CAN CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE (CX) DRIVE BUSINESS?

In the last article (http://tinyurl.com/zkejckm) I talked about Global Brands and their Customer Experience (Cx) Programs. After a while, I got thinking, these programs are initiated by companies as they continue to evolve, grow and realize customer as focal to their business.  And the leverage of digital technologies thereof.

What about companies whose very purpose, existence and growth is based on Cx? I got curious to know if there are any companies who owe their business to Cx. Not surprisingly, there are companies representing different industries and geos. I chose 3 X 3 Matrix; 3 Companies & 3 Cx business strategies. One, Cx as strategic differentiator in a big boys banking industry. Two, Cx as key business enabler in a crowded mobile services market. Three, Cx as a turn-around strategy to survive in a telecom world.

I am very excited to be writing about these companies – Metro Bank, Giffgaff and Sprint. I did my best to summarize Cx strategy of each of these companies.

Metro Bank – David Vs. Goliath Story in UK Banking Industry Dominated by Few Global Banks

Many of you familiar with UK Banking industry, may have heard of Metro Bank. Metro Bank started by very successful American Banker Mr. Vernon W. Hill II. Metro Bank is the first New High Street Bank in over 100 years in UK. Hitherto, UK Banking industry had been dominated by big banks like Llyods, HSBC, RBS-NatWest and Barclays. Metro Bank started with four branches (read stores) in July 2010 in London. Currently, it has 40 branches/stores in Greater London and targets to reach 110 by 2020. Metro Bank became public and is listed on LSE from March 2016.

Metro Bank won ‘Best Branch Strategy Award’ at the Retail Banker International Awards 2015’. Congratulations Metro!

The Beginning

Metro meticulously pinned down current banking process pain points encountered by customers and questioned the old ways of doing things. And find new ways to do business with customers. It could mean focusing always on doing what’s best for customers. A case in point, branches are run as retail stores. Metro stores operate practically 365 days/year (closed on only 3 days).

There are THREE Pillars to Metro’s Cx Journey – Customer On-boarding & Feedback, Employee Empowerment and Company Culture.

Customer On-boarding & Feedback

• Metro Branches distinct design and Branch tours for first time visitors
• Customer on-boarding is instantaneous; application, debit card printing, online & mobile banking activation
• Omni-channel presence; 24/7 contact center, online banking and mobile banking channels including the first drive-thru bank in the UK. 

• Employees ask customers directly about their experience (Cx) with the bank, diligently track complaints to resolve them and take any form of feedback very seriously to learn and implement
• Net Promoter Score (NPS). All the inputs shared by customers and employees are analyzed to gain insights on things that are going well and where it isn’t.

Employee Empowerment

• 360 degree view of customer, Cx dashboards and omni-channel view of customer interactions
• Employees focus on Cx and can raise issues concerning any negative impact
• Employees do not have sales targets, instead they are incentivized for enhancing customer experience.
• Yammer to encourage employees to engage with other employees across branches; share experiences especially to highlight when they’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty in helping customers and anything else that would help each other learn
• And, employees are empowered to do things that help customers instead of consulting central team.

Company Culture

Metro goes by a cultural philosophy known as AMAZE; Attend to every detail, Make every wrong right, Ask if you don’t know, Zest is contagious – share it, and Exceed expectations. Employees are hired for their alignment to AMAZE, for their attitudes, friendly nature, talent and values towards customers. New hires go through “Visions and Values” classes at “Metro Bank University”. The aim is to get into the “heads, hearts, minds, and souls” of staff before letting them loose on shop floor.

Metro is focused on Community Service events especially for younger generation. Metro is involved with local schools in teaching kids about money, banking and saving (5 for 5 club); working with local businesses to help them with their finances. And not just that, they invite children to visit stores and go into the vault.

I conclude with what Mr. Vernon Hill says about creating Fans, not Customers for your business.

“Fans tell their friends about you. They join your team. At family and friends’ barbecues, they tell everyone about something magnificent your employees did for them, above and beyond the call of duty. They don’t patronize you, they become you.”

Giffgaff – Shows us how a ‘Community Powered Model’ can be a Key Business Enabler in a Cluttered Mobile Services Market.

Giffgaff, that’s an unusual name for a brand. Apparently, it means “mutual giving” in old Scottish.

Giffgaff started in late 2009 as an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) riding on O2 network (Telefonica). Giffgaff is a UK based SIM only mobile network targeting digitally savvy customers who avoid traditional networks (locked by phone, SIM, contract). It means customers can have free SIM from Giffgaff, choose to use a phone of their choice and buy a very flexible service bundle – goodybag; voice, text, data.

What’s distinct about Giffgaff is the application of Cx principles through a ‘community powered model’. The first step towards this is to treat customers as ‘members’. Giffgaff’s very existence and growth can be attributed to its ‘customer at the center’ approach. At Giffgaff, Members are involved in typical organization (Giffgaff) functions; sales, marketing, recruitment, product development and support. With this unique community/crowd sourcing model, Giffgaff is managing 1.4 million (approx.) members with less than 20 employees.

Now, let’s look at Giffgaff’s core Cx principles:

• Co-create with Customers (Run by You)
• Run by You
• Customer Service/Support
• My Giffgaff
• Payback Scheme
• Social Marketing

Co-create with Customers (Run By You) – Customers participate in Giffgaff forum and social media to provide feedback on new products, enhance product features/benefits, pricing and support. Customers vote and comment on submitted ideas, voting values drive ideas through the process. Giffgaff institutionalized idea sharing and feedback in a transparent and time bound process – Labs Framework, Idea Exchange.

Community Customer Support (Online) – Perhaps, Giffgaff’s online community model is exemplified in their customer service. Members pro-actively share information around service issues, tips and FAQs. Members use community forum for peer to peer support. Thus, avoiding huge costs running call centers and bringing down response/resolution times.

My Giffgaff – Giffgaff has designed a broad, deep and highly interconnected media eco system. The model acts to funnel customer feedback, mutual support and ideas from decentralized social media access points, to a proprietor platform of systematic categorization, then to a developmental process with stage reporting. Ultimately, customers do see a final product or service that they had helped to create.

Payback Scheme – Users are incentivized to participate and contribute through the use of a payback scheme. The payback scheme rewards members for helping other members with Kudos points which can either be redeemed for cash, credit or charity donation. For example, customer’s get 50 points each time they e-mail a friend or 500 points for each SIM card they send to a friend that is activated.

Community Powered Model and its Business Impact

We may wonder if this model makes sense at all in this intense competitive market. Well, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. In order to be convinced of this model, let’s look at the business impact created by this model.

• Awards & Recognition:
  • uSwitch Network of the Year Winner 2016
  • Best Telecoms Provider Which? Awards 2015
  • Best MVNO at the Mobile Industry Awards 2012
• Customer Experience Excellence (CEE) Survey by KPMG, 2015. Achieved average CEE Rating of 7.7 beating nearest rivals Tesco Mobile and Virgin Mobile.
• Giffgaff‘s NPS (Net Promoter Score) is 75. It’s way above the industry average. In fact, it’s close to Apple and Google.
• Through customer advocacy, Giffgaff acquires almost 25% of new customers
• 50% of customer questions are answered via the online community (as opposed to online self-service or Giffgaff employee moderation).
• The average response time for any question posted in the forum (24×7) is under 3 minutes and 95% of all questions are answered within an hour.

Giffgaff continues to add ‘000 subscribers every month. Giffgaff Cx story proves that any business which keeps customer as focal to its business, will create lasting business impact for all the stakeholders involved; employees, management, shareholders and partners.

Sprint – Teaches Us How Customer Experience (Cx) Can Be a Strategic Lever to Turn-Around the Company

Dan Hesse took over Sprint CEO role in 2007, US. His mandate is clear, to turn-around the company before it goes bankrupt. Dan chose ‘customer is king’ philosophy as the fulcrum of turn-around strategy. It means to simplify everything so it’s easy for customers to stay with Sprint – “Simply Everything” campaign was launched in 2008. Also, he focused on employees so they can be change makers to live by ‘customer is king’ philosophy.

Between 2005 and 2008, Sprint consistently ranked last among major mobile operators in J.D. Power & Associates’ customer service surveys. In later part of 2008, Sprint has turned-around from ‘worst to first’ customer Service Company between 2008 and 2012. Industry recognized Sprint’s customer satisfaction improvements:

• The 2013 American Customer Satisfaction Index ranked Sprint as the most improved company in customer satisfaction, across all 47 industries studied, during the previous five years.
• Sprint was recognized by Forrester by having the highest improvement in customer experience across all industries by earning a 15-point jump.
• D. Power recognized Sprint as #1 in customer satisfaction for mobile with a 17-point improvement.

Let’s look at key Cx principles Sprint adopted in order to turn around the company.

Customer is King Philosophy

Sprint focused on few things that a telecom service providers must do i.e. improve network, bundle simple but attractive offers (plans, pricing & phones) and improve customer service. Let’s look at how Sprint leveraged Cx principles to ‘turn-around’ the company.

5 Customer-Centric Habits:

• LISTEN – Understand What Customers Value, Act on Their Feedback
• THINK – Make Smart, Fact-Based Decisions
• EMPOWER – Give Employees Resources and Authority to Serve Customers
• CREATE – Produce New Value for Customers and Company
• DELIGHT – Exceed Expectations, Be Remarkable.

Customers First. Premium Customers Foremost.

In its efforts to focus on improving Customer Experience, Sprint came out with initiatives for both premium and non-premium customers – The Right Plan Promise, Sprint’s Simply Everything, Read Now.

As a way of saying thank you to their premium (loyal) customers, Sprint rolled out benefits especially for the premium customers like; Early Upgrades, Just Because Perks, Fist to Know / First to Buy, Accessory Discounts, Courtesy Plan Check.

Employee Empowerment & Culture

Cx Metrics Driven Compensation – Dan understood that a Cx culture cannot be fostered unless employees are with him in this journey. Among the top 3 priorities – Cx, Branding, Conserve Cash – Cx is treated as number 1 priority. From the beginning, Cx metrics are clearly defined and employees are measured, recognized, rewarded and compensated as per these metrics.

Digital Ninjas – Sprint has a voluntary social ninja program where about 3000 employees on their own time, like evenings, go to Web sites, Facebook, Twitter as well as Sprint.com, and they answer customer questions. They’re trained to identify themselves as a Sprint employee and they can provide information, and correct misperceptions.

Technology Leverage (Cx Systems)

• Agent Desktop Solution (call center) i-Care presents agents with a single and intuitive interface for managing all customer interactions. At a deeper level, it takes a customer-centric view of information and systems so that agents have access to all relevant information when processing a customer enquiry.
• Adobe Marketing Cloud – On-the-go and in-store experiences. Insights gained through Adobe Analytics guide how mobile is transitioning customers to in-store experiences. Sprint has implemented Adobe Analytics in interactive, digital displays and tools at select retail locations. With Adobe Analytics, Sprint is able to connect the customer journey from mobile, to retail check-in, browsing, shopping, and interaction with retail staff. In addition, Sprint can connect point of sale, closing the loop on our customer’s digital experience providing retail attribution to the digital space.

Cx Strategy Business Impact:

• $2 billion in savings just from customer service operations
• $1 billion savings in operating costs
• Focused on Customer advocacy instead of just Advertisement; better retention and acquisition.

The challenges for Sprint are far from over. While Dan has turned around the company from shutting shop, Sprint has roped in Marcelo Claure (Brightstar Founder-CEO) as the new CEO in August 2014. Marcelo’s task is to fix the Sprint as a stand-alone business; stemming subscriber losses and returning to profitability.

I understand it’s a bit long. I did my best to summarize yet capture the essence. I welcome your feedback, comments and inputs. Thank you for reading!