Kestio

Etes-vous sûr de maîtriser les 3 approches clés pour fidéliser vos clients ?

Les notions d’Expérience Client, de Satisfaction Client et de Gestion de la Relation Client sont liées et peuvent prêter à confusion… Pourtant elles recouvrent des concepts différents et il est important de comprendre ces différences pour améliorer l’efficacité des points de contacts clients d’une organisation.

1- Customer Relationship Management (CRM): the "catch-all" concept

Customer Relationship Management is itself a confusing concept. It can refer to the department that answers customers' questions about products, services, etc. It can refer to the software (CRM) that is used to track the relationship between customers and the organisation. At KESTIO, we consider that Customer Relationship Management covers all the interactions between the customer and the organisation, whether upstream of the sales process (in which case we speak of a prospect rather than a customer) or downstream. These interactions can take place via various channels: customer service, of course, but also the salesperson, the Internet, traditional advertising channels, etc. In addition, CRM software is evolving to include increasingly complete traceability of this Customer Relationship in the broad sense, i.e. multi-channel. You can thus track the relationship established by a sales representative via his outgoing calls, the number of times the customer has ordered on your website and the mail he has sent to the after-sales service as well as the response he has received. All in the same tool. These different contact points and channels can also be visualised in the form of a Customer Journey, a diagram showing all the interactions between the organisation and its customers.

 

2- Customer satisfaction: the quest for the Grail

 

Customer satisfaction is a notion that seems simple, even binary: is the customer satisfied (or not) with the offer (product and/or service) that the organisation has made to him? However, the customer tends to declare himself satisfied as soon as the offer corresponds to his minimum expectations. Kano's model explains this phenomenon. For example, during an observation of customer journeys in a shop, I noticed that a customer had difficulty in quickly finding the product she had come to look for, and then identifying the right product on the shelf. As an external observer, I felt that her journey was not satisfactory as she had gone round in circles in the shop. After her purchase, this person declared herself satisfied with her experience and had no negative remarks to make about her journey: she had finally found her product, mission accomplished. The fact that her journey could have been quicker was not obvious to her and therefore her satisfaction was not impacted.

 

The good news is that a customer declares himself or herself satisfied as soon as the company has correctly met his or her basic expectations (finding the product corresponding to his or her search). The corollary is that this notion of "satisfaction" constitutes the minimum to be achieved by the company, and that it is a pity (and even dangerous) to be satisfied with it: to leave a mark on the customer's mind, you have to offer him more than that!

 

In order to increase customer satisfaction, it is therefore necessary to widen the scope of possibilities and not limit oneself to customer statements:

    • focus on 'Very Satisfied' customers and understand what made them report this level of satisfaction.
    • identify and understand implicit needs in order to meet them.
    • Use other metrics such as the Net Promoter Score to find out if Customer Satisfaction is at a level that customers become ambassadors for the organisation.
    • Vary the times at which Satisfaction is collected: on the spot after a moment of truth (see below) or on the cold side by carrying out an annual satisfaction survey and analysing the verbatims expressed by customers (in this case we speak of Voice of Customer or Ecoute Client).

 

Only by aiming for a high level of customer satisfaction can a company build long-term customer loyalty.

 

3- Customer experience: the little extra that makes the difference

TheCustomer Experience is one of the elements that allows us to optimise Customer Satisfaction.

 

Customer Experience is the customer's perception of the relationship they have with the organisation.

This perception is conditioned by the culture of the client and the market expertise of the organisation that serves him. These two factors will generate a certain level of expectation. It is up to the organisation to take this level of expectation into account in order to generate a positive Experience leading to Customer Satisfaction. To meet these expectations, the organisation must master two axes: the ease with which the customer can obtain the desired offer and the emotion generated by the interactions between the organisation and the customer.

 

The SNCF has worked hard onCustomer Experience in recent years. It has facilitated the customer journey by multiplying the points of contact for buying a ticket according to the channel of preference of each user: the website, the mobile application for smartphone users, the call centre, the ticket offices for customers who need advice, the terminals in stations, etc. At the same time, it also works on emotion and comfort to create preference among its customers: welcome on board trains, TGV or other first class magazines, frequent flyer reception areas, etc. All these services aim to improve the Customer Experience from a global point of view throughout the journey.

 

If improving the Customer Experience produces immediate and positive results, it is crucial not to neglect the equally strong impact of the opposite attitude: certain stages of the Customer Journey are critical and if theCustomer Experience delivered at that precise moment is not good, the customer may decide to leave the brand regardless of their level of loyalty. This is called the Moment of Truth. Imagine, for example, that you have been a customer of a bank for over 10 years. The day you want to take out a loan, your advisor tells you that despite his or her best efforts, he or she cannot give you the loan. Chances are that this experience will annoy you so much that you will take out the loan with another bank and transfer all your accounts in the process!

Customer Experience is therefore a more conceptual notion than the other two. Based on effort and emotion, and therefore on perception and feeling, it is more difficult to measure for each customer. To improve it, it is therefore necessary to put oneself in the customer's shoes and understand what they experience, or better still, to observe them directly in their relationship with the organisation.

 

The three concepts are therefore interdependent. The Customer Experience is at the centre of the other two concepts: it is the link between the two. Trying to improve Customer Satisfaction by working only on the Relationship (i.e. processes and actors) is difficult. The Customer Experience needs to be understood, measured and improved in order to succeed in improving Customer Satisfaction in a sustainable way.

 

Find out more about customer experience by downloading our white paper

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