Want to better understand customers? Do less quantitative and more qualitative research.

Tags

Continuous Improvement, Customer Research, Qualitative, Quantitative

We all want to understand our customers better. Many, if not most of us, have moved to some type of customer feedback / experience tools.

It is relatively easy to analyze the numbers. We can add them up. They can be sliced and diced. We can quantitatively compare them to other companies and our industry. We are all about the numbers. I admit, I am too. I am a big Moneyball fan.

How much qualitative research are we doing. Here are a couple of ideas. They will take a different level of effort but may improve, perhaps radically, the quality of our research.

• Here is a tough one. Take your customer list and randomly sort it. Divide it up among the executive team, including the CEO. Have the executive team call 5 customers a week. Give them a few open ended questions to ask. Ask them to summarize the calls and report back next week. I guarantee that if it is done for 3 months faithfully, things will change.
• Customers are calling you, many times to complain. Find a way to summarize the incoming calls and create a continuous improvement system. Things will change.
• Devote X % of your call center to make outbound calls to do something similar to what your executive team is doing. Summarize the results and share it with the executive team. Things will change.

Want to better understand customers? Do less quantitative and more qualitative research.

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Unifying donor data and creating actionable insight

Tags

Donor Data, Insight, Integration, Strategy

Smart Data

Even 2 pieces of unified data is more powerful than one. Having a plan for the most valuable sources and at least integrating some of the data will move insight ahead.

Let’s be honest. This is just plain difficult. I’m a small business. I believe in the value of integrated data. But it is painful and difficult. I use one tool a lot. It is call email. I have another tool for managing Customer Relationships. If I send an email, I can also get it in the CRM tool just by sending it as a bcc. So far so good. But then I use a different tool for eMarketing. I then have to export it from CRM and import it to the eMarketing tool. And on and on it goes from there.

Imagine the challenge for a mid-size nonprofit. It gets worse for large corporations. It just isn’t easy.

That said, it is worth doing as best you can. So that is what I do. And you should consider the same.

First, we need a strategy. Pick at least two systems that will give you a better level of insight. Integrate the core data needed for that insight. Don’t get carried away. If it doesn’t give you insight and you can’t act on it to move the relationship ahead then it isn’t useful.

Second, we need to execute the strategy and evaluate its effectiveness. If it isn’t effective consider stopping. Why waste the energy and resources.

Third, while data integration is generally very complex and difficult, the focus needs to be on simplicity. If a business unit cannot make a case for the insight that the data will bring and the action / results that it will accomplish, I say “move on”. That takes courage and great support from the executive level.

Knowing more than one thing generally leads to greater insight. Our everyday experience teaches us that. The insight I gain by knowing a decision maker at a target nonprofit is opening my emails leads me to see if I can schedule a call to discover more about their challenges. Simply integrating CRM and eMarketing tools can lead to that insight.

As more data is integrated about donors, the biggest issue is data quality and duplicates. If left unchecked, the insights and action will be suspect. It is important to keep the data integrated as simple as possible and pay attention to “master data” and the “golden record” early on. Investing in some level of Master Data Management (MDM) will make sense. Better to make this decision early and enforce integrity to the data.

There are several ways to approach analytics. Simple and easy to use Excel spreadsheets is one level. Data warehouses and data marts takes it to another level. Within systems themselves (think CRM), dashboards are very powerful at providing insight and action (via workflow).

All of this leads to an issue of executive oversight. Someone needs to make the tough decisions in the best interest of the donor. The CEO needs to empower someone to make those decisions. Otherwise your technology team will be chasing its tail on a regular basis with unclear direction and expensive solutions to meet the great demand for integration.

There is clearly a role for oversight for this function. It should be led by a high level business executive who focuses on insight.

Many of the advanced solutions and systems can be very expensive. Senior executives will clearly experience sticker shock when looking at investment decisions. Out of many technology investments to be made, this is one that cries out for clear ROI and a total economic benefit to spell out.

Here are the key ideas:

1. Start with simple integrations that focus early on data quality.
2. Begin with integrations that lead to clear insight and action.
3. Encourage oversight and accountability for results.
4. Early on, default to system dashboards and workflow rather than other complicated systems.
5. Insights that lead to next steps along the donor journey will have high payoffs for renewal, cross-selling and up-selling.
6. Senior business executives must be engaged early and often.
7. Enforce clear budget boundaries with clear ROI.

Should We Have This Meeting? (Infographic Decision Tree)

Tags

Decision making, Infographic, Meetings

So many corporate employees spend their workday bouncing from meeting to meeting. In many organizations, the de facto method of getting anything done has been: “Let’s meet about it.”

In the spirit of eliminating unnecessary activities to increase productivity, use this handy meeting “go vs. no go” decision tree. And please share it with your manager or overly-dependent-on-meetings colleagues!

Source: Should We Have This Meeting? (Infographic Decision Tree)

Is Donor-Centric Real or a Unicorn?

Tags

Donor, Donor Experience, Donor-Centric, Kevin Schulman

There is a lot said and written about being donor-centric and the donor experience. I am one of those who does it. Kevin Schulman poses a great question.

Is donor-centric real or a Unicorn?

It is worth knowing the answer.

In our prior post we stipulated that donors want to donate. They don’t want massive frustration and irritation in doing so, which is precisely what all the asks (i.e. volume) causes.  There is a study here proving that point.  And it doesn’t irritate some tiny, minority of folks who really aren’t “good” donors anyway, it irritates the majority of your donors.

In short, most give in spite of the fundraising volume machine and the irritation it causes, not because of it.

Source: Is Donor-Centric Real or a Unicorn? | Kevin Schulman | Pulse | LinkedIn

Einstein’s Secret to Amazing Problem Solving (and 10 Specific Ways You Can Use It)

Tags

Problem Solving, Process

The definition of the problem will be the focal point of all your problem-solving efforts. As such, it makes sense to devote as much attention and dedication to problem definition as possible.

What usually happens is that as soon as we have a problem to work on we’re so eager to get to solutions that we neglect spending any time refining our understanding of it.

From stunning Moments of Truth to amazing journeys

Tags

Customer Engagement, Customer Journey, Journey Mapping, Loyalty

From stunning Moments of Truth to amazing journeys, the focus on the complete customer experience is critical. Touch points are important.

One stunning moment followed one not so great is not a fun journey for a customer.  Understanding the complete journey and making each touch point play nice with all the others is a key lever to improving the customer experience.

Here are some articles making this point:

Don’t Miss the Customer Journey by Just Focusing on Individual Touchpoints. (But Focus on Your Touchpoints, Too)  Strolling through the ever-expanding body of published work on customer experience, there are a few articles that appear to be making a case for not measuring customer touch points. If you’ve seen these too, don’t be misled.

From moments to journeys: A paradigm shift in customer experience excellence McKinsey looks at why are so many companies falling short of their goals of delivering an exceptional customer experience? The answer lies in the fact that most do not understand their customers’ journeys. At any given time, senior leaders across industries grapple with a fundamental conundrum: Why, they wonder, is overall customer loyalty and engagement so slow to improve when most areas of the business report healthy customer feedback after each customer interaction?

Here are the key ideas:

• Focus on the whole journey not a single step
• Understand that individual touch points and moments of truth are important to the overall journey
• Create goals for the journey that make a difference

 

Am I ready for disruption?

Tags

Digital, Disruption, Forrester Research

Am I ready? Am I ready for someone else to disrupt my company? Can we disrupt ourselves?

These are essential questions for all business today. The ability to disrupt our business is a reality to be considered. Do it ourselves or have someone do it to us seems to be the issue to think about.

The Digital Executive needs to enable processes to foster self-disruption. This is essential as a part of transformation.

One of them — who self-identified as a Gen Yer who had recently received $15 million in funding for his startup — explained to me that the cost of disrupting has fallen so low that he doesn’t even think people like him need to go for the big funding anymore (not that he refused it when it came!).

He said, ‘Especially in software, it only takes $30,000 to build anything in software today.

Source: Are You Ready To Disrupt Yourself? | Forrester Blogs

Why is marketing integration critical to the digital experience at the contact center?

Tags

Contact Center, Customer Service, Marketing, Voice of the Customer

Marketing

We know we have silos. We know they are not useful. As leaders, we must insist the customer service (the contact center) and marketing align their functions.

As call center agents are on the front lines and make their living speaking to customers and prospects, they know first-hand which words and phrases resonate. Efficiency of interactions is critical for agents, and as such they are keenly aware of what works and what does not when trying to explain products and services over the phone. It is an art form, and experienced agents are masters at their crafts. We all know this.

So how do you integrate this talent within the corporate marketing functions? Start small, but think big. 

Begin with a complicated message and then help marketing simplify. Reps are uniquely qualified to breakdown complex concepts and deliver it in such a way that it is easily digestible. They know what works. Why? Well for one, they are often graded on Average Handle Time (AHT) and, whether you agree with the metric or not, is fodder for another time. The issue is reps know how to get it done and get it done quickly. For example, what slogan did Nike choose? “Just do it”; not “Have you thought about taking action to accomplish your goal?”

Make your marketing colleagues heroes. You can streamline their discovery process, tighten their deliverables and reduce reliance on untimely research processes like focus groups and brainstorming sessions, which are expensive as well.

The symbiotic contact center: Marketing – You talking to me? Shared by Mktg Optimization

Waiting for the right time? Don’t wait. The time will never be just right. Finish it up today!

Tags

Action, Strategy, To Do, Today

To Do List

Waiting …

Waiting some more ….

Will the time be right today?

Who knows for sure. Let’s get it done today. Let’s finish it up and hand it in. Waiting for the time to be right is a perverse form of procrastination. It’s not that we haven’t done anything. We are just waiting for the right time to “be perfect”.

Give it up and get it done. Today!

Waiting for the right time? Don’t wait. The time will never be just right. Finish it up today!

Have we reached a digital tipping point?

Tags

Accountablility, Budget, Digital Business, People, Process, Strategy

Business Strategy

Is it about our digital budget or is it about having the right strategy, people and processes in place. It may not be “either/or” but it is clear that budget alone won’t get us there.

We need excellent strategies executive by outstanding people. That will with the way.

This year’s survey asked respondents how their companies spend on digital and organize their digital work, as well as the goals, challenges, and best practices they see across these initiatives. Many respondents agree that their companies’ digital programs are growth oriented, that future spending on digital will increase, and that a large portion of future company growth will be driven by digital efforts. But organizational challenges and a dearth of talent are common, significant hurdles that prevent companies from scaling up their digital efforts or seeing clear returns on their investments. So are limited accountability and a poor understanding of potential value. Less than 40 percent of executives say their companies have accountability measures in place, either through targets, incentives, or “owners” of digital programs, while only 7 percent say their organizations understand the exact value at stake from digital.

via The digital tipping point: McKinsey Global Survey results | McKinsey & Company.

How to explain architecture and governance in 2 sentences

Tags

Architecture, Belief system, Clorox, Governance

I love simplicity. Sometimes we just make things too difficult to understand.

This quote simply explains architecture (and why it is important) and governance.

Architecture is a belief system. And then governance is having the discipline to put that belief system into action.

— Ralph Loura, CIO, Clorox

Should you add things to your to-do list you’ve already done, just to cross them off?

Tags

Productivity, Time management

I am a fan, to some extent, of to-do lists. I know of people who add things they’ve already done, so they can cross them off. Somehow I just can’t wrap my arms around it though. I guess it can show you you’ve accomplished something even though you didn’t plan to do it.

Do you do this? Does it really help?

At the end of the day, add items to your list that weren’t there but which you accomplished, just so you can cross them off. “This gives you a sense of productivity,” Williams says.

via How to Conquer Your To-Do List CIO.com.

How can we build a culture of learning?

Tags

Distance Learning, Education, Intelligence, Learning, Learning Theories, Methods and Theories, Online Teaching and Learning, Teacher

As leaders we should be about the process of learning all the time. Creating a learning culture is not always easy work. How can we build learning activities into our daily routines? It starts with us. How much of our calendar reflects learning activities?

Here is a very good list via Learn From Others | Lolly Daskal.

Exchange roles: Learning is a two-way street. Connecting and exchanging with key stakeholders around shared development challenges catalyzes considerable results.Collaborate: When we realize we don’t have to acquire knowledge on our own. Collaboration and sharing make it twice as rich.

Find the smartest person in the room: Who’s the local expert on what we need to know? Who’s been in the department or organization the longest and has a long-term perspective? Who has the deepest well of experience for us to draw from?

Mix it up: Engage in multiple levels of learning. Hone your expertise in one area while you’re taking your first steps in another.

Build a support team: It can be hard to see for yourself how your work is paying off and where it might be falling short. Having a support team of trusted people allows you to get feedback and direction.

Read the past: Read and experience as much history, biography, and autobiography as you can. Learning the past leads us toward the future.

Invest in yourself: Take a risk and do something out of your comfort zone. It’s okay to fail. Its okay to take a chance. Start with small steps and build from there.

We learn when we read, what we hear, how we see, the way we discuss, and where we experience our lives.

Most of all we can learn from what we teach others. The purpose of learning is growth, and our hearts are eager for actualization.

Learning is a practice, not an event. Leadership and learning are invaluable to each other.

Make learning inspirational enough for us to dream more, learn more, do more and be more.

Lead From Within: There is a magnet in our heart that attracts growth. Allow the magnet to focus you— to learn from others and lead you deeper into inner growth.

Disruption trend: Are you agile enough?

Tags

Agile, Disruption, Silo

Agile

In a disruptive world, as a digital executive focused on your customers, you need to ask this question of yourself and your team. Are we agile enough? Can we move fast enough to take advantage of the customer opportunity?

Most every company wants to move faster in the marketplace. That won’t differentiate you at all. Most companies want to have a consolidated version of the truth about their customers, spending millions to never get it. Most companies want to improve their business processes but don’t seem to be able to sustain the effort. Most companies have invested heavily in packaged, off the shelf applications and transaction systems.

What they have achieved are inflexible, hard to change architectures which are aligned around business silos. Those silos present a huge barrier to fast moving digital executives.

To lead the pack and move faster, these technology, process and people barriers have to be broken down. What we need is a unifying strategy that can be sustained.

Is your nonprofit CRM fund raising system broke or are you lacking a strategy that can be executed?

Tags

CRM, Nonprofit, Strategy

This is definitely worth the read. Tough questions need to asked. Is technology the failure or is it a failure of a ill defined strategy coupled with bad processes that can’t be executed by staff and volunteers?

It is my position it is not about the technology. The technology will do what you want it to do. The question is do you know what you want it to do?

What if your donors have decided not to give anymore? What if you don’t know that and keep spending money hand over fist to renew their gift? Two very bad things come from that. First, you’ve wasted a ton of money. Second, you have irritated a former donor even more than they were before. If you do this enough, you will be swimming in a sea of red ink with lots of detractors in the market place.

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. Start with a great strategy. Invest in your people to execute it. Create stunning business processes that wows you constituents. At the end of the day, it may not matter much about the technology if it can support these other 3 items.

Unfortunately, the Constituent Relationship Management promise has not been nearly as effective as promised. According to some estimates 50% to 70% of CRM initiatives fail to achieve their goals. Correspondingly, fundraising – which relies so heavily on a CRM and historical donor data – is stubbornly stalled. One could argue the weaknesses cited with CRM – namely very little “R” and not a lot of “C” either – apply equally to much of the fundraising done today.

Consider these other parallels:

CRM Fundraising is very good at receiving, but not very good at giving. Look no further than dreadful retention rates as proof. After all, if donors were getting what they came for when they walked in the front door, why do they leave so quickly out the back?

CRM Fundraising asks donors to provide access and information without adequately telling them what they will get in return. How often is gift impact and donor benefit talked about, but clearly (based on industry trends) not consistently or widely delivered?

CRM Fundraising pigeonhole donors based on past actions without informing them how to build a more advantageous profile. CRM and fundraising prompt donors to become more valuable to the charity without promising greater value from the organization.

CRM Fundraising is fairly effective at measuring its successes but provide little information about its failures. We faithfully record when donors respond positively to automated prompting and prodding but have no insight when donors do not respond in the predicted way.

CRM Fundraising is therefore, unable to determine whether failures are the result of faulty assumptions, incorrect information or poor execution.

CRM Fundraising is unable to tell how these “failed” interactions affect the donor relationship. It treats all failures as the same and all failures as neutral, when in fact the equity in the relationship may have been weakened or undermined by a poorly executed communications, “engagement” or service encounter.

The worst case scenario is the last interaction results in the donor’s decision, unbeknownst to the charity, to stop giving. This critical failure – that the charity is oblivious too – will be met with 2 to 3 years of organizational spend against this donor (and all others like them) and a sea of red-ink on the balance sheet.

via Why CRM Fundraising is broken and how to fix it. | Kevin Schulman | LinkedIn.

Some thoughts on speed

Tags

Agile, Culture, Education, Speed

The pace of business continues to change and move faster and faster. That is clear and it requires that we have a world that understands and enables that. Faster, more predictable ways of creating and changing technology are no longer a nice to have — they decide which of us will survive and which will not. For technology professionals, that means it’s not a question of whether we will adopt lean and agile techniques but how soon and how broadly we will adopt them. That doesn’t mean charge into the transformation blindly. If we do, we may meet an untimely but fairly predictable end — we’ll fail to realize the benefits because we didn’t properly execute. As I have been reading and talking to technology and business staff on this, there seem to several trends to consider.

We have to do more than pass out this blog and pray for results. We (I) all need education, coaching, and practice to understand how agile differs from traditional methods. Business groups will need even more attention as we learn how and why our roles will change — take great pains to explain what value agile will bring us, and make sure we accept the role of owners. Do we own speed? Do we own agility? We also need to look for the right initiatives to attempt to speed things up — we should seek those that are not already rigidly defined or too complex, and avoid complex integration, dependencies, and mission-critical efforts in our attempts. Of course, simplicity and usability also help here. If is too complex, can we simplify it? That will help speed delivery and support radically.

Our culture can propel or kill new ideas. We should beware technical and business factions that don’t want the change that agile brings — for example, will staff that consider working in an agile world consider it to be an incorrect methodology? Will business people not want to participate in faster projects because they are too busy? We have more options with our technical world, but if we’ve done everything we could in explaining to stakeholders how agile can add business value and they still don’t buy it, we may need to move on — it may be that the business domain does not require agile — or start our approach with speedier transitions like a water-scrum-fall approach with more work in the water and fall parts of the process. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

Is agile right on huge, monolithic applications that change infrequently? Probably not. Advanced agile organizations seem to set up multiple scrum and traditional teams to deal with large, monolithic apps. If requirements are stable, we should consider sticking with what we have done for years if it’s working and the business is not complaining. Agile techniques seem to shine where innovation and changing requirements are part of the business model. We have lots of examples of that. Where stability is the norm, agile may not be the right answer. We should also be careful to least ask the question. The lack of complaints may only reflect a business assumption that technology approaches are always slow. That may not be fair but it could be the perception.

Improvement of any kind requires that we understand our business partners are today and where they want to be in the future and that we muster the right human, financial, and political resources to ensure success. We should focus on value for the business first, establish how we will create value, and set proper goals. When we know the goal, we can define outcomes against those goals, and measure success accordingly. Driven by business-value priorities, we will need to assess our approach using both qualitative and quantitative approaches.

Here is a way to think of change. Improve or transform?

 

Stolen emails reveal lapses in Sony security practices. Is your company safe?

Tags

Cyber Security, Encryption, Passwords

Cyber Security

This is stunning and way to common according to security experts. There are simple and easy to use technology programs that would have allowed the technology department to see if this was going on. It isn’t clear if Sony didn’t use the technology or ignored it for senior executives. It also isn’t clear if they did or did not have a policy against sharing passwords.

What is needed is an aggressive cyber security program that is perpetual and focuses on continuous improvement. This is an investment, in this day and age, that can’t be ignored.

In the weeks before hackers broke into Sony Pictures Entertainment, the studio suffered significant technology outages it blamed on software flaws and incompetent technical staffers who weren’t paying attention, even as hackers targeted executives to trick them into revealing their online credentials.

Its chief executive was regularly reminded in unsecure emails of his own secret passwords for his and his family’s mail, banking, travel and shopping accounts, according to a review of more than 32,000 stolen corporate emails circulating on the Internet.

via Stolen emails reveal lapses in Sony security practices – Washington Times.

The stolen files expose lax Internet security practices inside Sony such as pasting passwords into emails, using easy-to-guess passwords and failing to encrypt especially sensitive materials such as confidential salary and revenue figures, strategic plans and medical information about some employees. Experts say such haphazard practices are common across corporate America.

“Most people who say they’re not doing that are lying,” Jon Callas, co-founder and chief technology officer for Silent Circle Inc., a global encrypted-communications service

While it is important to find out who did this. It is more important to know that it can be done and to protect our corporate information assets from this kind of exposure. 

A Strategic Approach to Digital Disruption: Cyber Security is a key component for successful digital transformation

Tags

Cloud computing security, Cyber Security, Privacy, Risk Management

Security

There are a number of critical components to becoming a digital organization. Five to consider are:

1. Customer-centricity
2. Business process optimization
3. Actionable insight
4. Innovation culture
5. Information security

Often overlooked is security. Nothing will aggravate customers and employees more than a breach in security.  What is clearly needed is a continuous improvement process around cyber security.

Proactive Enterprise Risk Management that demonstrates an unrelenting commitment to information security and privacy reduces the cost of compliance and builds trust with the customers.  Recent financial and personal information breaches has resulted in billions of dollars of losses to the Financial Industry.  These incidents have increased customer aversion to share personal data digitally.

Industry data proves that there is no significant difference between security breaches in storing data privately versus in the cloud.  But customers and the industry alike are still coming to terms about the dependability and security of storing their data in the cloud.  The interchange of data through the ‘Internet of Things’ makes personal data security and privacy much more vulnerable.  This puts pressure on the cost of information management and can slow down the implementation of successful digital strategies. Therefore, it is critical to have a clear Enterprise Risk Management strategy and implementation plan which delivers the highest security standards.

via A Strategic Approach to Digital Disruption: five key components for successful digital transformation – The Digital Insurer.

The Digital Executive: How do you combine technologies to innovate?

Tags

Disruption, Innovation

6 Ways to Drive Innovation

This makes so much sense. It is the combination of technology that becomes so powerful in this model.

Well worth reading and thinking through as an enabler of innovation. Adam Richardson really nails this one.

These technologies can be combined in numerous ways, and we are just starting to see companies really taking advantage of the possibilities. These four technologies will have a disruptive impact on your business, almost regardless of which industry you’re in. The question is whether you will choose to adopt them before a competitor does. The Four Technologies You Need to Be Working With – Adam Richardson – Harvard Business Review

What are the technologies to combine to innovate?
1.  Microprocessors
2.  Sensors
3.  Wireless connectivity
4.  Databases

The Digital Executive: How to innovate for mission relevance and financial growth

Tags

Customer Experience, Customer Journey, Innovation, Marketing Channels, Strategy

Innovation

Earning relevance with your customers requires much more than the adoption of the latest technology or being on the social media flavor of the month. All of that can be for naught if the experience wasn’t enjoyable, didn’t meet the customer’s needs or was too complex. All of your innovation should about the user experience and simple design. All of your innovation should be about understanding what customers need and then solving them in a simple, enjoyable way.

Technology and channels must be chosen with the fact that it will enable the customer journey and engage them in your mission. If you don’t know that it will, perhaps a small test is in order. Channels should be chosen with an end in mind for the customer. What difference does it make if you are on Pinterest but none of your customers find that helpful?

With all the technology opportunities you have in front of you, where do you start? This is where your goals and strategies come into play. The key is to match technology investments with goals to improve the overall unified experience your customers want and need. The tough work is to prioritize opportunities with investments that have a customer experience return. That will help develop a culture for recognizing an emerging technology to adapt to the right platform before someone else uses it to disrupt you.

Technology can be very disruptive if someone else solves a customer problem or obstacle before you do. If the technology they use makes it easier, more enjoyable for your customer, loyalty will go out the window. They become relevant and you lose relevance. If it happens enough with enough customers, your mission suffers tremendously. Is that happening now?

It is important to leverage investments in disruptive technology through the filter of your long-term strategy combined with a deep knowledge of your customers needs.

If you are investing in every social and mobile platform, are you becoming a jack-of-all trades and a master of none?

Solving a real customer problem, with the right emerging technology that is enjoyable and simple is in fact a game changer.

The Digital Executive: Unifying the experience for the customer

Tags

Customer Experience Lifecycle, Data, Unified Customer Experience, Unstructured Data

This is not all about data. At the end of the day, customers will expect a great (unified) experience across multiple channels. While it takes data to know the customer and systems to remember them, only great experiences lead to amazing service.

If I call you, I reasonable expect you have a history of my transactions regardless of channel and how long I have been your customer. I also probable expect for you to remember other issues and challenges I’ve had and how they were resolved. A breakdown in that at any point creates painful experiences.

This speaks to having worked through the customer journey, what is working and what isn’t, and improving the experience for the customer. This journey should identify data that is useful to know and insights that can create for you in delivering stunning service.

While journey maps are about much more than data, it is important to look at what data you have, what data you could use and what insight that could create in improving the whole experience.

Pay particular attention to data (structure and unstructured) that you already have from customers via your call center, web site, social media comments and email responses. There is a richness here that can inform the customer journey and the data that can used to improve it.

Improving the experience for the customer by providing front line staff better insights is foundational to the digital executive obsessed with the customer.  Journey maps without great data and insight could just be someone’s opinion.

Staff who are closest to the customer usually have a handle on what data and insight would be most useful to the journey mapping process. Be sure to engage them regularly.

Journey maps can be tedious and budgets may be constrained to bring in external resources to help. Consider an investment in training at least one of your staff who be the subject matter expert and facilitate the process, even if it just part time.

Here are the key ideas:

1. Start with one segment or persona and develop a simple journey map.
2. Begin by identify data that you have or gaps that exist in providing great insight.
3. Encourage a focus on insight and improving the journey.
4. See this as a holistic process integral to your ecosystem.
5. Involve staff closest to the customer.

The Digital Executive: Doing something about the data, insight and customer experience gaps

Tags

Business process, Continuous Improvement, Culture, Gap Analysis

Knowing you have a gap in the data and the experience is one thing. Doing something that improves the experience is another. Insight is very useful but it must lead to action.

Much of our effort should be in understanding where we are today, where we want to go, what the gaps are and what we can do move ahead. This is both short term with quick wins and the overall long term strategy.

Accurately identifying the gaps gets you on the road to improvement. This should be seen as a continuous process with huge incremental results. Lots of quick experiments and tests can tell you a lot about what works and what doesn’t.

Senior executives should help create a culture of gap analysis and continuous improvement. Without the focus and support of the digital executive, we can all fall into “analysis paralysis”.

Gap analysis and continuous improvement is something that can be done at all levels of the organization. The closer it is to the customer, the better. Customer champions, evangelist and advocates are best position to have great energy around this.

Basic training in facilitating the process doesn’t require huge budgets. Creating performance expectations for improving the experience in a tangible way is very important.

Here are the key ideas:

1. Start with simple approaches to encourage identifying gaps and plans to improve the experience.
2. Begin setting expectations that it is important to measure the results of the improvement initiatives.
3. Encourage a culture of continuous improvement.
4. Be sure to set clear goals for gains.
5. Clearly articulate why gap identification and improvement is important.
6. Identify evangelists and champions of continuous improvement.
7. Focus on staff closest to the customer. Listen to them first rather than a senior executive 5 levels removed.

Guest Blog: Woody Hobbs — Product Roadmaps: Why you need them

Tags

Guest Blog, Newport Board Group, Product Roadmap, Woody Hobbs

Woody Hobbs – Partner, Newport Board Group

About the Author

Woody Hobbs is an experienced executive who has served as CEO of several information technology companies and also as a CIO who has innovated new models. Woody and his team drove success via a new business model, key acquisitions, and industry-leading R&D. Woody is a Partner at the Newport Board Group LLC.

Contact or learn more about Woody.

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Dwight Eisenhower once said, “In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” This quote is one of the best aphorisms a business owner can have.

Think about your current business plan for a moment. With unpredictable market shifts, competition, project failure and other plan-changing events, how likely is it that the future events developed will turn out exactly as you expected? This unpredictability is what makes product roadmaps so valuable.

Are you too busy to improve? Here are 5 essential questions to move things ahead

Tags

Focus, Goals, Meetings, Non-essential, Outcomes, Say No, Strategy

Are you too busy to improve?

We all are busy. The whirlwind never stops some days. And then the emergency strikes. Yee gads. It may take weeks to recover.

Are you so busy that you don’t see to way out?

Now may be the time to break the habits that are keeping you from taking things to the next level. Now would be the time to focus. It isn’t easy to eliminate non-essential activities but it must be done. There isn’t enough time in the day to do everything.

Here are 5 questions to ask:

1. What is the most important outcome (goal) to be achieved a year from now?
2. What are the essential activities that will move you ahead in the next six months and assure you achieve your goals?
3. Why not take a day off site and figure that out?
4. Would it make a difference to then begin to eliminate the non-essential activities from your schedule?
5. Can you get permission to “say no” to meetings that suck the life out of you and don’t contribute to the essential goals and activities that are important to you?

 

Why tracking prospects from social media contacts is fundamental?

Tags

Customer Experience, Digital, Prospecting, Social Media, Tracking

This is interesting. It also seems fundamental. I am sure way to many of us are guilty of “believing the buzz about social media and aren’t paying attention to a basic premise.

It is about establishing relations first and then generating sales. It is about tracking the relationship and experience. What good does it do to acquire a prospect and then not to track them?

I would be interested in your experience. Any thoughts? Are you converting social media contacts into prospects? Prospects into customers?

The University of Massachusetts released its annual survey of social media usage at Fortune 500 companies. The report revealed that in the past year, these business giants have increased their adoption of blogging by 5%, their use of Twitter for corporate communications by 11% and their use of Facebook pages by 8%. Sixty-two percent of the 2012 F500 have corporate YouTube accounts and 2% (11 companies) are posting on Pinterest. Sixty-six % of the F500 are now on Facebook. 73% of the F500 have active corporate Twitter accounts.However, what caught my attention was another recent survey that the University was also promoting on the same web page. This survey examined how universities use social media to attract students to their MBA programs. The study showed the same sort of increases that the F500 survey revealed. However, the headliner take-away from this research was “The Missing Link in Social Media Use Among Top MBA Programs: Tracking Prospects” The report concluded that “the missing link appears to be tracking those who first become interested in the program through one of the program’s social media sites. Being able to measure whether these prospects actually apply to the program is something schools may be looking to do, but have not yet mastered. Without this piece of information it is difficult to really assess the effectiveness of the social media plan and to know where future investments should be made.”

via The Missing Link in Social Media Use: Tracking Prospects | Forrester Blogs.

 

We need some good examples of how big data is working

Tags

Big data, Customer Experience, Dashboards, IBM, IBM Watson

IBM Watson

Big data is all the rage. Why? Harnessing the insights buried in the mountain of data to improve the experience for your customers is a huge opportunity.

Is it easy? No.

Is it worth it? Probably. But you won’t know by sitting on the sidelines.

The focus, from big data, is to not just meet customer expectations but to exceed them. What if your big data solution could communicate with customers in natural language? What if it could learn from customers with each interaction? What if your big data solution could engage with customers in ways they like? What if your solution could empower customers at the point of action?

This is not a pipe dream. This is happening now.

In the past two years, companies have internally grappled with this question of how to make big data and analytics relevant to the business, and how both can make payoffs on initial budgetary investments. In many cases, enterprises have seen big data and analytics pay off. Early successes have come in the form of summary dashboards that give C-level executives and middle managers instantaneous visibility on revenues, sales campaigns, and operational performance. But while companies have gotten their feet wet, vendors of big data and analytics also know that a new level of business relevance for analytics will soon be expected, and they are seizing the opportunity to deliver it. via IBM Watson: A shining example of how to take big data to the next level – TechRepublic.

IBM’s Watson initiative is a great example of how big data can be harnessed. I have been fortunate to be able to peek under the hood in looking at some their work in the health care arena. It is in fact stunning.

IBM’s Watson made its first widely publicized splash in 2011, when it battled the two highest ranked players in a nationally televised two-game Jeopardy! match. Originally started as a project in 2007 by IBM Research, Watson is a computer system that combines algorithmic query techniques with computational linguistics, information retrieval, knowledge representation and reasoning, and machine learning. At first blush, this would seem to make Watson the perfect complement for academic and research communities intent on capitalizing on high performance analytics. Watson can deliver in these areas, but what IBM has also done in the past several years is particularize its use for specific industry verticals and the problems that companies in these verticals want to address. via IBM Watson: A shining example of how to take big data to the next level – TechRepublic.

Engagement Advisor

So how is all of this practical, from a customer point of view?

People expect companies to know who they are, how to engage with them and how to exceed their expectations, quickly. Case in point, research says that customers who contact a company via social media expect a response within five minutes. Companies doing all of the above will reap the benefits—it’s a fact that fully engaged customers deliver a 23% premium in share of wallet, profitability, revenue and relationship growth. That said, most organizations aren’t engaging with or meeting the needs of customers—when it’s never been easier to do so because of the availability of customer data.

Watson can transform the way people and companies interact with one another. Individual consumers can engage with Watson in plain English, directly. to get personalized answers to questions.

The Nielsen Innovation Lab, founded to advance research in advertising, intends to use Watson Engagement Advisor to explore ways it can help agencies and their clients better engage with consumers and increase the effect of their advertising and media plans. Read more from Randall Beard (Global Head, Advertiser Solutions, Nielsen).

Barriers are lowered. Customers are served and engaged. Turnover is reduced. And new sales and relationship opportunities are created. Everyone wins. via Customer Engagement – Helping customers get personalized answers to their questions

 

Is the experience for your customers simple and easy to use?

Tags

Clement Teo, Culture, Forrester Research, Silo, Simplicity, Telco, Unified Customer Experience

Unified Customer Experience

Clement Teo from Forrester Research recently reported in from a Next Generation Telecom Summit in Honk Kong. What do telcos recognize that we can learn from?

Consumers now have powerful mobile devices in their hands, speedy access to social platforms, and the ability to call up information on the go. More importantly, customers today can choose to easily switch to a competitor if they don’t like the customer experience they are receiving. As a result, telcos no longer “own” customers — it’s the other way around. via Customer Experience Demands Simplicity And Cultural Change | Forrester Blogs.

There is agreement on these principles.

1. Simplify systems and processes.
2. Let lines of business drive the IT agenda together.
3. Drive cultural changes to reflect a customer-centric agenda.

This is an issue for all of us. There is obviously a lot of “customer pain” in the telco industry but they aren’t alone. Simplification of systems is huge. When you can’t get a single view of the customer then it will be difficult to create a unified customer experience.  Most systems and processes get developed in silos. They then have there own data bases and applications to manage things. It is natural that most of these never get developed with the customer in mind. So even if only 2 departments are involved, there is probably a disconnect for the customer. The processes need to be simplified but they also need to be unified from a customer experience point of view.

How Amazon Increased Sales 29% Using One Important New Technology

Tags

Analytics, Big data, Recommendation Engine, Regression Analysis

Big data

Big data is great if in fact you have lots of data. Most of us don’t have enough data to take advantage of advanced recommendation analytics. There are some simple things that can be done.

Knowing your customers is key to serving your customers. Direct user input may be the best first step.

Advanced recommendation engines are great for big companies with product diversity and large data sets, but these same engines will almost always overreach when used by smaller businesses. If you think a recommendation engine will enhance your unique selling proposition, it’s probably best to keep things simple by:

• Not overwhelming the user, and offering only a few high quality suggestions
• Offering  suggestions only when statistically significant results are available
• Using simpler algorithms, possibly manually coded, with tried and true systems like regression analysis
• Considering the use of direct user input

via How Amazon Increased Sales 29% Using One Important New Technology | @AskJamieTurner.