Ask any organization how to achieve customer centricity, and cost figures immediately come to mind. Dedicated teams, comprehensive surveys, high-end analytics systems—it’s an expensive proposition.
A company recently asked what it means to be more customer centric, and the thought exercise resulted the company vowing to take a “back to basics” approach. In fact, organizations with large and small purse strings alike should take the basics to heart before extensive investment.
So what exactly do we mean by “back to basics”? There are many considerations, but among the most powerful: Simply ask the customer.
This isn’t to be confused with surveys and analyzing existing customer data and VOC, but literally having a conversation—talking to a customer specifically about an area your organization needs to improve upon.
We’ve profiled many simple, but effective, ways to learn directly from customers, but one of my favorites comes from Fidelity Investments.
During a live inbound call, reps conduct a two-question customer learning interview to determine the root cause of a customer pain point—in this case, why customers go online to start a transaction but need to finish it in the phone channel. It’s only two questions, but Fidelity reaps a wealth of data. Here’s how it works:
The first question identifies customers that experienced the pain point of channel switching. Simply, “We’re trying to learn more about how our customers interact with Fidelity; before calling us, did you try to do this online?” That’s it. This is a basic qualifying question used specifically to learn from customers, not push them to self-serve.
Customers answering “yes” are then asked, “Why do you think you weren’t able to complete the interaction online?” Based on what the customer says, the information is categorized as either a technical issue, or a navigation/wording issue.
This elementary root cause is passed to the Web team, which is now better positioned to address the issues plaguing customers.
If the customer answers “no,” and the functionality exists to resolve that issue, the rep asks customers if they were aware of the functionality. Indeed, Fidelity often finds customers do not know about this functionality. A quick explanation might happen here, but more often, Fidelity creates a targeted awareness campaign for its broader customer base.
So back to that second question… If customers answer “no,” and the functionality doesn’t exist, then customers are asked if they would feel comfortable self-serving on that issue. Such data helps the product team make the right investments in self-service functionality.
Fidelity conducts these interviews once per quarter and with only a small group of reps. But in a very short timeframe, Fidelity gains valuable knowledge about what works and what doesn’t in its self-service offering.
Forget a 6 month consulting engagement, forget extensive focus groups—this simple exercise yields valuable direct customer input that traditional means wouldn’t uncover.
In conducting these customer learning interviews, Fidelity sees Web improvements with significant returns. For example, this exercise led it to streamline online PIN-reset functionality which reduced call volume by 8% and improve PIN-reset completions by 29%.
So ask first. Let customers lead you to improvements. You’ll be doing yourself a favor by saving significant funds and taking massive strides toward customer centricity.
CCC Members, Use the following links to find more details on Fidelity’s customer learning interviews ,the impact of channel switching on the customer experience , and National Australia Group’s outbound customer feedback sessions.
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