A group of customer strategists recently considered various ways to keep an established customer experience program visible. All of their programs are fairly mature and they share a common challenge of keeping employees engaged and motivated to take action.
Here are some of best practices identified to avoid these obstacles and keep the VoC initiative front and center:
- Build Customer feedback into incentive compensation. This is a great motivator to keep employees engaged. Tips: ensure all employees are impacted, incorporate customer feedback as a fairly small percentage of the incentive plan, and make sure the metric does in fact impact compensation.
- Recognize employees. It’s important to recognize employees to let them know the work they do is valued. For example, some companies post positive customer comments on intranets or internal blogs when employees are mentioned by name for providing outstanding customer service. (Be aware of any internal restrictions, privacy issues, and the potential need to remove derogatory comments.)
- Communicate progress. It is essential to communicate progress to keep employees engaged. One way is to ensure data collection frequency provides visibility into progress on key indicators. Another option is to define internal metrics that are customer oriented. Providing regular updates will help to maintain focus on the customer experience.
These are just a few suggestions on ways your Customer Experience Program can stand out at your organization. What other ideas do you have?
Kitty Radcliff
Vice President
