Tag Archives: Data

Big Data: How are you using it?

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How are Organisations using Big Data?The amount of data in the business world has been rapidly growing over the past few years particularly with the development of technology. This data is often collectively and commonly termed ‘Big Data’. When used effectively, it has the potential to become the next frontier for innovation, operational excellence, competition and profit.

Undoubtedly the explosion in the volume of data organisations are capturing about their customers, suppliers, employees, operations and competitors, both directly and indirectly, can generate tremendous insight.  In their 2011 study the McKinsey Global Institute identified potential benefits of this insight across many sectors; from billions of dollars per annum benefits for health care and public sector administrations and increases of up to 60% in operating margins for retailers.  Furthermore, in today’s consumer driven environment, business decisions can no longer be based on what has previously been successful. With the shift in power towards the consumer, there is now a requirement for highly personalised services, recommendations and communication.  Consumers want to receive the right message at the right time through the right channel. If organisations fail utilise their data effectively to surpass these customer expectations, their competitors will leave them behind.

Despite this, a recent study conducted on behalf of Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) has shown that over 30% of organisations are not utilising their data to drive business decisions.  With evidence suggesting that utilising customer data effectively can lead to improved customer relations, customer loyalty and advocacy – why would organisations choose to ignore this important resource?

The issue may stem from the organisational culture – perhaps there is not a customer centric culture, or the decision makers do not understand the value of customer data? Some organisations may argue that they are not equipped to deal with customer data or changes that may stem from customer insight. Or do organisations believe that in simply gathering ‘big data’ they are doing enough?

Social Influence and Customer Service

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A recent Forbes article outlined the plans of how a major customer service solutions provider now integrates Klout (a social media influence measurement metric) into their social customer contact solutions. This comes after a lot of debate around Klout, created by a San Francisco based company of the same name, which measures a user or brand’s ‘social influence’ across social networks like Twitter and Facebook. Klout does this by calculating an overall Klout Score by assessing a user’s presence on social channels, their followers, activity and the popularity of their content. There are other applications that measure social influence, Kred and PeerIndex among them, but Klout is the one that seems to be the most widely accepted.

The entire industry still is in the learning stages when it comes to the use of social media, and while tools like Klout do give us an understanding of how much we influence people with our social media activity, there still exist widespread concerns about the method in which this is done, and how relevant it is to each company. Another Percepta Blogger, Lindsay, previously wrote about the Net Promoter Scoring (NPS) system and its application and effectiveness on social media channels and how relevant it is for companies to use this metric to measure their customer service on social channels. With Klout and NPS 2.0 among the plethora of tools and applications available to analyse your company’s social media presence, a company needs to understand what exactly they’d like to measure, what actually impacts their business and aligns to company goals. This goes right back to your social media strategy – where does social media sit in your business strategy and what do you aim to achieve from it? This is by no means fixed, it will keep evolving as the medium and your company grows, but we know for certain you need to have a vision which these tools, if used correctly, will help you achieve.

There are several ways of looking at the effectiveness of social influence, Klout and NPS on social media customer service. Do you use them for your business and are they important? Let us know through your comments!

NPS and Social Media; Let the Numbers Do the Talking

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There’s no way to avoid it; a lot is being said about the Net Promoter Score (NPS), and it’s not all good.  While there are many who champion the single score metric as a reliable predictor of both customer loyalty and company growth, there are many out there who disagree.  And it was a discussion with a colleague that made me fall into the latter category.  She asked me the question – what about social media and NPS? It is clear that the relationship between the two could be a long and complex one, but for me it is simple. Social media provides a platform for both promoters and detractors, so to understand the potential growth of your business, you must begin to understand the numbers behind this single-question score.

The NPS will split your customers into three categories; promoters (those who would actively recommend your product or service), detractors (those who would not recommend you) and passives (those who fall somewhere in between), and provide you with a single score – your promoters minus your detractors.  And it is this score which is presented to those at the top level of the business, as an indicator of performance and growth potential.  But it doesn’t indicate how many promoters and detractors you actually have.  It is only when you look at some social media numbers that its impact on NPS becomes clear.

53% of consumers say they have recommended a company on Twitter. An impressive figure when you consider that there are approximately 100 million Twitter users in the world (almost 10 million in the UK alone). This means that potentially half of the worlds Twitter users could be recommending your company online at any one time.  Furthermore, the average Twitter user has 150 followers, which means that for every one recommendation, the message is spread to at least 150 people.  And if Lady Gaga, who has 24.5million followers, starts recommending you, then you know you’re onto a winner!

So what do these numbers mean for NPS?  As the number of Twitter users grows (it is expected to reach 300 million by the end of the year), the potential for promoters to spread a positive message is endless.  But the same can also be true for the detractor, who may choose to complain about the product or service they receive through the channel. This ultimately means that half the worlds Twitter users could be spreading negative messages about you at any one time. This in mind, it would prove beneficial for those at the head of the business to understand fully just how many promoters and detractors they actually have (rather than the calculated NPS).

Will social media eventually change the way in which we present NPS? As the number of user’s increases, will businesses remain content with knowing just one figure, or will they need more? Any thoughts would be welcome.

Innovation. What’s Your Take?

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A term that is used repeatedly by companies, yet I am not sure we fully understand what it means, how we can nurture an innovative culture or whether it is a good or bad thing.

I read a blog recently by Pat Lencioni entitled “Is innovation good or bad” and started thinking about this interesting term and how frequently it is used or requested without there being a clear understanding of what it means and why we are doing it.

There are several written definitions of innovation but the one that I feel is the most relevant is: “Innovation is creating value by implementing ideas”

If adding value is the measure, then who is the measurer?  Is this a personal measurement?   I ask these two questions because I feel in today’s world it is so easy for people to say “we are an innovative company” or “you are not an innovative company.”  The same applies to personal beliefs. 

So what are my thoughts on how to deal with this?

  1. Review your customer survey to ensure that the “innovation” section / questions are asked in the right way so that you can specifically understand what this means to the person responding.  I believe that innovation is personal so this is crucial.  Without this you will not know what to do more of, less of or where to spend your money.
  2. Look at the employee innovation feedback and the client feedback to see if there is a correlation. 
  3. Define innovation in your organisation, sector and identify when innovative ideas occur and tell people about it, reward people for innovation.
  4. Implement a robust ‘idea to innovation’ process that aligns to your vision so that ideas become real commercial services or products that add value.

So what does the future look like in relation to innovation?  I hope more clarity, better measurement and personalisation.  To avoid thinking that innovation is about large investments but to focus on the smaller things that truly add value to your customers and employees.

Service Loyalty: Does it Exist?

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We can all think of a brand or product that we are loyal to, but can you think of a service that evokes the same feelings?

Creating customer loyalty is undoubtedly an integral part of remaining competitive. Few businesses, if any, can survive without establishing a loyal customer base. In fact, the importance of customer loyalty was highlighted in a recent study which found that it can cost up to 5 times more to attract new customers than to retain your current ones.

This presents a particular challenge for the service industry. Services are unique in that they are intangible and therefore, it is particularly difficult for customers to assess the value of the service. Marketers then face the difficult task of trying to communicate the value of something which cannot be seen or touched. Further to this, if the service provider succeeds in meeting or surpassing the customer’s needs during one encounter, can it be ensured that they will continually meet the customer’s expectations in future encounters? This becomes especially challenging when the human aspect is thrown into the mix – a service provider having a bad day can evoke negative emotions in the customer and encourage them to assess alternative options. With all these things considered, doesn’t it become apparent how difficult it is to create loyalty when a service is the product on offer?

Let’s take a look at Apple. Apple has arguably the most loyal customers in the world, with some 84% of iPhone users saying they will choose an iPhone when replacing their device.   Apple followers report that their loyalty to Apple stems from two things – the product portfolio and the emotional connection with the brand. The Apple portfolio, which encompasses everything from iTunes, to MacBooks, to iPads and iPhones, is no doubt impressive. However, it is one thing to put out a great device – the real challenge lies in ensuring that a product integrates effortlessly into a customer’s life. Apple achieves this seamlessly. These powerful products coupled with the consumer’s relationship with the brand places apple at the top of the loyalty stakes. But is it possible to gain this same emotional connection with a service?

Trying to identify a service which boasts a loyal following is somewhat more difficult. Indeed, statistics show that, just 12% of utilities customers in the UK in 2011 claimed to have been loyal to a service provider. Of course this could be down the unique nature of the service industry; however, it can be argued that this lack of loyalty stems from a distinct gap between the customer expectations and the service they receive. Indeed, a recent study reported in the Harvard Business Review found that 48% of customers who had a negative service experience were less likely to feel loyalty towards that company.

From a business perspective – this raises some very interesting questions for the service industry. If providers ensured not only a high but also a consistent level of service, would they see an increase in loyalty? If they focussed on managing every touch point of the customer experience would they ever be able to create the same loyalty that consumers feel for products?

Let me know what you think through your comments.

Percepta and Qualtrics Partner for Customer Insight Service

As advocates of better customer insight, Percepta shapes its services around delivering change and improvements for our clients based on high-quality customer and employee feedback combined with intelligent analytics.

Today we are pleased to announce that Percepta has created a partnership with Qualtrics, the industry-leading provider of online survey software, for our soon-to-launch survey and customer insight service. Qualtrics delivers to over 200 corporate clients in addition to many more academics and government organisations. This, along with their focus on delivering a great user experience for their clients customers, made this partnership ideal.

The team at Percepta have worked for over 12 months with Qualtrics to understand more about the technology and ensure the right fit for our clients, their customers, and employees. Aligning the vast Qualtrics global expertise in survey technology with Percepta’s experience of using customer insights to manage change is set to deliver an improved service for our clients and their customers.

Alan Bates, service development manager for Percepta, explains, “Finding a quality technology partner for our survey and customer insight service was critical. We have many years of experience in the analysis of multiple data streams, from voice of customer and voice of employee to sales, product, and process-related information. Having built this kind of intelligence for each of our clients, we needed software that can help us in the collection of that data and is flexible enough to work for a diverse range of businesses, sectors, and customers. This is the perfect combination of customer-focused improvement with world-class surveying software.”

A number of global brands are already experiencing the positive results of this new partnership ahead of the official service launch.

Keep up to date with the launch of our survey and customer insight service by following us on Twitter using #LoveYourCustomer or connecting with us on Facebook.