Kestio

Fruit de l’expérience et des recherches des consultants KESTIO, ce Livre Blanc a pour objectif de vous présenter le concept d’Expérience Client et ses composantes et de vous donner un cadre méthodologique vous permettant de mettre en oeuvre des projets d’amélioration de l’ Expérience Client efficaces et générateurs de fidélisation et recommandations.

    • Pourquoi l’Expérience Client doit devenir votre principale préoccupation 
    • Comment intégrer l’Expérience Client dans votre stratégie de relation client
    • Les clés pour déployer efficacement votre stratégie client multicanale

 

Bénéficiez de points de vue, résultats d’études, chiffres clés et retours d’expérience issus de nos missions menées auprès d’APRR et CASTORAMA . Découvrez des exemples concrets de mise en oeuvre et extraits de livrables produits lors de nos missions.

1- La consommation collaborative : un phénomène qui bouleverse l’ordre établi

Le CtoC (Consumer to Consumer) ou consommation collaborative, au sens où on l’entend aujourd’hui, consiste à prêter, louer, donner, ou échanger des biens ou des services via les technologies et les communautés de pairs.1

La consommation collaborative n’est pas un phénomène nouveau en soi, mais elle a pris un essor considérable avec internet et la possibilité de se connecter à des milliards d’individus que l’on ne connait pas : le troc jadis pratiqué dans les villages devient désormais à portée de clic à une échelle mondiale, avec des moyens qui n’avaient jamais été techniquement imaginables auparavant.

 

Près d’un français sur deux est adepte de la consommation “collaborative” : 48% d’entre eux la pratiquent régulièrement, à travers la revente d’objets, le covoiturage, l’auto-partage, le troc ou encore la colocation, [selon un sondage TNS Sofres pour le groupe La Poste].

 

De nombreux secteurs de l’économie sont concernés : on pense immédiatement aux Taxis avec Uber, mais d’autres secteurs en ont fait l’expérience, comme le souligne Marc-Arthur Gauthey (entrepreneur et animateur du think tank OuiShare en France) dans un article publié dans les Echos :

«l’industrie culturelle [s’est] fait « naspteriser »,  « youtubiser » et finalement « netflixiser » il y a bien longtemps. Le monde de l’édition, puis à peu près toute la distribution, [s’est]  fait « amazoniser » […]. La presse [s’est] fait « googliser » […], l’industrie de la connaissance [a] été « wikipédiée ». La SNCF, [se fait] « BlaBlaCariser » […]. Quant à l’hôtellerie, disons-le, [elle se fait] « airbnbiser » !

 

Ce phénomène à la fois culturel et économique est en train de transformer profondément les relations commerciales classiques et même les modes de vie : 8 Français sur 10 pratiquent ou ont l’intention de pratiquer cette façon de consommer.

 

Nous sommes passés d’un 20ème siècle d’hyperconsommation placé sous le double signe du crédit et de la publicité, à un 21ème siècle de connexions entre individus au sein d’une communauté élargie aux dimensions d’Internet et d’accès gratuit (ou à bas coût) à de nombreux services et produits.

 

Les nouvelles plateformes de mise à disposition des produits et services modifient à la fois ce que nous consommons, et la façon dont nous consommons : la consommation collaborative supprime dans bien des cas l’intermédiation (disparition du distributeur traditionnel) et provoque un déplacement de valeur de la possession vers l’usage, et du distributeur vers le producteur.

Une évolution majoritairement considérée comme favorable aux consommateurs, qui plébiscitent ce nouveau mode d’accès aux biens et services pour différentes raisons.

 

2- Les raisons du succès de ces nouveaux modèles

Pour les entreprises qui observent ce phénomène avec beaucoup d’intérêt, et parfois aussi avec une certaine appréhension (en témoigne la vague de panique au sein du CAC 40 après l’intervention de Maurice Lévy, PDG de Publicis, en décembre dernier au sujet de la « peur de se faire uberiser »), il est utile de se pencher sur les raisons du succès de la consommation collaborative. Au nombre desquelles on peut compter :

    • La maturité des consommateurs, tout d’abord : conscients de la part importante liée au distributeur, à la marque et à leurs dispositifs commerciaux et marketing dans le prix des produits, ils ne souhaitent plus avoir à payer pour ce qui leur semble superflu.
    • Une motivation économique : payer moins cher (en réservant une chambre chez l’habitant plutôt qu’une chambre d’hôtel, par exemple) ou générer de nouveaux revenus (en revendant des objets d’occasion sur le Bon Coin) est devenu central.
    • Une motivation d’ordre éthique : la conscience de l’impact environnemental et social de nos modes de consommation entre en jeu. Donner une seconde vie aux objets ou consommer local, c’est limiter son empreinte écologique et maintenir l’emploi près de chez soi.

 

Dans le cas d’Uber, on pourrait penser que seule la motivation économique entre en ligne de compte (et que le souci de “l’impact social” de nos modes de consommation plaide quant à lui plutôt en sa défaveur), mais il ne faut pas éluder un autre élément essentiel, qui « gêne » souvent les entreprises (ou les chauffeurs de taxis) aux entournures :

 

L’essor de la consommation collaborative traduit aussi une forme de déception et de lassitude des consommateurs vis-à-vis des acteurs “historiquement en place” et de l’expérience que ces derniers leur font vivre.

 

Trop occupées à produire toujours plus et toujours moins cher, à « pousser » leurs nouveaux produits à grand coup d’opérations marketing et de changement de packaging, les marques de référence ont (parfois) peut-être oublié l’essentiel : le sens du client !

 

Lassés de l’ « idéal standard » asséné depuis plusieurs décennies par les chaînes de restauration rapide, d’hôtellerie ou d’ameublement, certains segments de consommateurs  menacent de délaisser les marques « historiques » au profit d’expériences plus humaines, plus individualisées et, disons-le aussi, tout simplement nouvelles et plus fun !

Mais les marques « historiques » ont-elles pour autant perdu d’avance face aux nouveaux entrants.

Téléchargez et découvrez notre livre blanc sur l’expérience client 

3- L’Expérience client, le meilleur remède à l’ « uberisation » des entreprises !

Beaucoup de grandes entreprises sont aujourd’hui tentées de s’ « auto-uberiser » pour garder la main : lancement de plateformes de location/vente entre particuliers, ouverture de  rayons « occasion » au sein de leurs magasins… Une stratégie essentiellement destinée à barrer la route, à court terme, à de nouveaux concurrents potentiels, mais dont le modèle économique doit encore faire ses preuves.

A long terme, la stratégie payante pour les entreprises sera de bien identifier où se situe leur proposition de valeur aux yeux de leurs clients :

expérience-client-réussie

 
  • proposer des produits et services utiles, pratiques et facilement accessibles,
  • simplifier la vie des clients, leur faire gagner du temps ou économiser de l’argent,
  • résoudre leurs problèmes, répondre à leurs besoins
  • leur procurer des émotions positives ou du bien-être
  • … et les traiter de façon humaine et individualisée !

 

 

Il s’agit en fait pour les entreprises concernées, sur leur secteur et en fonction des spécificités de leur offre, d’identifier à chaque étape de leurs parcours client les points sur lesquels elles doivent améliorer l’expérience vécue par leurs clients.

 

Une fois les moments clés des parcours client identifiés sur l’ensemble des canaux utilisés, leur travail consistera à éliminer systématiquement tous les facteurs provoquant une expérience « déceptive » et à identifier tous les moyens à leur disposition pour générer de l’enchantement afin de les mettre en œuvre de façon systématique.

 

Nul doute que parmi ces moyens figureront des ingrédients largement présents chez Uber, Air BnB et Netflix, et qu’ils s’inspireront notamment des valeurs de l’économie collaborative !

Quelques exemples d’améliorations concrètes mises en place avec succès par des acteurs « traditionnels » sur leur secteur, et la tendance/valeur collaborative à laquelle elle se rattache :

    • proposer la location (parfois, longue durée) pour les produits coûteux à l’achat et d’un usage non quotidien   -> valoriser l’usage plutôt que la possession
    • développer une application mobile performante et disruptive qui simplifie concrètement le parcours des clients -> innover et s’appuyer sur la technologie pour réduire l’effort client
    • mettre en place une plateforme collaborative d’échange d’avis, notes et conseils autour de l’utilisation de leurs produits -> avoir recours à la communauté de pairs pour trouver entre-aide et information
    • inventer une relation client qui dépasse les attentes conscientes ou les habitudes des clients -> vivre des expériences plus riches, plus humaines, plus personnelles

 

En un mot, les entreprises vont devoir « s’uberiser » dans le bon sens du terme, c’est-à-dire mettre en œuvre l’ingrédient ultime qui explique réellement le succès d’Uber et de ses congénères : une expérience client au top !

 

Ne nous voilons pas la face, et comparons simplement 2 expériences vécues :

 

Expérience Client #1 : J’appelle une société de taxis depuis mon téléphone, après avoir cherché son numéro dans les pages jaunes. Après un temps d’attente plus ou moins long, une hôtesse m’indique qu’un taxi sera disponible sur mon secteur d’ici 10 à 15 minutes. Je patiente. Le taxi me prend en charge. Je dois régler le montant de la course en monnaie car il ne prend pas la carte. Il me délivre à la hâte un justificatif griffonné peu lisible sur un feuillet que je risque d’égarer.

 

Expérience Client #2 : J’identifie en quelques clics un véhicule proche de moi depuis mon smartphone, je visualise sur un plan sa progression vers moi en sachant exactement dans combien de minutes il sera à ma hauteur. Dans le véhicule, je dispose d’un chargeur pour mon portable, et on me propose un magazine. Le règlement s’effectue automatiquement par prélèvement sur mon compte à ma descente du véhicule et je reçois automatiquement une facture par e-mail. J’ai payé moins cher que pour un taxi.

Au-delà du prix (et des débats sociaux légitimement soulevés par le modèle économique adopté), ce qu’Uber propose avant tout, c’est une expérience « sans couture », simple, fluide, agréable et intuitive. Avec l’aide d’une technologie intelligente et fiable, et en s’appuyant sur la force de la communauté. C’est bien vu, et c’est aussi à votre portée, si vous le décidez !  Pour cela, il faut se glisser dans la peau du client, se projeter dans son parcours et « ouvrir le champs des possibles » pour lui proposer des solutions innovantes qui vont le surprendre et l’enchanter !

1 : voir la définition donnée par Rachel Botsman et Roo Rogers dans What’s mine is yours, the rise of collaborative consumption).

Measuring the quality of the customer experience through a satisfaction survey may seem like the simplest and most effective way... But how can we be sure that the customer is really satisfied, that he is telling the truth? The multiplication of satisfaction surveys represents an additional effort in their journey and generates a certain weariness among customers. Moreover, as we saw in a previous article (Are you sure you have mastered the 3 key approaches to building customer loyalty?), the very notion of "satisfaction" is rather relative and in any case very far from that of delight.

 

When it comes to customer experience, nothing beats a 'hands-on' approach to ensure the quality of the measurements taken!

 

1- Observe your customers to better understand them

 

Direct observation allows us to see exactly what the customer is experiencing in a given context and at each stage of the journey, without generating any effort on their part, and without activating the subjective "personal filters" that potentially alter their responses when they are asked. The learning is thus much richer and more nuanced than in a satisfaction survey.

 

Several methods exist today to observe the customer:

    • eye tracking in real life" studies: we see exactly what the customer sees and we can measure what he has retained from his experience in relation to what he has seen.
    • visiting the customer to understand their needs or use of the brand's products.
    • telephone tapping during conversations at call centres or in a BtoB context.
    • video recording of consumers' lives for a week,
    • tracking a customer during a trip or a visit to the shop.
    • reading email exchanges,
    • listening to conversations on social networks and forums

 

However, these observation techniques raise two questions:

 
How to evaluate the Customer Experience observed in this way? 
How can we assess whether it is qualitative? How to determine whether the customer is experiencing moments of delight?
How can this information be processed quantitatively to model a global Customer Experience at the level of the brand's customers (or segments), not just individuals?
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2 - Measuring and analysing the quality of the Customer Experience: the WEX Score© method

The CX Score© method developed by KESTIO makes it possible to answer these questions.

To do this, we work with our clients on the Optimal Customer Experience framework: we determine all the interactions that have an impact on the customer's experience throughout their journey, and then we assign a score (positive or negative, according to a graduated scale) to each of them.

 

When we look at what the customer experiences throughout their journey, the sum of the positive and negative interactions allows us to model the quality of their Experience, at each stage and at the overall level.

 

Finally, the cumulative scores of all the customers observed make it possible to qualify each stage of the journey in terms of the quality of the Experience. We thus identify the "neutral" stages, those generating "customer delight" or, on the contrary, the disappointing moments. We model the results in a clear and readable way to allow for effective analysis and to quickly draw up concrete action plans.

 

The method thus makes it possible to quickly identify the stages on which the brand must focus its efforts to differentiate itself positively from its competitors by creating moments of delight, and the points on which it must catch up as a priority in order to eliminate disappointing moments.  

Discover all the levers for improving sales performance: How to activate the levers of sales performance

 

And to go further, download our White Paper on Customer Experience:

Customer Experience, a cross-cutting issue

The Customer Experience is the trace left in the customer's mind, and is the result of the various responses, interactions and experiences with the company throughout the customer journey: before, during and after the transactional phase itself. (To learn more about the concept of Customer Experience and how it differs from customer satisfaction or CRM, read our article "Are you sure you have mastered the 3 key approaches to building customer loyalty? “)

 

It is therefore necessary to set the same level of requirements for all possible points of interaction: the information distributed on the website, the content of an email from a marketing campaign, the use of the product, the exchange with the customer service person by telephone, the passage through the checkout of a shop, etc., must generate a coherent and qualitative experience.

The experience (rational and emotional), as well as the attachment to the brand, are therefore not the prerogative of "Customer Service" but of all the services concerned (whether or not directly linked to the customer).

This is a cross-cutting issue that can be complex to address

...Which the CODIR must take up!

Customer Experience improvement projects can only be successfully implemented if they are driven by the Management Committee itself.

 

This is for three reasons:

1. They require real decision-making power

Unlike the management of a project limited to a single business line within the company, led by a project director, all the operational departments must take ownership of the subject in order to size the investments at their right level and take the appropriate decisions.

 

Projects to improve the quality of the Customer Experience are at a strategic level (direct impact on commercial performance, close link with the company's overall strategy). Entrusting them to project leaders who are far from the decision-making level, however brilliant they may be, means taking the risk of not succeeding because they will have neither the status, nor the decision-making power, nor the strategic vision that will enable them to carry out such a transformation

2. Their operational deployment involves profound changes

We realise that these projects, in addition to being cross-cutting, most of the time generate the need for changes in the organisation, processes, tools and/or skills. Their operational follow-up is therefore complex and concerns a large number of people and parameters. Ensuring their coherence and dynamism therefore implies both having a global vision and being able to drive such sometimes profound changes.

 

3. The monitoring and steering of these projects is at a strategic level

The very definition of the indicators for monitoring the quality of the customer experience is a strategic subject, as they must reflect the vision and ambition that the company has set itself. Depending on the company's objectives and maturity on this subject, we will opt for the Net Promoter Score, or we will work to define the Customer Effort Score, for example (see our forthcoming article on the indicators for measuring and steering the Customer Experience). You can also monitor the loyalty rate, the average basket or the speed of recruitment of new customers.

 

In all cases, it is the company's revenue and margin that is at stake, but these more precise intermediate indicators can be very useful.

The Management Committee will then have to adjust its steering mode to the available data and tools.

This is why, in this type of project, KESTIO consultants involve the Management Committee from the very beginning of the process definition and ambition sizing phase.

 

We have also noticed (with pleasure!) that, although some managers are sometimes unconvinced of their usefulness at the beginning of the process, they become more and more involved during the course of the project and sometimes even enthusiastic... they see in a pragmatic way how much sense their team makes in improving the customer experience, thus "humanising" the company's performance objective!

Get your business performance score with our online questionnaire

We take a look at 5 customer trends not to be missed in 2015 and the best practices for responding to them.

1. The customer hyper-rationalises his buying act

Preparing the purchase via e-commerce sites, test sites and consumer forums has become widespread in all sectors (81% of buyers on average according to a BVA-Mappy study). Customers are therefore better informed and make their choice with a clear conscience. Consumers postpone their purchase to get the best price: they wait until the sales or the next price cut, thanks to price tracking tools such as CamelCamelCamel for Amazon or Castorus for real estate.

How can you take this hyper-rationalisation into account so as not to lose market share, if possible without reducing your margins?

  • Set uptargeted marketing activities to activate dormant customers: reminders of products put in the basket, free shipping on the next order, alerts on reduced stocks, etc.
  • Be transparent about the evolution of prices, both downwards and upwards!
  • Monitor competitors' price positioning
  • Highlightproduct reviews: if they are positive, they will encourage immediate purchase

 

2. The customer chooses the channel that offers the best response to his need

The interaction between the company and the customer is nowadays done through a multitude of channels, whether it is to sell, to deliver or to provide services such as after-sales.

The customer has the choice of channel and therefore of the timing, the modalities and sometimes the price that he expects from the company to ensure the desired interaction.

 

For example, in the case of a delivery, the customer will choose to be delivered as quickly as possible and at home, even if it means paying more, or to wait a little longer, or even to go to a collection point, to save on postage costs.

For information on his file (travel, insurance, etc.), he will go to the agency and prefer a direct "human" interaction to obtain an immediate and complete answer on a complex subject. They will send a simple e-mail if the answer is less urgent or use the automated telephone platform if the question is more routine.

The customer has very specific expectations regarding these different interactions, how can the company anticipate them and provide a satisfactory response?

  • Offer a wide choice of channels, and clearly explain the servicepossibilities and comparative advantages of each.
  • Empower employees and give them the means they deem necessary to satisfy the customer. This is the strategy implemented by Zappos: advisors are not judged on their speed in answering the customer's questions, but on their ability to fully satisfy the customer.
  • To offer a maximum of information and online services and to anticipate as much as possible customers' questions, in order to provide quick answers and relieve the front office teams.

 

3. The customer communicates about his experience

Some customers - satisfied or not - communicate spontaneously about their experience with a brand or product (23% of French consumers post a review on a social network and 40% post a review on a specialised forum (Cetelem consumer observatory 2014).

 

Even more people do so when they are offered the opportunity to give feedback and rate their experience or the product in a targeted communication following the purchase. This has several advantages for the company:

  • it values the customer by taking into account their feedback,
  • it allows us to "catch up" with an unsatisfied customer by providing a personalised response to their dissatisfaction,
  • It allows the identification of problematic products or services and the implementation of appropriate corrective measures,
  • it enriches product pages with user reviews that are considered very useful by new buyers.

A process for requesting and processing feedback should therefore be implemented to continuously improve the customer experience, build customer loyalty and acquire new customers:

  • Satisfaction survey on the use of a product one month after purchase (for identified customers)
  • Treatment of the opinion expressed: thanks in the case of a positive evaluation, publication of negative evaluations with a visibleresponse on the site and possible one-to-one contact for further information

 

4. The customer is increasingly consuming in a collaborative manner

Collaborative practices have their origins mainly in the economic crisis, but also in a more ethical approach to consumption: it is better to exchange, resell or give away what could still be useful.

The Observatoire de la Confiance (La Poste / TNS Sofres 2013) tells us that 8 out of 10 French people use new collaborative consumption methods (emergence of bartering, renting, reselling products that are no longer used, etc.).

In France, 80% of consumers admit that they would use a retailer more if it allowed them to return used equipment they wanted to get rid of (Cetelem consumer observatory 2014).

It is therefore becoming essential that these practices are integrated into the business model of companies:

  • Decathlon understood this a long time ago by offering the Trocathlon concept. The brand has just digitalised this offer by setting up a specific site with a list of used products.
  • Similarly, services that put individuals in contact with each other so that they can carry out joint projects and/or purchases are multiplying. The most legitimate brands are acting as intermediaries to facilitate these exchanges.
  • Many e-commerce sites (Amazon, Fnac, etc.) allow their customers to resell items they no longer use. Customers benefit from the visibility of the platform and can immediately use the money earned to buy other new or second-hand products.

 

5. The customer expects more (personalized) relationship and less transaction

The customer now expects to be recognised by the company, but not only to receive personalised offers. They also expect the company to remember the various interactions they have had with it, so that it can process their requests more efficiently.

The shops of the big brands must therefore reappropriate what makes the strength of small local shops: the friendly relationship, the personalised advice and the spontaneous recognition.

The reasons why consumers did not make a purchase on the Internet in 2014 were more to do with the need to touch or see the products (65% on average) than to get advice from salespeople (20% on average) (Observatoire Cetelem 2014).

The salesperson is therefore no longer there just to advise and sell a product, he or she must be the vector of the experience that the company wants its customers to have:

  • To achieve this, the well-being and motivation of the Front Office teams is essential: they must find meaning in their actions and be truly customer-oriented.
  • The salesperson must be able to identify his or her customers at the earliest stage of the relationship, for example by using a smartphone or a phablet to scan their loyalty card.
  • Training in customer care is becoming more important than technical training on products.

 

Taking into account all these trends and implementing the appropriate actions within your company according to your targets and your market is essential today, to meet your customers' expectations. Avoid being subjected to them and creating a "disappointing" effect that is prohibitive for your customers. Seize them as an opportunity to prove to them that you understand them and that you love them!

To go further, discover the KESTIO webinars, where we discuss

all topics related to business performance with our experts: 

Fabien Comtet, CEO

Dominique Seguin, DG

Nicolas Boissard, Marketing Director

What is customer delight?

To cover the needs of the customers is to make sure that they are satisfied. To exceed their expectations is to ensure that they are delighted.

Most often, enchantment is the result of chance in a company. It is based on the personality of an employee who will surprise the customer by exceeding his or her expectations: providing a service that goes beyond what he or she is supposed to do, creating a high-quality relationship, having an attention, special gestures such as offering a gift...

 

It is in these situations, experienced as exceptional, that the relationship goes beyond the transactional register and activates the emotional register.

 

Enchantment should not happen by chance, but should be created in a well thought-out, systematic and reliable way . This means that the activitiesin the company that will bring delight and generate profits must be identified.

 

Emotion as a positive marker of customer experience

As the 'Wow' effect explicitly describes, positive emotional branding allows a customer to remember their experience for a long time, and thus prolong their loyalty. So pay attention - in particular - to the first and last impressions left in the customer journey.

 

Enchantment as a prescription lever

Customers are increasingly attentive to feedback from their peers, and have made it a reflex in their choice process to study the opinions and comments of other customers on social networks, forums and comparison sites. And because a satisfied customer does not share his feedback as easily as a dissatisfied one, one of the challenges is to make his customers "very satisfied" and therefore prescribers, so that the recommendation and the positive buzz are there.

 

Is enchantment profitable?

Surprising customers by exceeding their expectations is much more expensive for the company than simply meeting their basic expectations. This often requires greater availability of staff, for longer and more personalised exchanges. But it is interesting to evaluate the cost of enchantment not only in terms of loyalty gains but also in terms of recommendation rates and positive word-of-mouth generated. Customers advertise for free to prospects, that's a lot of effort saved!

 

Enchantment as the last stage of the Satisfaction rocket

 

 

whitepaperKestio_experienceclient-clefenchantment

Beware, however: you can only enchant the customer when you are already satisfying him or her with regard to his or her basic needs, which the customer (rightly) takes for granted. Customer satisfaction is a prerequisite for enchantment. So there is no point in focusing your energy on delight if the basic needs are not covered!

 

 

 

 

In summary, a company that is serious about improving the customer experience will focus on meeting the needs of its customers to the point of exceeding their expectations in order to create a positive emotional impression. This will make it much easier to retain and acquire customers, and the development of its business will be less dependent on the effectiveness of its "hard" prospecting actions.

Find out more about customer experience by downloading our white paper

On this occasion, Fabien COMTET - President and Founder of KESTIO, and Cédric RICHARD - Digital Expert Consultant will present an expert conference on the theme: Measuring the quality of Customer Experience: 5 steps to implement this system in your company.

 

A few words about this conference:

Today, more and more companies are convinced that improving the Customer Experience is essential to developing a strong and memorable relationship with their customers.

However, there are three major questions:

 

  • How to define the stages of the multi-channel customer journey, taking into account the different customer segments and identifying the critical moments in a relevant way?
  • How to measure the quality of the customer experience delivered by the company throughout the customerjourney?
  • How can we prioritise improvements to the journey to eliminate disappointing moments and create enchantment?

 

Through this conference, KESTIO will give you concrete answers and present its "WEX Score© " methodology applied to its clients (CASTORAMA, GEMALTO).

You will discover in 5 key steps how to implement it in your company.

Practical information :

When and where?
14,15 & 16 April 2015, in PARIS - Portes de Versailles - Pavillon 7.1

Timetable:
From 9 am to 6 pm

Practical access information (train, public transport, car):
- Metro: Line 12 - Porte de Versailles station
- Bus: Lines 39, 80 - Porte de Versailles - Parc des Expositions stop
- Tramway: T3 - Porte de Versailles - Parc des Expositions stop

1. Ineffective supply-side or price differentiation

In the context of a globalised economy, the most agile Western companies were forced to adapt to three major phenomena from 1990 to 2000.

 

The first was to offer products at increasingly competitive prices. Faced with competition from developing countries offering extremely low production costs, our companies invested in the automation of their production lines to achieve significant production volumes and thus benefit from satisfactory economies of scale.

The second was to offer a wider, deeper, more segmented range of products and/or services. Thus, when the competition had the means to make an equivalent offer, the agile company proposed an innovative offer, thereby adding new barriers to entry to their market.

The third phenomenon was the meeting of the first two, when companies adapted to offer a wide range of products at attractive prices according to the budgets of each target. This last stage of development goes so far as to generate situations of oligopoly in many markets where companies that wish to survive must be a force of proposition.

 

In order to fight against the fall in prices and therefore margins, against the multiplicity of offers and therefore the fall in market share, companies can now turn to new levers for development. It is in this context that the customer experience becomes an essential alternative.

2. The quality of the customer experience as a differentiating factor

Thecustomer experience therefore becomes a vital axis for the growth of the company. As a reminder, customer experience is the perception that the customer has of the relationship that he/she has with the organisation (for more details on this notion, see our previous article: "Are you sure that you have mastered the 3 key approaches for building customer loyalty?).

This perception is conditioned by the client's culture and expertise in the market of the organisation that serves it.

 

The customer experience makes it possible to highlight at least three development levers. Firstly, it has a direct impact on customer loyalty. This allows the organisation to amortise the costs of winning over customers over a wider base, to increase the customer profitability ratio and therefore to significantly improve its profits in the end.

Secondly, focusing on differentiation through a qualitative customer experience generates recommendation effects for the offer. In this way, I create a colony of prescribers who, following their own satisfaction, will promote my offer and the brand. The results will then be measured in the positive evolution of market share.

Finally, making oneself distinctive through thecustomer experience makes it possible to increase the notoriety of one's company, one's brand and one's offer. This development will result in an increase in the margin of its offers and its market share.

 

Ignoring the benefits ofcustomer experience will inevitably have negative consequences, as highlighted by the results of a study conducted for Oracle [1] :

    • 70% of consumers surveyed have ended their relationship with a brand following a disappointing customer experience and 92% have switched to a competitor.
    • 81% of them would pay more (up to 5% more for 44% of them) for a better customer experience.

 

With only 22% of people saying they are almost always satisfied with their customer experience, companies have a real opportunity to grow with their competitors by providing a high quality service to their customers.

 

At KESTIO, our experience and research in the field ofcustomer experience enable us to offer you a method adapted to your performance challenges, the Welcome Experience©.

Thefirst step consists of an inventory of the situation and allows us to collect the needs and requirements of a type of customer. The method combines the analysis and definition of the 4 elements necessary to define an optimal customer experience:

    • What is the company's vision of customer relations? What are the relationship markers in line with the company's identity and its brand?
    • What are the types of customers, their needs, their explicit and latent expectations?
    • What are the stages of the customer journey before, during and after the event or purchase phase?
    • What are the channels and means used? Website, e-services, smartphone application, tablet, interactive terminal, point of sale, point of service, intermediary agency... the channels and tools have multiplied and represent as many opportunities or threats to disrupt the customer experience.

 

At the end of the inventory and analysis phase, thesecond step is the conceptualisation of the customer journey in interaction with the teams in contact with the customer. The objective is to highlight potential breaking points and moments of truth, the risks of disappointing moments and the opportunities for developing new moments for customers, known as "moments of delight".

 

Each touch point is assessed, to identify the levels of perception of its importance and the level of response from the company, with the aim ofimproving the customer journey at every stage.. The analysis is informed by internal perception, customer surveys and feedback, industry and non-industry benchmarks and is regularly updated by our consultants to benefit from current best practice.

La 3ème étape consiste alors en une phase de mobilisation et d’implication des équipes internes, orientées client. Les « Workshop Metaplan » permettent de dresser les initiatives et chantiers à mener pour modifier l’organisation, les processus, les outils, les applications et les compétences afin d’atteindre l’expérience client désirée. Une fois ces chantiers menés, nos équipes accompagnent les entreprises dans la mise en place des structures de management de l’expérience client en mode continu.

 

3. The effectiveness of improved customer experience is proven

The decision then has to be made toinvest in the customer experience. Yes, but will it make my business more profitable?

 

 

The study published at the end of 2014 by the Harvard Businnes Review([2] sheds light on the relevance of focusing on the customer. The researchers focused on companies with different business models: some pay per transaction, others by subscription. The common goal was to analyse theimpact of the customer experience on future consumer spending.

The study of the behaviour of an individual at a given moment and of the same individual the following year reveals divergences according to the quality of the customer experience. Indeed, the figures show that spending in the second year is higher when the experience was rich. Customers with the best past experiences spend 140% more than those with poorer past experiences.

 

The researchers went further to make predictions about the future of membership durations. A member with the lowest experience score is unlikely to stay for more than a year. Conversely, a member who gives the highest score is likely to remain a subscriber for 6 years. It will therefore be essential to focus on providing the best customer experience from the very first interactions.

 

Finally, the HBR study explains that in addition to providing benefits to the turnover, optimising the customer experience allows companies to make savings. Indeed, how much does it cost the company to manage dissatisfaction? How much do returned products, call centre issues, after-sales repairs, etc. cost?

 

In line with this first study, an analysis of the stock market performance of SP 500 companies over the period 2007-2012 conducted by Watermark and Forester Research[3] reveals the importance of the customer experience:

    • The customer experience champions have a significantly better stock market performance than the index average with 43% better,
    • The SP 500 index for the period rose by 14.5 points
    • Latecomers have a 33.9% lower performance

 

The conclusion here seems obvious: when a company focuses on anything other than the customer experience, it ends up losing stock market performance. Conversely, when the customer experience is the focus, stock market performance is boosted.

 

The multiplicity of offers and the promotion of low prices is accessible to all consumers. Faced with an almost unlimited choice, the power is more in their hands and less in those of companies. In such a context, offering the customer a satisfying or even new experience is now the challenge that companies seeking growth must address.

 

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

1. A real will and actions...but results not always perceptible.

Every day, we meet companies from different sectors and of different sizes, which have been trying for a few years to take advantage of the new opportunities offered by data, digital and new technologies in their customer approach. Within these organisations, many projects are being developed, led by the Sales, Marketing or Customer Relations teams. These projects are often relevant and carried out with great enthusiasm.
These teams implement actions (web campaigns, point-of-sale campaigns, communication, CRM deployment, etc.) and operational processes dedicated to a particular target or channel, in response to their own challenges.

 

As a result, managers often lack a global vision of the effectiveness of these action plans and come to doubt their effective contribution to the development of their business.

The question then arises: How can we effectively manage Customer Relations for effective and measurable results?

 

2. For consistent actions and measurable results: define your multi-channel customer journey!

 

It is necessary to articulate all these projects around the Multichannel Customer Journey (here we include both customers and prospects in the term "customer"). Indeed, defining a multi-channel customer journey is very structuring, and this, at three levels:

A. At the operational level, this allows :

    • prioritise actions regardless of the channel,
    • to focus on the Moments of Truth,
    • work to improve the Customer Experience, whatever the target

B. At the project management level, this allows :

Pace the progress of projects so that they move forward at the same rate, across all stages of the customer journey. These projects are indeed complex because they all have three operational dimensions: new processes, new tools and new skills for the teams that will use them. They are also cross-functional and affect several departments, hence the need to manage them with a common organisation, with a manager.

 C. At the level of its management, this makes it possible to :

Setting up global performance indicators. The pitfall often encountered is threefold:

    • drown under the mass of very detailed indicators (via the web the analysis tools are very precise)
    • lack of cross-sectional analysis of the performance of these action plans,
    • fail to link them to customer satisfaction.

 

3. Defining the Multichannel Customer Journey does not mean starting from scratch!

The projects implemented are often already operational. It is rather a question of giving a backbone to all these initiatives, by :

    • reinforcing the overall coherence of actions between channels, stages and targets,
    • prioritising projects and building the missing building blocks (processes and tools)
    • defining the indicators that can provide a global reading of the effectiveness of these new projects to a CODIR.

 

 

KESTIO currently assists several companies in defining their multi-channel customer journey, in order to improve the customer experience and therefore the recruitment and retention rates. We rely on our exclusive Welcome Experience method which allows us to define the multi-channel customer journey (stages and contact points, "moments of truth"), to measure the level of experiential quality throughout this journey, then to determine the actions to be taken in terms of improvement and innovation.

To learn more about the customer journey, we advise you to read the article "5 key points to define and optimise your customer journey". 

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