02/13/17
It’s great to be loved by a business! You know the feeling. The warm, happy feeling you have when you walk out of a business and can’t wait to tell everyone about your special experience. Customer-friendly businesses know how to create that special feeling that make us loyal customers—for life! Customer-focused businesses make us feel special throughout our entire experience with them. They pay attention to details and provide the little extras that sweeten our experience. They make it easy for us to interact with them. And, of course, we love their products/services. Here a few companies that love their customers....
02/13/17
I am always impressed with the service I receive when I go to Chick-fil-A. Employees, who are making at or slightly above minimum wage, consistently create a great experience. In fact, I feel like I get as great of an experience at Chick-fil-a as I do at many high-end restaurants. Chick-fil-A is proof that businesses at lower price points can provide a great experience that leads to high customer satisfaction and loyalty. Chick-fil-A employees do a lot of little things that create that great experience. They do things like carry trays, refill drinks, and bring napkins and condiments to the...
01/16/17
The 2016 presidential election was significant for many reasons. Many feel it may be the most important election of our lifetime. The incredible inaccuracy of the polls stands out as one noteworthy aspect of the election. The political news reporters were shocked and embarrassed by how they blew the prediction of the election outcome. This is a clear demonstration of how decisions can be based on erroneous information. Some of the inherent flaws in polls are similar to problems with surveys. Poll predictions use several factors that are supposed to be representative of the population. Like polls, surveys are the...
10/31/16
George Klein, CEO/Founder of Peoplocity, will participate in a panel discussion at the ACTE Education Forum in San Francisco on November 2. The interactive discussion will focus on the evolving role of the travel manager with specific emphasis on the economic challenges, new technologies, hotel forecasts and controlling spend on ground transportation. George will share his expertise on using technology to improve the traveler experience. Other panel members include Matt Doherty, RVP West, Lyft, Jeff Hillenmayer, Head-Corp Sourcing Americas at HRS and Dorian Stonie, Sr Manager, Global Travel at Salesforce. The panel will be moderated by Ralph Colunga, Sr. Director, Global Travel and Marketing Support...
08/11/16
One of my least favorite things to do is having to report and deal with an issue with a service provider. I simply dread it. Past experience has made me feel like I will have to justify the problem. I spend time planning what I’m going to say to convince the business that I actually have a service issue and that they are responsible. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to deal with problems with two businesses—a lawn care company and a garage door company. With both businesses, I felt that their service technician had messed...
07/11/16
Customer loyalty research has shown that companies can lose up to 30% of their customers every year. Winning new customers can be up to 20 times more expensive than retaining existing customers. Research has found that reducing customer effort can improve loyalty. There are different methods for scoring customer loyalty. The most well-known are the Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT). In the past few years, Customer Effort Score (CES) has emerged as another Indicator of customer loyalty. An example of a CES question can be as simple as, “The company made it easy for me to...
04/29/16
Several recent interactions with businesses have left me wondering if they care about about their customers. In one interaction, I called to arrange to have my deck refinished. I got a recorded message that they were busy with other customers, leave a message, and they would get back to me. It’s been a week and they have not called me back. In a second interaction, I called to check into my current pest control service and was 12th in the queue. I hung up, found their web form and sent my questions. It has been 2 weeks and no one...
04/21/16
We just returned from the ACTE Global Corporate Travel Conference in Dallas! As we continue to think about the conference, we can’t help but think…WOW! It was truly a great experience from start to finish! The conference focused on key trends in the business travel industry including our favorite, Traveler Centricity. There were over 700 attendees from around the world onsite as well as online attendees who were treated to impressive speakers from throughout the travel industry. Two that were especially interesting to us included Gary Kelly, CEO of Southwest Airlines and Doug Parker, CEO of American Airlines. Their candid...
03/28/16
Customers expect the businesses to offer easy customer service channels. They want questions answered and issues resolved easily at any point in their journey with a business. Too many customers become frustrated with cumbersome channels such as web forms, emails, and automated phone attendants; they’re difficult to find, hard to use on their mobile phone, and these methods take too much valuable time to utilize. 91% of customers are frustrated when they must contact a company multiple times for one issue. 89% of customers are frustrated by repeating their issue to multiple representatives. 90% of customers are frustrated when put...
01/07/16
The New Year is upon us, and 2016 brings new expectations for businesses. Forrester Research, a leader in business research and consulting, has released predictions for the coming year. According to the company, 2016 will be an extremely important year for businesses across the globe, and one of extreme leadership change. Using technology to better understand and personalize service is a common theme. Below we’ve highlighted a few of their predictions and what they mean for your business. Customers expect personalized services. Today’s customer expects a business to understand them as an individual, and to anticipate and respond to their unique...
