Many of the technology tools of #customerexperience #management require a high level of program maturity to integrate and use. CX leaders need some serious business acumen to make business case for these investments and the return on that investment.
My always-stoned office supplies guy, who hates his boss more than his job, said the same thing.
If you look at enough consumer brands (especially those in YUM's category) and study them closely, you'll likely see that purpose, as a brand lever, works differently (or not at all) for different business models. It makes sense to me YUM's CMO might say that—it's probably true for him.
You cannot say brand promises are [***] across the board, full stop, when you see them working in so many contexts. You can, however, say that brand promises for people who make minimum wage selling stuff they'd prefer not to eat themselves, for huge chains with over 80% employee turnover may not work as well—or at all. Ask the CMO of Mercedes Benz, Starbucks, Atlassian, Steam, or John Deere that question. None of their data will indicate brand promises are '[***].'
I keep seeing that promises work as an important tool when people are given the right business model, EX formula, the right ecosystem, and the right validation (incentives, connection to their value, leaders who lead by example, etc.)
Which reminds me, all automobiles that aren't German are '[***]'
Ken Muench is definitely right! Brands are created for marketing. Marketing is not you advertising to your customers. It's your customers raving about you to others.
I am witnessing first hand some of these challenges. Often those driving the agenda are not accountable for the potential outcomes. They simply hear starters pistols and start to run with change, before understanding what the course ahead looks like or if the finishing line is one they wish to cross. A key one for me from this excellent list is the misnomer that customers wish to trade human interaction for digital experiences. On projects I've been involved with it is rare that the digital transformation team has explored the emotive need of customers for interaction before they exchange it for automation. For customers they seek efficiency and emotional connection, not an either/or choice. Thanks for sharing
This comment posted by Federico Cesconi on LinkedIn:
I agree with my friend Maurice FitzGerald, if you have to abandon NPS, then you would need to have a bit more solid and strong motivations than the ones reported in the article. And I would like to point out that I personally, from a purely statistical point of view, am not a big fan of that metric. You can read several articles I've written where I point out the statistical and mathematical weakness of the NPS. But let's go in order:
1. When citing a source, it would be best to link it.
2. Do we even need a business case for phasing it out?
3. Not a proven measure of customer loyalty at all, quite the contrary!
4. It's not easy to use as a benchmark, except with methodological rigor that requires more effort than other metrics.
5. If supported by a modern Natural Language Processing solution, it is certainly a system that helps identify insights that can be used not only for customer service but also for all other areas of the firm.
6. It would be interesting to understand what concrete and statistical facts Gartner makes this prediction for 2025, I honestly didn't get it from the article, but maybe this is my limitation, sorry.
7. The NPS, the answer to the open question, provides actionable insights. If you use a methodology like aspect-based sentiment analysis then you'll be able to understand exactly what comments are attributable to customer service, and what are the drivers of satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Let's not place blame on the NPS that isn't its own. Modern NLP systems help us identify these actionable insights.
8. If the NPS results don't provide a clear understanding of the actions reps should take to positively influence the metrics then we have a governance and education problem, it's not a problem of which metrics we are using.
9. Metrics like CES or CSAT are simply more robust because they use Likert scales and apply measures of the centrality of the mean without eliminating a large amount of information as NPS does, which is a score and is calculated by reducing and eliminating information (from a scale of 11 to two simple segments)
10. It would be interesting to understand how customer service and support leaders should measure the NPS in a way that meets executive expectations but does not overstate the importance of the NPS in customer service. It's not clear to me, but maybe that's my personal limitation.
In conclusion, I am of the opinion that none of the reasons described in the article are sufficient to support Gartner's prediction. None of the reasons have syllogistic support that underlies any research. That said, yes the NPS is statistically and mathematically weak, but for none of the reasons mentioned.
Some customers are accustomed to complaining. The pandemic made people even more frustrated especially in the first part of the pandemic when everyone had to stay indoors - caused great frustration.
This caused people to complain more. And customer services will be under great pressure still for some time. But I firmly believe that we will curb the complaints at some stage.
How long do you think the complaints will be escalating?
How Pandemic is changing customers and companies... there are new opportunities that we must take and do the best with them... People want to be attended and if customers find quickly and effective responses in Bots and videos, they will use them, no doubt.
I have been saying this same thing on poor customer experience in my articles for quite some time. There comes a time when using Covid as an excuse will alienate your customers. The digital experience will never supersede the human experience.
Love this article! Valuable information! Organizations can't only depend on "AI", but rather they need to use "AI" to learn and understand the customer's needs and create a personalized connection with each customer.
My answers
This comment posted in the MyCustomer LinkedIn group by member Jeff Sheehan:
Many of the technology tools of #customerexperience #management require a high level of program maturity to integrate and use. CX leaders need some serious business acumen to make business case for these investments and the return on that investment.
This comment posted in the MyCustomer LinkedIn group by member Steven Keith:
My always-stoned office supplies guy, who hates his boss more than his job, said the same thing.
If you look at enough consumer brands (especially those in YUM's category) and study them closely, you'll likely see that purpose, as a brand lever, works differently (or not at all) for different business models. It makes sense to me YUM's CMO might say that—it's probably true for him.
You cannot say brand promises are [***] across the board, full stop, when you see them working in so many contexts. You can, however, say that brand promises for people who make minimum wage selling stuff they'd prefer not to eat themselves, for huge chains with over 80% employee turnover may not work as well—or at all. Ask the CMO of Mercedes Benz, Starbucks, Atlassian, Steam, or John Deere that question. None of their data will indicate brand promises are '[***].'
I keep seeing that promises work as an important tool when people are given the right business model, EX formula, the right ecosystem, and the right validation (incentives, connection to their value, leaders who lead by example, etc.)
Which reminds me, all automobiles that aren't German are '[***]'
This comment posted in the MyCustomer LinkedIn group by member Bill Quiseng:
Ken Muench is definitely right! Brands are created for marketing. Marketing is not you advertising to your customers. It's your customers raving about you to others.
This comment posted in the MyCustomer LinkedIn group by member Christopher Brooks:
I am witnessing first hand some of these challenges. Often those driving the agenda are not accountable for the potential outcomes. They simply hear starters pistols and start to run with change, before understanding what the course ahead looks like or if the finishing line is one they wish to cross. A key one for me from this excellent list is the misnomer that customers wish to trade human interaction for digital experiences. On projects I've been involved with it is rare that the digital transformation team has explored the emotive need of customers for interaction before they exchange it for automation. For customers they seek efficiency and emotional connection, not an either/or choice. Thanks for sharing
This comment posted by Federico Cesconi on LinkedIn:
I agree with my friend Maurice FitzGerald, if you have to abandon NPS, then you would need to have a bit more solid and strong motivations than the ones reported in the article. And I would like to point out that I personally, from a purely statistical point of view, am not a big fan of that metric. You can read several articles I've written where I point out the statistical and mathematical weakness of the NPS. But let's go in order:
1. When citing a source, it would be best to link it.
2. Do we even need a business case for phasing it out?
3. Not a proven measure of customer loyalty at all, quite the contrary!
4. It's not easy to use as a benchmark, except with methodological rigor that requires more effort than other metrics.
5. If supported by a modern Natural Language Processing solution, it is certainly a system that helps identify insights that can be used not only for customer service but also for all other areas of the firm.
6. It would be interesting to understand what concrete and statistical facts Gartner makes this prediction for 2025, I honestly didn't get it from the article, but maybe this is my limitation, sorry.
7. The NPS, the answer to the open question, provides actionable insights. If you use a methodology like aspect-based sentiment analysis then you'll be able to understand exactly what comments are attributable to customer service, and what are the drivers of satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Let's not place blame on the NPS that isn't its own. Modern NLP systems help us identify these actionable insights.
8. If the NPS results don't provide a clear understanding of the actions reps should take to positively influence the metrics then we have a governance and education problem, it's not a problem of which metrics we are using.
9. Metrics like CES or CSAT are simply more robust because they use Likert scales and apply measures of the centrality of the mean without eliminating a large amount of information as NPS does, which is a score and is calculated by reducing and eliminating information (from a scale of 11 to two simple segments)
10. It would be interesting to understand how customer service and support leaders should measure the NPS in a way that meets executive expectations but does not overstate the importance of the NPS in customer service. It's not clear to me, but maybe that's my personal limitation.
In conclusion, I am of the opinion that none of the reasons described in the article are sufficient to support Gartner's prediction. None of the reasons have syllogistic support that underlies any research. That said, yes the NPS is statistically and mathematically weak, but for none of the reasons mentioned.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/would-you-invest-company-reporting-175-mi...
This comment posted in the MyCustomer LinkedIn group by member Gary Segal:
Some customers are accustomed to complaining. The pandemic made people even more frustrated especially in the first part of the pandemic when everyone had to stay indoors - caused great frustration.
This caused people to complain more. And customer services will be under great pressure still for some time. But I firmly believe that we will curb the complaints at some stage.
How long do you think the complaints will be escalating?
From LinkedIn Group CRM & Customer Experience Professionals member, Vincent Amari:
Any analysis using a single number is not an analysis of anything!
This comment posted in the MyCustomer LinkedIn group by member Claudia Gabriela Sanchez Zama:
How Pandemic is changing customers and companies... there are new opportunities that we must take and do the best with them... People want to be attended and if customers find quickly and effective responses in Bots and videos, they will use them, no doubt.
This comment posted in the MyCustomer Linkedin Group by member Debbie Hart:
I have been saying this same thing on poor customer experience in my articles for quite some time. There comes a time when using Covid as an excuse will alienate your customers. The digital experience will never supersede the human experience.
This comment posted on the MyCustomer LinkedIn group by member Aditya Kelagar:
Love this article! Valuable information! Organizations can't only depend on "AI", but rather they need to use "AI" to learn and understand the customer's needs and create a personalized connection with each customer.