either had a very good experience with your company or they had a very bad experience. Either way, by responding to their comments you can turn them into big marketers for your company. Here’s how to do it:

• Acknowledge your mistakes. If you screw up, you should never try to sweep it under the rug. Instead, apologize to the customers it affected, correct the problem, and thank your customers for staying with you. You’ll find that your customers will thank YOU for correcting the mistake. And they may even go on to recommend your company to people they know.

• Acknowledge compliments. Many people think that if someone pays you a compliment, a response is not necessary. This could not be further from the truth. That person took the first step by making a comment. Now you need to seize the opportunity to turn her into a talker. You do this by replying to your customers’ letters, e-mails, and forum postings.

• Acknowledge your fans. Sometimes you can turn a person into a talker just by talking to them first. Look for signs of extreme enthusiasm. Look for customers who frequently attend the events you sponsor or know the names of your employees or wear your logo.

For example, while visiting my husband’s family in Long Island a few summers ago, I saw a man on the beach wearing an ETR hat with the company’s logo. I was so excited that I went over to him and introduced myself. Noticing the confusion on his face, I pointed to his hat and said, “I run that company!” Well, he told me it was his buddy’s hat, and he just liked the color.

I apologized for bothering him, and went back to building sand castles with my kids. An hour later, a different man came up to me and told me it was his hat … and that he had been a client of ours for years.

“Steve” and I talked for a while about his Internet business. And when I got back to the office, I asked our customer service manager to look up his address – and I sent him a personal note and a new hat. I’m pretty sure Steve is now a talker.

2. Topics: Giving people a reason to talk

All word of mouth starts with creating a message that spreads. In other words, with a good, clear idea that’s easy to repeat.

I ran a company that adhered to a philosophy called Ready, Fire, Aim. The company’s experts write about Ready, Fire, Aim and speak about it at the events they sponsor, so all of their customers can benefit from it. If you take a look at videos of the people who attend this company’s events, video after video shows them repeating this mantra.

The reason Ready, Fire, Aim works is because it is short and sweet. It was developed around a single idea that is easy to repeat. And it’s a concept that not only resonates with entrepreneurs but has been proven to work time after time.

Good topics are organic. They are based on the exceptional qualities that make your products stand out. They flow naturally from the products’ attributes, without needing to be pushed by marketing.

3. Tools: Helping the message spread faster and further

Non info-publishing, info-marketing companies have been doing this for years. Dining establishments spread the word by handing out 2 for 1 coupons. Cosmetics companies give away free samples. Apartment complexes offer one month’s free rent. Phone companies give you a $50 credit for referring a friend. And so on.

But with the Internet, it has never been faster, easier, or cheaper. Just think about it. How many times have you read something online and forwarded it to not just one or two friends, colleagues, or relatives but five or 10? And that’s without any marketing push. If you have a “Forward to a Friend” or “Tell a Friend” button at the bottom of your e-mailed publication, you’re adding exponential marketing power to it.

I have always been a big fan of forums and message boards. They encourage like-minded people to share ideas, problems, and solutions. Plus, they allow you to “listen in on” and participate in their conversations.

I love to find out what my customers are saying, because it helps me better understand their needs. If you ask me, any company that believes in their products and employees will have forums. Forums not only facilitate communication, they increase accountability.

4. Taking Part: Joining the conversation

Once you have reached out to real people and encouraged them to talk, there is no turning back. You must join the conversation. You must reply to e-mails, accept comments on your blog, participate in the discussion board, answer the phone.

Joining the conversation is even more powerful when it is public. For instance, you can publish readers’ comments and questions in your newsletter or other marketing publications. If one of your customers is struggling and takes the time to ask for help, you need to (1) acknowledge that, and (2) share your advice with others who may be in the same situation.

Again, if your customers are complimenting you, thank them. If customers are saying negative things, find out why and fix the problem.

There is no better focus group than your customers. Yes, you will get crazies every once in a while – and you may need to hire outside resources to communicate with them on your company’s behalf. But, at the same time, you are earning the respect and recommendations of your customers and building long-term lasting relationships with them … as long as you are helpful, truthful, thankful, and nice.

5. Tracking: Measuring and understanding what people are saying

Because of the popularity of blogs and online communities, people are writing down nearly every thought they have about your company. And because these B-to-C-to-C conversations are written down, they are easy to find and easy to track. You can find every comment about you and your company moments after it is written. And monitoring that online communication allows you to understand what your customers really think about you, your marketing, and your products.

There are wonderful online tools – such as Google Alert and Technorati – that can help you monitor your word of mouth. They are at your fingertips, and they are instant and free.

Start right now. Don’t make any marketing decisions without considering the potential for word of mouth. Ad agencies, media executives, and reporters no longer control the message. Real consumers with real communication power have added their voices to the mix. And their voices are drowning out traditional media. A single consumer voice, in the end, has a huge impact on your company’s future.

Word of mouth will become more and more important as the Internet continues to expand. But I am still a firm believer in the importance of direct-response marketing. The best thing you can do for your company is to successfully incorporate multiple methods into your overall marketing strategy. You’ll maximize your efforts, build your customer base, and reap the profits.

New Zealand’s leading customer experience expert and managing director of Customer Experiences Ltd. Chris Bell has just launched Customer Experience Development (CED) with one goal – to increase business performance by delivering better service and experiences that add greater value for the customer.

Bell said the old approach of sending front-line employees to a customer service training workshop and thinking that was going to make the difference, is clearly not working for a number of reasons the major one being the lack of commitment to a complete strategy not just a “quick fix”.

Bell has been working with New Zealand companies developing high quality customer experiences since the launch of Customer Experiences Ltd in 2004 and said the reason for the customer experience approach was a direct result of seeing the customer service training workshop approach not delivering the promised outcomes.

Bell said that front-line skill development was a key part of the customer experience strategy but is only carried out once an organisation has defined the experience they will deliver and written service standards to ensure the consistency of performance. It’s only then that areas of skill development are addressed and measurements put in place.

Bell said it was clear in a recent survey that business does understand the advantages of a high quality customer experience to their business. The challenge is that only 13 percent said they knew how to put such a strategy in place. CED has now given business the opportunity to up skill a key person within an organisation to lead the development and implementation.

The advantages clearly outweigh the investment both for the business and customers including increased employee & customer loyalty and word of mouth recommendations, the ability to capitalise on the ideas within an organisation, lower marketing and recruitment costs and the ability to attract more of the right people, to name just a few.

For further information – chris@customerexperiences.co.nz

According to Chris Bell Managing Director of Customer Experiences a company that specialises in the development of high quality customer experiences.

Bell says everything a business does will have a positive or negative impact on that choice. What business still doesn’t realise is this fact, resulting in an ordinary, annoying or frustrating customer experience plus another customer that won’t be back and 8-10 other people will hear about it directly and many more via social networking and other internet options.

Bell said it’s critical that this situation improves across all industries especially tourism and related service sectors, before the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

Bell said one of the issues holding back improvements in this area is the lack of expertise to develop and implement a long-term customer experience strategy and the continued use of outdated quick fix methods like customer service training workshops conducted in isolation of any defined customer experience strategy.

Bell has some advice for those businesses contemplating the development of a customer experience strategy and that is –don’t start unless you are totally committed to a long-term approach. A lack of a long-term commitment will do more damage to your business both internally and with your customers than not doing anything at all.

Bell said he has seen too many businesses make a big fuss out of going down this track only to see it fizzle out after only a short period with the resulting loss of credibility and reputation.

Further information – chris@customerexperiences.co.nz www.customerexperiences.co.nz mb 027 2792360

Yet despite all the surveys, the countless workshops and seminars, the thousands of books written and research carried out on improving customer service and the quality of the customer experience…WHY are we still not receiving better customer service and having more high quality customer experiences? asks Chris Bell Managing Director of Customer Experiences Ltd..

Bell said it’s not due to the vast collection of statistical analysis, pie charts and graphs that apparently show what the customer wants.

Most organisations have a clear understanding of what their customer’s expectations are. In many cases it has been the business that has defined expectations in their marketing.

The “Experience Gap Analysis (EGA) study of both employees and customers found that employees consistently overestimated their level of service performance, believing they had delivered greater value than their customers on the receiving end were willing to give them credit for.

This is a clear case of employees applying one set of criteria to judge the quality of their service and customers rating the experience based on entirely different standards.

This gap has little to do with employee attitudes or motivation levels and everything to do with a lack of clear definitions. Bell said this leaves a business’s customer experience up to individuals to interpret, one of the main reasons for the inconsistent service customer’s receive.

Also contributing to the gap is an organisation’s focus. While paying lip service to the importance of the customer, the focus is clearly more on the organisation resulting in a lack of customer focus including support processes and systems geared to the delivery of high quality experiences.

Bell said the persistence’s of some organisations to continually advertise their commitment to the customer, proceeding to tell them all the wonderful things they are going to do for them does not actually create a better experience and today after being let down so many times, doesn’t even gain customers attention anymore. All it does is continue to create higher customer expectations.

Bell said the single most important factor between a truly customer focused organisation and the rest is the choice employees make every day regarding the quality of customer experience they deliver.

This is what business leadership should be focusing on, ensuring their leadership style and the resulting culture is providing the encouragement and resources that allows employees to consistently make the right choice.

For Further Information chris@customerexperiences.co.nz www.customerexperiences.co.nz mb 027 2792360

Bell said there are a number of reasons for the lack of focus on customer service training including- watching costs post recession, not wanting staff away from the workplace, high staff turnover and a reluctance to make an investment that may only be short term.

However, Bell thinks the main reason is the ineffectiveness of front line customer service training programmes, a result of a quick fix approach to improving performance in this area that has not worked for sometime and has therefore been seen as a cost rather than an investment.

Bell sights the low up take of a recently launched Tourism front line training programme as an example of this attitude. He said that businesses want to see a real return on these investments, even a heavily subsidised one like the tourism programme that has a goal of 7,000-10,000 people through it before next year’s Rugby World Cup and at this stage looks like it won’t come close.

Bell said that business needs to look at their customer service performance along side issues like the 67 percent of employees that go to work everyday disengaged and as a result are focused on only doing what’s necessary to hold down a job. Customers will not receive consistent high quality experiences from these people.

From our experience great customer experiences are reliant on three things-

1) Leadership that is employee & customer focused

2) A culture that has everyone committed to the continual improvement of their customer experience

3) The RIGHT people in the RIGHT positions

Bell said that businesses that have these three areas sorted out dramatically out perform their competitors, have higher numbers of loyal customers that are continually recommending them to others, have lower marketing costs due to increased word of mouth, have greater profitability due to less of a focus on price and have the right people wanting to work for them.

Bell is at a loss to understand why a business would not want these benefits and is urging business to refocus and make a genuine commitment to their people and customers and address their total customer experience not just the customer service aspect.

For further information – chris@customerexperiences.co.nz www.customerexperiences.co.nz mb 027 2792360

If a business is going to stand out from an ever increasingly crowded and competitive market place and remain profitable, it will need to start thinking about more creative ways to “add value” than just discounting prices on products and services that are no different from their competitors.

Unfortunately when it comes to gaining customer feedback business is still striving to have a satisfied customer defined as “just meeting expectations” this from Chris Bell Managing Director of Customer Experiences who along with Ray Sleeman has developed Customer Experience Tracker.

Bell says business needs to understand the goal is no longer to have a satisfied customer that was the goal 20 years ago.

The goal today is to increase customer loyalty and word of mouth recommendation.

For the first time New Zealand business has available to it a powerful resource “an inclusive approach to gaining and acting on employee and customer feedback” in a way that will have a positive impact on a businesses growth and profitability”.

Customer Experience Tracker is a toolkit that allows businesses to easily gain an accurate evaluation of how their customers feel about their current customer experience performance and how employees feel about their workplace and includes an ongoing strategic approach to continual improvements including greater customer loyalty, word of mouth recommendation, a reduction in operating costs, an increase in employee engagement resulting in improved productivity and ultimately a more profitable and valuable business.

The ability to benchmark within an industry has always been difficult, resulting in business not really knowing how they are performing. The Customer Experience Tracker will change that. Not only will a business be able to easily establish their own score they will be able to compare that score against their competitors and other sectors. The benchmarking ability will help to raise the performance of an industry’s customer experience resulting in benefits for all those participating businesses.

Customer Experience Tracker has been made possible due to the development of an international model called Net Promoter Score© used by a number of high profile overseas organisations in the airline, car rental, tourism, and medical industries and includes e-commerce based leaders like Amazon.com and e-bay and in New Zealand by Air New Zealand, House of Travel and Westpac Bank.

The motivation for the development of the Customer Experience Tracker has come from three main issues-

1) The continued obsession with the use of “customer satisfaction” as a measure of a business’s performance.

Clearly customer satisfaction relates to the delivery of the expected i.e. “meeting expectation”. Business is well aware that in this increasingly competitive and crowded market environment, just meeting customer expectations is not enough to influence customer behaviour and increase loyalty and word of mouth referrals.

Businesses must be asking customers the likelihood of recommending their business to others.

Organisations are beginning to understand that in an increasingly fragmented market the cost of trying to reach a target audience is sky rocketing. Couple this with new social networking technology and the power customers now have to tarnish or enhance a company’s brand reputation not just amongst friends and colleagues but to a global network then the importance of knowing how customers value their experience is paramount.

2) The lack of action taken as a result of customer feedback and the absence of a long-term strategic approach to customer experience improvement.

A number of surveys have shown that growing customer loyalty is among most CEOs top priorities, yet customers are continually treated in a way that doesn’t reflect this priority.

Organisations are held accountable for increasing profits. Financial results are what company’s measure. Loyal customer promoters are overlooked because they don’t show up on the balance sheet.

3) The fact that businesses will not deliver a consistently high quality customer experience that engages and builds relationships with their customers, unless their people are receiving the same

If business wants to reap the benefits of customer loyalty there needs to be a focus on creating employee loyalty.

These three issues and the fact that very few customers are actually having experiences that lead to advocacy has prompted a united approach driven by a motivation to see more businesses profiting from a continually improving Net Promoter Score©.

For further information – chris@customerexperiences.co.nz www.customerexperiences.co.nz mb 027 2792360