Customer Satisfaction vs. Customer Experience – What Has Changed?

I noticed something missing at the Gartner Customer 360 Conference

The conference showcased the latest and greatest uses of customer relationship management technology – affectionately referred to as CRM.  What struck me as odd during the conference was the conspicuous absence of any reference to “customer satisfaction”.  Over the years, increasing customer satisfaction was a primary driver for companies to make investments in CRM.  It was all about “knowing the customer” and the “360 degree view”.  It seems that today, the focus is all about “customer experience.”  The Board Room is buzzing about customer experience and companies are hiring Chief Customer Experience Officers.  Is this a fad?  A trend?  The next hot hashtag to bubble up on Twitter?

One thing is certain: the notion of improving the customer’s experience is here to stay.  I was a very loyal (another buzz word) customer of a brand name internet security and anti-virus package that I used for many years.  I was satisfied, obviously loyal, renewed and paid on time, and as far as the company would assume, would have been around for life.  One day, smack in the middle of my day, the program failed and froze my system.  I was on a deadline and suffering productivity paralysis as my new state-of-the-art laptop was useless – and I was on the road.  There was only one thing to do: call customer support.

Long story short: the company had made an error in sending out an update patch.  That in and of itself was not a huge deal – mistakes happen and I’m a pretty understanding guy.  However, it was during my journey to forgive (by calling support to get the fix) where my satisfaction took a turn and my experience fell apart.  Instead of admitting the mistake and then giving me steps to fix it, I was treated like a kid who just got busted for breaking Dad’s favorite model airplane.  Needless to say, this was a bad customer experience.  So, like any self respecting, card carrying consumer, I woke up the next day and replaced the software at a lower price with a competitor that I never would have bothered to look at in the past. (Take that!!)

So what has changed?  Companies, more than ever, have little or no margin for error.  But mistakes are made in the real world, and they always will be.  So the differentiating factor will be how companies handle ”negative” customer experiences and what they do to prevent them from happening again.  Bruce Tempkin, author of the blog, Customer Experience Matters posted a thought provoking graphic explaining the fundamental misunderstanding of how loyalty and satisfaction are connected.

As for my experience, the software company could have “saved” me (or in the vernacular, lowered their churn) with only a few simple things.  First, they could have showed me that they cared about me personally and recognized my customer lifetime value – they’ll need to acquire ten new customers just to replace me.  Second, they should have contacted me when the problem occurred.  They have my phone number, email, you name it - they failed there as well.

Thinking about my personal experience brought home for me what is changing in CRM technology – it’s what we DO with the information.  Simply aggregating key account information about customers is no longer enough. Companies need to look beyond general account and transaction information and start recognizing the importance of customer lifetime value and satisfaction drivers like communication preferences and propensity or ability to buy. 

True, this may be “the time” for customer experience to get the attention it deserves, but keep in mind – experiences have quite a range – all the way from exceptional to horrible, so let’s not forget to remain focused on satisfaction (or as Bruce would encourage, focus on fixing the cause of dissatisfaction!).

Decision Management for the Mobile Field Organization has Arrived

If you’re paying attention at all you’ve noticed that the mobile space is blowing up.

From the recent launch of the new iPhone to the rise of Android to the mind blowing valuations of mobile ad platforms, the Smartphone is the new platform.  Annually, Mary Meeker, of Morgan Stanley, outlines leading web trends.  This year’s presentation (available at: http://www.morganstanley.com/institutional/techresearch/pdfs/MS_Internet_Trends_060710.pdf) is fascinating.  Meeker compares the rise and consumer adoption of the mobile space to the rise of PCs and the web. 

Check out the trend:

That’s some hockey stick.  The total number of Smartphones is predicted to eclipse the total number of personal computers in 2012 (provided the Mayans are wrong.) I’d argue that if you’re a technology company it’s a space that you absolutely have to be in.  We’re certainly making significant investments to deliver rich interaction management applications to mobile platforms.  That said, most, if not all, of the buzz around mobile is in the consumer space.  That stands to reason as eyeballs drive ad revenue and the eyes are moving from static PC screens to anywhere mobile devices. So where does that leave businesses that sell to other businesses?  It’s something that we think about every day and believe represents a lot of untapped value and opportunity.


Take a mobile sales force as an example.  Let’s say you have sales reps that go into the field daily to sell your products or services to businesses.  Perhaps you’re selling phone and internet services to small and medium sized businesses.  Or you’re selling pharmaceuticals or medical devices to doctors.  If you have a field sales force selling sophisticated products than you’ve probably faced the classic challenge of how to deliver information to the field that transcends basic information and actually drives and tracks behavior. Sales organizations rely on the field to make efficient, profitable decisions, but rarely arm their teams with the tools necessary to do so.  We think that Mobile Decision Management is an underserved space but a solution whose time has come.

Consider what a mobile sales rep has to deal with manually: Complex customer and prospect segmentation, dispersed geographic territories, constantly changing internal and external business drivers, communications via additional channels and frequent change in team structure.  We believe that sales reps empowered with Mobile Decision Management tools will be significantly more effective than those that aren’t.  And sales management has nearly perfect insight into where the rep went, what they offered and how the prospect responded, all in real-time. 

In a blog post from his decision management blog, James Taylor writes, “One of the key aspects of decision management is a focus on taking action using insight gained from data - not just showing someone the data or just letting them create or update it. Identifying the decisions that drive the behavior of your employees is crucial.  If the mobile employee is a claims agent then the decisions that matter are ones like “is this claim fraudulent”. If the mobile employee is an account manager then the decisions that matter are thinks like “is this prospect entitled to a credit account”, “will this account get these products in time”, “what’s the best up-sell or cross-sell for this account” and so on.
If you focus on managing and automating these decisions then you can use the information the phone has (geo-location), insight from the data the company has (fraud likelihood of this claim based on analysis of similar claims, predicted wait times for a product delivery based on analysis of the supply chain, propensity to buy of the account for highest margin products based on analysis of similar accounts and products) to take an action (tell the person using the phone to do or not do something).”

Automating the decisions of the sales team, via existing devices used in the field (think iphone, Blackberry, Droid…) adds a level of efficiency, profitability and reporting that most sales organizations just fantasize about.  We’re ready to make fantasy a reality.

Top 5 Reasons to Synch Direct Sales with Customer Support in the Cable Industry (in real time.)

The Problem:

The Cable Industry is notoriously challenged with a reputation for poor customer experience and negative brand image. Part of that challenge stems from the complicated nature of product offerings, but a large majority of the bad rap comes from a breakdown at the customer service level.  Slow communications and conflicting business goals between support and sales, disjointed information between online channels, call centers and the field service team, and misguided decisions at the point of execution all contribute to the struggle to keep subscribers happy and cable operators profitable.

The Solution:

Synching multiple customer channels, especially direct sales and customer support will produce immediate, tangible results to the bottom line while simultaneously improving the overall customer experience and brand perception for Cable Operators. 

Here are my top 5 reasons for synching your direct sales team with your customer support and fulfillment teams in real time:

1)  The Customer Experience is Still King:

No matter what the industry, the best way to stay profitable is to deliver a great product and exceptional service.  Better customer experiences lead to higher ARPU’s.  Synching the field and support organizations so that customer interactions are consistent and seamless seems straight forward enough, but many large dispersed cable operators lack the technology infrastructure to do this, and it’s a subtle yet costly gap in the operations strategy.

2)  Optimizing the Door to Door Team is Profitable:

Optimizing direct sales interactions, through the use of real-time customer information, will increase profitability.  Think about it: your field sales team has a finite amount of time in the field every day.  They need the ability to filter opportunities and spend their time on the prospects that are QUALIFIED and most likely to buy.  Arming them with critical buyer information like credit ratings, current products and propensity to buy will maximize your team’s ability to acquire profitable business.

3)  Controlling the Execution Reduces Cost:

Synching direct sales and customer support in real time helps control the execution after a service or sales call.  The slow exchange of information between field sales and customer support can create costly mistakes like incorrect fulfillment, scheduling errors and inappropriate discounting.  When the direct sales team can access customer information AND transmit sales orders in real time cable operators dramatically improve the control of execution.  Fulfillment is more efficient, billing details are accurate and the overall customer experience is better.

4)  Increasing the ROI of Direct Sales is a No Brainer:

Knocking on doors is only efficient if they are the right doors.  Widely dispersed territories, especially rural ones can dilute the efficiency of your field sales organization if they don’t have a structured information-based way to strategically call on their territory.  Synching the field sales team with up to the minute customer and prospect information helps them avoid time consuming mistakes in their call strategy each day.

5)  Leveraging Your Inbound Service Calls Improves Sales:

The call center still represents the moment of truth for many customers and a positive experience there creates the perfect opportunity for up-selling current subscribers. Having the ability to give customer support all of the sales resources that the door to door team has makes them a highly efficient, low cost sales team.  Subscribers who dial in have already given you their attention, it’s your job to do the most with that interaction.

MSO’s with the best customer experiences will always remain the most profitable.  They have invested in the processes, people and technology required to deliver a consistently positive experience. Most MSO’s have figured out that the customer experience is important to their overall business outcomes and have invested in designing appropriate processes to improve that experience.  Many have even begun assigning executive level responsibility to the customer experience (the people part of the equation.)  However, what remains a huge challenge for many is how to execute on the integrated multi-channel customer experience strategy by supporting the processes and the people with the right technology. My recommendation is to start by integrating two of the major customer touch points – the field and the call center, with technology that 1) is easily adopted by the field and 2) won’t interfere with current customer systems in the call center.

Our Rebrand Story

It started as a discussion about what a name shouldn’t be.
3 months, 30 logos and a whole new outlook brought us here.

When I founded the company, we were focused solely on helping customers maximize inbound interactions by giving them the tools to cross sell and up sell their existing customers.  We came up with the name XSell, because we thought it was a perfect representation of what we were delivering.

Over the years, we’ve grown up and the world has changed - a lot.

Our company has grown in both number of team members, as well as, number of customer.  Our interaction hub has evolved to include more channels for interaction (for example, we just launched Swyft for Mobile,) as well as, more functionality to address a number of complex business challenges - of which only ONE is cross selling or upselling.  We now help customers mitigate risk and even retain customers.

The economy and subsequently business priorities and challenges are dramatically different then they were when we got started.  Along with a different state of affiars has come a whole new ecosystem of software vendors trying to rise to the challenge to address new business needs.  This new crop of technology has experienced such momentum, there’s even a new tech space emerging—interaction management.

When we found out that this new space was emerging - we got down right excited, because this is what we’ve been doing all along, and the emergence of the space just reaffirms our product strategy and confirms our existence! 

So back to the name change… we decided we needed to find a brand name that would demonstrate what we do and how we do it; so we came up with Swyft. For us Swyft represents what we do for our customers, and how we deliver.  We help our customers proactively maximize interactions instantly (... you could even say we help them maximize interactions swyftly - yeah - we know it’s spelled different, but you see where this is going.)  We also deploy our solution in less than 90 days (whew, that is fast - you might even say that is Swyft!.) And our customers experience the shortest time to value once they go live (Swyft ROI anyone?)

So, here we are, new name, new logo, new conference room glass…. same dedicated team ready to help our customers GET SWYFT.  We hope you like our new look and feel as much as we do

Smells Like Déjà Vu: Customer Interaction Software for Mobile Sales

Do you ever get the feeling you’ve been here before?

Every once in a while, most of us experience a profound sense of déjà vu;  good or bad, that feeling can make you stop and think, and that might even help you remember a lesson you might have already learned (or did you – since this could be entirely all in your head.) Either way, I’m there, and for some reason the background music is early 90’s.


Lately, I’ve spent a lot of time researching the app ecosystem because we are expanding our platform’s reach into the Mobile Channel and changing the way sales and service teams access information and interact with customers and prospects in the field.  Like any good technologist, I’ve burned some serious hours looking for ways we can save time, save money, and, most importantly, make our lives just a little easier.  This journey has planted me deep within in the complex landscape of mobile development and the trends emerging within it.
While on my journey, I’ve been continually struck with a sense of déjà vu.  Didn’t I already go through a period of time where I was forced to deal with fragmented operating environments,  with extremely limited, lowest-common-denominator, quirky cross-platform options?  Didn’t I already tolerate native vendors trying to one-up each other while locking in users and developers?

Yep.  This feels like déjà vu, but it’s not. I have been here before and it was the early 90’s.  This was before Windows had become nearly ubiquitous.  It was back when Windows, Mac, OS/2, and UNIX were at least considered viable platforms for enterprise end-user desktops.  This was before web delivery of applications made the browser the platform.

While I had hoped to find a totally capable, cross-platform juggernaut, I didn’t.  This post over at AppsFire served as some pretty good navigation to help me through some of the assessment, as it seemed the only place anyone has tried to do a full ecosystem map for mobile development.  It’s a little iPhone-centric, but, hey, so is the rest of the world right now.  At the end of this journey, I’ve come to the realization that the only way we can deliver the kind of rich experience our users are accustomed to is to build native applications.

There are a few things make this situation much more tenable: 1) The accessibility and flexibility of SaaS platforms like Swyft and others that are available for mash-up on these mobile devices.  Since these SaaS platforms are inherently client-app agnostic, it just becomes a matter of figuring out how best to display the content available on a particular device. 2) Since all of the mobile devices can handle HTML content—Swyft’s core content delivery mechanism—the challenge becomes simply building good native applications that make it possible to leverage the core features of each mobile device.

So my journey didn’t land me in a convenient, time saving nirvana, but at least we aren’t writing giant client-server applications with totally limited integration capabilities.  As for the dejavu,  I’m looking forward to a day when I get the vague sense that I remember the moment when one mobile platform started to dominate (not likely) or cross-platform tools like HTML 5 came into full-bloom and released me from this time warp for good.