As those of us who work with data (and these days that’s almost all of us) are well aware, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will come into effect very soon. Over the last year, there have been seminars, white papers and articles a-plenty attempting to help us navigate the legislation and build the systems and processes that ensure our compliance and ability to demonstrate it. However, for most people GDPR remains a daunting prospect. Expletives may apply.
Listening to Aisling Hassel, Head of Global CX at Airbnb at the recent CX event organised by CXPA Ireland was inspirational. Airbnb are true game changers and not just in how they have democratised travel. In our context, they have motivated and enabled employees to deliver a powerful customer-centric strategy based on that most precarious of variables - trust. The result - 200,000,000 guests and counting…
Siobhan Hennessy speaking at CXPA Ireland Siobhan Hennessy, Head of Customer Experience at Musgrave speaking at a recent CXPA event shared the alarming statistic put forward by Bain that eight out of nine global customer experience programmes fail. Working as a consultants in the Irish context we at W5 see significantly better rates of success than one in nine but anecdotally there certainly are companies wasting a lot of time and a lot of money on something that isn’t working here also. What’s worse, given how these failures typically play out, companies can end up losing more than just their investment in a better customer experience. They lose credibility – in the eyes of their employees, and potentially even their customers.
Pictured left to right with the award are Dovile Matelyte (W5), Liz Hickey (eir), Tadhg Murphy (eir) Sarah McChrystal (W5), Brian Martin (eir)
Creating exceptional customer experiences takes time and effort. But research and experience tells us that if you create and sustain great experiences for your customers, it reaps significant rewards for your business: enhancing and differentiating your brand, reducing churn, increasing revenue and employee satisfaction.
Recognise this scenario? You’re part of a small customer experience team charged with moving the customer centricity dial positively. Your CEO is a recently converted customer experience champion who now wants you to strengthen the mind-set and behaviour of customer-facing staff as a priority and, in fact, engage all staff in creating a customer-centric culture. You’re wondering: how can one small department influence the whole organisation? We suggest you focus your efforts on getting these five things right.
Back at our desks after the Christmas break many of us will be reviewing what we achieved in 2016 and setting objectives for 2017 and beyond. The results can often be disappointing as despite all the hard work perhaps you are seeing a situation where your CX metrics didn’t move and you seem to be in the same place that you were this time last year or before.
W5 were named as winners of the Marketing Society, Excellence in Customer Experience Research Award on Friday 3rd December. The Marketing Society Research Excellence Awards are Ireland’s foremost showcase for the transformational impact that research can have on marketing strategies and delivering best in class customer experience. With over 50 entries received this year, it demonstrates the health of the sector and the continued importance of insight driven marketing. The awards were presented by Prof Damien McLoughlin, Chairman of the adjudication panel. The dedicated CX award, sponsored by The Sunday Business Post was a new category introduced this year and was very strongly contested. W5 won for their work with Gas Networks Ireland on their CX Measurement Programme.
It’s all about customer experience these days. Companies large and small are proudly announcing that they are putting their customer first and are en route to customer centricity.
We all perform better with a good team around us. Any CEO with an ounce of sense will mention his/her team as the driving force of his success, but does it really matter if employees are engaged? Surely the key is whether or not customers are satisfied?