Webinar. Voice of Customer Intelligence: Using customer feedback to gain competitive advantage

In this Hello Customer webinar, CEO Bram De Vos is joined by Michel Stevens, course director at CXM Academy, for a no nonsense look at how to turn feedback into action, and why most companies still miss the point.

Key Topics Covered:

• The importance of reading raw customer feedback daily
• The blind spot of focusing only on complaints
• Two-dimensional customer relationships (emotional connection vs. product satisfaction)
• The three layers of service recovery (functional, emotional, social)
• Proactive feedback collection strategies
• Communicating customer centricity internally and externally
• Calculating ROI through promoter/detractor analysis

Core Takeaway: "Never assume, always ask" — understanding customer reality through direct conversation is vital.

Learn how Hello Customer turns feedback into business improvements: https://www.hellocustomer.com

You can watch the full webinar and see the discussion unfold on video here: https://www.hellocustomer.com/en/resources/webinars

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:31

And so good morning from us here in Ghent in Belgium. Good morning from Hello Christmas and Michelle Stevens. Good to have you all on board for this webinar. As things go, we have a lot of topics to cover for sure. But I think the first thing we should do is introduce ourselves a little bit for this webinar. And I'll go first and then introduce my esteemed guest. So my name is Brom De Voss. I am the CEO of Hello Customer. I've been in the customer experience business for a nine 14 years now. And about 10 years, almost 10 years ago, I co-founded Hello Customer, a software as a service that surveys, captures feedback, analyzes feedback, and gives insights back. And it is my great pleasure to welcome Michelle Stevens to this webinar. Michelle and I have met each other along the way on our travels through the land of customer experience quite a few times. And I think I can say, Michelle, that we have we are kindred spirits, in so much that you know, customer experience, very wide terrain, very wide topic, but we both like the no nonsense approach. And that's how we found one another. So it gives me great pleasure to welcome you. Now, as I see people logging on, I see some names that I'm familiar with and quite a few that I'm not. So probably the same thing goes for you. So maybe you can introduce yourself. And you know, we would like to keep this webinar to about 45 to 50 minutes. So if your introduction could be within half an hour, that would be really great. Michelle, welcome.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Well, thank you. Thank you, Bram. Thank you so much for the invitation. It's it's great to be here. I'm really excited about the topics that we are going to discuss. As we said, yeah, we are kindred spirits, we think alike, we there is a no-nonsense kind of attitude. And for me, that all started when I'm the Cold on. I'm gonna step one thing, take one step back. I'm the course director of CXM Academy. We try to train, we try to set up people to succeed in customer experience, whether that be the CX professionals or the people who are on the front line. And that is because when I started back, I started on the telephone actually. I started in the call center. And um, very often, what I really liked in in those environments was that on the one hand, you have a structure, you have predictability, and on the other side, you have the creative aspect, the human aspect. And those worlds collide. And that's the same thing with customer experience. It is on the one hand, it's a science, on the other, on the other hand, it's also a lot of about yeah, dealing with people or being creative with resources and everything. So that's why I really like it. But there is a lot of BS ans uh out there, uh, and uh try to debunk that and uh set up people for success. Great.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

So thank you. I think that the way that I perceive you, you you are something of an enabler. You enable you enable other people to be successful within customer experience. And I think that's also what we're gonna try to do today is enable each and every single one of you just a little bit to make progress in your own voice, your own work in in customer experience. There's a whole bunch of topics that we would like to cover. I've listed them up here. Probably we are being overzealous and over-ambitious, so we won't get around all of them. But we do promise that if we are not covering one of the topics, we'll revisit them in a later webinar. But what you will have noticed is that there is a room or as a space for QA. So if you have questions, do not hesitate to drop them into the chat. We've got that covered, and we'll try to cover some of the questions. If we cannot cover all of them again, there we will certainly revisit them. So don't be shy and do post your questions. Michelle, you wanted to kick off this webinar with a human touch, I think. Yeah, and quoting somebody that we both very much appreciate. I'll I'll give you I'll give you the floor.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Yeah. Well, thanks. I wanted to start with with a feedback, well, a quote from Anna Lara Janssen, who I met many years ago and who was on the Table 7 podcast, the podcast that I that I'm running. And uh, she said something quite remarkable. And for me, this it really boils down to the pure essence of customer experience management. It is, she said at some point, she said, every morning I start with customer feedback. Instead of reading her newspapers, she actually reads feedback. And for me, that was like this is this is something that everybody should really be doing because it it's as she also said, it makes you feel the temperature of the day. And yeah, for me, that is really what customer experience is about. It is, as I said, it's about structure and predictability and everything that you want, but it's also about understanding what customers are actually saying and and how you can actually work with that.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

So, yeah, that's it's it's you know, you you showed me this quote that of course I I know Lona, who is with us this morning, I believe. So, hello, Laura. Thank you for this quote. I I related this so much, as you know, Michelle. We we are in the business of analyzing customer feedback and we're constantly you know, knee deep or even nose deep into dashboards and and reports and all that stuff and graphs and all of this important stuff. But every once in a while, and indeed every morning, just dip your toe into the feedback. And I think some of the most successful organizations that I've I've come across are organizations that that every once in a while take a look at the core, at the at pure, you know, unfiltered feedback and just read feedback. I'll never forget a couple of years ago I was I was at an organization and they were you know into this process of getting along with customer feedback, and I had to present to them. And I could see people almost literally falling asleep. I mean, you know, to my benefit, they already had had a lot of meetings. It was not just me, I hope. But still, I was showing them these graphs and and these insights and things like that. And when I showed them a bit of actual feedback, just one quote from one customer somewhere, everybody's attention peaked. Everybody said, Oh yeah, I relate to that. And so it's so important, no matter what we're gonna say today, it's so important to look at the real feedback every once in a while, just pure and simple, it's a human thing. So, yeah, that's that's definitely uh a great start. But one of the topics that we promised to to cover today is the whole issue around complaints, because in Hello Customer, what we come across very often is organizations that they're obviously very interested in what their customer's experience is, but that also want to have a very good, very solid, very trustworthy process of dealing with complaints, and quite rightly so. You should have a process like that. That's great, right? Because there's no organization that's perfect, so you will have things go wrong, therefore, you've got to have a good process for dealing with complaints, but then that kind of invites a blind spot, I think. And not to put too far too fine a point on it, I mean, there's this dilemma or this dichotomy between those two things. Not having a complaint or somebody who is not complaining doesn't equal to that person being happy, satisfied. And so having a great process with complaints might invite you to have a blind spot and not be aware of the other thing. And the interesting thing that you talked about a couple of months ago when we when we were uh preparing this this webinar already was you have this approach where you're looking at connection between a customer and a brand, a customer and a product, a customer, and you are kind of ripping with the part in two dimensions.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Can you explain that? Yeah, so what it boils down to me for me is is that there are two ways to to look at uh at this. On the one hand, you have emotional connection. So, how how am I feeling connected to the brand? That's one one aspect. And on the other hand, you can have a relationship with the product, right? Does it solve my needs? Does it uh does it actually yeah, does the job that I'm that I hired to do, right? So those are two dimensions I'm thinking. I'm gonna give you an example just to make to make things clear. I for 15 years I've been a customer of Brussels Airlines. I fly not only with Brussels Airlines, but more in the Lufthansa group, the Meiselmore loyalty program. That's that's where that's where my loyalty is, right? And I chose for Brussels Airlines for obvious reasons, because Brussels is the main hub of Brussels Airlines. So there are a lot of good connections across Europe. And that is for me, because I work all over Europe, that was for me very important. And the service was quite good as well. It was it was a proximity and everything. So there were a lot of things you could say that I was a very happy person, not only because I liked the product, but also because I liked the way they treated me as a customer. Now, that is that is those are two dimensions that we that we go in. So you could say that I was a very happy camper, actually, right? High on emotional connection and high on product. But at some point, things started to shift a little bit, and the emotional connection always became less and less, right? And what triggered me was actually at some point I started traveling a lot to northern Europe, to the Scandinavian countries, Denmark, Norway, all that. And I came into contact with Scandinavian Airlines, which is also a very good airline, right? And it made me realize that, hey, hold on, they actually offer really good service as well, and we also have rather good connections. And that actually changed how I perceived the product that I was really happy with. That changed my perception, right? And and all of a sudden, both on the emotional side and the product side, things started to shift. And then when things are happening, I was I found myself to be open for other opportunities, open for other offers. And uh little by little, if something happens, the emotional bank that I had started to shrink. And that's actually what's what's happening here as well. So, as I said, high in emotions. So when you have a high emotional connection and you have a high connection with with the product, then you are a champion. You mean they can do anything, I'm I'm really advocating for them. So that makes absolute sense. So whenever something changes in either the emotional connection or in the product, I'm still a very happy camper, right? I'm still a very happy customer. It could be that either I still believe that, which is true, I still believe that the product is really good or that I really like the brand. That is still possible, but there's something going on, right? But the the thing is that when things even got worse, and that's when SES came into the picture, they actually shifted how I perceived the product, and that's where I became open for other opportunities. I became an opportunist. I was like, okay, so maybe next time I'll fly SAS or I'll fly somebody from another airline group like KLM or something like that, right? So I became more of an opportunity. I was looking for where do I get the most value out of my money, right? And when things got even worse, at some point I had a small incident and it was really something very small. They refused to allow my hand luggage in on board, and I travel light. I very often I travel light, and that for me was like that's a trigger, right? That was like, okay, that's it. I'm leaving you guys, right? Uh and I and I shopped around and said, you know what? I I still have a few flights with you, but you know, next time I will fly somewhere else, right? So I was shopping around. At some point, things got even worse, and I was like, you know, I'm not never coming, never coming back again. I'm totally lost for this organization. Now, for me, luckily for Brussels Airlines, it didn't come that far. Uh, whereas very luckily that there was a champion, um, so an employee re-understood me and who really did an effort who actually made me switch a little bit more to the opportunist side, right? So I'm there they're still not out of the woods, but at least I'm still considering that.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

I you you've actually put this this kind of framework, this kind of thinking framework to the test. You've actually you know quantified this, I believe. Yeah, right. Yeah, that's really interesting guy.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

So there is uh so we do every year we do a a research to the most customer-friendly company, and we do all kinds of research. And there is also what we see is that nine percent of the uh of the of your total customer base are basically in the red zone, right? You know, there are customers who don't complain but stay, and customers who don't complain and leave. So right, so that is people that you don't hear about. They they just gave up on you. They were like, you know what, I'm shopping. Not not even a complaint. Yeah, sometimes and then sometimes a complaint, but leaving anyway. There you go, there you go. So yeah, they are locked into, for instance, if I go back to the Brussels Airlines example, I was locked into the royalty program. That's what kept me, right? Yeah, it was a mechanical kind of thing going on, but it was not because I I liked the products at that moment, and then you have customers who don't who don't complain and leave. And then you have 12% of customers who do complain. So those are the people that actually reach out to you as an organization and actually file a complaint or something like that. And these are the people that you hear often and very easily because you don't have to trigger them, they just come to you and they complain about yeah, whatever they complain they have. So that is actually very important. Those are still the people who believe that their feedback is going to change something, whereas the other nine percent they just gave up on you and they just yeah, they don't bother anymore.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

That that to me totally resonates because it ties in very much to you know what I was talking about with the blind spot that you have when you're just looking at complaints or steering all complaints. It's very seductive to do only that because you know, complaints come and you want to you want to capture them and you want to do something with it, but you're gonna lose out on a lot of information. And that's why, of course, we advocate very much proactively seeking feedback, right? Really going in to try and find the information that is giving a voice to every customer, not just the ones who would voluntarily complain. That's something that we we think is very necessary to do, both to give a voice to the unsatisfied customers, whether they would have complained anyway. You can be upfront, you can be you can prevent them from complaining by being the first to ask them, but also the unsatisfied customers who would never complain, right? To invite them, but also, which is very important, is to invite the satisfied customers to tell you everything about their experience. I think that's that's a very important part of things. Now, one of the most interesting things that I have seen in 10 years of doing this work in HelloPuster is that even when you're looking at you were talking about the 9% and 12%, let's not talk about the 79% on the other side. Even those customers that are happy, they aren't completely happy necessarily. And so there's a lot of, you know, later on we'll revisit this and talk about the diamonds and the dirt. Some of the stuff, some of the feedback that you can find there is absolutely vital for the success of your organization. But this begs the question, and this is you know, we fully my terrain right now, and so I'm I'm going to try to be concise about this, but it's not going to be easy, believe me. Is if you want to proactively go out and seek feedback, how you do that. And the thing that I want to share today with with all of you participants is it's not that easy to do, apparently, because a lot of companies are doing it the wrong way still. I approach this topic in in a double way. I'm talking about the two challenges of getting feedback. One is, well, asking feedback is very, very easy. It's easier than ever. The challenge is not to ask feedback, the challenge is to get feedback. So, how do you do that? That's where I talk about the probability game. I'll revisit that in a moment. And then the other thing is, it's not just about getting any feedback, it's about getting feedback that is interesting for you. So, how do you do that? And that's a psychology game. Allow me to go into that. Start with the premise that you cannot twist anybody's arm to give you feedback. That's impossible. So you can only politely ask them, you can politely invite them. That's what you can do. But if you want to get feedback, I'd like to rephrase that question to how can we as organizations raise, increase the probability that people will give feedback if you ask them politely? And there's a whole bunch of things that come into play. I mean, definitely would would justify another webinar in itself, like when we ask it, do you use a metric? What metric do you use? What channel do you use, et cetera, et cetera. But if there would be one thing that I would recommend if you delve into it, you dive into this topic, it would be this. How can we increase the probability of people giving feedback? Is well the thing is, if you work a lot, ask for as little as possible. If you want a lot of feedback, ask for as little as possible, a little, meaning two things. One, don't ask people for feedback too often. Please avoid that. It's only irritating. You know, in the technology that we have, we've got this system of quarantines that we can build in so that we can monitor how many times has this person already been asked for feedback. Let's not do it again. So ask as few times as you as you can, and at the same time, ask as little as possible, ask only one question. Make it very, very, very simple. So ask as little as possible and then make it effortless for them. Ask them one thing and show them the answers that they could potentially get. And by doing it that way with one single question, showing them the possible answers, you come to something like this, right? Which is, and now you know people watching will see that this isn't a net promoter score question. That's not the point. It could be a net promoter score question, it could be another metric, it doesn't matter. The thing is, the question is simple, the scale is there, it's a very visual thing. Even if you only half read the question, you will see that there is a scale that you can just click on, and that's as effortless as it can be. So this is really truly asking as little as possible. But there's a cross, right? This this is how you play the probability game. You raise the probability that people are inclined to give you an answer if you ask them this way. And if they do, right, then only when they have done that, when they've done that very small, very minimal effort, then you can go a step further and ask them for more. And that's the gross, is that this is the question that you really want to come to, which is why DigiGive is that school? That's where that's where the information really is. That's what you want to know. And that question is something, and I I always, you know, always come back to this point is when you do it this way, when you play the probability game this way, you end up very in a very nice psychology game, which is you're not asking for something new at that moment. You're not asking when you say, Why do you give us that score? The French and the Flemish, for that matter, as well, have a wonderful word for that. It's called aphrop. By the way, right? Oh, by the way. Yeah, you know, by the way, why did you give us? You're asking for something that is already in the minds of the respondents because they're just you know, they're giving the score. And if you do it that way, you're gonna get a lot, a lot, a lot of interesting feedback. And people will say, you know, all sorts of things in that answer. And this is a way to proactively see the feedback.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Yeah, I actually I I really like that, and you frame it in such a way that it's clear the score is obviously something that is important, that we're not going to deny that. I mean, the score is something relevant, it is something that we used to gauge how well we are doing. But if I understand you correctly, you're also saying that there is a lot of feedback, there is a lot of value in that free field feedback that you get. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

If you look at if you look at scores, you know, I'm never gonna say scores are useless, right? I always say scores are interesting in two dimensions. One in the dimension of time, because they go up and down, and so you've got one point to look at, and the dimension space, as in if you've got different branches, you can see how these different branches have different scores. So, yes, scores are interesting, but at the same time, scores are one dimensional. And what we find typically is that when you when you when you inquire after you've received the score, like, hey, why did you say that? Right, people will be nuanced. They'll say things that they've appreciated, they say things that they didn't like at all, and that that riches, that that breadth of of scope of what you get there is where the vital things are, because then you can start looking for what we will talk about later, the the diamonds, the diamonds and the dirt. So for me, you know, simple lesson, start with one question. Show the answers, and only if you have received an answer to that first metric question, then go further and ask for something that's already on their mind. And and contain yourself, keep yourself from trying to ask too much, then like, oh, this is very freely. And after you've done that, maybe then indeed you've earned the right to take it one step further. So so yeah, that brings us to the diamonds in the dirt, right? Yeah, I've I've picked three. I've picked three gems that I think are to be found in feedback if you do it, if you do it that way, which is something we very often see. If you do it that way, you know. You're going to be talking about social layers later on, right, Michelle? And I'm anticipating on that just a little bit. Is that customers that you've brought into this position that they are willing to give you feedback? They are willing to help you. You've invited them politely. You're not forcing them, not twisting their arm, you're not bothering them, but they are willing to help you. Many will then say things about offers that they are open to. Think about the opportunist approach that you were talking about earlier. They will say, Well, I had this offer from SAS, right? I had this Scandinavian Airlines. They will talk about that. They will mention it. They are willing to help you because they're kind of hoping that you will come back to them. So knowing that a competitor is doing something can be interesting. Again, if you're doing this consistently, you can also see competitors' moves appear in the feedback that you're getting from your customers. So that's really interesting because you're playing along the lines of the latent churn risk that you were illustrating with your two-dimensional graph. Another thing is, well, it's a quack simple one. You know, if something goes wrong, many customers will will find it okay. But you know, the patience of any customer is finite. So there is an end to that. And then the last one, which is which is something that's very close to my heart, is we almost always find things in customer feedback that the company for whom we're asking the feedback never thought was important. So very, very, very often, customers, customers are saying things, or put it the other way, organizations are very often convinced of the fact that they know what their USPs are. This is what we're known for, this is what we're good at. And it may be very right, but for a customer, those USPs are very often a necessary must-have. Like, yes, sure, of course I you've got quality. What about buying your product for otherwise, right? Not because it's it's it's it's garbage. So that's a given. But then the thing that they do appreciate, the thing that they do like, or the thing that they do dislike, that really frustrates them. Very often there's things that you wouldn't think that were there, frictions that you wouldn't be aware of.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

Yeah, and the thing is that we we look at at reality, well, well, corporate reality, with the thing that yeah, you are not your own customer, you are not your average customer, you know too much. You look with a certain lens to that, and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

So yeah, this absolutely you you look with that lens, and so difficult, even though we always say that, you know, go and stand in the shoes of your customer. That's just no way that you could consistently do that. But opening yourself up with the apropos, right? Yeah, you will hear a lot of things that are that are interesting, but I think one of the uh one of the interesting bits of research that you you shared with me was you know how you deal with negative feedback, right? Right. You found some really fascinating stuff that that I invited you to share. So yeah, take it away. Yeah, so so as I said, should I share it?

SPEAKER_01 25:24

Or yeah, yeah, you can already start with with this one. So this is this is the average and this is net promoter support for the financials industry here in in Belgium. And it's actually so every year, as I said, we try and research, we try and find the most customer-friendly company, right? And in the process of that, we also measure a lot of things. And one of the things that we measure is what people do with complaints. So, what is a complaint behavior, right? We also measured the NPS, and this is the this is these are numbers for banking and insurance in Belgium, right? So the NPS for banking and insurance in Belgium is on average 15%, right? So that's all customers. But then let's take it one step further and we asked the people, did you file a complaint? And then the question that we well, the answer that we get is 4% said, well, we should have filed a complaint, but but we didn't. Okay, we should have filed the filed a complaint. 15% has filed a complaint, and 81% said, Well, no, no complaints at all, right? And obviously, when you look at the NPS there, you can already see the the portion that said, well, we should have filed a complaint. This makes sense, but we didn't, yeah, right, has a net promote score of minus 32, right? 15, the 15 has a NPS of 40, and then no complaints, 18, which is logical. What does what this tells me already is that make it as easy as possible for people to give you feedback because if they count, they end up in the box with a 4%. And they have an NPS of minus 32%. So that is that is quite huge. Now let's go one step further and let's see what happens with the people who have filed a complaint, right? So let's start with the good news, right? Let's start with the good news. When people say, well, we believe that the complaint was handled appropriately, and we'll come back to that one. What is appropriate and what isn't? 57% said, Well, that was the case, and they have a net promoter score of 53% to 53. How that that is a huge difference between the average, the average population and people who say, but that was actually really well done, well done. And then you have a 30% of people who said, Well, it was it was done within a reason, you know, it was it was okay, it was not bad, it was not, it wasn't great either. And they have an MPS minus 19. And there you see that the friction that when you deal with when you handle a complaint, you should do it in a in the in the right way, because otherwise you end up upsetting customers even more, right? They come from a plus 40 to a minus 19. And yeah, that is huge. So you mind-blowing. You need to understand what you're doing, right? And then, of course, you have 12% of customers who say, Well, the complaint was handled badly, and they are on your way to the headquarters with pitchforks and and torches, trying to burn the whole thing down with an MPS of minus 83. So they're lost forever, you cannot recover from that one. So, yeah, that is already a very interesting aspect because it's it says it tells us that if you handle your complaint, then do it well.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

But of course, that is the question, right? I mean, how how are you gonna do that? Because you showed me these numbers, I think six months ago or something like that. The the stretch is gigantic. I mean, you look at these stretches, it's of course, then you want to know, but how can I deal with complaints? Well, because anybody, any organization setting up a process will do it as best as they can. But you told me about you know multiple layers of doing that. Yeah, and there was something to me, I have to have to tell you six months ago, I was struck by lightning when you told me because some of the things, some of the layers are clear and everybody knows them, but there's one that is that's spectacular. So it's about going the extra mile. So, yeah, tell tell me what you told me six months ago.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

Yeah, well, actually, once you start thinking about it, you realize it's not rocket science kind of thing, but you need to understand the mechanism that is behind it. So when you're solving a problem, you should solve for three needs. One is functional, the other one is emotional, and the last one is social, right? And that when you deal with those three components well, then you will get into the box of the people who are saying, Well, that was really done really well, and you get the high NPS, right? But I will give you an example. An example will make everything clear, right? Let's say that we were at McDonald's, right? We just ordered, we went to the table, and you go to the table and you go, Oh shoot, they forgot my ketchup. All right. You get up, you go to the counter, and there they will replace the ketchup, right? They say, Oh, sorry, sir, here's your here's your ketchup, and you go back.

SPEAKER_02 30:07

All right.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

Let's say another situation where I sit down at my place and I, oh shoot, they forgot a hamburger. Oh damn. So I have to get up and go all the way to the counter, and well, you forgot a hamburger, they have to make it and etc. etc. And they will they will replace the hamburger. Now that is just playing to the functional aspect. But for me as a customer, I go like, well, hold on. Uh, you just replaced my hamburger, but actually it impacted my entire meal, right? You know, sauce or condiments or a ketchup, that's something that you can share. But once you miss a hamburger, that is quite important. That is something that disrupts the entire experience. So, what what they'll do in that, what they'll go say, well, okay, you know what? We're not just gonna replace the hamburger, we're gonna replace the the entire meal. We're gonna refund it or make sure that once you come back, they will you will get a free meal. And that is a level of fairness that plays with the customer. They go, like, okay, this is fair, they compensate for my experience, not just for the product itself. Are we then at the emotional level with with this kind of fairness? Is that is that where you're at now? That is already into the emotional side of things, right? So one is the functional thing, right? Hamburg got reviewed. Then we get into the emotional realm like, is this fair? Is this right? Are they doing right by me? Right, and that is, and then you have to add another layer. So you could say that that is handled within reason, right? So we refunded you the meal, but you go back and you're happy camper forever, right? But what they will do is that they will come back within 30 to 90 seconds, they will come back to the table and they will say, Well, sir, how's your meal? Is everything all right? Okay, right, and you will go like, Oh, that's unexpected, right? Yeah, everything is all right. Everything, yeah, everybody has everything, that's cool. And then you play into that emotional realm again, right? Because you're personally checking up on that customer. Okay, okay, these everything's all right, and that is solidifying that emotional side. But then if you're really smart about it, what they'll what they what they do is that they play to the social aspect of it. Sir, thank you for the feedback. What I've done is I've told my colleagues in the kitchen to pay more attention to when on border is going out. So now we're going to pay more attention, we're gonna count the icons, and this allows us to ensure that other people don't have the same issue that you have. So we actually show that your feedback has solved the problem of others in the future. And that is when you play into the social component, right? And when you have those three lined up really well functional, emotional, and social, that's where you actually hit that high NPS each and every time.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

Because so going the extra mile is is not you know, is not necessarily something spectacular or something, something gigantic, but it's playing not just functional, emotional, but also social, right? And I think that's that's something I agree with that, and that's why I was so struck by it when you told me is that this resonates 100% with what we see in feedback. A lot of people, again, when you're doing it right, when you're asking them politely, when you're just asking one question, all not too often, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. People give feedback very often with a social goal because they don't want the bad thing to happen to somebody else. And so this is tied in with communicating about what you're doing. Like, like you said, the person, the waiter, or whoever comes to the table, well, it's not really waiters and McDonald's, but the person comes to the table and says, you know, we have a new procedure there, or we're paying more attention. This is a social element, and we I think we very often underestimate the social elements of the interactions that we have with customers. We are thinking, you know, we're thinking homoeconomicus, right? The the the customer wants something, pays for it, gets it, and that's it. We are all social human beings, and everybody wants to feel that they're exuding something good, even by saying something that they didn't like. What they get back is the reassurance that they're, you know, that's not gonna happen again.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

Yeah, and and that's the thing. What once we have our business hats on, we think in a functional way. We think, okay, this is the process and this is what we are going to do. But yeah, only you don't only have a business hat on, you also have a human head on, right? And in a world that is becoming more and more digital or more rapidly digital, it's important to be human, right? When everything is digital, be human, right? Absolutely. That's a piece of advice I always give people as well.

SPEAKER_00 34:39

Like when in doubt, be human, right? Yeah, precisely. If I may, I would like to make that connection to communicating about customer feedback, about you know, about customer centricity in general. And I would like to introduce you to an old dear friend of mine. And this is his picture. And people might wonder what is a 19th or 20th century guy doing in a 21st century webinar on customer experience. I'd love to hear by him. But but there is a reason. Bear with me, there is a reason because this wonderful fellow is Judge Gordon Hewitt. Also, for those of you who are familiar with the whole realm there across the channel, the first discount, Hewitt. And sadly, he's no longer with us, but he has he has brought us an incredibly important piece of insight. Now, as you know, and many people will not know this, but I have dabbled in law myself in in the past quite a lot. And in law, there is a rule that is brought forward by this guy in one of his judgings, where he's you know, it's it's become it's become like an anthem of anybody, any lawyer will know about this. And he said he talked about justice because his task as a judge was to deliver justice as best as possible, to to you know, make people see that they get what they want and that it's just. And he said, justice must not only be done, it must also be seen to be done. Meaning, it's not just enough to give a good judgment that you believe is just, you must also show to people how you've arrived to that judgment. Everything that milks around it, like these are the the testimonials I've taken, these are the documents I've seen. This is you can also look at them very openly. And ever since I entered into the whole field of customer experience, I have felt that customer centricity is the same thing with customer centricity as with justice. I see so many companies working very hard to establish customer centricity, to achieve customer centricity, to move in that direction, and they forget to communicate about it. Because, in my opinion, customer centricity must not only be done, it must also be seen to be done. And you know, take a look, look at the time. Yeah, cut this short, but I believe that there's a flywheel that you can manage, and it has everything to do with your social layer as well. If you can communicate internally, you know, to your staff what you're doing with with customer feedback, customer centricity, trying to improve the customer experience because it's a good thing to do in itself, but also because it's different, then communicate outwardly, communicate to your customers that you're doing this. This is why we're asking for your feedback. By the way, this is what we've already learned from your feedback. These are the things that we are taking from the feedback and implementing. That in itself has a positive effect internally again, because your own startup sees, oh, this is actually really true. And also it gives everybody a good feeling on top of that. So I believe there's a flywheel, internally, externally, of communicating about customer centricity. And I think that that's the one thing that I see happening null enough. All other companies are working very hard, doing it, keeping it on the reps. And we don't have time to go into all of the potential methods. Maybe that's you know something for a little webinar, but I'd love to talk more about this, about how you can actually do that. But in the sake of for the sake of time, we should cut this short. But it's something that I believe everybody can add something to that. Say that you're trying to be customer-centric, say what you do, be vulnerable, yeah, be open about, hey, this is something we learned, we didn't know, but now we've implemented this, thanks to you guys, right? Do that. I think that's that's a very good thing to do. There is another topic that I wanted definitely want to cover, and it's it's an age-hold topic, right? It's it's the topic about the business case. You know, we're working on customer experience. How does that connect to business outcomes? It's the question you always get, and quite rightly. Yeah, I'm going to invite you to you know pitch in with that because I know you've got something really interesting to say. Before I do that, I wanted to mention that I know it's a very important topic, but at the same time, I know it's also a difficult topic. So proving ROI of your customer experience efforts is not always easy. And I wanted to throw in something that I've heard a couple of weeks ago, which I thought was absolutely brilliant. Some things we're doing because we know they are good. We know they are right, even though we cannot calculate the actual outcome. And the metaphor that was used was I have to eat enough vegetables because I know it's healthy. I know it's healthy, but that doesn't mean when I have another piece of broccoli, I will be able to translate that in this this is gonna add two and a half days of my life. And still I eat broccoli because I know it's good. I think the same thing goes for customer centricity, is that some things are very difficult to prove, but it doesn't mean that they're not important. That being said, we should have another separate webinar definitely on the whole ROI. Very interesting uh stuff. But you told me about an approach that you're using in terms of ROI calculation. I thought I thought was fascinating. And yeah, I invite you to to share that.

SPEAKER_02 40:07

Right, cool.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

Yeah, well, thanks. And I agree on the on the vegetables, uh, although I use another analogy. It's like me that investing in the factory housing is uh has a positive ROI. It's also something that's very difficult. But yeah, anyway. I'm not I'm not necessarily a fan of the broccoli, but yeah, ROI is very healthy, Michelle. Yeah, I'm healthy now.

SPEAKER_00 40:29

I'm an advocate for broccoli, yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_01 40:31

Yeah, you don't get anybody like it because I hate it. So what I'm saying is that showing ROI is not always an easy thing to do, and and you already said that as well. But there are some ways that you can, there are some things that you can do to show to demonstrate to the organization that there is ROI. There are multiple ways to run. And as you said, there is an entire webinar on that one, just along that. But let's say that you are in the net promoter world, or that you let's let's put in in that mic, or you have a a customer base that is either a promoter or a detractor. Let's let's step into that one. And uh we're gonna show here. So you have two screens, right? You have promoters on the one hand and detractors on the one hand. I'm gonna on the other hand, I'm gonna uh walk you through the promoters first, right? So when you have a promoter, right, we asked, uh so you're a promoter, so you gave a nine or a 10 out of out of 10. You're classified as a promoter, and then we asked, okay, so did you give any positive recommendations in the last 12 months? And 53% said, Yes, we well, I did. I did give a positive recommendation. Fine. If that was the case, then then the next question was, okay, how many recommendations have you made in the last 12 months? And there, the average was three. So three recommendations, positive recommendations every single time. And then if they gave a positive recommendation, then the question was now how many customers did you make per recommendation? So how many people actually followed up on your advice, on your positive recommendation? And there, the success rate was 14%. So if you made a calculation, then you could say that from for every promoter, you get the 0.2 new customers. I see. Yeah, because you take the first one, then the second one, the third one, and then you end up with with that.

SPEAKER_02 42:30

Right.

SPEAKER_01 42:31

For detractors, detractors, the exact same thing, right? So we asked to a detractor, how many negative recommendations did you give in the last 12 months? Well, did you give a negative recommendation? 17% said, Yes, I actually did recommend you negatively in the last 12 months. Fine. Okay. How often did you do that? Well, on average, and there you see you have it. It's almost uh four and a half, five, five negative recommendations in the last 12 months alone. What's even worse is that 56% of the negative negative recognitions were followed up. Okay, I'm not considering then as a new as a new supplier of whatever I was trying to buy. So that means that per detraction, you have 0.4 lost customers. Right now, when it comes, so for me, that is already a very interesting case to say, hey, it's good to invest in shopping customers, right? But of course, that doesn't necessarily demonstrate RI. So you need to take one more step, and that's it. And that is when you take the new customer new customers per promoter and you multiply it with the average revenue or average profit, as you want, but in this case, we do the average revenue per customer, right? And then that means that you do the 0.2 multiply by 15,610 for this case, and then you had a recommendation value per promoter of 3,500 something. That average revenue is is that lifetime or is that is that you could be could be anything, could be anything, a lifetime value could be, I would go for lifetime value or some kind of lifetime profit, something like that, something that you can that you can actually calculate, right? I see. Uh that is for the promoters, and then for the detractors, same thing, right? You get 0.4 multiplied by the average revenue per customer, and you get a negative seven, almost 7,000, because that is revenue that never reached us, right? And that that is an interesting delta between having a promoter that is very profitable and a detractor that's actually very not the problem in the in that case so it's a really great way and simple way to do it right if you if you look at that it's just a couple of extra questions yeah you ask and on the basis of that you can calculate you can start calculating i i saw i saw just a question coming in into that that revenue thing it might not be so simple for everybody to know what your average revenue per customer is right is is is that not something that makes it hard to make this calculus yeah it it yeah well it's not not everybody knows the average revenue a customer makes or customer lifetime value that is not for everybody and not everybody can calculate that or has access to that data but there are certainly ways around that why could you well uh yeah you could say that for instance we could say that let's let's take let's take one step back let's take a look at similar behavior right we have the satisfied customer and let's take a look at um upgrade behavior right because the expected experience value that is a calculation method and what it does is actually it looks at upgrade behavior so let's say that a normally satisfied customer upgrades in five percent of the cases right a very unsatisfied customer upgrades in 25% of the cases okay okay and let's say that the average upgrade value is 350 euro you know that right that's in your data set right so you could say then well the expected experience value is then the probability multiplied by the impact the probability being the 5% or 25% right and the impact is a dirty five 350 you do the same trick as here but just with another exactly but still you get an outcome yeah you get an outcome you can show that actually it's much more interesting for us to invest in happy customers because they upgrade more often and that gives us a higher return.

SPEAKER_00 46:27

And then you can make you then you can quantify what is what is an upgrade worth to us if you compare the two that is also way around I mean yeah as I said there are many ways to roam when it comes to chat yeah absolutely and and I think yeah I see a lot of questions coming in on on this topic is definitely something that's it's it's also very often a challenge for CX partitioners right both both you know external internal it's not an easy thing but I think we should we should revisit that I'm I'm gonna one more thing is that people this may sound difficult or may a look maybe difficult but it's not necessarily the case and I mean I'm I'm pretty sure that you can do this kind of questions in in in other customer platform right yeah absolutely you can make a follow-up questions you know we have something that's called question branching actually that says you know depending on the answer that was given we can put a different question so the questions that you've put like you know did you recommend how many terms do you recommend and how many people followed your recommendations is just you could ask that within the platform and then if you have some kind of view on the average revenue or the upgrade value for instance you were talking about you can do the calculus very very easily so it's something that can be done from within the platform and I like the fact that you know this ROI approach is simple. It's it's I mean it's doable it's understandable it's the things that I like most of all are back of the back of the envelope kind of card us and that's what what this is so uh I'm just taking a look at the time we are running out of time and you have got later catch because you've been speaking in Oslo if I'm not mistaken that's correct so happy to have you here but summing up we've we've we've touched a whole bunch of of topics you know the complaints the service recovery uh element I think the multi-layer approach was for me something that really revealed a lot the need to proactively seek feedback we've touched on a bunch of topics Michelle if there would be one thing that you would have to pick in you know the whole realm of of dealing with feedback if it would be one thing you say you know if I could give one piece of advice what would that be in in all of the the possibilities or maybe the question is what mistake do you see most often or what advice could you could you give yeah well in all honesty is it is a very easy one for me it's never assume always ask.

SPEAKER_01 48:48

Try to understand what is the customer reality because we make assumptions so often in everything that we do even without knowing that we should be more in touch with our customer much more often than than we do today. The best way to learn something is to talk to your customer sit down have a conversation and and understand their world that's actually vital never assume always ask I think if we have an easy baseline to our customer that would be that would be definitely the very good one.

SPEAKER_00 49:18

Thank you thank you for that