I spoke at Internet World (#IWEXPO) in London on the 29th April on my passion for customer service excellence. I stole the title of my brief talk from the book by Bill Price (http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/RAVNQAFZBW9WL/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm) about his experience at Amazon. At Rackspace and itlab I have seen the use of NPS (net promoter score) drive huge improvements in customer experience. Superior customer experiences are only possible with engaged employees and I mentioned some easy to emulate tips on engagement. Some of the financial models that show the bottom line value of having happy staff delivering world calls customer service get a mention – including the real world impact of NPS on growth from existing customers. In 1 example I discuss the introduction of some self service tools that have a huge impact on service and show how it is possible for all firms to emulate Amazon in quadrupling revenue without adding support head count or in the case of Pipex Hosting deliver better service with fewer staff. Finally I used itlab as a case study to show how this firm was transformed in a 2 year period from loss making also ran into a financially stable great place to work delivering awesome customer support. http://dommonkhouse.wordpress.com/2009/06/11/the-best-service-is-no-service/

5. introduction
• What do you do for a living?
– We find stuff we don't like and we change it
• culture/rituals/beliefs/tribes
– Volunteers, cant force
– Connections
– Yearning
– True believers

6. 2 stories
Denial of service

7. I am a heratic
• I am here to commit heresy

8. PLANNING YOUR ROUTE TO
EXCELLENCE
HAPPY
STAFF
MORE HAPPY
PROFIT CUSTOMERS

9. FINANCIAL MODEL
Start with the staff – IT’S PROVEN:
Practice What You Preach

10. PRACTICE WHAT
YOU PREACH
• I am highly satisfied with my job
• I get a sense of accomplishment from my work
• The work I‟m given is challenging, not repetitive
• I am committed to this firm as a career
opportunity
• Move the scores from 4 to 5 on a 6 point scale for
a 42% improvement in financial performance.
Practice What You Preach

11. ESTIMATED LIFETIME VALUE -
REVENUE
FACT: A great customer is worth 102x an unhappy one.

12. ESTIMATED LIFETIME VALUE - MARGIN

13. Myths that get in the way
• Recovery is expensive
• Cross-selling
• Warm body
• CEO doesn't get it
• But I don't care!

14. The CEO gap
• CEOs who believe their firm is above
average on service – 75%
• Customer feedback – somewhat or
extremely dissatisfied with most recent
experience – 59%
» Accenture 2007

15. Issues
• Keep handling the same issues
• Self service doesn't exist or is rubbish
• Service is reactive
• Hard to contact the right person
– Sorry I cant transfer you
• Customer service dept.....
• Company CANT listen
• Wrong metrics
• Wrong staff

16. Solutions
• Eliminate dumb contacts
• Closed loop active listening
– Cut the crap meetings
– Owners of solutions
• Make yourselves easy to do business with
• Self service tools that work
• Change your metrics
• Be proactive
• Preventative support
• First Call SupportTM

17. Stop doing dumb stuff
• Why do customers contact you?
– Phones calls
– Emails
– Support tickets
• What happens to complaints?
• How many invoice problems?
• Credit notes for what?
• Low rated support tickets?

18. Major Supermarket Chain
Heatmap Interpretation:
1. Promote success? For
example, create
prominent banner for
„Go Shop‟ or focus on
less popular items?
2. What are users‟
missing? Can
navigation be
restructured?

19. Self service example
Before
• 1000 “tickets” per day
• 12 staff
• Monthly purge to stay “on-top”
After
• 300 tickets per day
• 4 staff
Costs
• setup plus
• £600 down to £200 per month

20. Tools

21. Churn
First direct
4% annual customer churn
Peer1
7% annual employee churn

22. Recovery
• TNT found increased loyalty after recovery
• Done right it builds trust
• Don't just write you need to call

23. Measure your service
Not annual survey!
• NPS monthly
Customer touch points
• By employee
• By touch point
• Every time in real time
Feedback, feedback, feedback

24. Maximising The Value of Customer Feedback
1. MEASUREMENT
5. COMMUNICATING TO • NPS issued monthly to 1/3rd customer base
OUR CUSTOMERS
• Insight Survey issued within 30 days of
• Customers receive becoming a customer
feedback on the changes
we have implemented as
a result of their
suggestions
2. COMMUNICATING TO OUR EMPLOYEES
• All can access survey results online (in real time)
• E-mail alerts instantly sent to Operations Director
if customer rates itlab less than 7/10
4. ACTION DEPLOYMENT
• Customers that aren‟t
delighted are followed up with
a health check 3. ACTION PLANNING
• Appropriate customer • Survey results (NPS, suggestions for improvement
suggestions are implemented etc.) are reviewed at team meetings
•Directors ring all text answers

25. Net Promoter Score
 Net Promoter score
• Key metric to measure customer service
• Would you recommend us to a friend or colleague?
• Your dedicated team is rewarded only on your satisfaction
 Bad profits and Good profits
• Bad profits are profits earned at the customer‟s expense, in other
words, profits earned from customers which then become
detractors
• Good profits are earned from creating customer value, which in
turn creates customers who are promoters

26. Net Promoter Score

27. Net Promoter Scoring
• Answers between 0 to 10
– 0 – 6 = Detractors
– 7 – 8 = Passive
– 9 – 10 = Promoters
• Score Calculation:
– Promoters – Detractors/Total Responses = %
Score
• Management target - How do we turn
passives and detractors into Promoters??

28. Where does growth come
from?

29. Easy to do business with

30. People Vision
Recruit great people and allow
them to do what they do best
every day.

31. Percentage of Buyers Getting
the Same Make Again
50%
40%
40%
30%
24%
20% 16%
10%
0%
Good Car/Good Dealer Good Car/Bad Dealer Bad Car/Good Dealer
Source: J.D. Power Associates

32. Employee Satisfaction
Drives Loyalty
• MEANS
• Low employee turnover is directly linked to high
customer satisfaction. Dissatisfied employees are
300% more likely to leave.
• SPECIFIC ACTIONS
• Implement weekly yay/meh/boo (YMB) survey –
act decisively on the results.
• Management to be careful what is promised and
then ALWAYS deliver on promises to staff.

33. How are you today?

34. Indicators
• 20% of new employees are internal referrals
• Service revenue goals – 50% growth per year
• Net promoter scores – get in to 80% range
• By customer segment
• By product
• By support channel
• Net revenue growth per product per month - 3%
• 50% of new customers by word of mouth

35. Case study: itlab
“We seek criticism”

36. THE CHALLENGES WE FACED
“It’s not how good you are it’s how good you want to be…”
• Poor communication with clients – always reactive,
never proactive.
• Poor communication internally – impacting client
service.
• Lack of commercial confidence – Fear of
discriminating about which customers to serve.
• Crisis of bureaucracy – competing systems,
conflicting goals.
• Poorly integrated acquisitions – different product
sets, cultures and teams.
• Misaligned products – didn‟t reward adding value to
the client.

37. THE ACTIONS WE
TOOK
• Clearly define excellence – Service Obsession™ & Core
Values
• Create strong culture – Flags, 10 Things, Balls of Glory,
Charity & Social Committees, Friday Nights & Fun Zone.
• Benchmark excellence – Net Promoter & closed case
• Redefine Products – 2.0, Direct, ITMS
• IT Manager – trusted advice from a techie NOT a salesman.
• Specialist Practices – acquisitions role clearly defined
• Netsuite – replace all internal systems for data unity, portal,
single invoice, surveys, instant feedback loops

38. THE IMPACT ON THE
ORGANISATION
• Service gross margin – From 50% to 67%
• Profitability – From breakeven to 7% and rising (35K
pm)
• SLA – 10 minute critical 97% last quarter average
2.34min
• Responsiveness – average call answer is 4 seconds
• 5 out of 5s! – 75% of rated tickets marked 5 –
Serviced Obsessed (40% response rate)
• Financial Times Top 50 Places to Work (companies of
any size)
• NPS - -2 to +14 and then +55
• The Results you Can’t Measure – go and visit for
Richard‟s Mum‟s Cake!

39. The smart cheater strategy