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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 implementing this system in your company.

A few words about this conference:

Today, more and more companies are convinced that improving the Customer Experience is the key to developing a strong, lasting bond with their customers.

However, they have 3 major questions:

How do you define the stages of the multi-channel customer journey, taking into account the different customer segments and identifying the critical moments?
How can we measure the quality of the customer experience delivered by the company throughout the customer journey?
How can we prioritize the improvements we need to make to the customer 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 customers (CASTORAMA, GEMALTO).

In 5 key steps, you'll discover how to implement it in your company.

Practical info :

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

Opening hours:
9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Practical access info (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. Une différenciation par l’offre ou le prix devenue inefficace

Dans un contexte d’économie globalisée, les entreprises occidentales les plus agiles ont été contraintes de s’adapter à trois phénomènes majeurs dès 1990 et 2000.

Le premier a été de proposer des produits à des prix toujours plus compétitifs. Face à la concurrence des pays en voie de développement proposant des coûts de production extrêmement réduits, nos entreprises ont alors investi dans l’automatisation de leurs chaînes de fabrication pour atteindre des volumes de production conséquents et ainsi bénéficier d’économies d’échelle satisfaisantes.

Le second a été de proposer une offre de produits et/ou de services plus large, plus profonde, plus segmentée. Ainsi, lorsque la concurrence se donnait les moyens de réaliser une offre équivalente, l’entreprise agile proposait une offre innovante, ajoutant par là même de nouvelles barrières à l’entrée sur leur marché.

Le troisième phénomène fut la rencontre des deux premiers, lorsque les entreprises se sont adaptées pour proposer une offre à la gamme étoffée à des prix attractifs selon les budgets de chaque cible. Ce dernier stade de développement va jusqu’à générer des situations d’oligopoles sur bon nombre de marché où les entreprises qui souhaitent survivre doivent être force de proposition.

Afin de lutter contre la baisse des prix et donc des marges, contre la multiplicité des offres et donc de baisse de parts de marché, les entreprises peuvent aujourd’hui se tourner vers de nouveaux leviers de développement performants. C’est dans ce cadre que l’expérience client devient une alternative essentielle.

2. La qualité de d’expérience client comme axe de différenciation

L’expérience client devient dès lors un axe vital pour la croissance de l’entreprise. Pour rappel, l’expérience client est la perception qu’a le client de la relation qu’il vit avec l’organisation (pour plus de précisions sur cette notion, voir notre article précédent : “Etes-vous sûr de maîtriser les 3 approches clés pour fidéliser vos clients ?“).

Cette perception est conditionnée par la culture du client et son expertise du marché de l’organisation qui le sert.

L’expérience client permet de mettre en exergue a minima trois leviers de développements. Dans un premier temps, elle porte un impact direct sur la fidélisation de ses clients. Cela permet ainsi à l’organisation d’amortir les coûts de conquête clients sur une assiette plus large, d’accroître le ratio de rentabilité client et donc d’améliorer sensiblement in fine ses bénéfices.

Dans un second temps, miser sur une différenciation par une expérience client qualitative génère des effets de recommandation de l’offre. Je crée ainsi une colonie de prescripteurs qui, suite à leur propre satisfaction, seront promoteurs de mon offre et de la marque. Les résultats se mesureront dès lors sur l’évolution positive de parts de marché.

Enfin, se rendre distinctif par l’expérience client permet d’accroître la notoriété de son entreprise, de sa marque, de son offre. Cet essor aura pour conséquence une hausse de la marge de ses offres et de sa part de marché.

Ne pas tenir compte des bénéfices de l’expérience client aura fatalement des conséquences négatives, comme le soulignent les résultats d’une étude menée pour Oracle [1] :

- 70% des consommateurs interrogés ont cessé leur relation avec une marque suite à une expérience client décevante et 92% se sont tournés vers un concurrent.
- 81% d’entre eux paieraient davantage (jusqu’à un surcoût de 5% pour 44% d’entre eux) pour une meilleure expérience client.

Avec seulement 22% des personnes déclarant être presque toujours satisfaites de leur expérience client, les entreprises bénéficient dès lors d’un véritable levier de croissance face à leurs concurrents en proposant un service de grande qualité à leurs clients.

Chez KESTIO, nos expériences et recherches en matière d’expérience client nous permettent de vous proposer une méthode adaptée à vos enjeux de performance, la Welcome Expérience©.

La 1^ère étape consiste en un état des lieux et permet de recueillir les besoins et les niveaux d’exigence attachés à une typologie de client. La méthode combine l’analyse et la définition des 4 éléments nécessaires à la définition d’une expérience client optimale :

- Quelle est la vision de l’entreprise sur la Relation Client ? Quelles sont les marqueurs relationnels en phase avec l’identité de l’entreprise et sa marque ?
- Quelles sont les typologies de clientèle, leurs besoins, leurs attentes explicites et latentes ?
- Quelles sont les étapes du parcours client avant, pendant et après la phase d’événement ou d’achat ?
- Quels sont les canaux et moyens utilisés ? Site internet, E-services, application smartphone, tablette, borne interactive, point de vente, point service, agence intermédiaire… les canaux et outils se sont multipliés et représentent autant d’opportunités ou menaces de rupture d’expérience client.

A l’issue de la phase d’état des lieux et d’analyse, la 2^ème étape est la conceptualisation des parcours clients en interaction avec les équipes au contact du client. L’objectif est de mettre en exergue les points de rupture potentiels et moments de vérité, les risques de moments déceptifs et les opportunités de développement de moments inédits pour les clients, dit “moments d’enchantement”.

Chaque point de contact est évalué, pour identifier les niveaux de perception sur son importance et le niveau de réponse de l’entreprise, dans le but d’améliorer le parcours client à chaque étape.. L’analyse est alimentée par la perception interne, les enquêtes et les retours client, des benchmarks secteur et hors secteur régulièrement mises à jour par nos consultants pour bénéficier des meilleures pratiques actuelles.

La 3^ème 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. L’efficacité d’une amélioration de l’expérience client est avérée

Reste alors à prendre la décision d’investir sur l’expérience client. Oui, mais est-ce que cela me permettra-il d’accroître la rentabilité de mon entreprise ?

L’étude publiée fin 2014 par la Harvard Businnes Review([2] apporte un éclairage sur la pertinence de se centrer sur le client. Ces chercheurs ont focalisé leur attention sur des entreprises aux modèles économiques différents : les unes se payent par transaction, les autres par abonnement. Le but commun étant d’analyser l’impact de l’expérience client sur les dépenses futures des consommateurs.

L’étude du comportement d’un individu à un instant T et de ce même individu l’année suivante fait ressortir des divergences selon la qualité de l’expérience client. En effet, les chiffres montrent que les dépenses engendrées la seconde année sont plus élevées lorsque l’expérience a été riche. Les clients qui ont eu les meilleures expériences passées dépensent 140 % de plus par rapport à ceux qui ont vécu une expérience passée plus pauvre.

Les chercheurs ont poussé leur travail plus loin encore pour établir des prédictions sur l’avenir des durées d’adhésion. Un membre qui donne le score le plus bas sur l’expérience vécue ne restera probablement pas plus d’un an. A l’inverse, un membre qui donne le score le plus élevé sera susceptible de rester abonné pendant 6 ans. Il sera donc fondamental de s’atteler à fournir dès les premières interactions la meilleure expérience client.

Enfin, l’étude d’HBR explique qu’en plus de procurer des bénéfices sur le chiffre d’affaires, optimiser l’expérience client permet aux entreprises de réaliser des économies. En effet, combien coûte la gestion de l’insatisfaction à l’entreprise ? Combien coûtent les produits retournés, les problèmes à résoudre en centres d’appels, les réparations au SAV, etc. ?

Dans la droite ligne de cette première étude, l’analyse des publications des performances boursières des entreprises de l’indice SP 500 sur la période 2007-2012 menée par Watermark et Forester Research[3] est révélatrice de l’importance de l’expérience client :

- Les champions de l’expérience client ont une performance boursière nettement supérieure à la moyenne de l’indice avec 43 % de mieux,
- L’indice SP 500 de la période a progressé de 14,5 points
- Les retardataires ont une performance inférieure de 33,9 %

La conclusion paraît donc ici évidente : lorsque l’entreprise se focalise sur tout autre sujet que l’expérience client, elle finit par perdre en performance boursière. A l’inverse, lorsque l’expérience client est au centre de ses préoccupations, sa performance boursière en ressort stimulée.

La multiplicité des offres et la promotion de prix bas est accessible à tous les consommateurs. Face à un choix presque illimité, le pouvoir est plus entre leurs mains et moins entre celles des entreprises. Dans un tel contexte, offrir au client une expérience satisfaisante voire inédite est désormais l’enjeu auquel les entreprises en quête de croissance doivent s’atteler.

[1] http://hbr.org/2014/08/the-value-of-customer-experience-quantified/
[2] https://www.forrester.com/home

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

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

2- Customer satisfaction: the quest for the Holy Grail

Customer satisfaction is a concept that seems simple, even binary: is the customer satisfied (or not) with the offer (product and/or service) that the organization has made? However, customers tend to declare themselves satisfied as soon as the offer corresponds to their minimum expectations. Kano's model explains this phenomenon. For example, during a customer journey observation mission in a store, I noticed that a customer was having trouble quickly finding the product she had come for, and then identifying the right product on the shelf. As an external observer, I felt that her journey was unsatisfactory, as she had gone round in circles in the store. 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, so her satisfaction was not affected.

The good news is that customers declare themselves satisfied as soon as the company has correctly met their basic expectations (i.e. found the product they were looking for). The corollary is that this notion of "satisfaction" is the company's minimum target, and that it would be a pity (and even dangerous) to be satisfied with it: to leave a lasting impression on the customer's mind, you have to offer more than that!

To increase customer satisfaction, it is therefore necessary to widen the field of possibilities and not limit oneself to customer declarations:

- focus on "Very satisfied" customers and understand why they report this level of satisfaction.
- identify and understand implicit needs in order to meet them.
- use other metrics such as Net Promoter Score to determine whether Customer Satisfaction is at such a level that customers become ambassadors for the organization.
- Vary the moments at which Satisfaction is collected: on the spot, after a moment of truth (see below), or on the fly, by conducting an annual satisfaction survey and analyzing the verbatims expressed by customers (this is known as Voice of Customer or Ecoute Client).

It's only by aiming for a high level of Customer Satisfaction that a company can build lasting customer loyalty.

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

Customer Experience is one of the keys to optimizing Customer Satisfaction.

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

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

The SNCF has been working hard onCustomer Experience in recent years. It has facilitated the customer journey by multiplying the points of contact for buying a ticket according to each user's channel of preference: the website, the mobile application for smartphone users, the call center, ticket offices for customers who need advice, kiosks in stations, and so on. At the same time, we also work on emotion and comfort to create preference among our customers: welcome on board trains, TGV or other first-class magazines, frequent flyer reception areas... All these services aim to improve the Customer Experience from a global point of view over the entire journey.

While improving the Customer Experience produces immediate and positive results, it's crucial not to overlook the equally powerful 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, whatever his or her level of loyalty. This is known as the Moment of Truth. Imagine, for example, that you've been a bank customer for over 10 years. The day you want to take out a loan, your advisor tells you that, despite his best efforts, he can't grant it. Chances are you're so annoyed by this experience that you're going to 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 perception and feeling, it is more difficult to measure for each individual customer. To improve it, we need to put ourselves in the customer's shoes and understand what they experience, or better still, observe them directly in their relationship with the organization.

The 3 concepts are therefore interdependent. Customer Experience is at the heart of the other two notions: it is the link between the two. Trying to improve Customer Satisfaction by working only on Relationships (i.e. processes and players) is difficult. We need to understand, measure and improve the Customer Experience if we are to succeed in improving Customer Satisfaction in a sustainable way.

Find out more about customer experience by downloading our white paper

General Management, Finance, IT, Sales/Marketing, Purchasing, Production/Maintenance, and a host of top-quality partners will be at the show to share their experience and help you achieve even greater performance in your organizations.

You'll discover the latest trends in management software, through numerous customer testimonials, themed workshops and conferences, under the theme of "the company's influence on society".

From lead generation to sales transformation:

The lead, understood as an identified contact with a potential (purchasing) project, more or less well qualified, is at the heart of the relationship between sales and marketing teams.

The Marketing department is in charge of lead generation, i.e. implementing programs and actions to acquire leads: website animation, multi-channel campaigns.

The Sales department is in charge of processing identified leads to transform them, i.e. finalize qualification and make the sale.

The 2 teams have to play together to be effective. However, we have noticed that they are more often in opposition than in cooperation... Why?

In this workshop, KESTIO will analyze the underlying causes of this situation, and give you concrete keys to improving the efficiency of the lead generation and transformation chain, through a few simple rules, examples of best practice and feedback.

1. Real commitment and action...but not always visible results.

Every day, we meet companies from a wide range of sectors and sizes, who have been trying for some years to capitalize on the new opportunities offered by data, digital and new technologies in their approach to customers. Within these organizations, numerous projects are emerging, driven by sales, marketing and customer relations teams. These projects are often relevant, and carried out with great enthusiasm.
These teams implement actions (web or point-of-sale campaigns, communications, CRM deployment, etc.) and operational processes dedicated to a particular target or channel, in response to the challenges they face.

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

The question then arises: how can we effectively manage customer relations to achieve effective, measurable results?

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

All these projects need to be structured around the Multichannel Customer Journey (the term "customer" includes both customers and prospects). Indeed, defining a multi-channel customer journey is highly structuring, on three levels:

A. At the operational level, this makes it possible to :

- prioritize actions across all channels,
- to focus on Moments of Truth,
- work to improve the Customer Experience, whatever the target audience

B. In terms of project management, this makes it possible to :

Timing projects so that they progress at the same pace, across all stages of the customer journey. These projects are complex because they all have 3 operational dimensions: new processes, new tools and new skills for the teams who will use them. They are also cross-functional, involving several departments, which is why they need to be managed by a common organization, with one person in charge.

C. In terms of management, this enables :

Implement global performance indicators. The pitfalls often encountered are threefold:

- drowning under the mass of highly detailed indicators (web-based analysis tools are very precise)
- lack of cross-functional analysis of the performance of these action plans,
- not be able to link them to the customer satisfaction rate.

3. Defining the Multichannel Customer Journey doesn't mean starting from scratch!

Many of these projects are already up and running. It's more a question of giving a backbone to all these initiatives, by :

- reinforcing the overall coherence of actions across channels, stages and targets,
- prioritizing projects and building missing bricks (processes and tools)
- defining the indicators that will provide the CODIR with an overall reading of the effectiveness of these new projects.

KESTIO is currently helping a number of companies to define their multi-channel customer journey, with the aim of improving the customer experience and hence recruitment and retention rates. We use our exclusive Welcome Experience method to define the multi-channel customer journey (stages and contact points, "moments of truth"), measure the level of experiential quality throughout this journey, and then determine the actions to be taken in terms of improvement and innovation.

To learn even more about the customer journey, we recommend you read the article "5 key points for defining and optimizing your customer journey".

We chose KESTIO for its expertise, its pragmatic methodology, the analytical dimension of our approach and our change management approach.

Thanks to our exclusive Welcome Experience© method, we model step-by-step the qualitative level of the experience enjoyed by the brand's in-store and online.

Is it neutral, disappointing or, on the contrary, does it delight the customer?
Does it differentiate the experience from that offered by competitors?
What innovations can be proposed to achieve a "wow effect" with customers and meet their expectations?

In practice, over 20 stages (points of contact with the customer, including key stages or "moments of truth") have been identified, defined and assessed. The results of this evaluation are modeled to enable the brand's current level of customer excellence to be positioned according to the scale shown below.

From the outset, the project involved the company's employees in a major way, soliciting their input through in-store observations and participation in co-construction workshops. In this way, they take ownership of the challenges of the Customer Experience, make suggestions for improvements and become internal relays for change.

It is also based on the results of "mystery shopper" visits, internal interviews and an e-reputation study.

This strategic project will result in the definition of concrete actions to be deployed from 2015 to significantly improve the experience lived, felt and expressed by the company's customers.

Does this project resonate with you? Would you like to find out more? Leave us your contact details and we'll be happy to answer your questions.

Read the article in the September issue of Action Commerciale magazine, currently on sale at newsstands.
You can also buy and read it online at www.epresse.fr or in the application ePresse.fr newsstand application application, available free of charge on iPad, iPhone, Android and Windows 8 smartphones and tablets.

Tell us about your projects! Don't hesitate to contact us with any questions you may have. We'll be happy to answer them.

1-Managing means helping salespeople

Sales people have three main missions: to acquire customers, build customer loyalty and develop the contribution of each customer (average basket). To achieve this, they (normally) define their sales action plans. However, experience shows that this can be a difficult exercise, requiring a real sense of perspective. On one mission, a sales representative's action plan read "open more prospects", with no further details. The intention is certainly laudable and relevant. But this objective does not in itself constitute a structuring action plan for his prospecting activity. It's an axis, but not an act: it lacks an operational dimension. In other words, in order to "open up more prospects", should he intensify the number of prospecting actions he carries out, or improve their targeting, or even their quality? Spending several days prospecting with the wrong approach can be demotivating and counter-productive! His manager had noticed a drop in motivation, without having questioned him or led him to modify his action plan or sales strategy...

However, there is no shortage of opportunities for the manager to support the salesperson in his or her thinking by providing real added value! What criteria should be used to target priority prospects? How can we adapt to arouse their interest? How can we increase the average value of contracts signed? How can we optimize the sales coverage of the sector to reach our objectives? Managers have an essential role to play with their teams! Provided they ask themselves the right questions, and help them analyze their results. As long as they distract them from the "what" (the objective to be achieved) and concentrate on the "how" (number, type and quality of actions to be carried out), they can empower their sales teams to perceive their needs and the pragmatic means to be implemented to reach their objectives. Focusing on building the path to results, rather than on the results themselves, has the added advantage of raising awareness and fostering commitment.

2-Managing means coaching every salesperson

When asked about their relationship with their managers, many salespeople appreciate the trust they are given, while others appreciate their autonomy... Some, on the other hand, call on their manager to solve customer problems or finalize a high-stakes negotiation. Managers from the field often appreciate this approach. With good sales skills, they conduct these discussions with the salesperson and generally achieve satisfactory results. But it's not a solution: from the point of view of the salesperson's progress, is it enough to attend the manager's demonstration? To ask the question is to answer it: watching a tennis match does not make the spectator a seasoned tennis player! Increasing sales performance therefore involves acting on 2 fundamental levers: skills and motivation.

How do sales managers help their teams to develop their sales, relational and behavioral techniques? How often do they coach them to reinforce or work on these skills? How do they help them develop their self-confidence and assertiveness? Only by observing salespeople in sales meetings can the manager establish a reliable diagnosis. This is the prerequisite for helping each salesperson, on an individual and personalized basis, to reinforce their strengths and work on their areas for improvement. By taking a genuine interest in his colleagues, the "manager coach brings them high added value and helps them grow, while raising their standards. They develop the skills and motivation of each individual. This in turn has a major impact on results.

3-Managing means leading

Whether organized at the start of each sales cycle, or on a more occasional basis, sales meetings are always special occasions. Favoring exchanges between colleagues and the sharing of best practices, they provide an opportunity to work on the means to achieve objectives. Here too, real attention needs to be paid to the format and content of these key moments: too many meetings are scuttled by endless slides, untimely exchanges and ill-defined or poorly mastered objectives. The result is general passivity, a lack of constructive action, a feeling of wasting time, and even demotivation. So how can sales meetings be animated to deliver real added value? To move the team forward? Motivate them? The starting point is to ask yourself what you want your team to achieve by the end of the meeting. Is it to improve their negotiating skills, to open 10 new accounts over the next six months, to take ownership of a new offer, to better share information in order to sell to networks...?

The meeting must be prepared with these objectives in mind. The manager organizes the different phases of the meeting and chooses the most appropriate facilitation methods from a wide range (metaplanning workshop, round-table discussions, case studies, role-playing, etc.). The beginning and end of the meeting are of course key moments, to which the manager must pay particular attention. The introduction gives meaning to the meeting, sets the tempo for the day, and the conclusion puts the results of the meeting into perspective over the coming weeks or months, highlighting the added value of the work carried out together. With a fast-paced day, more interaction and participation, a dynamic of reflection and decision-making, sales people and managers spend a constructive and stimulating time, bringing momentum and energy until the next meeting.

In brief

Sales managers have powerful levers at their disposal to help their teams grow and impact their results. By activating them, they gain in relevance and credibility with their teams. By focusing on skills, motivation and the relevance of actions taken, they put the pressure on salespeople's activity rather than on results alone. This enables them to develop their performance... and get results!

How can you manage your sales team and refocus your sales efforts in the current climate? Find out in this webinar:

Les sessions de refresh trimestrielles sont l’occasion de pratiquer de manière intensive et continue pour consolider les acquis et favoriser le succès de tous les commerciaux. Comme dans l’apprentissage d’une langue, c’est la pratique régulière et récurrente dans la durée qui donne l’aisance. C’est notre vision chez KESTIO, et la raison pour laquelle Wall Street English a choisi de nous faire confiance !

Découvrez la solution Kestio et nos différentes formules permettant, comme pour Wall Street English de vous aider dans l’amélioration de votre performance commerciale :