In 2014, voice of the customer is 2.0- why are you offering customers to speak through microphones 1.0?

It was about seven weeks ago, that I had dinner with two former customer experience top executives, and currently principal consultants for one of the top customer experience consultancy. We were sharing opinions around topical customer experience issues, ranging from loyalty, customer feedback platforms, customer journey mapping and a host of others. I then, retracted and focused on the state of the voice of the customer systems.I told them that there are great VOC systems like: uservoice, Nice fizzback, NPS, usabilla, iperceptions, getsatisfaction and a host of other platforms..

With my customer facing and research background, I said there is a massive need for analyzing emotional drivers to positive or negative customer experience. I told them,trustpilot, a great customer feedback platform, that utilizes customisable emails, to garner customer feedback, affirms that they have about 7% response rate. 'Does that ring an alarm bell?'I asked, whimsically. One of the consultants, recalled an interesting experience, on a comical feedback comment cards in a gents toilet in Belgium. He did add, that gents had an opportunity to rate their experience using animated pictures that typified good or bad.

I ended by telling them, feedback programs should be accessible, dynamic and multifaceted - in a bid to collating emotionally measurable responses. I told them it is with this yearn and pain in my heart, that i have found the need to create vibevox. The ultimate aim is to bring web 2.0, microphone 2.0 and mobile 2.0 to customer feedback. I told them the about the idea and it resonated within them, as industry experts, on the need to have a dynamic and 2.0 voice of the customer platform.You could keep this preamble aside for a minute, we would put the strings or puzzle together in a moment. Don't swipe to a next blog yet, this journey is about to get interesting. Hang on a bit!

Microphones have evolved over the years- and have thus, transformed the music, public speaking and performance industry immensely. Microphones 1.0, within the music or performance world, could be conceived as microphones with cords or wires- epitomizing disruptions to dancing and mobility. This informed the need for the creation of wireless microphones, or cordless as some folks would term them. These microphones are handheld, but a distinct advantage is that they are wireless and aids a better stage performance. I choose to call this microphone 1.5 at this point, leaving us with a 2.0 that has aided charismatic singers and speakers utilize their full potential. “What is the Microphone 2.0?”- I can hear you quiz, with a handful of curiosity. Microphone 2.0 are game changers, they have given a whole meaning to music and are wireless and hands-free. They are called a headset wireless microphones, you have possibly used them or seen speakers used them during TEDx events or conferences. Please capture this in your mind, but imagine for a second, how companies still offer customers to speak through a wired microphone 1.0, that inhibits mobility, energy, charisma, emotional expression and freedom. Please hold on to these microphones, we are still brainstorming and would hit the point sooner than you think.

Neil Davey says the likes of Gartner are forecasting that Voice of the Customer (VoC) programs will be one of the most significant strategic investments over the next five years, and the VoC market is set for annual growth rate of over 30%. But while this may indeed come to pass, it is also accepted that VoC remains an immature market. In short – a lot of money could be wasted in the coming years. Jim Davies, research director at Gartner opines that, “From a corporate perspective, the focus on understanding customers by listening to them and using that understanding to market differently, sell differently, support differently, redesign processes and change the product, is becoming more and more important. It is a key part of customer experience management and a lot of companies are now realizing they can’t really differentiate by traditional means, but really understanding the customer can help them to do that.”


It is against this backdrop, that it is key for companies to offer her customers with a microphone 2.0, that gives these customers an opportunity to express their emotions in an unrestricted manner. What is microphone 2.0 in relation to the voice of the customer program? In a very simple and clear manner, the world is gone mobile with smart phones and gone creative with this likes of instagram, pinterest, vine and a host of others. In my extensive research with customer experience practitioners and customers- the clarion call in 2014, is that, companies should not restrict feedback platforms with wired microphones but facilitate with cordless headsets. Microphone 1.0, are feedback channels with just a restrictive email or text medium. Customers would be unable to express themselves emotionally and creatively through a restrictive email or text medium. Microphone 1.5, are customer feedback platforms that have animated pictures that accompany comment cards. Vibevox and hopefully many other VoC vendors in 2014, aim to utilize micro videos, pictures, voice memo’s and animated comment cards, to gather customer feedback. This is microphone 2.0, that does not restrict customers to one medium, but creates flexibility like a cordless microphone.

In addition, since the world has gone mobile, Voc 2.0 is calling for the additional use of mobile apps to gather customer feedback in the most accessible, effective and dynamic way. To add more urgency to this need, Joel Gascoigne, the founder of bufferapp, a social media scheduling tool, tweeted a few days ago: “Does video customer support exist? Any products out there that provide audio/video/screensharing customer support tools? Thanks :)”


I know it is a long piece, but what seems to be longer is getting the right quality and quantity of customer feedback. Companies should see the need to embrace an all encompassing medium (comment cards, video,voice memo and picture) to gather and interpret customer insight. Voices come in several tones and could be better understood with a variety of creative mediums. Don’t restrict your customer’s voice to one tone and medium!

‘Yes darling or okay babes’- the role of semantics in endearing or endangering customer experience.

I am a big lover of fruits- with a very sweet and soft spot for bananas, pears and apples. A few hours ago, I made a short trip to an open air fruit market, at south east London. I was torn between two fruits stalls- like a high school girl, wooed by the two most popular boys from the school basket ball team. I went back and forth both stalls, adorned in much indecision as both had a similar array of fresh and colourful fruits. One stand served customers without saying much- aside, “It’s £2 pounds please.” The second stall, had a bubbly and spirited lady enthusing, “Yes darling, anything more.” At other moments she would say, “Thank you darling;” after the customers pay, and end by saying, “Have a good day darling.” You could guess where my allegiance or pounds would sway towards, not the dispirited seller but the passionate lady with the magic word ‘DARLING.’ I picked a hand of bananas, and was about to pay for that, but the friendly use of the powerful phrase, “Thank you Darling,” inspired me to include some apples to my shopping cart.

On a different note, I came across a guy that worked for a retail outlet; he constantly struggled in achieving above 50% on his customer feedback metrics. On one occasion, a customer left a comment through the fizzback voice of the customer platform, on how she received a great service from him, but was not comfortable with how often she was referred to as ‘Babes.’ He used ‘Okay Babes,’ on too many occasions, which made her feel uncomfortable and did not get maximum 10, on the fizzback metrics. 

These are two scenarios, similar intentions but contrasting outcomes. It comes down to something known as semantics, a branch of linguistics and logistics concerned with meaning. It also could be conceived as the meaning of words, phrase or text. In customer experience, the use of the appropriate words within the apt context, determines if you end up with a satisfied or irritated customer.

It is very important to understand that words are very powerful in endearing or endangering the experience of customers. Understanding, the context and applying the relevant set of phrases and words would determine if customers would keep buying from you or try the competition. In some cases, it is critical to use powerful words like -darling, sweet, lovely, boss, babes, Sir, Madam, friend, mate and host of others, to either touch the hearts, massage the ego or inspire the minds of your customers.

Secondly, the context or business environment is essential, in understanding the role of powerful semantics. In a construction, building, railway or raw masculine business environment, the use of phrases like ‘thank you boss or yes boss,’ might be very instrumental in endearing the customer as it helps massage the ego. In an open stall, less formal and unstructured retail outlet, the use of ‘thank you darling,’ could hold sway. In a make-up, beauty or cosmetic retail outlet- using words like beautiful, pretty or lovely, to address your customers, could endear them. When you come into a more formal and structured setting, then addressing customers as ‘Sir’ or ‘Madam’ could never go wrong.

Suffice it to say that, customers have emotions, egos and personalities that yearn for praise, complement or recognition. As you realise that customers differ, on so many fronts, using the appropriate words or phrases is a ‘no brainer.’  The business context differs, customers are a bit similar and somewhat dissimilar, understanding and training your staff to utilise the right words would either endear or endanger your customer experience. Are you endearing or endangering your customer experience with your semantics?

How a single and tiny punctuation mark transformed customer experience.

Punctuation marks are a common phenomenon in writing- more like the unique straight or overcast stitches, which holds together and garnishes the literary attire. These tiny but significant elements act like a concierge- by helping show a reader where a sentence starts and ends. Punctuation marks comprises of: full stop, comma, semicolon, colon, apostrophe, hyphen, brackets and a host of others. The presence of these marks, make reading and comprehension a lot easier but the absence of this on a particular occasion transformed my customer experience.

A few days ago I launched a new landing page vibevox, for a voice of customer platform that is currently in development. It took a few days for Google keyword research, logo design and conceptualisation; to craft the landing page- powered by Launchrock. The landing page went live by 2 am a few days ago; I was super excited and went to bed really pleased with my efforts. Before going to bed, I did send an instant message to a friend intimating him about the site. After a few hours ticked by, the alarm clock goes off- accompanied by a worse alarm, not the fire alarm, in case you are wondering. The alarm was an instant message from a friend saying the site was down. I panicked, as a chill of despair consumed my sense of reasoning. I quickly sent an email to my web host, citing the error 404 that was appearing on my landing page. They replied with a recommendation of some few ways of resolving the issue- tried these but to no avail. The page was intermittent, coming on for a brief moment every other hour. My customer experience was at an all time low as I had adhered to the outlined instructions from my web host. I watched a host of YouTube videos, addressing how to resolve similar issues- adjusted and tweaked the configuration, still fell at the feet of error 404.

I finally decided to resort to an online tech support chat, with the hostgator technical support assistant. Hoping this would be the climax of my customer experience journey, after a bumpy and foggy ride. Within a few minutes of investigating my web control panel, the tech support assistant wrote the best phrase every worried customer longs to hear- ‘Got it.’ He then further added that the problem was caused by a punctuation mark- full stop (.). This happens to be the tiniest punctuation mark but on this occasion it was a differentiator between a very satisfied customer to a disgruntled one. If you were wondering what category I was affiliated to, I would say between the former and the later- owing to the recent assurance from the tech support adviser. I was relieved that he had discovered the fault was a full stop (.), at the end of my domain name on the control panel. To be honest, I was not super confident that a tiny mark could distort a landing page- nonetheless, was advised to give it about three hours. I had no choice but to adhere to the instruction- countdown three hours, the site was back on and has never flickered for a fraction of a second. I was impressed and left a very good feedback on the hostgator feedback tool- sharing my utmost relief at the ease at which the technical support team resolved my humongous challenge.

John Wooden poignantly enthused, “It’s the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen.” It is against this backdrop that I would like to state that companies striving to enhance her customer experience should acknowledge at times, the elements that put off customers may not be the large punctuation marks like question mark, exclamations, hyphen or brackets. In most cases, the granules or the minute elements like a full stop or dot, (figuratively speaking) might transform the customer experience. The other key element in this school of thought would be to know when to eliminate or include a granule or minute element- that could transform the experience. In my case, erasing the punctuation mark made the difference; another scenario including the punctuation mark or minute element might enhance the experience. Remember your company is like an article, your customers are the readers and the right application of punctuation marks would enhance their reading experience.

What does voice classification in singing have to do with the voice of the customer?

Voice classifications are a very important element in the music industry. These voice categorisations are determined but not limited to vocal timbre, vocal tessitura, vocal range and transition points. Now you might be wondering what this has to do with the voice of the customer. Please, have your studio headsets on as we carry on exploring the vocal classifications in music as it relates to the voice of the customer. 

Research shows that there are about seven main voice types in music- particularly within the classical circles. 

These voice types are polarised or in a better tone, categorised along the male and female lines. The female voice is typically and somewhat historically divided in three types- soprano, mezzo-soprano and contralto. A shallow dig into this voice types highlights soprano as the highest female voice- around a high 'C' - as typified by musical experts. The mezzo-soprano is the second highest female voice - a middle range voice type- and a category that houses the most number of female singers and wannabe singers. This leaves the contralto as the lowest voice type among the female singers. I know this is not a music lesson, even if it were to be one; I would be the wrong man to put you through the notes. I am not a music teacher, voice expert or vocal coach- i am just a customer enthusiast. Please hang on in this studio for a few more moment.

Men are mostly divided into four groups: countertenor, tenor, baritone, and bass. A further look into these categories reveals that the countertenor is unarguably believed to be the highest male voice and the tenor is the second highest. The third highest and the most common male voice is the baritone- this is the category that accommodates most men. The bass is the lowest voice among the male category. 
An important note is that people move up or down on voice types- dependent on factors like age, the musical role, instruments or repertoire. 

Research carried out by Gartner reveals that voice of the customer (VoC) programs, will be one of the most significant and essential investments over the next five years. They further added that the VoC marketplace is geared for an annual growth of over 30%.

Businesses need to understand that customers have different voice classifications. Some with very high pitched voice and others with middle range and low pitched- respectively. Borrowing a leaf from music, singers change voice classification based on age, instruments and musical roles. Companies have to understand that customers express feedbacks on products and services with voices that could be influenced by length of time they have been with your company, opinions from social media, past experiences with similar brands and how receptive you are. Customers have different voices but designing a program that records and responds to these ranges of voice in a timely manner is important.

Talk about CX customization in 2014, you need to understand accents. What accent does your business have?

Businesses around the globe have to adopt, adjust and tailor their services to meet the peculiarities of their customers. Accent, is an integral part of the customization of customer experience- companies are required to consider this as a critical aspect of their customer strategy. Wikipedia conceive of accents as a linguistic variety which differs in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. In the UK alone, there are about 40 different accents that exist and with globalization surging in modern economy, it is very certain that a firm’s customer base comprises of nationals from a host of countries with a variety of accents.

A key area where this could be employed would be on the IVR and most importantly voice recognition facility on the call centre channel. A few weeks ago, I called up Sky TV to renegotiate my TV package. I dialled the number, had several options which were not exhaustive or comprehensive enough. I was then asked to say my post code, I said that once, and it requested that I should repeat it, as it seemed the voice recognition did not get it. It was a prolonged and painful experience that prompted me to consider leaving for the competition. Take a pause and Imagine for a few minutes, a very high value customer, that has a different accent to that of the default voice recognition, making a call to the call centre and they are being moved in circles because they have a variant accent to that of the default IVR voice recognition.

In 2014, the key phrase in gaining the competitive advantage is the ‘Customization of the Customer Experience’ – as businesses have to be flexible and sensitive enough to design its strategy to suit the culture, personality and peculiarities of her customers. Understanding your customer’s language, accents and culture goes a long way to show you value their worth. Going forward, it would be great if every company, designs her IVR service to present all customers with a choice of either saying or typing their account details, post code, order number, tracking number or any information required to route the call. Companies should not assume or generalise that all her customers have the default IVR voice recognition accent.

On a more demanding but interesting note, businesses could invest in incorporating a host of major accents to its voice recognition service. It would take a while but this might be a good point of differentiation if the customisation of customer experience is to be taken seriously.  On the contrary, some IVR research like that carried out by call centre helper, expressed that only 18% of contact centres adopted a speech recognition system.  The research states that the problem with customising the IVR voice recognition system in line with accents is that of accuracy- an accuracy of about 70% is what was achieved. In the same research, a call centre consultant stated that with proper tuning and modification, the accuracy level could increase to 90%. The biggest challenge to customising the way we listen to how a customer talks to us via IVR is not that of recognition accuracy but a word that may not be on the list. The findings concluded by stating that the “out of grammar” errors can be in the 15% range which affects the overall speech/accent recognition capabilities of IVR.

Regardless of the inherent challenges, companies that would excel in her customer strategy in 2014 are those that listen to their customers speak, make an understanding of what they are saying and act accordingly. Remember accents indicate where you customers are coming from, understanding them helps you know where they are headed for. 

Gratitude investment: is your brand appreciating or depreciating in value?

William Arthur Ward, once said, “Feeling gratitude and not expressing it, is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” The essence of gratitude or the act of being thankful to customers within the business climate, largely impacts upon the brand perception and value.  Having gratitude towards customers is not enough but investing the gratitude by way of expressing it helps improve the perception and affinity towards a brand.

NBC news, ran a story of a café in Nice called Le Petite Syrah, they would make customers who say “Thank You” and are generally polite pay less than customers who do not. The price of coffee in this café starts at 7 Euros and drops to 4.25 Euros, when a customer uses the word ‘Please.’ When the customer goes for the full, “Good morning, a coffee, please,” and the politeness discount reduces the price to about, 1.4 Euros. This development- inspired customers to be exceptionally polite and grateful in a bid to get coffee for free, and this totally transformed the attitude of customers as they became less rude, more polite and grateful due to the price reduction for good behaviour. Now, this is the business demanding the appropriate and appreciative behaviour from her customers.

The idea of gratitude investment is critical as customers feel empathy and value when their patronage is genuinely appreciated. On New Year’s Eve, before I got off the train, the driver in a very genuine and thoughtful tone enthused, “Thank you for travelling with southern and have a happy new year.” It was a simple thank you but was said in a very heartfelt manner- that made me feel he really meant what he said.

Gratitude investment, involves expressing genuine and thoughtful thank you to your customers. The premise of this approach is to help generate gratitude within the workforce or employees, this then transcends to the customers. It is very difficult to have a disgruntled and ungrateful workforce express gratitude genuinely to customers.

Research has showed that grateful people- feel better about life, exercise regularly, make progress in actualising personal goals, optimum degree of alertness and awareness, enthusiastic-optimistic-determined, they are more likely to help others. Steven Foran, Known as the ‘Gratitude Guy’ opines that this set of employees show a better attitude towards their employer, job and the customers. They positively impact upon loyalty and customer service- by exhibiting sincere and genuine care and empathy towards customers. Empathy is viewed as a messenger of care during and after the customer interaction. Using my personal experience on New Year’s Eve, the train driver showed genuinely he cared about the passengers by wishing us a happy new year. That was the only train driver, of all the trains I boarded, close to the New Year that took out time to genuinely thank his passengers and wish them a happy new year. His tone of voice, pace of speech and demeanour was genuine, not robotic, sincere and intentional. I could tell this was an employee that had gratitude within him, as you could only give what you have. If an employee has ingratitude within them, they could only express a robotic and an insincere ‘Thank You’. Customers could sense when gratitude is being faked, acted upon or expressed in a robotic manner.

Let’s borrow a leaf from the French Cafe in Nice, Imagine as a brand or company, your customers pay £1 more on an item, whenever your staff says thank you or shows gratitude. I could only imagine, that your employees would use ‘Thank You’ at the start and the end of every sentence and would probably, keep the conversation long enough- to use more ‘Thank You’ and show more gratitude. This gesture or attitude would be robotic, insincere and exploitative in nature.

Gratitude investment is very critical to brand appreciation or depreciation. Remember the value of your brand is dependent upon the perception, emotions and inclination that customers have of your product and service. For brands to appreciate in value, businesses are required to show gratitude to their customer base in a very thoughtful and sincere manner. To achieve this goal, firstly, executives have to look inwards by facilitating employees to express gratitude in their personal life.  Employees can only give or express what they have- gratitude within their personal lives would help them show thoughtful appreciation towards customers.

Suffice it then to say that, gratitude investment demands for businesses to show genuine interest in the wellbeing of their workforce- to ensuring they are making personal strides, achieving goals, having a positive outlook in lives and express personal gratitude about life. When you coach and inspire your workforce to feel good about themselves, you are investing in gratitude, inspiring your team to extend such gratitude to your customers, and in-turn your customers would uphold your brand in high esteem.

When the Granules become Grand – Customer Experience.

In Solar Physics, granules are understood to be visible structures in the photosphere of the sun, where hot gases rise and give off light and heat. Now to a non-physicist like me, this sounds very confusing and I am rhetorically quizzing within myself- what does this have to do with customer experience, at the slightest? My curiosity and yearn for clarity on the meaning of granules, kept travelling across the web and arrive at the geological viewpoint,  which defines it as a clast of rock with a particle of approximately 2-4 millimetres in size. Now to the pharmacist, granules are understood to be small pills made from sucrose and particles gathered into a larger aggregate in which the original particles could still be identified.  I can hear you saying, ‘Enough of these definitions and characterisation of granules,’ you are not alone on the rant- I am also tired of these scientific and geological definitions.

Let me tell you a story of an experience I recently had during my visit to Berlin, for the 40^th  BMW marathon and be the judge to see if there is any relationship between granules and my experience or if there is a far and wide gap? I am quite a decisive individual but it took over three weeks to choose my accommodation in Berlin- due to a wide array of choices and mixed reviews on trip-advisor. After the passage of three solid weeks contemplating on several accommodation options, I finally went for the grand hostel. My marathon buddy used the same hostel about a year ago- I liked his passionate recommendation and owing to the fact it was 200 meters from the Berlin Brandenburg gate, which is viewed as the neoclassical triumphal arch and also served as the marathon hub. A day before my journey, I went on the grand hostel website for directions from the Berlin Schonefeld airport, they provided a vivid direction like… ‘Take exit at the little flower shop and turn right’ and the website also displays this reassuring statement: ‘Got Lost? Just give us a call; we are there for you 24/7!!!’

 
On arriving at the hostel, from my experience in several hostels, hotels and guest inns, the first thing most would ask is: what is your name or where is your ID? I arrived at the four floor hostel, strolled through the doors and met this happy and friendly guy and the first thing he says is: 'Hi, welcome! Can I get you some tea or water?' I was taking aback, by some few meters of shock and surprise. This was strange as most hotels or hostels are more interested in finding out your name and giving you a quote for your stay than offering you a drink at the first instance of meeting.

 

This is a very customer-centric hostel as I witnessed a fellow guest receiving the same kind of treatment from a different member of staff. On the day of my departure, I sat at the Lounge while I casually wait for the clock to tick along to the time of my onward journey. A new guest arrived with her luggage and a female member of staff smiled at her in a genuine and thoughtful manner and enthused, 'Welcome to Berlin, would you like some apple or banana?’ She pointed towards a pile of fruits resting in a little plastic bowl. It dawned on me that this was a pattern and a philosophy entrenched within every member of staff. You could ask, 'What pattern or philosophy is this?' I would say it is the philosophy of : ‘when the granules becoming grand.'

Granules could be the fragments or little substances but may have a great impact not just on customer experience but humanity. Imagine planet earth without light and heat; existence would have been practically impossible. The granules in the photosphere of the sun are tiny but give off a grand impression of heat and light that accounts for our continual existence.  Several customer experience research carried out highlight- the importance of little positive gestures like: showing genuine care to the customer as promoters of brand loyalty and building emotional connection than price reduction and promotion. The little extra- granules or soft impression builds that affinity with the customer and allows the brand to make the grand impression. Stan Phelps, of customer think wrote, ‘Giving little unexpected extras (glue) shows you care.’  Offering me a cup of tea by the hostel, was a granule gesture but left me with a grand customer experience – by the grand hostel!