1. Treating Employees as Customers
to Reduce Frustration and Increase
Success
Dreamforce
December 8, 2010
12:15 - 1:15PM
by John Goodman, Vice Chairman
Challenge to Developers
• Eliminate unpleasant surprises
• Enhance first level resolution
• Give employees clear believable explanations
• Aggressively get feedback and acknowledge it
• Empower the customer to manage their overall customer
experience
• Make technology either transparent or a delighter for both
customers and employees
• Create emotional connection
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2. Agenda
• What causes frustration and extra cost? Problems and the
inability to resolve them.
• Solution – reduce problems and increase success.
• Strategy:
– Reduce problems by setting proper expectations
– Quantify the revenue and word of mouth damage to get resources
– Create an effective Voice of the Customer
– Make your front line successful with flexibility, clear explanations and
positive incentives
– Use technology to deliver psychic pizza
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About TARP
• Founded in 1971—39 years of customer experience leadership
– White House Complaint Studies 1970s-80s (instigated 800#s and
GE Answer Center)
– Assisted 6 Baldrige Winners and 43 Fortune 100 Companies
– Initiated concept of ―word of mouth‖ (TARP/Coca-Cola 1978
Study) and ―word of mouse‖ (eCare and Click & Mortar studies
1999)
• Offices in Wash., D.C.
• Credited with developing the approach
for quantifying the impact of quality
on revenue, cost & WOM for companies
like Neiman Marcus, Toyota/Lexus, Hyundai,
USAA, Cisco Systems, Xerox, 3M, Moen,
IBM, Intelligence Community, Qualcomm,
Ritz Carlton, Whirlpool, Museum of Modern
Art, USO and Chick-Fil-A.
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3. Formula For Maximizing Customer Satisfaction
DOING
EFFECTIVE MAXIMUM
THE RIGHT
CUSTOMER
JOB
RIGHT THE
+ CONTACT = CUSTOMER
SATISFACTION
MANAGEMENT & LOYALTY
FIRST TIME
Respond to
Individual Customers
Customers, donors, citizens
will:
Improved Identify Sources Use again
Product & Service of Dissatisfaction
Use or donate more
Quality
Tell others to use or donate
Conduct Root
Try your other products &
Cause Analysis services
Feedback on
Prevention
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Firefighting Mode
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4. Riding the Wave of Customer Experience
Management: Six Big Ideas
1. Staff doesn’t cause most customer dissatisfaction –
sales, products, processes and customers do
2. It is cheaper to give great service than just good
service, the revenue payoff is 10-20X the cost
3. An effective Voice of the Customer includes all kinds
of data describing the overall customer experience
4. People are still paramount – make the front line
successful with flexibility and clear explanations
5. Deliver technology that customers will enjoy –
delivering psychic pizza via any channel
6. Sensibly create remarkable delight
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Employees Do Not Cause Most Customer Dissatisfaction
The majority of customer dissatisfaction is NOT caused by employee error or attitude but
by products that cause disappointment and broken processes*
Customer expectations Customer Employee
must be set and they must 20%-30% 20%
be educated on how - Wrong expectations- Fails to follow
-Fails to follow
to avoid problems - Customer error policy
and surprises. policy
-Attitude
At least Company 40%-60% Poorly designed products,
30% of - Products and services Processes, and marketing
contacts are don’t meet expectations create most unmet
preventable
- Marketing miscommunication expectations. Further,
- Broken processes employees are often not
equipped with effective
*Finding based upon TARP analysis problem cause responses to problems.
data in over 200 consumer and B2B environments.
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5. Assuring You Are Easy to Do Business With?
• Can easily find where to go to get need fulfilled
• Easily get access to source of answer
• Eliminate bureaucracy
• Answer completely fulfills need including
anticipating next need
• Follow-through happens as expected and is
confirmed
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Customer Expectation: Key Factors Driving
Satisfaction
• No Unpleasant Surprises
• If Trouble Encountered
– Accessibility, Taking ownership, Apology
– Clear, believable explanation
– Creating an emotional connection rather than just
courtesy
– Money is often not the best solution
– Timeliness and Keeping promises
• Handle on First Contact Results in 10% Higher
Satisfaction and 50% Lower Cost
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6. TARP’s Tip Of the Iceberg
Why customers
and employees
don’t complain:
• Hopelessness
• Fear
• Don’t know
where
What you don’t
hear about
often does the
most damage
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1. Prevent Problems By Setting Proper Expectations
• Understand who the customer is
• Welcome packages and calls
• Encourage questions before customers get
into trouble
• Confirmations/Progress reports
Who has proactive education successes?
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7. 2. Make the Support Center the Focal Point
of the Voice of the Customer on Customer Experience
• Customer surveys
• Customer contact and interaction data
• Internal operations process, quality data
• Employee input
• Together, these elements can identify opportunities and
give employees a feeling of control
Surveys of Customer Internal process
customer + + = Total view of the
contact and and quality data customer
satisfaction and interaction data and employee
loyalty experience
input
Take The Role Of Chief Customer Officer
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3. Get More Resources for the Support Center
Demonstrating cost of less than perfect support to the CFO, CMO and the General Counsel
x x x
50% Most
Satisfied Repurchasing = 2,000
25% 30% Some Not
Complain Mollified Repurchasing = 6,000
200,000
Customers 20% Many Not
with Dissatisfied Repurchasing = 9,000
Problems
75% Do Not Some Not
Complain Repurchasing = 37,500
Total Customers At Risk = 54,500
At $1,000 per customer, $54.5 million at risk
Three strategies: Prevention, Solicitation of Complaints and Improved Response
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8. Finance Wants Higher Margins
Percent of customers dissatisfied with fees rises with number of problems.
90%
80% 74%
70%
60%
46%
50%
40%
30% 22%
20% 10%
10%
0%
No problems 1 problem 2 to 5 problems 6 problems or
more
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4. Create A Culture of Success
• Stellar Leaders and Culture Are Great, But..
• Tools
– issue driven flexible solution spaces
– believable explanations
– supported by tools and information on customer situation
• Training – ongoing training and story telling
• Motivation – celebration via victory sessions
& promotability
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9. Impact of Satisfaction on Employee Loyalty
• The impact of satisfaction on willingness to continue to work for ABC
indicates a need for employees to be very satisfied with the company. Less
than half of employees report to be very satisfied.
Overall satisfaction % definitely continue to
with ABC work for ABC Company
(% of employees) (% of employees)
Very Satisfied1
Very satisfied 1
= 84%
(48%)
(49%)
57 point drop
ABC company Somewhat Satisfied2
Satisfied2
(33%) = 27%
employees (39%)
Neutral to
very dissatisfied3 = 8%
(14%)
1Top box
2Second box
3Bottom three boxes 17
Impact of Problem Experience on Employee Loyalty
• An employee who has a problem, contacts, and is satisfied with how that
problem was handled is more loyal and more motivated than someone who
never had a problem to begin with. IV
Market
I II impact
III
Question/ Contact % Definitely
Contact
problem behavior continue to
handling
experience work for % Extremely
ABC motivated
No
problem 59% 40%
experience
Satisfied1
20% 67% 52%
11%
Employees Mollified2
Contactors 49% 33%
43%
79%
Problem Dissatisfied3
experience* 37% 36%
46%
80%
Non-
*In the past 6 months contactors 62% 34%
1Top box
2Middle two boxes 21%
3Bottom two boxes
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10. Quantify Employee at Risk by Type of Problems
• As many as 17% of ABC employees might not continue
to work at ABC due to problems.
• Issues of most concern to employees have to do with
servicing clients.
Overall % % % Not likely to %
experiencing Problem work for ABC Potentially
any problem Most serious problem category frequency* in the future** at risk
Servicing clients 45% 11% 8.0%
Information/internal communication 22% 20% 3.5%
Work environment 20% 32% 2.3%
80% Performance, leadership, and growth 16% 17% 2.2%
Other 7% 25% 1.4%
TOTAL EMPLOYEES AT RISK 17.4%
TARP Paper: Treating employees as customers
* Based on most serious problem
** All employees excluding ―definitely‖ and ―probably will―continue to work for ABC in the future.
Note that analysis by job title was not possible due to a resulting low N size. 19
Employees At Risk—Most Damaging Problems
• Servicing clients and getting needed training are biggest frustrations:
% frequency % somewhat
of all or very at
Specific problem problems risk
Servicing Clients
I have to call multiple times to get something done 40 6.7%
Other departments do not follow through on promises made 19 4.1%
I only get voice mail when calling other parts of the company 26 3.7%
Information/Internal Communication
Communication within the branch not effective 30 7.7%
Conflicts not surfaced openly within my branch 22 5.3%
Management objectives not communicated in a timely manner 16 4.6%
Work Environment
No/limited initial training on client service 22 9.5%
Hard to get things done within my branch 16 5.0%
No/limited opportunities to receive ongoing training 16 4.6%
* Multiple response variable 20
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11. Identification of Issues Requiring Improved
Response Rules and Processes
Problem reports % Loyal (Top 2 Box) # Contacts
Routine order 98 1.1
Shipment status 91 1.2
Product return 93 2.1
Shipping charges 88 2.1
Backorder status * 67 3.3
Call center overall average 91 1.9
Transaction which is biggest opportunity for improvement
Misuse of resources to intensively measure this transaction
TARP Paper: Your monitoring and coaching may be doing more damage than good
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Herman
―We’ve lost your stuff, but you get first choice of any
bag off Flight 601 from Athens.‖
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12. Provide Tools to Assure Action, Address Policy
Issues and Cross-sell
• Auto-edits to save employees and customers from
errors
• Desktop tools – auto implementation – ― It has been
done!‖
• SLAs to create confidence in back office
• Ability to set proper expectations for completion
• Time to address policy and process issues and
education on how to avoid in the future - delighter
• Ability to make input to Voice of the Customer –
plop in front of the desk
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5. Deliver Technology People Enjoy
• Why people hate technology
– Wastes my time
– Gets in the way – phone trees
• Why they love it
– Anticipates
– Simplifies
• Delivering psychic pizza
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13. Get Customer to Right Place First Time: Print the
Menu Where You Print the Phone Number
Support Phone Matrix
(800) ASK-4-WDC
Press 1 Press 2 Press 3 Press 4
for Automated Faxback General Sales Technical
Information Literature Information Support
Press 1 Press 1 Press 1 Press 4
Feedback Ad RMA Hard Drive
Responses Status Controllers
20% increase
In both compliance Press 2
Literature
Press 2
Sales
Press 2
Drives
Press 5
Video
And satisfaction Information
Press 3 Press 3 Press 6
Online PCI SCSI Other
Services
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6. Delight: Heroics and Constantly Exceeding
Expectations is NOT Necessary Or Even Smart
Average lift to repurchase or
Delight experience
recommend (Top Box)
Service beyond expectation - heroics 12%-14%
No unpleasant surprises 22%
Friendly 90-second staff interaction 25%
Personal relationship over months 26%
Tell me of new product or service I 30%
can really use
Proactively provide information on 32%
how to avoid problems or get more
out of your product
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14. Ten Myths About Service Existing in Most Companies
1. Always exceed customer expectations
2. Answering the phone really fast is the key to success
3. People always prefer talking to people
4. The customer is always right
5. Complaints are down, things are getting better
6. Employees are the cause of most dissatisfaction
7. Price and cost cutting is the key to success
8. We’re at 90% satisfaction – let’s declare victory!
9. Measure Net Promoter and we’re done
10. We have a 100% satisfaction guarantee – everyone is
happy.
TARP Paper: Marketing myths and service slips
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Challenge to Developers
• Eliminate unpleasant surprises
• Enhance first level resolution
• Feed employees clear believable explanations
• Aggressively get feedback and acknowledge it
• Empower customers to manage their overall customer
experience
• Make technology either transparent or a delighter for both
customers and employees
• Create emotional connection
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15. Evaluate Your Employee Success Factors
Grade 1-10 Grade
Marketing responsible for setting proper
expectations for major products
Overtly warn customers about problems
Create a VOC allowing understanding of end-to-
end experience & non-complaint rate by issue
Quantify revenue left on table, cost and WOM
impact by issue
Create flexible solutions for top 5 tough issues
Provide staff with clear explanations
SLAs exist with support and marketing units
Lead customers to self service via education
Use technology to deliver psychic pizza
Continuously celebrate all employees doing
things right
Total _____
If below 75 – you’re wasting at least 15% of your support budget
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Summary
• Aggressively ask for frustrations and time wasters
• Eliminate unpleasant surprises
• Quantify the revenue cost of frustrations and touches by
type of issue at employee and customer level
• Deliver psychic pizza to reduce workload
• Use dead time to delight
• Practice continuous experimentation accompanied by
measurement
• Outlined in detail in Strategic Customer Service published
by AMACOM
• jgoodman@tarp.com or 703-284-9253
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