blog.walkerinfo.com

B L O GBOOK

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Blog Book 1

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Customer FoCused InnovatIon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

engagIng the enterprIse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

LoyaLty In the WorkpLaCe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

reLatIonshIp management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

vaLuabLe aCCounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24

Customer FeedbaCk anaLysIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28

LIstenIng to Customers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34

managIng strategIC aCCounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38

turnIng FeedbaCk Into aCtIon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

tabLe oF Contents

Walker’s Vice President of Customer Experience, discusses new innovations for leveraging the customer perspective to drive business

blog.walkerinfo.com/blog/customer-focused-innovation

by LesLIe pageL

Customer FoCused InnovatIon

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Customer-drIven or Customer-FoCused?

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Although subtle, there is a difference that can change the way the customer insight is used.

Customer-driven allows the customer behind the steering wheel. In extreme examples, this includes putting the customer in charge of the business model, the solution capabilities, and the pricing model. The customer makes the decisions and the employees carry them out.

Customer-focused keeps the employee behind the steering wheel and the customer in charge of the map. This approach allows the customer to influence the direction, but the ultimate decision and responsibility comes from the employee.

Voice of the customer programs help identify where to focus improvements and areas to leverage in the marketplace. They are the map. But, it is up to the employee to use the map to achieve sustainable business results.

Blog Book 1

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Customer toLeranCe

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Have you considered your customer’s tolerance for interacting with service and support?

one way to think about customer tolerance is to consider the perceived complexity of the issue that prompted the support interaction. That is, the customer’s view of complexity – not your view.

We recently looked at this for one company and found the following:

• Customer experience scores are the lowest when the issue is perceived to be not at all complex. This likely reflects a lower tolerance for having to interact with support in the first place.

• The experience is the highest when there is some perceived complexity, but starts to drop when the issue gets extremely complex. This drop is likely due to an increase in the time and effort to resolve the issue.

What does this tell a company?

In some ways it supports the notion of customer effort. Why should a customer need to contact support for simple issues? And, for complex issues, the customer will only tolerate so much.

What say you?

7

Monday, June 8, 2009

Throughout my career in customer consulting, I’ve heard many descriptions of customer loyalty, but the one that is most memorable was explained using the analogy of a marriage.

Walker is a strategy consulting firm that is focused on helping companies achieve business results through a better understanding of the voice of the customer.

one tool that we use to help our clients with their customer retention programs is a loyalty matrix.

The loyalty matrix is comprised of two key components. 1) An understanding of how customers feel about the company (the y-axis) and 2) an understanding of how customers will behave in the future (the x-axis).

like customers, marriages can be segmented using a similar framework.

truly Loyal – These are the couples who are happily married and will likely stay together for the long term. Notice how I said “likely stay together.” like customers, things can change in any relationship. But, for the most part, you can plan on the two staying together in the foreseeable future.

trapped – Have you ever been to a wedding and thought, “these two should not be getting married?” If so, that would describe the trapped group. These couples are going to continue in the relationship, but they are not very happy together. As with customers, you can count on the marriage in the short term, but if things don’t change and another opportunity presents itself, they are likely to part ways.

high risk – These are the 40% of marriages that end in divorce. For companies, these customers are searching for alternatives to the products and services you provide and are headed out the door.

accessible – This group is generally very small (for both marriages and customers). These are couples who decide to part ways because of a situation beyond their control. They are in love, but for whatever reason (e.g., past marriage, kids, etc.) they are not able to stay together. If the reason for their break-up changes, you wouldn’t be surprised to see them renew their vows again.

What are some memorable ways you’ve heard customer loyalty explained?

Customer LoyaLty – a memorabLe expLanatIon

AT

TIT

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BEHAVIOR

truly Loyal

trapped

accessible

high risk

Blog Book 1

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Why don’t CompanIes respond to surveys LIke they do soCIaL medIa?

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

I recently watched a demo of CoTweet, an application that helps companies manage the work flow of listening and responding to online conversations.

Since the demo, I’ve been thinking about the difference in how companies are embracing the communication with their customers on social platforms versus how they embrace the communication with their customers from survey platforms.

over the past several years, there has been increased involvement from companies (both B2B and B2C) on social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, online communities, forums, and crowdsourcing tools.

This involvement is centered around having an online presence for purposes of managing their reputation, supporting customers, creating customer value, and driving customer-focused innovation.

For years, these same companies have been asking customers to share feedback via other channels, like surveys.

Based on my experience in customer listening, I haven’t seen the same level of excitement in responding to individual feedback received from a survey as I’m seeing in responding to individual feedback received through social media channels. (To be clear, I’m not saying that companies are not responding to feedback from surveys, but I do see a difference in how they are embracing the need to respond.)

Why is this?

I suspect this is largely because online conversations are conducted in a public forum. But, is this the right justification? Regardless of the platform, a customer is communicating to a company and in most cases, they want some assurance that they are being heard regardless of the platform they use to communicate.

I think another aspect is time. Sifting through thousands of surveys to identify which ones need a response and which ones don’t takes time. What if there was a tool, like CoTweet, to help manage that communication work flow from surveys? Would that eliminate the time barrier?

What do you think? Do you think there is a difference in how companies are embracing the need to communicate on social platforms versus surveys?

Pat gibbons, Senior Vice President of Marketing, will focus on communication tactics, marketing efforts and areas aimed at getting people jazzed about loyalty initiatives in their company.

blog.walkerinfo.com/blog/engaging-the-enterprise

by patrICk gIbbons

engagIng the enterprIse

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Thursday, September 2, 2010

The Johari Window is a fairly well known cognitive psychological tool to understanding relationships. It basically contends there are things that you know about yourself and things you don’t. As well, there are things others know about you and things they don’t know about you. When you combine these into a simple matrix, there are some practical observations.

• arena – There are things about you that everybody knows – your hair color, your eyes, your height, weight, etc.

• blind spot – There are things that others know about you, but you may not see, such as annoying habits or shortcomings.

• Façade – There are things you know that others don’t – your habits, your secrets.

• unknown – There are even things you don’t know about yourself and others don’t know – subconscious things that make you do the things you do.

The Johari Window has an interesting lesson for our customer relationships. often one of the biggest obstacles customer advocates face in getting people engaged and using voice-of-the-customer information is that they trust themselves. Relationship managers, product managers, marketers, service professionals–we can all fall into the trap of believing we instinctively understand the viewpoint of our customers.

No matter how hard we try, we will never know everything. We will never completely know their perspective. That’s why we ask them. We invite their insights. That’s why we develop customer listening programs. We encourage their insights so we can better understand their needs. If we can capture it and deliver it to the right people, our organizations will be more customer focused and perform better in the marketplace.

Do some of your people think they have it all figured out? Maybe you could provide a new “window” or view of their customers to open them up to building a better business through the use of customer insights.

a neW (JoharI) WIndoW on your Customers

Blog Book 1

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passIon – a proFound IngredIent

Friday, August 27, 2010

Funny thing – I can’t recall mentioning passion in my previous writing.

And yet, when it comes to getting people in your company engaged around customer insights, I can’t think of a mor e profound ingredient.

last night was ‘meet the teacher’ night at my children’s high school. Several of the teachers spoke about how they loved their jobs. one talked about her conversion to teaching from the corporate world and how she never looked back. This was not some rehearsed speech suggested by the administration. It was genuine. It was passion.

Do we have passion? Do customer advocates display passion for customers and for the performance gains that can be achieved by their company? The good news is that the work we do is really passion-worthy. A win-win. Customers benefit from better service, solutions, experiences, and relationships while the company benefits from improved processes and results.

At Walker, we have the privilege of working with a lot of cool companies and impressive people. The most impressive are the customer advocates and customer strategists that exude passion. They are doing more than running a voice of the customer program. They are passionate about their customers and how their insights can drive business success. Their passion is transformed into an effective business strategy. And, their passion is contagious – other sense it and it shows in how they put customer insights to use to drive decisions.

A little passion goes a long way.

P.S. Found one - This blog had plenty of passion in it – 360 high school girls each donating six inches of hair for a worthy cause - that’s passion!

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Saturday, May 22, 2010

Is Net Promoter engaging? What about other metrics? What motivates an organization to make more customer focused decisions?

Net Promoter is a simple metric. People like that. However, while NPS can be engaging, it often doesn’t tie to business metrics and typically isn’t very actionable. loyalty metrics are more robust and relevant. But you know what? They are even useless if the users of customer information are not engaged.

Putting the debate aside, here are three thoughts when considering customer metrics:

1. Find the right customer metric. That will depend on your industry and your business. We have a number of clients for which we calculate metrics for loyalty, Net Promoter, commitment, and much more. We do this to determine the most relevant customer information that ties to business performance.

2. use the metric effectively. Too often the metric alone is a shallow rally cry. Naturally, for it to be engaging you have to understand what is driving it and what actions will make it move.

3. get people engaged. Armed with the right metric and an understanding of what drives it, customer advocates can really engage the users of customer information. The Hierarchy of Engagement is an appropriate framework for the use of a rallying metric – if people are aware of it, understand it, and believe in it, they will take action.

The debate about Net Promoter, loyalty, and other metrics is relevant, but sometimes I think we get caught up in analyzing the metric as opposed to the way we can get people engaged to use customer information in the most productive ways to improve business performance.

raLLyIng around the rIght metrIC

Blog Book 1

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raLLyIng around the rIght metrIC – 3 key IngredIents

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Choosing right customer metrics, using them effectively and getting people engaged around them. That was the topic of my most recent blog.

I got to thinking about the importance of having all three ingredients in a voice-of-the-customer strategy and considered what happens when just one of the three is missing. This chart is what emerged:

In each of the first three scenarios, only one of the ingredients is missing, but it makes a big difference in a how an organization puts customer insights to use. The outcomes are clearly not ideal.

However, when all the ingredients are in place, there is focus on the right strategies, decisions, and initiatives. The organization is improving the right customer experiences that drive business performance.

SC

EN

AR

IO

EN

GA

GE

D U

SE

RS

RIG

HT

US

E

RESULT

RIG

HT

ME

TR

IC

1 Users aren’t engaged, lack of action,accountability, and follow up

2 Users engaged around the metric.May not be focused on the right actions.

3 Metric doesn’t connect to the business.Analysis and action not driving results.

4 Customer focused strategies,decisions, and performance

Chris Woolard, Walker’s employee loyalty expert shares his thoughts on all things related to employees and the workplace.

blog.walkerinfo.com/blog/loyalty-in-the-workplace

by ChrIs WooLard

LoyaLty In the WorkpLaCe

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Wednesday, July 28, 2010

My friend sent me the poster below. I thought it was funny, but then started to think there are companies out there that operate like this. I can’t tell you how many management debrief sessions I have been in where the senior leader makes a joke about firing all the unhappy employees. Everyone gives a nervous laugh and we move on.

Unfortunately, organizations operate this way. I remember a project I worked on a couple of years ago. The company hired us to conduct an employee survey because they knew they had a major morale problem. Part of that problem arose because the last time they conducted an employee survey, the employees completed the survey, placed it in a sealed envelope, and turned it in to a central drop box. Then the President’s admin took all of the employee questionnaires, opened them in plain sight of everyone, read through the each, and handed the President certain surveys. The company clearly operated like the poster below.

Far too often employees feel the employee loyalty survey is designed to be a witch hunt and are afraid to answer questions or provide demographic information. This is unfortunate for two reasons. First, organizations can’t solve problems if they don’t know about them. Without getting accurate information from the survey, the organization can’t take specific actions to improve employee engagement. Second, it speaks to a lack of trust between the employer and employee.

This lack of trust is common but no less unfortunate. organizations need to work to remove the “us versus them” mentality but a “we are in this together” mentality. I think this takes a bit of a leap of faith for most employees but it also comes from strong leaders who can foster this type of environment. They can foster this type of environment be being open and honest, walking the talk, and putting aside their personal agendas and egos (see my blog on leadership based on a talk from Tony Dungy for more examples on how to be a good leader).

As an FYI, these posters came from www.despair.com. If you are bored, check this site out (on personal time of course), there is some pretty funny stuff there.

FIre’em aLL

Blog Book 1

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are you FeeLIng It yet?

Thursday, April 29, 2010

I have been preaching for a year about the mass exodus on the way for many companies. Are you feeling it yet?

I have a couple of friends that have already left their jobs this year and a few others looking. In this small, very biased sampling, all of them left because they felt they did not have a future at their current company. The prevailing thought was they could stay in their current job and have a very safe career, with little opportunity for advancement and receipt of small cost of living adjustments each year. or they could seize the opportunity and see what new adventure was in store.

This is consistent to what I have read as well, employees are leaving because they have been asked to take on more work, for little to no additional pay, no cost of living increases, and little hope for advancement.

As the economy turns around, you would hope companies would start making money again, which Senior leaders promise will lead to pay increases and advancement. However, I think this is a gamble employees are no longer willing to take. This elusive brass ring somewhere down the road is no longer enough to keep employees.

I put together Walker’s data for every client’s employee survey over the past two years and the Truly loyalty percent was 43%. Nationally, I have never seen the percent Truly loyal higher than 34%. This tells me companies that are doing the right things to engender employee engagement are reaping what they sow and seeing very high percentages of Truly loyal employees.

How many employees have you lost this year? 5%? 10%? 15%? MoRE??? What are you doing about it? Are you accepting it as a “just the way it is” or are you taking steps to strengthen employee loyalty? Companies should have been thinking about this 12 months ago, but there is no better time than today to start focusing on how you can keep your top talent.

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Wednesday, September 15, 2010

I love watching movies. Thus, I had been a member at Blockbuster for years and was a member of Blockbuster.com for a long time. As Blockbuster continued to fold, I came to the light and joined Netflix. What a decision, streaming movies instantly through my Wii, on my computer, or even on my iPhone is so cool, and then I get movies through the mail as well. Netflix continues to dominate the industry with its creative and innovative approach to movies.

A colleague of mine sent me an article about Netflix’s PTo policy. Basically Netflix does not have a PTo/holiday policy. You take what you need, as long as your work is done and you have communicated with the appropriate people that you will be out of the office. Now let me get this right, they are treating people like human beings, expecting them to make good decisions, and giving them the freedom to manage their job in a way that helps the company and allows them to achieve work/life balance. This is crazy talk. What happened to the days when the company knew better than the employee on when the employee could work and how they should work?

If you don’t sense the sarcasm that is too bad, because I am laying it on pretty thick. Why don’t companies get this? I do not understand why this is such a difficult concept for most organizations to get. You provide a structure for employees to work within and then give them freedom to work within that structure. If they abuse that freedom, they are gone. If you don’t trust that your employees can work within that structure and freedom, why in the world did you hire them and why are you keeping them?

If you haven’t seen it, Netflix has a 128 page PPT articulating their culture. I love this quote in the PPT “We should focus on what people get done, not how many hours or days worked. Just as we don’t have a nine to five day policy, we don’t need a vacation policy.”

The days of clocking in and out are long gone, however I do not feel management styles have adjusted accordingly. I had a client where a specific department manager required his employees to work 45 hours a week. The employee loyalty for this group was horrible. What the manager should have done is laid out the goals and objectives of the group and then let the group work what was needed to achieve those goals and objectives. Several employees stated they could get their work done in 35 hours but were forced to find something to do just so they could say they worked 45 hours. After some training for that manager, the next time we conducted the survey, employee loyalty had improved for that department. These were highly skilled, difficult to replace employees so the impact the improvement of employee morale had on the company was quite significant.

netFLIx pto poLICy

Jeff Marr, Vice President of Consulting Services, shares his thoughts on the importance of building, managing, and growing relationships with customers.

http://blog.walkerinfo.com/blog/relationship-management

by JeFF marr

reLatIonshIp management

Blog Book 1

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Friday, September 3, 2010

Beginning over a decade ago, the Trusted Advisor concept became a pinnacle for strategic sales and account managers to reach. David Maister’s book increased awareness of the term. Trusted Advisor generally means earning your customers’ trust and commitment -- seeing you as an ally, with the customer’s interests at heart as opposed to strictly your own.

This takes a different angle than customer focus. one can be focused on a customer or prospect without their best interests at heart, much the way the predator snake focuses on its prey. Most people can eventually discern the intent behind the interest someone shows them.

one test for being trustworthy in strategic selling is taking enough time to listen and think about the customer’s problem and implications before offering a solution. Unfortunately, the tendency instead is to offer “premature solutions,”according to Neil Rackham, author of the classic, Spin Selling. In this interview with thought leader Charles H. green, Rackham says we are often too eager solving the customer’s problems with our products, services and tools before investing more detailed listening and consideration that their issue warrants.

The 80s comedy, “What about Bob?” is a family favorite for us and depicts a scene that illustrates giving “premature solutions” and worse. Egocentric therapist Dr. leo Marvin (Richard Dreyfuss) offers new patient Bob Wiley (Bill Murray) a solution for Bob’s numerous neuroses, after only a few minutes into his observing and questioning of the patient. Standing at his bookshelf Dr. Marvin says that there’s a groundbreaking new book that can help Bob.... that he has it here somewhere..... oh here it is! Dr. Marvin then pulls from an entire shelf-full of identical copies his own brand new book on the therapy he is recommending.

Bob Wiley overlooked Dr. Marvin’s duplicity but it’s just a movie and his character was quite neurotic. Strategic customers and prospects are more perceptive. It won’t help building trust if we prematurely offer customers our favorite or core product as “just happening” to be the right solution for them.

you Can soLve Customer probLems too Fast

Blog Book 1

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Customer advoCaCy – Can It be overdone?

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

To some it may sound like heresy, but I think you can advocate too strongly for your customer. Years ago at a certain business services company, the scuttlebutt regarding one of the most senior and otherwise respected SAMs (including at high levels) was, “Has Ralph (not real name) forgotten who he works for?” Perhaps that’s the point where advocacy has crossed a line – when colleagues indicate you are asking too much for your customer, or your company is simply not yet ready to give all you are seeking, or both.

That’s why I really like the term, “Balanced advocate” in describing successful strategic account managers. The “balanced” description cuts at least a couple of different ways. First, the SAM instigates good practices on both sides of the relationship – with groups and individuals in his own company as well as with contacts and user groups within the customer account. Secondly, the SAM is balanced in the asking–able to strongly advocate for the customer and acknowledge the situation and goals of the supplier company.

When the Strategic Account Management Association’s annual Standards and Practices Survey recently asked SAMs and strategic account program managers for the traits and behaviors that most contribute to SAM success, the notion of balanced advocacy came out as one type of critical practice. But the three other essential practices implied the importance of working well on both sides of the customer relationship.

Four sam behaviors most contributing to success

1. be the balanced advocate for the customer – but don’t forget who you work for! Align resources to achieve the customer’s desired outcomes.

2. build the team on your side and manage it effectively – this ideally includes a mix of direct reports for core contacts and responsibilities but a host of supporting contributors from other functions and regions.

3. guide your company to contribute according to the customer’s most important priorities. The SAM knows the customer’s business and how they make money from your products and solutions. the SAM knows their top challenges and plans and where your company fits in.

4. build up trust with the customer – build relationships, collaborative planning of solutions and initiatives, and prove out the value being delivered in order to seal the trust.

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Friday, August 7, 2009

Managers or trainers of strategic account managers (SAMs) all look for certain traits needed by a prospective SAM because the job has unique challenges. SAMs must not only build business relationships within complex, global customer organizations, they must become influential in their own company to marshal cooperation and resources for their customer(s).

In helping the Strategic Account Management Association analyze results from their 2010 Standards and Practices Study, we were surprised that SAMs and managers focused on just four topics when writing in suggestions regarding traits that contribute most toward successful strategic account managers.

1. strategic thinker with a business mind-set – Visionary. Have financial acumen. Able to learn the customer business model quickly, not only in terms how they make money, but also how the supplier solution(s) help them do so. Confident working with senior executives on both sides of the business relationship between the customer and supplier.

2. persistent with the drive to succeed and lead – have the inner fortitude it takes to wade through obstacles and time required to build the business relationships. Many SAMs fight their biggest battles internally, such as when a local sales group won’t adhere to a global approach desired by the customer. New SAMs are expected to stay in the job at least five or so years.

3. Communicator and relationship builder – great listener. SAMs must be willing to be up front and visible to their own colleagues as well as to decision makers in business units of the customer. Many customer relationships are salvaged because the SAM ramps up the visibility of his company solving problems with and for the customers.

4. honest and sincere – Ethical. Trustworthy and reliable. SAMs are seasoned business people given enormous latitude by the employer as well as the customer, and wind up responsible for a critical amount of business as the relationship grows. By definition the SAM works fairly independently and have influence over extensive resources. They simply must be worthy of trust.

The vast majority of recommended traits for SAM success from the voice of actual practitioners fit into these four buckets. This implies making these four areas the foundation for recruiting and developing SAMs.

Four keys to suCCessFuL sams

Phil Bounsall, Walker’s President, discusses business-impacting customer strategies.

blog.walkerinfo.com/blog/valuable-accounts

by phIL bounsaLL

vaLuabLe aCCounts

25

Friday, September 3, 2010

Most companies would be quick to tell you just how customer-focused they are. Most of their customers might beg to differ. In fact, in a recent study we found that 90% of executives feel that their company is customer focused, yet not even two-thirds of them use customer insights in making strategic decisions.

Many companies seem to be like ostriches, choosing to put their heads in the sand and not listen to their customers. It’s better to know! Many of the most successful companies are more like owls, using a very keen sense of hearing to listen to their customers and react accordingly. (An owl can hear a mouse step on a twig from 75 feet away.)

Companies spend huge marketing budgets to attract new customers, yet sometimes can ignore their existing ones. Another example that comes to mind is the way in which cities spend their economic development dollars. Cities give tax breaks and all sorts of incentives to attract new businesses. What is done to retain businesses that are already there providing jobs? What are companies doing to listen to their existing customers and build on the relationships that they have worked so hard to develop?

Remember, it’s better to know! If you don’t currently have various listening posts in place to really understand what your customers think, do it now. Waiting or procrastinating or trying to convince yourself that you are customer-focused only causes a delay in enjoying the rewards of being customer-focused. Most companies have a significant percentage of customers that are ready to leave them and they don’t even know who they are.

Want an uptick in your business performance? Be an owl. listen to your customers and build customer strategies that are good for them and good for you. You will notice the difference quickly.

ostrICh or oWL?

Blog Book 1

26

WouLd you rather be a Customer or a prospeCt?

Monday, August 30, 2010

Companies treat prospects inordinately better than they treat customers. This might be understandable since we all know that good prospects come at a real premium today. But is it acceptable?

It reminds me of the story of the person who dies after living a life that confused those that were to make the decision about where he would spend the afterlife. Confused them so much that they decided to give him a “look-see” at his options. So the sent him first to spend a day in hell.

He arrived to everything he enjoyed during his life on earth — great food, beautiful golf courses, terrific music played in perfect venues, and on and on. And the guy in charge? He was terrific too — welcoming, charming, adaptable, the perfect host.

Day 2 arrived and his decision-makers started to send him in to see heaven for a day.

“No thanks,” he said. “I am good with hell. It’s everything I could ask for, so just send me there.” Space being at a premium, they complied with his wishes.

He arrived to find quite a different setting than the day before. It was horrible! It was worse than everything he had been taught to expect—hot, everyone toiling, no food (let alone the great food he was treated to just one day earlier). He found his host (who displayed none of his grace from the day before) and confronted him.

“Hey, yesterday, there were golf courses, great meals, the music was inspiring. Where is all of that? What happened?!?”

With a wry smile his host said simply, “Yesterday, you were a prospect. Today, you are a customer.”

It happens in real life too. Think about businesses like mobile phone carriers. Who gets the best deals? The new customers. If you are already a customer, you are still paying rates from the time you signed your contract. And unless you know to ask about new services and offerings, you don’t enjoy them.

Another way this pops up is with what I think of as “campaign promises.” When chasing a prospect, companies make all kinds of promises. once the prospect becomes a customer, are those promises kept? or are they as fleeting as campaign promises made by politicians?

Think hard about the way that customers are treated. Revenue earned from customers is far more certain than revenue that might be earned from prospects. Shouldn’t they be treated at least as well?

27

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

The difference between first and everyone else at the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race is so slim that even the tiniest of adjustments can make the difference. In fact, the difference between the qualifying run for this year’s winner of the pole position, Helio Castroneves, and Will Power who starts in the second position was .392 miles per hour. The qualifying run is 10 miles, so that difference translates to total time difference to run those 10 miles of just .27 of a second. The difference between the time it took to cover 10 miles for a great qualifying run and the coveted pole position and a horrible run ending in qualifying in the 33rd and last spot was just 3.622 seconds.

How do the best teams eke out these precious tenths of seconds? A walk along the lanes’ pits gives some insight into this question. All the teams are equipped with telemetry stations that allow instant feedback from the cars and drivers to be analyzed. The better teams have clearly more sophisticated telemetry. The teams that outperform are collecting and analyzing more measures and more sophisticated measures. They are also focused on the measures that are relevant to achieving their goal—making the car go faster in the conditions under which they are driving. more sophisticated and relevant measures, more speed.

Along the pits you will also see the teams focusing their attention on the measures and how to react to what the measures are telling them. The teams that develop and execute strategies that are very focused on the relevant measures, and are responsive to the current state of the measures will find more speed. The teams that take a more random approach, and try anything and everything are likely to struggle to qualify fast. more responsive and focused strategies, more speed.

our businesses are no different. We need to develop metrics that are sophisticated and relevant. Measuring complex relationships with simplified metrics will give you a score, but likely not more performance. Developing strategies that are frequently changing and not responsive to the right measures is, at best, inefficient. And, it might be harmful. To succeed and outperform our competitors, we must put in place the right measures —sophisticated and relevant—and adopt strategies that are focused and responsive to those measures. That’s the way we will hit our goals.

the FIne LIne betWeen FIrst and everyone eLse

Walker’s analytic experts will present ideas about gathering customer feed-back to deriving insights from it that will positively impact your customers and your business.

blog.walkerinfo.com/blog/customer-feedback-analysis.

by amy heLeIne, beCCa LeWIs, troy poWeLL, JessICa gregory, Cortney Lantry

Customer FeedbaCk anaLysIs

Walker’s analytic experts will present ideas about gathering customer feed-back to deriving insights from it that will positively impact your customers and your business.

blog.walkerinfo.com/blog/customer-feedback-analysis.

by amy heLeIne, beCCa LeWIs, troy poWeLL, JessICa gregory, Cortney Lantry

Customer FeedbaCk anaLysIs

29

Jessica gregory – Tuesday, June 29, 2010

A month ago, my husband and I went to see “Iron Man 2”. Halfway through the movie, the projector in the theater began having some technical issues, and after about five minutes, the movie stopped playing completely. Frustrating, but at least it wasn’t during a particularly action-packed or climactic part of the movie, and the movie was playing perfectly again in less than three minutes.

After the movie, as we exited the theater, we were greeted by a supervisor. He apologized for the interruption to our movie and handed us complimentary tickets that we could use for any movie we wanted at any time. That was so unexpected to me, but a gesture that I’ve told everyone about.

As I got to thinking about it, this was a great customer service move by the management at the movie theater. Sure, it cost them money to give everyone in the theater a free ticket, but they successfully turned a negative transaction into a positive transaction for their customers (at least in my mind). This probably saved the theater money in the long-run! An article I read recently supports this; it found that negative critical incidents can lead to declining satisfaction and altered purchasing behavior over time, even for long-term customers. This is because negative incidents cause customers to reflect on and reconsider the relationship with the company in a way they may not if it is “business as usual”. therefore, managers should be on the lookout for customers who have recently experienced a negative event and should strive to resolve it in a positive manner.

In the case of the movie theater, a minor irritation was turned into a gesture that let me know I was a valued customer and subsequently increased my satisfaction with my experience. The manager definitely took the right steps to increase the loyalty of his customers. Would your company handle a negative incident in a similar way?

reference: van Doorn, Jenny and Peter C. Verhoef (2008). “Critical Incidents and the Impact of Satisfaction on Customer Share,” Journal of Marketing, Vol. 72 (July 2008), pgs. 123-142.

at the movIes – a Lesson In Customer servICe

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hoW to suCCeed In busIness – mergers & aCquIsItIons edItIon

mark ratekin – Monday, June 7, 2010

In a recent article for BusinessWeek, Mark Johnson discusses mergers and acquisitions and how to increase the probability of success. Johnson points out the familiar statistic that 80% of acquisitions fail to create value for the acquiring company; the reason, Johnson hypothesizes, is that firms fail to realize what they are buying. In Johnson’s words:

“When one company buys another, what it’s really purchasing is the target company’s business model — its customer value proposition, its profit formula, its resources, and its processes.”[i]

Johnson outlines that two types of acquisitions can occur:

1. acquisition of resources – The acquiring firm is essentially purchasing technology, capabilities, etc., that are then integrated into the acquiring firm’s existing business model. Cisco Systems (a Walker client) is noted as following this path.

2. acquisition of a business model – The acquiring firm is purchasing the business model of the target; in this case, the acquisition is generally kept separate from the acquiring firm. Resources (capital, for example) of the acquirer are leveraged to help jettison the growth of the purchased firm. Best Buy’s purchase of geek Squad is given as an example.

This premise is interesting and makes sense; we would offer some additional observations to add to the analysis:

1. What about customers? Critical to understanding the aspects of the business model as addressed by Johnson (i.e., customer value proposition, profit formula, resources, processes) is how customers fit into that model. For example:

a. How loyal are the customers to the organization? We have found customer loyalty (that is, the likelihood for the customer to continue to purchase coupled with the level of commitment of the customer toward the firm) to be a strong predictor of future business success. Understanding the extent to which customers are loyal to the acquisition target is key to understanding the long-term viability of the firm’s profit model (and, therefore, the valuation of the firm at large).

b. What revenue flight risks exist within the organization? Suppose you are interested in acquiring a firm that has an excellent product; if the firm has had some service issues of late that has caused some level of degradation of customer loyalty, should you proceed with the purchase? There is no one-size-fits-all answer. For example – if the product is unique (that is, few competitive alternatives exist), customers are likely trapped in the short run, which means that the purchasing firm will likely have to invest aggressively from the onset; moreover, this approach carries risk – if a new entrant comes into the market, there could be great revenue flight. At a minimum, this could have a significant impact on the price of the acquisition.

If, on the other hand, plenty of competitive alternatives exist, it may make more sense to not complete the acquisition. Regardless of the outcome, the acquiring firm cannot make an informed decision without knowing the level of loyalty among the customer base and how the firm’s revenue aligns with the loyalty profiles.

c. How distinct are the customers relative to the acquiring firm’s customer base? Is the product or service provided by the acquired firm designed to offer new offerings

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to your existing customers, bring distinct (and new) customer segments to the firm, or some combination of the two? Consider the Walker growth Matrix: Simply put, this matrix decomposes four growth strategies into customer type and product/service offering components. This matrix can be helpful in identifying what type of growth we can expect the acquired company to provide.

Understanding this can help in the valuation of the acquisition, as it tells us how much wholly new revenue vs. incremental revenue to expect. In order to reliably estimate this, you need to understand your current customers as well as what needs (met and unmet) exist among the target firm’s customer base.

2. how complementary are the cultures? Johnson does make that case that understanding the culture is key to understanding the extent to which the two businesses can be effectively integrated – for example, an entrepreneurial culture will likely be suffocated if the acquiring firm is more structured/disciplined (the difference between being “disciplined” and “staid” is often in the eyes of the beholder).

Understanding the culture, combined with an understanding of the loyalty of the employee base of the acquired firm, will help to determine whether to fully integrate the acquired company or to keep it as a stand-alone entity. In addition, understanding the employee loyalty will also provide insight as to the likelihood that the firm will be able to continue to generate success – if the firm has been successful but the employee loyalty is low, then there is a heightened likelihood that the best days may be behind it due to the probability of post-acquisition employee defections. While that isn’t necessarily a reason to not consummate the deal, it again would likely have some influence on the tangible value of the firm. Do you see a theme emerging here?

Tying all this together, the advice we would offer on the topic of mergers and acquisitions to customer-focused firms is fairly straightforward:

1. don’t lose your sense of self – If you are a customer-focused firm, seek to acquire like-minded companies. While it is possible to successfully acquire a firm that is not customer-focused, the effort to achieve successful integration will be immense, and failure could have adverse impact on how customer-focused your current customers perceive your organization.

2. remember what you are buying – If the customer base of the target is a key aspect of the acquisition (and it absolutely is unless you are acquiring a specific technology that has not yet been introduced to the market), then take the time and make the necessary investment to optimally understand how loyal those customers are.

3. To integrate or not? – Examining the culture of the acquired firm (including the loyalty of its employees) can provide effective cues to whether or not an absorption acquisition model should be preferred over a stand-alone entity model.

4. Loop back after the acquisition – Regardless of which integration model you pursue, don’t forget to loop back after a reasonable period of time to see how customers and employees are feeling about the success of the acquisition. Use this information to quickly address any problem areas and to reinforce the importance that both customers and employees play in the long-term success of the firm.

Considering these aspects, in conjunction with the excellent guidance provided by Mark Johnson, will help increase your overall probability of a successful acquisition.

[i] Johnson, M. W. (2010, May 26). How to Succeed at M&A. Retrieved June 7, 2010, from Bloomberg Businessweek: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/may2010/id20100525_156769.htm?link_position=link16

EXISTING

GROWMARKETSHARE

MARKETEXPANSION

CUSTOMERRETENTION

CROSSSELLING

NEW

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the moderatIon oF Customer FoCus

troy powell, ph.d. – Friday, May 21, 2010

Without a doubt my favorite statistical effect is the moderator effect. The technical definition of a moderator effect is a “variable that affects the direction and/or strength of the relation between an independent or predictor variable and a dependent or criterion variable.” Everybody got that? Maybe an example will help.

Reality is that everybody thinks in terms of moderators all the time. Here’s a very common business example. let’s say you work in the marketing department of an international company, and you just completed an analysis that found customers’ purchase behaviors were strongly influenced by perceptions of how innovative your company is. However, you believe this effect may vary across regions and have your research team conduct regional analyses. Sure enough, you find that innovation perceptions are incredibly important in North America but much less important in Emerging Markets. You just found a moderator effect - Region moderates the effect of innovation perceptions on purchase behavior.

So, why am I giving you a brief statistics lesson? Well, we’ve spent the last three months on the customer feedback analysis section of this blog discussing customer centricity. We’ve effectively established the importance of a customer focused company culture and strategies (at least I hope we have), but there is one more important thing to discuss - not all companies will get the same benefit out of their customer orientation. In effect, the positive impact of customer focus on company performance is not the same in all contexts.

This means the business contexts and environments in which you operate can impact the level of customer orientation that your company should strive for. If your company operates in an environment with high returns at all levels of customer orientation, then it makes sense to put a lot of effort toward achieving the highest possible levels of customer focus as opposed to contexts where there are diminishing returns to higher levels of customer orientation.

Now is a good time to make a very important point, the best research suggests that customer orientation (as defined in my earlier blog on the topic) has an impact regardless of context, but the effect size does vary. And one more important point, before you go off and say that your company operates in a context where customer orientation isn’t very important, do some research. That may be your hypothesis, but do yourself and your company a favor be actually testing these assumptions before acting on them.

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There is secondary research out there to help you understand how your business environment may impact the effect of customer orientation. As with most areas of research, however, moderator effects are only investigated once we’ve clearly defined the concept and the overall effectiveness of it. Here are a few current hypothesized moderator effects that have received some empirical support so far:

• greater market turbulence (the speed at which customers and customer preferences are changing) increases the effect of customer orientation on business performance.

• greater technological turbulence (the speed of technological change) decreases the effect of customer orientation on business performance.

• More competitive markets see a stronger effect of customer orientation on business performance.

• Stronger macroeconomic performance decreases the effect of customer orientation on business performance. When the economy is weak (i.e., a recession) is the best time to increase your customer orientation.

• Regional and cultural differences have an impact on the effect of customer orientation with “Western” cultures having a stronger effect of customer orientation and “Eastern” having a weaker effect.

• The size of the economy in your home market has impact on the effect of customer orientation with larger economies having a stronger effect of customer orientation on business performance.

• Finally, mature markets demonstrate a stronger effect of customer orientation on business performance.

So, make sure your company has a strong customer focus, but be smart about how far you go and base this decision on empirical evidence, not what you think or what other companies are doing.

BTW, The existence of moderator effects is nearly universal, existing for almost all cause-and-effect relationships, which is a big reason why I believe blindly benchmarking yourself with specific best practices or norms comprised of unknown companies is not a best practice.

Members of Walker’s client service team discuss the different ways to listen to your customers.

blog.walkerinfo.com/blog/listening-to-customers

by krIsta roseberry, ChrIs sego, pameLa toFt

LIstenIng to Customers

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katie kiernan – Wednesday, May 5, 2010

I’ve seen several examples over the past six months of companies trying to define what the concept of “innovation” means. It’s a fair point of discussion, and one that gets a lot of air time with many of today’s top global organizations. The debate usually starts with someone asking about how the company even defines innovation. A quick online search led me to some interesting definitions.

The Wikipedia definition of innovation is “new stuff that is made useful.” Could it really be that simple? Even if defining it is easy, the challenge is obviously then in finding the “new stuff.” So, no matter how companies decide to define it, eventually the hunt for the magic bullet of innovation begins. Increasingly high competition, mature markets, the desire for corporations to develop market adjacencies, and the inevitable increase of the impact of globalization on companies are all factors driving the focus on innovation today.

A recent article by Michael S. Hopkins in the MIT Sloan Management Review draws on some very unique concepts of The four ways IT is revolutionizing innovation. There are a few ideas in this article that I think all companies can learn from in his message about the success of IT companies:

• There is a lot of data out there that IT companies just know how to tap into more effectively. They are also structured to be able to replicate and scale up innovations.

• There are numerous data points out there that can be analyzed today – ultimately measuring the customer experience on how innovations are performing is critical.

• Many IT companies have a culture of innovation, which is a critical component for success.

• There is a shift in focus from as much long-range planning to more short-term experimenting to uncover customer needs.

Innovation can naturally just be something some companies do best, while others continue to struggle to define what innovation means to them. I believe that even if you are not a naturally innovative company you can develop this culture – particularly with the help of customers to help you drive your most innovative strategies. Use customer insights to uncover how to innovate with new services, create new products, or how to improve operations. After all, each of these can be considered “new stuff”.

What Is InnovatIon?

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revItaLIzIng Customer LIstenIng

katie kiernan – Friday, July 16, 2010

“kudos” to all companies out there that have a customer listening program! While it seems like a general thing that nearly all companies do, in my experience I’ve found that many do not put enough focused energy into really listening to customers. It goes without saying that customers are the heart of any business, and a huge factor in how and if companies will be able to achieve growth. That said, even companies that have made customer listening a priority need to revitalize their efforts every few years. Here are a few keys to success for revitalizing your program.

1. make it a priority to measure success of current initiatives every few years. A full assessment of any customer initiative every few years can be eye opening. Measure success and confirm areas for improvement with regards to how information is gathered, how relevant it is to users, how it is communicated and validated, and ultimately if the right resources are in place to take action.

2. systematically ask internal users if the right information is being gathered from customers in order to take action. Ensure that lines of communication are always open between users of information and the central customer listening group.

3. assess kpIs and metrics annually to ensure that customer measurements are in alignment with company strategies. Strategies evolve over time, as should key performance indicators. At a minimum, make sure that what metrics are being tracked internally can be aligned and linked to customer feedback.

4. break through the clutter. This is easier said than done, but ensuring that information is relevant to a particular user or group will make all the difference. Providing internal stakeholders with information that can help them succeed in their positions will certainly get their attention. For executives, make sure that customer feedback is ultimately linked to how it can help the company succeed financially, particularly as it relates growth.

As with any change or revitalization effort, communication is the key. get buy-in from all critical people within your organization to ensure a smooth transition as changes are made.

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amanda Loyd – Monday, September 6, 2010

I recently moved to a new state, and during a week of the house hunting extravaganza, I stayed at a local hotel. Browsing my favorite travel website that rewards me for frequent bookings, I chose this hotel because it was convenient to the freeway, within my budget, and the pictures looked promising.

The hotel met my expectations. My only complaint was a slight mildew odor in the room because the exhaust fan wasn’t working properly. After mentioning this to the staff, they were happy to move me to a new room.

After my stay, I received an invitation to take one of those surveys measuring customer satisfaction. I noted the smell in the room, but I also made sure to note the excellent service I received from the staff. A month later, I received an email thanking me for participating and acknowledging my comments:

Ms. loyd,

I wanted to take a minute and thank you very much for filling out our online survey following your stay with us. We appreciate your comments regarding the smell of your room and sincerely apologize for the inconvenience that was caused to you. It is only by hearing feedback from our guests that I can work to improve service at our property. We hope that you enjoyed your stay with us here and hope to welcome you back in the near future.

This hotel understood the importance of listening to the voice of the customer and closing the loop on the feedback they receive – a quick email from the manager acknowledging my survey was unexpected and appreciated.

home aWay From home

by JennIFer batLey, mIChaeL good, noah grayson, bruCe kIdd, brad LInvILLe, sonya mCaLLIster

managIng strategIC aCCounts

Walker’s Strategic Account Managers share their thoughts and experiences managing accounts and relationships while leveraging the customer perspective.

blog.walkerinfo.com/blog/managing-strategic-accounts.

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sonya mcallister – Friday, August 20, 2010

A very smart, experienced businessman – a Senior Vice President in his company – told me last week that there is no customer loyalty in his industry. Can this be true? Are there certain industries where customers do not develop a certain affinity or alignment with their preferred providers and behave accordingly?

In this particular case, we had some evidence to refute his hypothesis. We were talking about the semiconductor industry which happened to be an industry where we conducted an assessment of the state of customer loyalty across the industry a few years ago. While customers are generally less loyal to their providers in this industry than what we see in others, there is proof that those companies within the semiconductor industry which excel at building customer loyalty are dramatically outperforming their peers on key financial measures. This chart depicts the difference in operating income - with the orange line showing the operating income performance for the most customer-focused semiconductor companies (growing at 82%) and the red line showing operating income performance for the least customer-focused companies (growing at only 15%). A pretty big difference, and we see the same results across many other financial measures.

Now, I get that customers who are buying semiconductor products are buying based on a lot of (primarily technical) factors. But, when your performance on these factors is in an acceptable range, then customer loyalty does come into play and makes a big difference in how a company performs.

We’ve conducted similar studies in many other industries, and we find the same pattern. We also work with companies in industries ranging from accounting firms to retailers and have yet to find an industry where there is no payoff in building customer loyalty. But, I’m intrigued by the idea – is there an industry out there where customer loyalty or the strength of customer relationships does not come into play?

oh, there’s no LoyaLty In my Industry

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sams + operatIonaL exCeLLenCe = proFItabLe groWth

Jennifer batley – Friday, May 14, 2010

While a lot of the thinking around growth focuses on acquiring new business, there is much to be gained from seeking out operational efficiencies that can drive profit and growth through more positive customer experiences and reallocated resources. In short, one of the best strategies to increase your odds of profitable growth is to ensure you are operating optimally. This applies as much to account management as it does to process and functional management: at Walker’s recent Client Forum in Aptos, CA, I shared two ways to ensure account-level operations are enabling the pursuit of profitable growth.

At the core, it’s about managing the cost to serve accounts: allocating our account management resources appropriately, and then turning newly available resources over to the systematic pursuit of profitable growth.

resourCe aLLoCatIonQuite simply, we need to match the right level of resources to the right customers. I think we would all agree that there are some accounts who are more or less deserving of our resources, but I’m not sure we’d all agree on which accounts are the “mores” and which are the “lesses.” Applying an established set of rules to categorize accounts based on elements beyond just their current value (ie, think about the future!) will allow SAM teams to strategically reallocate resources to improve profitability and capitalize on growth opportunities.

pursuIt oF groWthWith our resources now allocated appropriately, SAMs are in a position to do two things. First, those assigned to accounts with growth potential can begin actively pursuing any up-sell or cross-sell opportunities. And second, newly freed up resources can be redeployed to pursue new customer acquisition.

So what about your organization? Take a look at your SAM allocation – and if it’s out of balance, make the adjustments that will lead to greater growth.

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michael good – Thursday, August 6, 2009

The following statement was made during a recent conversation I was having with an organization:

“The Customer Experience program is only 20 percent of my job, and that goes for the two others on the team as well.”

Really?

As the conversation went on, it was brought up how it’s difficult to prioritize managing the customer experience with “all the other things” on their plates.

But it says right there on the home page of your website and scribed into the wall in the lobby of your headquarters that, “Taking care of our customers is our primary concern.” How do you do this on a less than full-time basis? Are you part-time managers of your customer experience? Your customers don’t look at their time with you as part-time or full-time, they are either with you or they aren’t. Is it fair to put a “part-time” effort into managing their voice?

This got me thinking, do we have part-time players with our clients or are they fully vested into the customer experience? As a quick-glance metric, I took a look at common job titles that exist with several of our clients, and needless to say, they are all in. Below are a few of those titles. If these titles all seem foreign to you, maybe it’s time you look around and possibly re-prioritize. give your customers’ voice some full time attention, you will be amazed at the rewards that it brings your organization.

Is LIstenIng to your Customers a part-tIme Job?

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above aLL eLse, keep It reLevant to them

brad Linville – Friday, August 13, 2010

Communicating is critical in a customer listening program, strategic account management, and frankly in each relationship in our lives. our company’s founder, Mrs. Tommie Walker Anderson, is often attributed with the saying “You’re 100% in control of your own actions, and 50% in control of all your relationships.” Today, I came across a story that is certainly humorous, but also emphasizes that different people have different relevancies and styles. This is all well and good in terming of variety being the spice of life and all – but it can create communication breakdowns and a lack of mutual success when one doesn’t consider what is relevant to the audience and individuals they are trying to engage.

The story comes from an actual class assignment given by an English professor from the University of Colorado. The creative writing professor told his class:

“Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting next to his or her desk. one of you will write the first paragraph of a short story. You will email your partner that paragraph and send another copy to me. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story and send it back, also sending another copy to me. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back-and-forth. Remember to re-read what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. There is to be absolutely No talking outside of the e-mails and anything you wish to say must be written in the e-mail. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached.”

Two students, Rebecca and Bill, were paired and the following is an actual excerpt of what they turned in:

(First paragraph by rebecca) At first, laurie couldn’t decide which kind of tea she wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now at all costs keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the question.

(second paragraph by bill) Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. “A.S. Harris to geostation 17,” he said into his transgalactic communicator. “Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far …” But before he could sign off a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship’s cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.

(rebecca) He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings

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for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. “Congress Passes law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel,” laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth, when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspaper to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her. “why must one lose one’s innocence to become a woman?” she pondered wistfully.

(bill) little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu’udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dimwitted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace disarmament Treaty through the Congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu’udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion, which vaporized even poor, stupid laurie.

So you get the point, right? The story begins to deteriorate into email bickering between Rebecca and Bill (making you believe they might actually be laurie and Carl) that’s pretty funny, but from which I will spare you. Upon reflection, I thought this humorous exchange nicely demonstrated that if either student had made the first step in understanding what was relevant to the other party, their collaboration (business parallel = teamwork toward a mutually beneficial outcome like increased customer loyalty and profitable growth) would have been much more successful.

got an example of how you tailored your message to the style and needs of your audience which led to a positive outcome? Please post a comment and share.

by kItty ConneLLy, brad harmon, meLIssa meIer

turnIng FeedbaCk Into aCtIon

Members of Walker’s client service team share their insights and experiences in turning customer feedback into actionable results.

blog.walkerinfo.com/blog/turning-feedback-into-action

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kitty radcliff – Wednesday, June 2, 2010

According to an Information Week article, Microsoft CEo Steve Ballmer’s #1 Competitive Statistic is that they win a disproportionately high market share of college recruits. He recognizes the importance of having top talent – seeing it as a key differentiator.

At Walker, we also recognize the importance of having the right players on the team. Recently I have witnessed the efforts of a team I work with come together and make the difference for our client. All team members are top notch and extremely committed to doing whatever it takes.

Although faced with a seemingly impossible task of making last minute changes, the group made it happen. They understand our process, as well as our client’s goals. They know how to leverage their expertise and our systems – and successfully developed a plan of attack. They are a great group of people and I’m honored to be able to work with them.

Ideally, the people leading your customer strategies would be a group of customer advocates who balance the tasks of executing customer feedback programs and acting on customer information in a way that generates results.

Your team might include those who …

• Believe in the value of being customer focused

• Encourage others to act on customer information

• Articulate the business impact of efforts

• Are committed to the success of your customer strategy initiative

Are the right people on your team?

Who Is your CompetItIve edge?

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are you kIddIng me?

brad harmon – Thursday, May 20, 2010

one struggle that seems common among most companies that gather feedback from their customers is how to best understand and use unstructured feedback (often called verbatim comments). on one hand, these comments are often the best way to truly understand an individual situation, as some customers will provide paragraphs of information describing their issues, concerns, and improvement suggestions. People love these comments. However, sometimes users of feedback will latch onto one or two comments and consider those representative of the entire customer universe, which can be dangerous, and flat out incorrect.

The best use of feedback is a balanced approach using both quantitative feedback to understand trends, strengths, weaknesses, and areas driving future behaviors, while leveraging the qualitative feedback to drill deeper once the focus has been narrowed. Traditionally that has required sifting through comments to categorize them by theme, and then identify meaningful ones based on the kind of customer, their experiences, and the prominence of their voice in the eyes of executives. However, we’re entering an age where much more can be done with customer commentary.

Technologies have emerged recently, with some initial human-based teaching and support, will automatically categorize customer comments. What’s more, software can also convert the comment into a quantitative form of feedback based on the tone of the comment (positive, neutral, or negative). linking this to other information about customers (revenue, profitability, loyalty, and other items), may potentially open many doors that have not been visible in the past.

The one shortcoming of these technologies to this point has been the ability to properly handle sarcasm, a common tactic that humans use, particularly when displeased with something to add even more of a negative tone to a comment. Most humans can pick up and interpret quickly, while machines have been prone to taking the comments at face value, and thus misinterpreting them.

So, a comment like: “great idea, now try again with a real product development team!”

... would likely be determined by a computer program as a positive comment, but you and I know this is a slam on a company’s product development team.

Fortunately, a team of researchers at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem appears to be on their way to address this potential issue with automated review of commentary. Called SASI (Semi-supervised Algorithm for Sarcasm Identification), the team has been able to recognize sarcasm among online product reviews with 77% accuracy, which is probably better than many humans could identify. Incorporating this into our ability to review, understand, and act upon comments, both individually and in aggregate, will surely help us capitalize on the feedback being provided by customers.

I’ll be watching closely to see how this technology progresses, and will continue to comment on the evolution of this in the future. Are there other technologies that you’re using to help take advantage of the feedback your customers provide? If so, I’d love to hear about them.

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melissa meier – Thursday, May 6, 2010

Most of you have probably seen the recent advertisements from Domino’s Pizza announcing their pizza turnaround. They owned up to the fact that people just didn’t like their pizza and used feedback from customers to change their pizza recipe. To learn more, check out my colleague’s blog on this topic from January.

I will be honest, prior to hearing about this change at Domino’s, it had probably been 10 years or more since I had even thought of calling Domino’s for delivery. But, I was intrigued by their creative advertising and confidence that if people gave them a second chance, the pizza would speak for itself. our family gave it a shot and we really did like the pizza. In our opinion, it really was much better!

My family is not the only ones that have been drawn in by the new approach. Domino’s recently announced their Q1 earnings and they are posting a record quarter of growth based on same store sales in the U.S. What a great example of using the voice of the customer to shape business strategies and drive growth!

roI oF pIzza Improvements

301 Pennsylvania Parkway Indianapolis, Indiana 46280 Telephone: 1.800.334.3939 International: +1.317.843.3939 www.walkerinfo.com

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about WaLker

Walker specializes in customer loyalty and related customer strategies, including innovative approaches to segmenting, valuing, obtaining, serving, and growing customers. Walker’s diverse team of consultants provides tailored, comprehensive solutions to help companies achieve their business objectives and, ultimately, grow shareholder value. Walker’s consultants regularly conduct workshops and assessment programs to help organizations improve their ability to administer customer listening programs.

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• Adobe• Avaya• Avnet• Brightpoint• Castrol• CDW• Cisco• D&B• Dow AgroSciences

• ExactTarget• EMC• IHS• McAfee• Motorola• NCR• NetApp• Pepsi• Tetra Pak

The Walker Index is a stock index comprised of current Walker clients. Companies are included in the index only during their tenure as Walker clients. Companies attracted to Walker are committed to using the customer perspective as an impactful management tool. The Walker Index indicates these companies outperform the broad markets.

For more information about the Walker Index, please visit www.walkerinfo.com