CHAPTER 1

Customer Experience in the "New Normal"

80 percent of companies say getting closer to customers and providing themwith a differentiated experience is a top strategic objective. Their averagerating of the customer experience they provide, however, is just 3.6 on a scaleof 1 to 5.

—Bloomberg BusinessweekResearch Services Survey, 2010

Everyone has a customer experience horror story. The cable company technicianwho never shows up. The parts supplier that you have to call repeatedly for anupdate on a spare part order. The support person who cannot help you with yourbilling question, even after you have waited on hold for an hour. The buildingmaterials supplier whose late delivery costs you thousands of dollars in lostlabor and causes you project delays.

It's ironic but true: in an age in which a large majority of companies professto rate a positive customer experience among their top strategicobjectives—about 80 percent in two recent surveys by BloombergBusinessweek Research Services (BBRS)—examples of bad customer experiencesabound. Executives, it seems, are doing a lot of talking about the importance ofcustomer experience, but they are failing to back that up with technologies,processes, and policies that can consistently and cost-effectively fostercustomer happiness. These same executives will even admit to this failing, withmost of them rating the customer experience offered by their own firms onlyslightly higher than mediocre, according to BBRS data (see Figure 1.1).Walking the talk they are not.

The fact is, there are two sides to a successful and profitable customerexperience: the employees are on one side, and the customers are on the other.In most cases, employees are motivated to satisfy customer needs anddesires—but they are not empowered to do so.

Imagine, for example, a customer phoning the call center of a large bank. Saythis customer has just discovered something disturbing in her online bankaccount: a check for $10,000 that she deposited a few days ago is marked "hold,"and the funds are not available. After toying with the idea of trying onlinechat support, she decides instead to call the support center. Once she is in theinteractive voice response system, she punches in her account number and listensto a list of options until she can finally press zero to speak to a customerservice representative (CSR). The CSR asks for her account number—Why?She just entered it.—and then for the "verbal password" on heraccount.

Increasingly anxious, the customer replies that she does not recall everchoosing a verbal password, whatever that might be, so she could not possiblyknow what it is. The CSR then asks her a series of questions, from her socialsecurity number to her address to her phone number to her mother's maiden nameto the amount of a recent deposit. Once she has supplied all of that (threeminutes into the exchange), the customer can finally ask why the check was beingheld, only to be told that the bank does not have any specific information onthat check. Her options at that point: get in the car, drive to her localbranch, and wait in line for a supervisor, who might be able to make anexception; or wait until the date when the hold is lifted and accept whateverconsequences that might have for her bills in the meantime. It is no wonder thecustomer's stomach is in knots when she hangs up the phone.

Meanwhile, the CSR is in no better shape. During the call, he has been wellaware of the customer's anxiety, and he has had to seesaw between two computerscreens, switch between two keyboards, and use several applications to trackdown all the pieces of information he needed in order to access the customer'svarious accounts and try to resolve her questions. He ends the call feelingfrustrated that, once again, the best he has been able to do for yet anothercustomer is simply apologize.

As everyone knows, banks have stringent processes and security practices inplace—as they should. These measures are there to safeguard our money. Butif the CSR in this example had had easier access to the right information, andif the bank had had business applications that enabled a 360-degree view of thecustomer, our customer would not have had to repeat her information. Also, theCSR could have quickly discovered the reason for the hold—this was an out-of-statecheck for a large amount. In addition, he could have looked uphistorical information on the customer's account and discovered that she is ahigh-value individual with a variety of different types of accounts at the bank.With this information at his fingertips, the CSR could have either lifted thehold himself or quickly gotten a supervisor on the phone with the necessaryauthority to do it. How far this action would have gone toward making thecustomer happy! How much lighter of heart—and stomach—this customerwould have been, and how much more likely she would have been to become acustomer for life.

Not to mention, think of how much more satisfied the customer servicerepresentative would have been with this increased level of empowerment. Peoplewho go into the field of customer service have a strong motivation to help otherpeople and solve their problems. And...