Co-written with Mark Brady, Vice President, Strategic Markets
Defining Customer Protection and Experience Excellence
What do “Protecting your Customers and Partners” and “Providing Experience Excellence” signify to you, and how do you verify the successful implementation of this philosophy today? Can you clearly express what holds the utmost importance for your clients and partners, and do they affirm this? Are you actively seeking feedback, evaluating, and refining your Experience Strategy?
“Today, 59% of all consumers feel companies have lost touch with the human element of customer experience.” (PwC Consumer Intelligence Series)
Aligning Culture with Customer Experience
Like most intentions around delivering customer value, it’s one thing to practice ideals but another to establish habits that align company culture with customer and partner experience outcomes. At BioConnect AI, “Protecting our Customers and Partners” is one of our seven core values, and we strive for every customer to be a ‘raving customer.’ We’ve anchored this customer focus to the following tenets:
- Mindset: What approach and beliefs do we have as a company and individually to ensure we protect our customers? (How can we do better?)
- Processes: What processes reinforce customer value and drive predictable and measurable results? (Can we improve them?)
- Practices: What activities and common cross-organizational practices help reinforce the defined customer process and consistently drive value or outcomes? (Is there a better way?)
Measuring Success in Customer Protection
Without a standard approach to measuring how well we’re protecting customers or fostering strong partner relationships, it’s essential to create practical and measurable practices that help highlight success and opportunities for improvement. An example at BioConnect AI is our “post-support customer feedback” – auto-generated following each customer support interaction, with client responses openly shared among all BioConnectors. These practices encourage pride in accountability, shared responsibility, and help drive best practice improvements around experience feedback.
“Customer service shouldn’t just be a department; it should be the entire company.” ― Tony Hsieh
Case Study: Partner Feedback
Mark Brady, Vice President of Strategic Markets at BioConnect had the pleasure of inviting James Billingsley, Senior Manager of Facilities Security at University Federal Credit Union (UFCU), to share his feedback with BioConnect AI on what “Protecting his Customers” means to him. Beyond his obvious pride in serving his team and UFCU, for James, it was the relationship with his business partners and their knowledge sharing.
James emphasized the importance of understanding his customers’ needs, which included internal staff, end customers, members, and colleagues, as well as his relationship and experiences with BioConnect AI. He explained the direct connection to his customers’ success – the stronger the connection with BioConnect AI, the better the outcome for his customers and the more successful he was at meeting his objectives. Additionally, when BioConnect AI provided thought leadership and shared key knowledge in our field, this, in turn, helped better serve James’ customers.
This truly reinforced the degree to which BioConnect AI’s relationship with James and our actions impacted UFCU and ultimately James’ own customer objectives.
“A customer talking about their experience with you is worth ten times that which you write or say about yourself.” ― David J. Greer
The Importance of Regular Feedback
For both new and long-standing customer relationships, it’s crucial to consistently assess how well we’re safeguarding and serving them, and gathering their feedback on their experience. A brief call for an update significantly aids in relationship growth and benefits all involved.
“Companies that lead in customer experience outperform laggards by nearly 80%” (http://Forbes.com : Stats that prove the value of customer experience).
The Value of Feedback for Customers & Businesses
For Customers:
1. Establishes a connection: Requesting feedback shows that you value their opinion, strengthening the relationship.
2. Promotes learning: Feedback provides an opportunity for knowledge sharing and helps customers align with company objectives.
For Businesses:
1. Real-time assessment of meeting customer needs: Feedback serves as a scorecard and guides product or service improvements.
2. Insight into customer objectives: Understanding their goals helps tailor your approach.
3. Reinforces values: Feedback highlights what matters to customers and how well you align with their expectations.
Leveraging Technology for Better Customer Experience
Lastly, consider that today, businesses of all sizes are digitally enabling key customer processes and practices to drive operational efficiencies and ultimately generate customer insight. A consequential, but very positive, impact of this digital investment is the reduction of time spent on low-value tasks – creating additional time for customer interaction (leveraging new digital insights), resulting in more effective execution of the ‘customer experience’ mantra.
“…in order to keep up with this new kind of ‘always-connected’ customer, your business must embrace technology to deliver an unmatched customer experience” (http://Superoffice.com blog: customer experience strategy).
Leading with Feedback for Success
Open, sought-after, and consistent customer feedback plays a crucial role in safeguarding customer interests, nurturing relationships, and propelling business triumph. Real success demands leadership that not only instills robust cultural values but also makes strategic technology investments and upholds effective methods for gauging customer-driven results. Failing to do so risks leaving too much to fate, creating a false sense of performance excellence.
