Customer Experience Management
Wherever a customer touches your business through a transaction or series of interactions, there is a customer experience. Research suggests that on average, when we have a bad experience we tell 10 people. When we have a good one it is far less! A good customer experience is therefore an invaluable part of the overall marketing and customer retention strategy.
The best companies manage to balance efficient process with attention to customer satisfaction.Understanding customer priorities, expectations and the time and cost of delivering these is vital to optimising resources, revenue and satisfaction. Measuring the experience effectively, on an ogoing basis ensures that businesses remain in touch with changing customer needs and are able to implement continuous improvement.
Customer Value Index
The Customer Value Index has been developed to gain a quantitative, comparable measure that enables the organisation to understand what drives customer value and how they are performing throughout the customer journey or in specific aspects of the customer experience. The benefits of using a Customer Value Index include:
- More precise understanding of customers' perceptions of the experience
- Assessment of the current relationship status (especially those who are at risk and also those who could be advocates)
- Customer prioritisation of areas for improvement
- Actionable targets for improvement
- Supports cost benefit analysis of the improvement plans
- Sets a benchmark to measure against improvement initiatives
- Pinpoints training and coaching needs of staff
Data to populate the index can be collected by the most appropriate and cost-effective means via quantitative and qualitative methods, face to face, by telephone, email and on the web. Through a developing partnership with a technology provider, ICD will soon be able to offer the Customer Value Index based on real-time interaction feedback.
Customer Decision Mapping
In the B2B environment company decision-making, influences and responsibilities are varied and numerous. Understanding the key relationships and managing them effectively can be the leverage needed to create sustainable competitive advantage. This facilitated methodology helps identify how an organisation can proceed top optimise the relationship with its strategic accounts.
Activity Based Costing
ABC is the understanding of how products and services consume activities and how activities consume resources. The service a company offers, combined with the components of the service, the level of service and the resources consumed in the delivery of the service result in a calculation of the cost to serve. The ABC methodology allows organisations to;
- Differentiate between customers
- Determine the cost of delivering process by segment
- Determine who the most valuable customers are; which segments are more profitable than others
The cost to serve the most profitable customers may be designed to be higher as they expect a quicker, more personalised and better level of service, but your return will also be greater here.