Touchwork has a Pinterest account, check us out: http://pinterest.com/touchwork/
It is common knowledge that business owners need to be in touch with all their business interests. Whatever the industry, this is key to effective management and so future success and revenue. Whilst financial reports speak (often) for themselves as an indicator of positive or negative performance, it is relevant to understand what factors influence these so that a. Good practices can be repeated and enhanced and b. Those factors creating a negative impact can be prevented and addressed.
For a business with one customer interaction point, this task is relatively simple – as focus is clear, and a transparent relationship with management can be maintained. However, in the case where a business has multiple units – whether it be an owned or a franchised operation – management of these both individually and holistically, poses more of a challenge. Useful to know is the performance of each, but increased insight can be gained when they are measured relative to each other – based on the same set of customer experience variables.
Click here to read a 2 page pdf white paper which details how to effectively manage multiple units holistically, strengthen the relationship your customers have with your brand, and ultimately grow your business.
Written by Paul Hague, founder of B2B International, and found on Quirks: www.quirks.com (Article) - Nov 2011.
In a small company it is very evident if customers are dissatisfied - people complain directly to the proprietor. In a large company, however, there are multiple touchpoints for any single customer that could cause dissatisfaction: the sales representatives, the customer service team, the delivery people, the finance department and so on. Company managers may have hundreds of customers around the world and the only way they can know for sure how satisfied they are is by carrying out a survey. This brings with it a number of potential problems and the survey itself is the least of these. Measuring customer satisfaction is easy compared to the task of implementing improvements.
In my experience, too many customer satisfaction studies gather dust because there is no mechanism for turning the market research findings into tangible improvements. I'd like to discuss what customer satisfaction scores mean and offer a four-point plan for making improvements.
The corridor of satisfaction
Most customer satisfaction surveys use numerical scales to measure levels of satisfaction. Respondents are asked to provide a score on their satisfaction with a supplier using a scale that runs from 1 (or 0) to 10, where 1 indicates total dissatisfaction and 10 is equal to total satisfaction. Ninety percent of all companies measuring their customer satisfaction achieve average scores in the range of 7 to 9. These scores between 7 and 9 are known as the corridor of satisfaction. On the 10-point scale in Figure 1, 8 is in practice the midpoint, not 5. This makes sense if you think about it. If you gave your dentist a satisfaction score of 5 out of 10, you almost certainly would be looking for a new one. We only do business with suppliers who provide good products or services and "good" on a 10-point scale begins at around a score of 7 for most people.
It is also fair to say that it is relatively easy to enter the corridor of satisfaction that runs between 7 and 9 and it is progressively difficult to increase the score once within it. Moving an average satisfaction score from 7 to 7.2 is much easier than moving it from 8.4 to 8.6. Because the corridor of satisfaction is quite narrow, a movement of 0.2 is significant.
It should be noted that overall satisfaction is normally asked as a separate question and is not calculated as an average of individual satisfaction scores given to different elements of a company's product or service. This is because it is possible to have a relatively high score on individual components of an offer and a lower (or higher) score on overall satisfaction. A lower overall satisfaction score could reflect an image problem that a company is facing or it could arise from resentment because a company holds a monopolist position.
On the subject of customer satisfaction measurement, some people prefer top-box scores rather than mean scores. In other words, the measures they find most useful for measuring and tracking satisfaction are the percentage of people who give a score of 9 or 10 out of 10 (top box). This focuses attention on what really matters - the proportion of people that give an excellent rating - but for some companies it may mean they have little to work on if they have a lot of scores of 7 or 8 out of 10.
Market researchers often measure numerous aspects of products and services rather than keeping the survey at a high level and asking simply about overall satisfaction. This is because they are seeking to find out what feature of a company's customer value proposition is driving overall satisfaction.
Must be related
Companies do not live in isolation and their customer satisfaction score must be related to those achieved by competitors. A company with an overall satisfaction score of 6.5 out of 10 is at face value in a very poor position but if competitors have scores of only 5.5 or 6 out of 10, its relative position may not be so bad. Thus, we need to understand how the company sits in its marketplace against direct competitors and other companies that may be used as a benchmark.
Even though our interest is in business-to-business markets, the buyers and specifiers that rate their suppliers enjoy an experience from a much wider range of products and services. If they visit John Lewis in the U.K. or Lord & Taylor in the U.S., they will receive a high quality of both products and services, which inevitably will become benchmarks to judge old-fashioned, sloppy service from a business-to-business supplier. In other words, benchmarks by which we are judged exist everywhere, in every aspect of life.
Likelihood to recommend
Customer satisfaction scores are not the only measure that is used in customer satisfaction surveys. The opportunity is also taken in most surveys to ask respondents the likelihood of them recommending a company and the answers to this question are used to compute its Net Promoter Score (NPS). Using a scale from 1 to 10 on the likelihood to recommend question, it is assumed that people who give a rating of 9 or 10 will be strong advocates or promoters of a supplier while those who give a score of 6 or below are potential detractors and would not recommend the company - they may even trash it. The subtraction of the percentage of respondents who give a score of 6 or below from those who give a score of 9 or 10 out of 10 produces the NPS (Figure 2). It will be noted that scores of 7 or 8 out of 10 are not taken into consideration as they are deemed neutral.
The average NPS for B2B companies is between 20-25 percent. It is not unusual to see negative NPS and it is rare that they consistently hit a high of 50 percent. It is widely believed that there is a strong correlation between a high NPS and growth in market share and loyalty.
Four steps
I suggest that there are four steps to improving customer satisfaction and loyalty.
1. Identify satisfaction levels (and the NPS) and what is driving them.
The starting point for any improvement plan is to know the current level of customer satisfaction and what is driving it. Let's assume that a survey has been carried out and a company achieves an overall satisfaction score of 7.8 out of 10 and an NPS of 24 percent. Further examination shows that the key drivers of the overall satisfaction score are the speed of response to enquiries; certain aspects of quality; and a general lack of innovation. It is determined from the survey results that any failings on any or all of these three factors have a marked effect on the overall satisfaction score for the company.
2. Establish workgroups to determine strategies and tactics for improving customer satisfaction.
Intuitively, people who are at first exposed to customer satisfaction findings believe that the way forward is to examine individual responses and deal with each of them in turn. When an adverse comment is shown in a customer satisfaction report the usual cry from someone in the audience is "tell me who said that." Salespeople understandably want to visit customers who have given them a low score and put them right.
However, this is not to be recommended. Firstly, the respondents who have fed back their customer satisfaction scores and comments usually do so in the belief that their responses are confidential. It would be embarrassing to a respondent if they were to criticize a sales representative in confidence and then have to face that person who had learned what was said.
Furthermore, the likelihood is that any failure to adequately serve one company is likely to be evidence that the same failure exists within a wider group of customers that have not been polled in the survey. The way forward is to address systemic issues, not individual or granular ones.
It is an obvious point to make but improving a customer satisfaction score requires someone to sort out the factors pulling the score down. Following up on the earlier example, this would mean improving the speed of response to customer contacts; rectifying aspects of the quality problems; and becoming more innovative. How to do this?
Most customer satisfaction initiatives are seen to be the responsibility of the marketing department but the solution to improving customer satisfaction should be a companywide responsibility.
Consider setting up workgroups that devise an action plan and ensure that it is followed through. In our example, there could be a workgroup dedicated to improving quality, one taking responsibility for customer service and the other for driving innovation.
Small workgroups of four or five people are more likely to make progress than larger ones with too much debate and too little action. The composition of the workgroup should include someone with a deep understanding of the issue that is under consideration. However, it may be appropriate to include people from other disciplines as they will provide a wider context and offer fresh challenges and ideas that come with an outsider's view.
Any plan for improving customer satisfaction must address fundamental issues, some of which may be strategic or long-term and require a significant financial investment. However, there are also sure to be issues that can be addressed easily and with very little cost. Although their impact could be quite small, they are worthwhile for everyone to feel progress is being made (Figure 3). These can be simple things such as ensuring that everyone has a standard voicemail message on their mobile phone or that everyone has a consistent sign-off at the end of their e-mails. A very good start would be to make a comprehensive list of all the customer touchpoints and identify where most problems occur.
3. Have the CEO approve the strategies and communicate the importance of making improvements within a tight timeline.
Communicating customer satisfaction initiatives throughout a large company is not easy. The company may have hundreds if not thousands of employees and it would be a costly exercise - and one that would take forever - to make presentations of the findings and action plan to every employee. However, not everyone needs to see the detail or to hear about the actions that are outside their area of responsibility. Dissemination programs can be devised to communicate the right information to the right groups in the right way. This could involve cascading presentations to team leaders who in turn inform the people they work with.
One solution adopted by a company implementing an improvement program was to make a 10-minute film featuring the CEO of the company, who used this opportunity to give his support to the initiative. It included summary presentations from the communications team, who were able to clearly state the problems and solutions and presentations from members of the workgroups outlining what is expected from everyone. The film was shown on the company intranet and on screens placed around areas where people congregate, such as the restaurants and lobby areas.
CEO involvement is crucial. Customer satisfaction is the responsibility of the board as it is a companywide philosophy. It is not the responsibility of any single person or group of people. If the CEO identifies improved customer satisfaction as one of his or her key initiatives, it will be more readily picked up as a key initiative for staff members down the line.
4. Establish simple measures to check that the program delivers improvements.
We live in a survey-weary world where it is not practical to return to customers at too-frequent intervals to ask for feedback. Indeed, customers are likely to be frustrated if they are pestered to rate customer satisfaction and if they feel that little or few improvements are being made. It can take an inordinate amount of time for improvements to become evident and recognized in the marketplace. This is another reason why some things need doing quickly so that customers can see that a start has been made.
Although the board may be impatient for a dashboard that frequently delivers customer satisfaction measurements, these may not be possible within a tight, relatively-small customer base. Most customer surveys are carried out annually unless there are a large number of customers from which samples of customers for interview can be taken on a regular basis to measure progress. However, for the majority of business-to-business companies, measures must be found other than customer satisfaction surveys.
There are many different measures that can be used as a proxy for customer satisfaction. Internal measures related to the subject of improvement will be relevant. For example, if a required improvement is faster deliveries, measurements can be devised that track the speed with which an order is dispatched. If improvements are required in the frequency with which customers are contacted, measurements can be introduced to show how many visits are made to customers, how many phone calls are made, who makes them, the purpose of the call, etc. If the problem is product quality, measures can be taken of the quality as it comes off the production line or leaves the company.
In addition to such obvious measures of improvement, a company could introduce a self-policing measurement. The customer service teams could be asked to give their views on the scores that they believe individual customers would award them. If these ratings prove to be overgenerous when customers give their views in the annual survey, it would be easy to think of repercussions. Bonuses and personal development program could be affected.
Constant improvement
A constant improvement in customer satisfaction should be in the mission statement of virtually every company. The benefits are huge. There will be a reduction in customer churn. There will be increased loyalty. And, not least, there will be increased profitability. Increasing customer satisfaction is not complicated but it is hard work - and it is worth it.
Written by Meghan Kelly and found on Mobile Beat (Article) - Dec 2011.
There are 91.4 million people in the United States who use smartphones, according to a new report by comScore, but how are they using their phones? Texting, app usage and listening to music top the charts.
For three months ending in November, over 234 million mobile devices were used by 13 year olds and older, says comScore. Smartphones make up around 39 percent of that group. Android is still winning smartphone market share, up 3.1 percent to 46.9 percent, with Apple trailing in second. Research in Motion fell 3.1 percent, but remains the third competitor. As a phone manufacturer, RIM fell another .6 percent, and sits at the bottom below Samsung, LG, Motorola and Apple, in that order.
While smartphones have changed much of the way we use our phones, some activities remain the same
. Of all types of mobile devices, 72.6 percent of people use phones to send text messages. Checking social media and playing games also made the leader-board. Most interestingly, however, is the switch from browsing to application usage. In the three months prior to this current study, 42.1 percent more people used their browsers to get information, compared to the 41.6 percent that used apps. Now, however, applications have taken the lead by .5 percent. The percentage is small, but shows a significant shift in how people consume information on their mobile devices.
Mobile music listening comes in sixth place, at 20 percent. While this number seems small, most of these users probably come from smartphones, except for a few feature phones which support the activity. Given that smartphones only make up 39 percent of the mobile user population, half of these people use their mobile phones to listen to music. Indeed, sales for Apple’s iPod dropped 27 percent since last year’s fourth quarter, and is projected to continue tumbling in popularity.
Johnson & Johnson South Africa wanted to be able to measure the customer service provided by their call centre agents. They also wanted to ensure that any negative feedback was followed up immediately and that this was used as an opportunity to train the call centre agents.
The Touchwork TxtandTell system was able to provide a solution.
TxtandTell resulted in Johnson & Johnson being able to measure customer experience, follow-up on voucher receipts, and gauge the intent to repurchase a product.
To read how the solution was implemented and the results it achieved, download this 2 page pdf case study - Call Centre Management 2011.
AeroDAQ has been designed specifically for airports to collect data, monitor quality, and improve overall efficiency and compliance. Our industry-leading solution is used by airports worldwide to enhance performance and save costs, while providing new insights into airport operations. We use the cell/mobile phone as a low cost solution for collecting data, and providing actionable results in real-time.
AeroDAQ for Operational Compliance is utilised in the internal operations at the airport, and can replace most of the paper-based audit processes – without the need for expensive PDA's or smart phones.
Benefits:
•Collect real-time data and business insights.
•Improve airport operations and decision making.
•Allow for better performance management.
•Streamline audit scheduling and tracking.
•React immediately to exceptions reported.
•Increase efficiency in collecting data.
•Improve quality and access to historic data.
•Reduce costs associated with data collection.
•It is user friendly, easy to implement and manage surveys.
•No additional investment in hardware required.
It is comprised of two key elements: the survey or form accessible on a mobile device, and the web portal from which the surveys can be created, maintained, and the real-time data reviewed and measured.
The Mobile Surveys contain the questions and/or data fields being surveyed, and are accessed via WAP links sent to the surveyors device. These WAP links work on all ordinary mobile phones, smart phones, tablets and PC’s that are on-line with internet connectivity. Phones with greater capabilities are able to access these surveys through a number of other routes, for example QR codes.
The Web Portal is where the client's profile is initially configured, surveys are set-up and the analysis and reporting takes place. This is a secure website with access controls - allowing you to decide who is able to view your data and manage any part of the survey implementation process.
To find out more information on Touchwork, AeroDAQ or to contact us, click here.
Touchwork has launched a new and unique product that allows you to receive, track and manage alerts from the field in real-time.
Utiviti Alert Manager is part of the
Utiviti suite of smart, multi-platform solutions to make your workforce more productive, and your utility processes more efficient.
Imagine if (without additional hardware) you could...
• Immediately know about field problems in real-time
• Make it easy for field teams to report problems
• Easily monitor progress to resolve the problem
• Empower all your staff to make meaningful suggestions
• Save money and improve service delivery/quality
This breakthrough mobile service can immediately improve operational effectiveness in your municipality or company. It can also act as an electronic “suggestion box” – allowing staff to report a problem or issue when they see it, or make a suggestion they think could add value to the organisation. Furthermore, it could be used as a channel to commend a colleague for work done that deserved special mention.
Whether it’s on a mobile phone or the office PC, the
Utiviti Alert Manager opens new channels of communication to manage the valuable flow of information.
To see an example of a fault reporting survey on your phone, either:
• Scan the QR code
• Type this into your mobile web browser - http://bit.ly/uMEvQ6
• Click
here to open it up on your PC web browser
SurveyThumb is now able to maximise the value you get out of data captured in the field by attaching GPS co-ordinates to the locations being audited. This can be used to provide proof that the data was captured in the correct location or for additional geo-location analysis and reporting.
With the proliferation of smart phones coming onto the market - most of 
which support GPS technology - SurveyThumb is able to interface with the GPS hardware on the device to capture and record the location co-ordinates being audited. Although not supported by all cell phone operating systems, this feature is available for use with a number of the leading brands. This then allows you to overlay audit data collected with geo-location data to create a more detailed view of the environment being measured.
SurveyThumb includes Google Maps on the reporting portal to plot the locations that were audited, in a simple and informative way. These GPS co-ordinates are also available for export to support integration with existing 3rd party GIS solutions.
For more on GPS and how it can integrate with your data collection needs, contact one of the Touchwork offices.
Top Promotions is an in-store promotions company, specializing in demonstrating products and services within retail stores, at expos and special events. Founded in 1993, Top Promotions provides these services to a number of leading consumer brands throughout South Africa.
Due to the competitiveness of the market and the dynamics of the industry, their client (Pink Lady® Apples) had a need for more real-time and regular reporting on how their brand was performing in the retail trade.
SurveyThumb was able to provide a solution to this. The result...
- 25% more calls were made
- 100% reduction in printing and paper costs
- 70% reduction in admin costs
- Monthly reports generated automatically and delivered to multiple users via email
Click here to download the complete (pdf) Executive Case Study:Top Promotions and Pink Lady® Apples use Cell Phones for Collecting in-store Data.
Utiviti has added yet another product to its suite of workforce solutions. These solutions are all designed to better manage and operate current paper-based processes.
Utiviti Meter Auditor is used to collect meter data when installing meters, conducting meter sweeps, or validating existing utility databases. This data can then be analysed and reported via a web portal, or exported for integration with other applications. And pertinent to note is that there are no additional hardware required. 
Key advantages...
• End to manual data processes
• Reduce duplication of data and errors
• No more paper, data is electronic from the time of capture ("green"!)
• Attach photographic evidence to validate data
• Geo-stamped and date/time stamped to maximise data integrity
• Improves fieldworker performance
• Can use barcode scanning to automate field processes
• Data is available in real-time
• Fully flexible and configurable solution
The How...
The Mobile Audits contain the questions and/or data fields being collected, and are accessed via links distributed to the field workers device. These links work on all ordinary cell phones, smart phones, tablets and PC’s that are on-line with internet connectivity. The Web Portal is where the initial configuration takes place, audits are set-up and the analysis and reporting of data collected is managed.
If you would like our industry expert to chat to you about how you can deploy the Meter Auditor in your business or municipality, please contact us.