Lynn Hunsaker
Measure Customer Value the Customer’s Way
Customers automatically use 50 or more metrics for any customer experience, according to author Anthony Ulwick, in his book "What Customers Want". We may be re-inventing the wheel as we strive to come up with customer metrics that spell success. Looking at...
Customer Service: “Wow'” Versus “Ow”
What's the difference between 'wow' and 'ow' (as in 'ouch') service? Willingness to check for understanding. It's doing the whole job, with the customer sensing your overriding wish for his or her well-being. When you check for understanding, the customer's woes...
Is Your Focus Lagging?
We monitor customer satisfaction, net promoter scores and business results as barometers of success. These indicators are important in 'reading the tea leaves' of evolving customer expectations and competitive scenarios. Yet, because these measures are things which stakeholders (i.e. investors and customers)...
Customer Experience: How Do Your Customers Define It?
The term customer experience has a wide array of interpretations. For some people it revolves around shopping or website navigation. For others it's about ease of use as the customer interfaces with the product or service they purchased. For some, it's about technical and...
Are Customer Programs Giving or Getting?
Who benefits most from customer programs in place today? New customers? Existing customers? The company itself? All of the above equally? I'd venture to say it's rare to find customer programs that benefit all of the above equally -- or that truly benefit existing customers.…
Customer Satisfaction Cliffhangers: Don’t Leave People Who Give You Feedback Hanging
Customers are typically motivated to give companies feedback by hopes that their opinions will be valued, make a difference in their near-future experiences, or spare others any grief they've endured. Anytime customers share feedback -- whether solicited via survey or unsolicited via complaint or...
Stepping Into Your Customers’ Shoes
If we could 'be a fly on the wall' observing customers' experiences what a treasure trove of wisdom we'd have! Surveys, user groups and advisory boards are common tools for understanding customers -- but what is their scope? Do we have a...
Ethnocentric Customer-Centricity
It's easy to be ethnocentric about customer-centricity! Enthnocentrism is the tendency to look at the world primarily from the perspective of one's own culture. How often do we view customer experience, loyalty, word-of-mouth marketing, and customer care from the perspective of our...
CEM’s Weakest Link: 3 Tips for Managing Brand Value
You're only as strong as your weakest link. You may be gambling your brand equity if the weakest links leading to the end-customer's experience aren't managed. Have you analyzed your business processes in terms of customer touchpoint value chains, to identify reliability...
What’s Your ROI on Customer Data?
As prices of fuel and everyday items seem to have recently skyrocketed, most of us are putting more emphasis on metrics. We're concerned with things like 'just what is my car's MPG?', 'what is my department's productivity rate?', and 'what value are we deriving...
Innovating the Customer Experience to Embrace Everything That Surrounds the Product
What's the difference between user experience design and customer experience design? Although the phrasing is similar, there's a real gap between the two concepts. User experience typically focuses on product-specific ease-of-use, ergonomics, and ethnography -- participative observation of the product-in-use. Customer...
Who’s Driving Value for Growth? An Opportunity for Marketers
Ability to grow a business is what distinguishes a truly great marketer, according to an article by consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton: "In an era of unlimited opportunities but constrained resources, the only marketing metric that matters is growth. Driving growth means stretching the...
Love Those Lemons: When They Complain, Make Lemonade
Negative customer feedback is a lot like biting into a lemon — the bitterness is hard to love — unless you give the lemon a good squeeze and some sugar, and transform it into refreshing and healthy lemonade. You're only as strong as your...
It’s Like Let Me Use Metaphors to Totally Get My Point Across
Like radical, man, but everyone tends to talk in metaphors. A picture tells a thousand words, they say. And we all use 5-6 metaphors a minute, according to author Gerald Zeitman in his book "How Customers Think". So how much do you know about...