Category Archives: Data

Steven Spielberg’s Next Movie: “ The Data Black Hole”

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“Just because you have not seen something does not mean it doesn’t exist”.  I remember my mum saying this to me as a child.  In those days it usually referred to fairies or in even more serious conversations – God.    Well I’ve taken this term and applied it to more recent events around the world of data and, in particular, the black hole that all the data I send to companies seems to disappear into.

As I say I have not seen this black hole, maybe it’s in a cloud somewhere (ha ha), but it must exist.  The reason I’ve come to this conclusion is that I have, over the years, filled in surveys, attended forums, spoken to sales and customer service people…the list is endless.  I provided these companies with my thoughts on the experiences I’ve had; always willing to state my views on things but I can’t remember anyone who has sent me any feedback following my input.  Did they take any notice or was the data just sucked up into the “The data blackhole”?

A colleague of mine recently wrote a blog on the subject entitled “What do you do with your customer feedback”  which generated a number of comments from people who have worked on customer feedback programmes where they gave examples of where things have been changed due to the feedback that had been received.  I couldn’t find many that referred to feedback, back to the customer.  So I wanted to check.  How many experiences have you had, as a customer, where companies have said “Thanks, we could not have done it without you” or  “Because of you, we have been able to improve the service we give”?

What do you do with your Customer Feedback?

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It might seem obvious to most people that if you spend time, effort and money collecting something then you will want to do something with it. Take my father in law, Brian, for example. He collects old bicycle parts. Specifically, rare bicycle parts from the 1920’s. He really knows his stuff, loves the bikes he builds and is seen as a bit of an authority on the subject. He also makes a fair bit of money from it. Last week he sold a pair of handlebar grips for £250 that he paid £10 for. For Brian, his collecting rewards him with a sense of pleasure, an enviable knowledge on the subject and a tangible financial return. Lucky old Brian.

So why would you collect something, and go to great efforts to gain what you are collecting, only to do nothing with it? It might seem mad, but it appears there are many commercial organisations in the UK that are doing just that. The thing they are collecting is customer feedback (either on a small or grand scale) and then coming up with a Customer Satisfaction or Net Promoter score. They take this score into the boardroom, discuss it amongst themselves, either pat themselves on the back or point fingers at each other, and then put the scores in a drawer. Very odd. Thankfully, there are some companies that use their customer feedback to drive continuous improvement through their business by focusing on how they can give their customers a better experience. These companies invariably benefit from an increase in turnover and profit, a reduction in operating costs and create customers that spend more, stay loyal and recommend them to others. Which is what we’re all trying to achieve in business, isn’t it?

I was interested to find out what people’s views were on this matter, and what they did with their   Customer Feedback, so I posted a discussion on LinkedIn. The comments are posted below and it makes for fascinating reading. However, here is a short summary of the key points from organisations that seem to be getting it right:

  • Equally involve your customers and your employees in the experience improvement process and incentivise their buy-in from the top down.
  • React to negative feedback swiftly, and on an individual basis, to influence those customers back into passives or, best of all, advocates.
  • Make a big deal about customer compliments, especially regarding individual employees. Build customer centric targets and objectives into every employees job role.
  • Remember, ‘satisfied’ customers will only stay satisfied until something better comes along…invariably a competitor. You need to aim for ‘delighted’ customers.
  • Make small changes and check customer feedback to evaluate the impact. Sometimes, the smallest improvement can have the biggest positive effect on the customer.
  • Only by analyzing verbatim customer feedback can you gain true insight into what really matters to customers. ‘Yes’ ‘No’ answers only scratch the surface.
  • Ensure your marketing and brand promise is delivering against your service delivery experience. If it isn’t, you’re heading for an increase in dissatisfied (ex) customers.
  • Always look at your business from the outside in (the customer view). Your view is not real and is rarely, if ever, seen by the customer.
  • If you don’t do anything to improve customer experience after you’ve gained feedback you might as well stop doing it and spend the money on a nice holiday…while you still have some customers.

The Miss-Information Superhighway

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Is it just me (quite possibly) or is everyone being swamped by the information superhighway these days? The internet, smart phones, tablet computers, a couple of old tin cans and a piece of string… all seduce us further and further into the world-wide-web where all of our questions can be answered and all of our dreams will come true (okay, I just made that last bit up but I live in hope).

As a person interested in the ‘inform’ part of the information superhighway I often wonder just how much we are being informed, how much time we waste in trying to get that information and how often are we being misinformed. It seems to me that what we really, really need (and sooner rather than later) is a bit of good old fashioned housekeeping and a wee bit more honesty about where our information comes from and how accurate / reliable and, as importantly, original it really is. In the old days (remember them?) information was stored in books and journals. These were often the result of a single author or in the case of academia potentially a number of authors (with antecedents carefully cited in the bibliography). Single authors had / have the benefit of editors and publishers to vet their work. Academia had / has the discipline of peer review to keep things in check.

Today however, (in the ‘bad new’ days) anyone can put whatever they like on the internet and a) claim it to be their own work, b) claim it to be true, c) post without peer review. A recent example of this has been the now notorious “Gay Girl in Damascus” blog (bizarrely revealed to be a US man living in Edinburgh and studying at a Scottish University). His / Her blog even raised the eyebrows of the US government and was, as many blogs are, increasingly followed by journalists and activists around the globe. The cracks began to appear when a photograph, purporting to be the blogger was publicly revealed (on BBC’s NewsNight) to be that of a woman living in London whose social media ‘snap’ was re-used without her knowledge – putting not only her but her family and friends in potential harm’s way. So, this stuff really does matter!

What does this mean for internet users who increasingly use it as their reference library? Who do they trust and how can they validate that trust? I wish I knew the answer to that one… but I have an idea that might be worthy of a moment or two’s consideration…

It’s a bit geeky but… bear with me… How’s about this as a starter for ten? You’ve heard of an IQ (Intelligence Quotient)… How about a DQ (Darwin Quotient) for everything on the world-wide-web? A way of tracing the origin of the species of an idea… How would it work? Everything placed on the information superhighway would be time and date stamped (as most of it already is) and geo-tagged. It surely can’t be beyond the realms of the possible (for a race of beings that put a man on the moon in 1969 – allegedly) to invent a way of watermarking everything that is created online. A DQ of 1 would indicate an original posting. A DQ of less than 1 would be indicating how far away the post was from being original. By that I mean the ratio of other’s content to original content.

By way of example, how often have you gone onto a product review site and read exactly the same product review elsewhere (and wasted your time)? In the olden days of the early internet, attribution was done by posting a link to the source material – admittedly for the very practical reasons of not having the space to re-quote fully. Nowadays, more often than not, stuff is just lazily cut and paste into a blog, website or whatever without acknowledgement. A long time ago and far away this would have been called plagiarism. It is the bane of schoolteachers and lecturers everywhere who don’t want their students just cribbing ideas, fully formed, from the web. There are even websites that help them out by calculating the probability that a student’s text could have been copied from the web – using search engine technology. For the really geeky or mathematical amongst you there is a ‘simple’ formula that does likewise, http://www.plagiarismchecker.com/copying-from-internet.php.

Even the mighty Google might be encouraged to seek out DQ1 material and place it higher on its search engine and thereby increase its credibility. If users saw this as valuable (and let’s be honest what price an original idea?), then I’m sure they’ll find a way of monetizing it.

Questions, Questions, Questions…

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It seems that everywhere we go businesses want to ask us questions. Retailers including Boots, Sainsbury and Co-op display questions on their chip & pin terminals asking things like – Did I know I can pay bills in store? Was the queue time acceptable? Was the store clean and tidy? Would I buy a TV from them if they started selling them?

Voice of Customer is big again and accessible through channels that weren’t available before. Who thought we would be answering questions on terminals while waiting for our shopping to be packed?!

But what happens to the data?

Voice of Customer has been around for a while and if you want a truly customer centric business it always should be. Business Intelligence and Customer Insight appear to be making a resurgence…not simply asking the questions but knowing what to do with the information collected.
At what point does the voice of your customers become loud enough to make a change? This can be dependent on a variety of business factors; financial investment available, appetite to change, financial returns and current business strategy.
BBC’s Wonders of the Universe, for example, received over 100 complaints for the soundtrack being too loud which prompted the BBC to re-edit the remaining episodes. Is this good customer service or not? Considering 3.6 million viewers watch the programme…that’s only 0.003% of the viewing population who complained!

Thousands of people complain about mobile phone contract terms and conditions and over a million people marched against a war but their voices don’t seem to be heard. Mary Portas’ Secret Shopper series showedt that company owners aren’t willing to look in the mirror and recognise their own flaws. By recognising Voice of Customer as constructive criticism companies are given an opportunity to take action and flourish. Alternatively it can be a great way to collect real-time positive feedback.

Do businesses really want to listen to their customers? Or are they only listening to those that match their agenda?

Measure anything that moves…

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… and if it doesn’t move? Measure it until it does!

Statistics are all around us and I got to thinking, how much do we depend on analysis and are there times where they are just not worth paying attention to?

Before I continue, and at risk of a contract being taken out on my head by an axe wielding numberjack, I do think that some of the data analytics that are performed by our own Business Intelligence department (who have the coolest department name in our company) not only add value to our service delivery but they also help our clients understand their business better than they ever have before thus giving them the ability to perform better than they have ever dreamt of. From my point of view this type of reporting and analysis is very valuable and I rely on good data to make relevant decisions in the workplace all the time.

In the workplace we can use statistics & analysis to help us understand specific trends, patterns, cycles, behaviours etc. Where statistics start to lose credibility for me is when they are presented with a specific bias in mind. I recall the itv news at ten showing, with the same snappy graphics as they use for their ‘Happiness Index’, the shift in voter faith in the coalition government and other related questions. The part that struck me wasn’t the message that they were driving home; it was the percentage of people who had answered “I don’t know”. On some questions this category made up almost half of the responses but clearly it didn’t hit home a hard message that indifference rules, instead they opted to focus on something that would either create a skewed positive or negative message to make it news worthy.

In the recent Oldham East & Saddleworth by-election each political party relied heavily on trends and past statistics to get their excuses in early. On the lead up to the election each party had already peddled their statistic driven reasons for potential failure either by referring to tactical voting or previous outcomes where the sitting party ‘never wins’.

This also happens in televised sport, in the pre-match build up a barrage of statistics will be shown of past form in previous encounters. Often these mean nothing but at best it gives the pundit something other than idle banter (or sexist comments allegedly from Andy Gray & Richard Keys) in the low points of the game.

I have already had a pop at the media in another blog posting so, in an attempt to provide other examples, I will move to advertising. If you haven’t done so already, the next time you see an advert for a new shampoo or cosmetics line coming on the television or in a magazine or newspaper, take a look at the small print which will tell you the actual percentage of the people that agreed with the fact that the shampoo is the best around. More importantly it will also refer to the sample size. In some cases I would be better asking my extended family for their opinions…at least I could trust them to tell me the truth and I would have more respondents. Granted, a positive response from the general public to a survey can offer backup to the claims being made but when the advert on the TV for shampoo sees the model with hair extensions, really how much faith do they  have in their product?

As we move more and more towards social media as a driving force for public opinion I often wonder whether the rating that something has received has been a push-up by the creator/owner/business and often I am left still making up my own mind…

I would really like to hear your opinions on this topic. Do you trust and rely on statistics in your professional and personal life in the same way? Or do you think that a statistician is just a person who draws a mathematically precise line from an unwarranted assumption to a foregone conclusion?

Answers on a correlation diagram please.

Working with Customer Satisfaction Survey data…

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Many companies use Customer Satisfaction surveys as a means to gather feedback on various aspects of their business, whether it be employee performance, the customer’s viewpoint of the processes employed, pricing, product quality or loyalty. Understanding the Voice-of-Customer (VoC) has very self-evident benefits and can be used effectively as a learning and continuous improvement tool.

Having worked with the Customer Satisfaction Survey as both an external and internal tool for the best part of a decade, the following considerations I believe are key to maximizing their potential:

Don’t just focus on the bottom line!

Knowing that the needle has moved for the overall metric will likely still tell you little about HOW this has happened? Understanding the drivers of the metric is crucial. Several statistical techniques can be employed to this end and a good starting point is a correlation matrix, multi-linear (or binary logistic) regression of the data. In this way, you will be able to have a handle on what drives the variability in your overall metric and allow you to focus efforts on identifying and managing the drivers of performance.

Use the Verbatim!

If you decide to leave the opportunity for free text, it is only right that a process is in place to utilise the information therein. It does take longer to analyse, but reading and/or coding the Verbatim is ultimately very worthwhile. The customer has taken the time to complete this and therefore you have a responsibility to understand what is being said – this can prove a very rich seam of information to be mined and often gives a clearer insight into what the customers are passionate about or more information on the nature of their complaint or compliment. There is also a corporate responsibility to feedback internally on this, and where possible, address any unmet customer needs that have arisen.

Don’t knee jerk if performance fluctuates…

Again, some understanding of statistics helps here, but it is important to understand the Confidence Levels and the Margin of Errors with your sample data. Understanding what constitutes a statistically significant performance improvement (or degradation) helps –that way there is no euphoria or full-scale enquiry when the numbers shift but are likely simply explained by the vagaries of the sampling process.

Align internally (where possible)…

Customer Satisfaction surveys can become the heartbeat of your company if you align the goals accordingly. Being able to report on individual, team or departmental performance ensures greater accountability and manageability and there is a great opportunity for goal alignment. Using performance indices can also add value, being able to explain the contribution of individuals or departments towards the overall mean score. In this way, you are able to manage performance in bite-size chunks as opposed to mobilizing full-scale improvement initiatives when the numbers move. Should you have internal Quality Assurance processes for your employees, it is a pretty good idea to ensure that these are calibrated with your VoC where possible. Ultimately, there is some work to be done if your internal and external metrics are divergent..

Service Vs Sales Channels

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Should we expect a different level of service from different sales channels; Online, Retail Outlets, Telephone?

My most recent experience buying a mattress online for a fantastic 50% discount (www.bedroomworld.co.uk):

  • Value approximately £250
  • Wrong product arrived
  • Notified company immediately (as it advises on their website – I took the precaution of both e-mailing and calling them so I would have evidence)
  • Promised a call back, on several occasions, no call backs received
  • Re-arranged delivery time – no delivery arrived

I had to take charge in order to resolve the situation. I told the advisor what bed was delivered and what bed I had ordered. He looked up the mattress and told me it was the correct one, only for me to question what site he was looking at and it turned out to be their sister site www.mattressworld.co.uk. Why they are listed on different sites as different products is another matter.

I demanded callbacks by a certain time, they should have given me a callback time. Each occasion, the time passed and I was calling them again. Finally someone called me back after 2 days of me calling them, to assure me the correct mattress was going to be delivered the next day. I take time out of work, sit and wait, low and behold – nothing – so I take the initiative and call the delivery company, only to be told that they were given a ‘partial address’. Not willing to take any more time out, I gave them my work address and had it delivered there, now with the added hassle of getting it home myself…. A 15 minute phone call to bedroom world later in a less than pleasant rant, I have never heard from them again. I will never use this company again… Ever!

Were my expectations too high?

Or was this just another bad experience with a bad company??

Little Things

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Brian HamiltonMy last two blog posts (here and here) really pushed out the boat in terms of length. Apologies for that… The fact is that they were originally written as one post that was deemed too long by our blogmeister (meaning you really got off lightly!) Having learnt my lesson, I thought I would give myself the challenge of keeping this posting as brief as possible.

On the subject of keeping things short and sweet, one of my favourite stories is the one that Ernest Hemingway allegedly wrote, either as a result of a bet with his drinking buddies or to rise to the challenge of writing a complete story in six words. He absolutely nailed it. Here is the unabridged version:

“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

In these times of Twitter, SMS, et al it seems incredible to me that, way back in the 1920s, ‘Papa’ somehow managed to convey a powerful story in less than 27 characters. Who needs 140?

Here at Percepta we pride ourselves on our Microsoft SQL Server based data warehouse and its ability to provide in-depth analysis of customer support calls captured by our CRM application(s). As we move towards supporting multiple channels that, by their very nature are unstructured (particularly if we are trying to analyse customer sentiment from Twitter feeds, product forums, SMS and chat), we recognise the enormity of the challenge we face in trying to interpret this vast unruly data set. Whilst there are tools out there to trap key words in verbatims there are pitfalls here too. Individual words by themselves can’t convey sentiment. They need to be grouped together. Even when they are skillfully grouped together by a master storyteller like Hemingway, what is the sentiment behind his famous short story? Different readers pick up different things. For some it is a tale filled with melancholy and loss. For others it might be seen as a sign of hope – especially in the re-cycling community! Waste not, want not! Either way, you get the drift, I’m sure.

As contact centres move away from simply handling phone calls (where at least the sentiment of the caller could be interpreted by other means – e.g. the increasing decibel level in the ear of the hapless agent when the customer is venting her / his anger), we need to find new ways of picking up these meanings correctly if we are to act upon them. I haven’t found a solution (yet) – though some recent technological offerings show some promise.

True to my word I am going to end this post here.

But, before that… I would like to suggest my own six words’ worth, with an IT manager theme:

“AC dies. Servers fry. Situation Vacant”

If you have any of your own that you would like to share feel free to post a comment back.

To get you started, here’s a wee cracker from Stan Lee in response to a similarly themed article on wired.com :

“Automobile warranty expires. So does engine.”

Or, this great one from author Graham Swift featured in the guardian.co.uk:

“Funeral followed honeymoon. He was 90.”

Until next time…

A New Kind Of Hard Labour?

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I was interested to read an article recently about a BPO organisation that has employed prisoners to conduct data management tasks on behalf of global clients.  250 ‘convicts’ are to work on the Indian prison site, earning the equivalent of £80 per month, processing and transmitting data for mostly government, insurance and banking clients.  The same company reportedly operates services for RBS and even M&S.

It did get me thinking.  Whilst I do recognise that this kind of experience for prisoners can be invaluable when they are released, especially as many are reported to be well educated, it created the question in my mind as to whether this was simply a way for companies to cut the cost of outsourcing and offshoring even more.  The plan is expected to be rolled out further if this trial is a success.

Predictions are that the offshoring (and outsourcing) trend is expected to rise, with many public and private organisations eyeing the opportunity to make much needed savings.  Economies that have come out of the worst of any financial crisis are also those holding some of the greatest offshore opportunities, like India.  With great educational standards, and now vast outsourcing and offshoring experience, they have a great platform.  But organisations also have to consider the bad press in recent years over the quality of service and, for example, that the British consumer likes to believe they are talking to someone in Britain – something to do with media hype I’m sure – but also some fears over communication errors and security.  A MINTEL survey showed that 74% of consumers in the UK had fears about the handling of their data outside of the UK.  I’m sure that the idea of prisoners processing and handling their personal and financial data won’t do much to calm any negative perception over security – even in the UK.

However, there remains the argument that this setup provides a new opportunity for work experience to those serving prison sentences.  A similar scheme in Austria launched in 2008 to much protest.  Fears over security were raised, but there are no reports of any real security issues.  In that case, there may well be an opportunity for the UKs outsourcing companies to jump on a similar wagon, keeping the work in the UK, supporting prisoners to reduce re-offending and cutting the cost of their operations.

So how do you really feel about employing prisoners to conduct this kind of work?  Is this the new alternative to the traditional practical lessons and further education in prisons?  Are organisations at risk of exploiting cheap labour in a new way?  And as a consumer, would you feel any different that your personal data was being processed by a serving prisoner – never mind sent offshore?

I look forward to reading your views and comments.

Alan