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CRMI Honors 33 Service Organizations for Delivering ‘World-Class’ Customer Service 6 Cited for Certification in Customer Experience Management Professional (CEMPRO) 2 Cited for Certification in Providing Employee Centric Work Environment (VoE) 2 Cited for NFSB Triple Crown Award Status – CXDNA Ultimate Ecosystem

CRMI Honors 33 Service Organizations for Delivering ‘World-Class’ Customer Service
6 Cited for Certification in Customer Experience Management Professional (CEMPRO)
2 Cited for Certification in Providing Employee Centric Work Environment (VoE)
2 Cited for NFSB Triple Crown Award Status – CXDNA Ultimate Ecosystem℠

 

—All have consistently exceeded customer expectations with highly engaged employees—

Chelmsford, MA: April 1, 2023 – Customer Relationship Management Institute LLC (CRMI) specialists in driving companies’ revenues and profits by implementing Customer Experience (CX) strategies that makes CX the most critical component of their DNA (CXDNA), announced that 33 service organizations have qualified to receive the NorthFace ScoreBoard Service Award 2022 for superior customer service, requiring a CSAT rating of 4.0 minimum or an equivalent rating system within the calendar year.

CRMI also recognized six (6) companies for engaging employees to meet the rigorous customer relationship soft skills training requirements needed for the NorthFace ScoreBoard CEMPRO Award 2022. The certified NFSB Customer Experience Management Professional (CEMPRO) award was established in 2010 to provide best-in-class training curricula for organizations who want to certify that their customer-facing groups (CFG) have mastered the skills needed to deliver consistently exceptional customer service. The award criteria require’s the entire applicable CFG to receive the training with ninety-percent (90%) achieving a minimum test score of eighty-percent (80%) within the calendar year.

CRMI also recognized two (2) companies who have created an employee centric work environment earning them the NorthFace ScoreBoard Voice of Employee award 2022. The award criteria is based on employee survey or third party ratings (Glassdoor – Indeed – etc.) requires minimum 4.0 as rated by their employees within the calendar year. The NFSB Voice of Employee Award was established in 2020 to encourage companies to create an employee centric work environment, which includes career opportunities – competitive benefits program – competitive salary compensation – training to improve work skills – employee recognition, – diversity / equity / inclusion and a balanced home-work life – that results in providing continuous superior customer experiences.

Lastly, CRMI recognized two (2) companies for the special NorthFace ScoreBoard Triple Crown Award 2022 (established in 2020) for those organizations that qualify for three (3) categories of NFSB Awards within a given calendar year. The NFSB Triple Crown Award tagline “CXDNA Ultimate Ecosystem℠” recognizes organizations that have achieved the world class excellence standards for all interactions with customers – partners – employees.

Now in its 23rd year, the NorthFace ScoreBoard Service (NFSB) award is presented annually to companies who, as rated solely by their own customers, achieved excellence in customer service during the calendar year. Further, all NFSB recipients who have met the criteria of being a recipient for seven (7) contiguous years shall receive special SUMMIT category with the number of contiguous years, denoted on their award, in their NFSB certification letter/deliverables and in their marketing rights. The Summit criteria now extends to all NFSB awards.

“The NorthFace ScoreBoard Award is widely recognized as the most prestigious award for customer service excellence due to its unique customer only vote criteria. The award recognizes organizations that not only offer exemplary customer service but those who have chosen to make their CX strategy the critical component of their company’s DNA”, said John Alexander Maraganis, President & CEO of CRMI. Each year thousands of companies, both domestic and international, are invited to apply for the NFSB Award. In this year’s audits, more than 5000 companies were invited to participate in NFSB Award Program – the customer service audits included daily – weekly – monthly – quarterly – annual survey projects, many international in scope. CRMI conducts a review/confirmation of their clients customer satisfaction / loyalty satisfaction survey results (CSAT / LSAT) and requires written verification of those survey results/processes by the company’s CX executive management. All NFSB certified NFSB Auditors are required to review/confirm their clients CSAT/LSAT survey results/processes and submit results to CRMI for approval. All approved Master Auditor clients NFSB awards shall contain Master Auditor logo and CRMI’s logo as a Co-branded NFSB Award.

CRMI methodology measures customer satisfaction with services and/or product satisfaction (features-reliability-cost of ownership-etc.) on a 5-point scale (or an equivalent rating system) in such services categories as technical support, field service, customer service, account management, professional services on- boarding, journey mapping, augmented reality, community services and other customer facing functions. The NFSB recipient companies/business units achieved a 4.0 or above out of a possible 5.0 or an equivalent rating system such as NPS.

“Due to its unique ‘Customer-only vote’ criteria, the NorthFace ScoreBoard Award for service has been viewed from its inception in 2000 as the only objective benchmark for excellence in customer service, Maraganis said. CRMI defines ultra-customer loyalty as customers who continuously purchase from the same vendor – even though other choices may offer significantly better pricing – because the vendor consistently exceeds its customers’ expectations via teams of highly engaged employees.”

 

2022 NFSB Service Award Recipients: NFSB Master Auditor

Twenty-third-time recipients: Summit Status

  • Ultimate Kronos Group: Lowell, MA CRMI
  • Haemonetics Corporation: Braintree, MA Marketii – CXDNA Certified Partner

Twenty-second-time recipients: Summit Status

  • Zoll Medical Technical Services: Chelmsford, MA Marketii – CXDNA Certified Partner

Twenty-first-time recipients: Summit Status

  • Alfa Wasserman LLC: West Coldwell, NJ Marketii – CXDNA Certified Partner

Twentieth-time recipients: Summit Status

  • Boston Scientific Corporation: Natick, MA Marketii – CXDNA Certified Partner

Fourteen-time recipients: Summit Status

  • ACIST Medical Systems Inc.; Eden Prairie, MN Marketii – CXDNA Certified Partner

Thirteen-time recipients: Summit Status

  • NETSCOUT: Westford, MA Marketii – CXDNA Certified Partner

Twelve-time recipients: Summit Status

  • Diagnostica Stago Inc.: Parsippany, NJ Marketii – CXDNA Certified Partner
  • Wolters Kluwer Health, Learning, Research & Practice: Norwood, MA CRMI

Eleven-time recipients: Summit Status

  • Broadcom Inc: Washington DC CRMI
  • Yaskawa America Inc: Waukegan, IL CRMI

Ten-time recipients: Summit Status

  • Avaya Inc: Santa Clara, CA CRMI
  • Nutanix Inc Support Services: San Jose, CA CRMI

Eight-time recipients: Summit Status

  • Citrix Systems Inc: Ft. Lauderdale, FL CRMI
  • Deltek Inc: Herndon, VA CRMI
  • Fresenius Kabi USA LLC: Lake Zurich, IL CRMI
  • Wolters Kluwer Health Individual Member: Hagerstown, MD CRMI

Seven-time recipients:

  • Rubrik Inc: Palo Alto, CA CRMI
  • Cohesity Inc: Santa Clara, CA CRMI

Six-time recipients:

  • Cengage Learning Inc: Independence, KY CRMI
  • Hologic Domestic Service: Marlborough, MA Marketii – CXDNA Certified Partner
  • Hologic Technical Service EMEA: Manchester, UK Marketii – CXDNA Certified Partner
  • Nutanix Inc Consulting Services: San Jose, CA CRMI

Five-time recipients:

  • Braze Inc: New York, NY CRMI
  • Druva Inc: Sunnyvale, CA CRMI
  • Hologic Customer Support EMEA: Manchester, UK Marketii – CXDNA Certified Partner
  • REPLIGEN Corporation: Waltham, MA CRMI
  • Delinea: Washington DC CRMI

Four-time recipients:

  • Bracco: Spring Valley, CA Marketii – CXDNA Certified Partner

Three-time recipients:

  • DataStax Inc: Santa Clara, CA CRMI
  • Nasuni: Boston, MA CRMI
  • UiPath LLC: New York, NY CRMI

Two-time recipients:

  • Nutanix Inc. Resident Services: San Jose, CACRMI
  • Nutanix Inc. Technical Account Management (TAM): San Jose, CACRMI
  • Nutanix Inc. Education Services: San Jose, CACRMI

First-time recipients:

  • Braze Inc: Professional / On-Boarding Services, New York, NY CRMI

 

2022 NFSB CEMPRO Award Recipients: CXDNA Certified Soft Skills Professionals

Four-time recipients:

  • REPLIGEN Corporation: Waltham, MA
  • Yaskawa America Inc: Waukegan, IL

Five-time recipients:

  • Nutanix Inc Support Services: San Jose, CA
  • Rapiscan Systems: Torrance, CA

Six-time recipients:

  • Rubrik Inc: Palo Alto, CA

Seven-time recipients:

  • Fresenisus-Kabi USA LLC: Lake Zurich, IL

2022 NFSB Voice of Employee Recipients: Certified Employee Centric Work Environment

Three-time recipients:

  • Nutanix Inc Support Services: San Jose, CA
  • Yaskawa America Inc: Waukegan, IL

2021 NFSB Triple Crown Recipients: CXDNA Ultimate Ecosystem℠

Third-time recipients:

  • Nutanix Inc Support Services: San Jose, CA
  • Yaskawa America Inc: Waukegan, IL

Note to Editors: City and state denotes either company headquarters or principal location where CX strategy work was conducted.

 

About CRMI:

Since 1999, Customer Relationship Management Institute LLC (CRMI) has been a pioneer in promoting that providing consistently superior Customer Experience (CX) AND Employee Experiences (EX) is the most critical component of a company’s DNA. Further, that consistently exceeding customers’ expectations long term builds customer loyalty which requires competent-engaged employees. As a membership-based resource, we provide “One-Stop shopping” for “everything CX / EX,” whether you are new to CX / EX strategies or a veteran CXDNA practitioner. Join thousands of like-minded CXDNA professionals eager to share their customer-employee strategy experiences.

 

For more information on how to qualify for the NorthFace ScoreBoard Triple Crown Award, visit www.CRMIREWARDS.com or call (978) 710-3269 and ask for Diane Rivera, drivera@crmirewards.com.

 

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CRMI Honors 34 Service Organizations for Delivering ‘World-Class’ Customer Service 6 Cited for Certification in Customer Experience Management Professional (CEMPRO) 2 Cited for Certification in Providing Employee Centric Work Environment (VoE) 2 Cited for NFSB Triple Crown Award Status – CXDNA Ultimate Ecosystem

CRMI Honors 34 Service Organizations for Delivering ‘World-Class’ Customer Service
6 Cited for Certification in Customer Experience Management Professional (CEMPRO)
2 Cited for Certification in Providing Employee Centric Work Environment (VoE)
2 Cited for NFSB Triple Crown Award Status – CXDNA Ultimate Ecosystem℠

 

—All have consistently exceeded customer expectations with highly engaged employees—

Chelmsford, MA: April 1, 2022 – Customer Relationship Management Institute LLC (CRMI) specialists in driving companies’ revenues and profits by implementing Customer Experience (CX) strategies that makes CX the most critical component of their DNA (CXDNA), announced that 34 service organizations have qualified to receive the NorthFace ScoreBoard Service Award 2021 for superior customer service, requiring a CSAT rating of 4.0 minimum or an equivalent rating system.

CRMI also recognized six (6) companies for engaging employees to meet the rigorous customer relationship training requirements needed for the NorthFace ScoreBoard CEMPRO Award 2021. The certified NFSB Customer Experience Management Professional (CEMPRO) award was established in 2010 to provide best-in-class training curricula for organizations who want to certify that their customer-facing groups (CFG) have mastered the skills needed to deliver consistently exceptional customer service. The award criteria require the entire applicable CFG to receive the training with ninety-percent (90%) must achieve a minimum test score of eighty-percent (80%) within the calendar year.

CRMI also recognized two (2) companies who have created an employee centric work environment earning them the NorthFace ScoreBoard Voice of Employee award 2021. The award criteria is per Glassdoor five-point rating scale as rated by their employees. The NFSB Voice of Employee Award was established in 2020 to encourage companies to create an employee centric work environment, which includes career opportunities – competitive benefits program – competitive salary compensation – training to improve work skills – employee recognition and a balanced home-work life – that results in providing continuous superior customer experiences.

Lastly, CRMI recognized two (2) companies for the special NorthFace ScoreBoard Triple Crown Award 2021 (established in 2020) for those organizations that qualify for all three (3) NFSB Awards within a given calendar year. The NFSB Triple Crown Award tagline “CXDNA Ultimate Ecosystem℠” recognizes organizations that have achieved the world class excellence standards for all interactions with customers – partners – employees.

Now in its 22nd year, the NorthFace ScoreBoard Service (NFSB) award is presented annually to companies who, as rated solely by their own customers, achieved excellence in customer service during the calendar year. Further, all NFSB recipients who have met the criteria of being a recipient for seven (7) contiguous years shall receive special SUMMIT category with the number of contiguous years, denoted on their award, in their NFSB certification letter/deliverables and in their marketing rights. The Summit criteria now extends to all NFSB awards.

“The NorthFace ScoreBoard Award is widely recognized as the most prestigious award for customer service excellence due to its unique customer only vote criteria. The award recognizes organizations that not only offer exemplary customer service but those who have chosen to make their CX strategy the critical component of their company’s DNA”, said John Alexander Maraganis, President & CEO of CRMI. Each year thousands of companies, both domestic and international, are invited to apply for the NFSB Award. In 2021, more than 5000 companies were invited to participate in NFSB Award Program – the service audits included over 400 survey projects, many international in scope. CRMI conducts a review/confirmation of their clients CSAT/LSAT (customer satisfaction/loyalty recommend satisfaction) survey results and requires written verification of CSAT/LSAT survey results/processes by the company’s CX executive management. All NFSB certified CXDNA partners are required to review/confirm their clients CSAT/LSAT survey results/processes submit results to CRMI for approval. All approved CXDNA partner clients NFSB awards shall contain CXDNA partners logo and CRMI’s logo as a Co-branded NFSB Award.

CRMI methodology measures customer satisfaction with services and/or product satisfaction (features-reliability-cost of ownership-etc.) on a 5-point scale (or an equivalent rating system) in such services categories as technical support, field service, customer service, account management, professional services and other customer facing functions. The NFSB recipient companies/business units achieved a 4.0 or above out of a possible 5.0 or an equivalent rating system.

“Due to its unique ‘Customer-only vote’ criteria, the NorthFace ScoreBoard Award for service has been viewed from its inception in 2000 as the only objective benchmark for excellence in customer service, Maraganis said. CRMI defines ultra-customer loyalty as customers who continuously purchase from the same vendor – even though other choices may offer significantly better pricing – because the vendor consistently exceeds its customers’ expectations via team of highly engaged employees.”

 

2021 NFSB Service Award Recipients: NFSB Service Summit

Twenty-second-time recipients: Summit Status

  • Ultimate Kronos Group: Lowell, MA CRMI
  • Haemonetics Corporation: Braintree, MA Marketii – CXDNA Certified Partner

Twenty-first-time recipients: Summit Status

  • Zoll Medical Technical Services: Chelmsford, MA Marketii – CXDNA Certified Partner

Twentieth-time recipients: Summit Status

  • Alfa Wasserman LLC: West Coldwell, NJ Marketii – CXDNA Certified Partner

Nineteen-time recipients: Summit Status

  • Boston Scientific Corporation: Natick, MA Marketii – CXDNA Certified Partner

Eighteen-time recipients:

  • None

Seventeen-time recipients:

  • None

Sixteen-time recipients:

  • None

Fifteen-time recipients:

  • None

Fourteen-time recipients:

  • None

Thirteen-time recipients: Summit Status

  • ACIST Medical Systems Inc.; Eden Prairie, MN Marketii – CXDNA Certified Partner

Twelve-time recipients: Summit Status

  • NETSCOUT: Westford, MA Marketii – CXDNA Certified Partner

Eleven-time recipients: Summit Status

  • Diagnostica Stago Inc.: Parsippany, NJ Marketii – CXDNA Certified Partner
  • Wolters Kluwer Health, Learning, Research & Practice: Norwood, MA CRMI

Ten-time recipients: Summit Status

  • Broadcom Inc: Washington DC CRMI
  • Yaskawa America Inc: Waukegan, IL CRMI

Nine-time recipients: Summit Status

  • Avaya Inc: Santa Clara, CA CRMI
  • Nutanix Inc Support Services: San Jose, CA CRMI

Eight-time recipients: Summit Status

  • Hyland Software: San Mateo, CA CRMI

Seven-time recipients: Summit Status

  • Citrix Systems Inc: Ft. Lauderdale, FL CRMI
  • Fresenius Kabi USA LLC: Lake Zurich, IL CRMI
  • Wolters Kluwer Health Individual Member: Hagerstown, MD CRMI

Six-time recipients:

  • Rubrik Inc: Palo Alto, CA CRMI
  • Deltek Inc: Herndon, VA CRMI
  • Cohesity Inc: Santa Clara, CA CRMI

Five-time recipients:

  • Cengage Learning Inc: Independence, KY CRMI
  • Hologic Domestic Service: Marlborough, MA Marketii – CXDNA Certified Partner
  • Hologic Technical Service EMEA: Manchester, UK Marketii – CXDNA Certified Partner
  • InterVision Systems LLC: Chesterfield, MO Marketii – CXDNA Certified Partner
  • Nutanix Inc Consulting Services: San Jose, CA CRMI

Four-time recipients:

  • Braze Inc: New York, NY CRMI
  • Druva Inc: Sunnyvale, CA CRMI
  • Hologic Customer Support EMEA: Manchester, UK Marketii – CXDNA Certified Partner
  • REPLIGEN Corporation: Waltham, MA CRMI
  • Delinea: Washington DC CRMI

Three-time recipients:

  • Bracco: Spring Valley, CA Marketii – CXDNA Certified Partner

Two-time recipients:

  • DataStax Inc: Santa Clara, CA CRMI
  • Nasuni: Boston, MA CRMI
  • UiPath LLC: New York, NY CRMI

First-time recipients:

  • None

 

2021 NFSB CEMPRO Award Recipients: CXDNA Certified Professionals

First-time recipients:

  • None

Two-time recipients:

  • None

Three-time recipients:

  • REPLIGEN Corporation: Waltham, MA
  • Yaskawa America Inc: Waukegan, IL

Four-time recipients:

  • Nutanix Inc Support Services: San Jose, CA
  • Rapiscan Systems: Torrance, CA

Five-time recipients:

  • Rubrik Inc: Palo Alto, CA

Six-time recipients: Summit Status

  • Fresenisus Kabi USA LLC: Lake Zurich, IL

2021 NFSB Voice of Employee Recipients: Certified Employee Centric Work Environment

First-time recipients:

  • Nutanix Inc Support Services: San Jose, CA
  • Yaskawa America Inc: Waukegan, IL

2020 NFSB Triple Crown Recipients: CXDNA Ultimate Ecosystem℠

First-time recipients:

  • None

Two-time recipients:

  • Nutanix Inc Support Services: San Jose, CA
  • Yaskawa America Inc: Waukegan, IL

Note to Editors: City and state denotes either company headquarters or principal location where CX strategy work was conducted.

 

About CRMI:

Since 1999, Customer Relationship Management Institute LLC (CRMI) has promoted that providing consistently superior Customer Experience (CX) is the most critical component of a company’s’ DNA. Further, that consistently exceeding customers’ expectations long term builds customer loyalty which requires competent-engaged employees. As a membership-based resource, we provide “One-Stop shopping” for “everything CX,” whether you are new to CX strategies or a veteran CXDNA practitioner. Join thousands of like-minded CXDNA professionals eager to share their customer-employee strategy experiences.

 

For more information on how to qualify for the NorthFace ScoreBoard Triple Crown Award, visit www.CRMIREWARDS.com or call (978) 710-3269 and ask for Diane Rivera, drivera@crmirewards.com.

 

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It’s Not as Easy to Do Business With You as You’d Like to Think It Is

Your executive team is committed to customer experience (CX) success. On paper, your customer journey map looks strong. But that doesn’t mean your organization is easy to do business with.

The proliferation of new channels and touchpoints brings ever greater complexity to customer interactions—yours included. Plus, your current processes and silos may create bottlenecks for customers trying to make a purchase, get service, or expand their business with you.

You can use all the shiny objects you want to add glitter to your marketing and service interactions. But it’s only putting lipstick on a pig if your organization isn’t easy to do business with. Maybe you’ve added more mobile app functionality, for example, but your customers are pinching, swiping, and scrolling to the point of frustration to accomplish a basic task. Or you’ve launched an attractive marketing promotion, but your contact center agents don’t have any information on it for customers who call with questions.

Whether your organization is easy to do business with cuts to the core of the customer experience. It can give you a leading indicator of future trends for customer relationships. After all, your organization can have a great product, a great brand, and even great intentions for CX, yet still be difficult to do business with.

Perhaps most important, “Are you easy to do business with?” is a question that if explored and measured thoroughly, can quickly reveal whether the various pieces of the CX puzzle are working together as they should.

In fact, once you’ve examined whether customers think your organization is easy to do business with and use the resulting feedback to improve, you’ll find that it’s one of the best ways to ensure that your organization’s customer-facing operations (as well as those that support them) are living up to the spirit of your CRM and CX efforts.

Following are three lessons I learned while exploring that pivotal question, “Are you easy to do business with?”

Truly understand, and measure on a regular basis, whether customers think that your organization is easy to do business with.
Internal naysayers will claim that, of course you’re easy to do business with. After all, the CX efforts are refined, leadership is customer-focused, and the company puts the customer first in everything it does.

But, wait, not so fast…

Whether a company is easy to do business with is not solely determined by the efficiency of processes and programs it has in place. Instead, it’s a reflection of customer perceptions that can rarely be gleaned from operational data. To find out whether customers really believe that your organization is easy to work with requires a dedicated effort.

Ideally, you can attain this view of your customers’ true perceptions through a combination of methods. Surveys and one-on-one interviews with customers—preferably through a third party to ensure that feedback is candid—are exceptionally valuable and powerful tools to gather external perspectives. Speech and text analytics tools that make real-time sense of customer feedback, moods, and reactions are also extremely helpful. Customer-initiated digital feedback offers a goldmine of information, as do online communities that marketers and customer experience leaders can use as a listening tool. Use as many of them as you can to really understand where your organization falls on the “easy to do business with” spectrum.

Define what “easy to do business with” means for every
customer-facing role.

One of my aha moments in CX was when a particularly savvy customer-facing employee confided that she didn’t know if she had the ability to make it easier for customers to do business with the company, or even what that would entail. And she was right! Most people don’t intuitively know what something as encompassing as “easy to do business with” means.

To address this reality, we instituted a series of workshops across all departments throughout the company. These interactive sessions begin by exploring why it’s important for us to be easy to do business with. We then delve into what that means for each person in the room, and more specifically, which behaviors for each role will make the company’s vision come to life. Through these workshops, our employees helped to define what it meant to be “easy to do business with” and how to achieve it. Defining expectations is important, because most people have different interpretations of what makes an organization easy to do business with.

Apply what you learn across the organization.

Once you know the customer perception of the ease of doing business with your organization, you’ve defined what that ease means for various departments, and you have a framework in place that outlines required behaviors for specific roles, it’s time to use that information throughout the company to guide other decisions and processes. This includes hiring the right people, rewarding the right behaviors, and creating processes that complement them.

Perhaps, most important, institutionalizing these practices and encouraging these behaviors ultimately creates and nurtures a true, customer-centric culture that not only rewards behaviors that make it easy for customers, but also inherently encourages them among all employees.

Asking your customers if your organization is easy to do business with, and seeking candid answers, isn’t easy. But it’s one of the most powerful ways to ensure not only that the customer relationship and CX programs you oversee are working well, and that they’re being successfully applied where it matters most: with customers.

 

About the Author
Nancy Porte, CCXP, is the vice president of Global Customer Experience at Verint, a board member of the Customer Experience Professionals Association and a frequent speaker at industry events where often presents on her passion: developing meaningful customer experiences through the collaboration of numerous business functions and effective employee engagement.

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Using Telephone Surveys to Drive Higher & Better Quality Responses to Customer Service Surveys

Using Telephone Surveys

Surveys have always been crucial when it comes to determining the next steps any company must take to improve its customer service experience. By tapping customers for their honest perspectives, brands open themselves to information that would otherwise remain unknown.

Yet while collecting actionable information in real time drives improvements throughout the organization, the processes behind gathering such data have shifted in recent years. Online surveys have gained prominence, as such methods cost less and are easier to deploy.  Online surveys typically are used to measure customer satisfaction with specific service incidents, such as the handling of trouble tickets.  Multiple choice responses allow customers to comment on such things as first-call resolution (yes or no and how many contacts were needed), the agent’s knowledge and helpful attitude, etc.  Transaction surveys are not meant to evaluate customer loyalty, just the degree of satisfaction with the handling of a specific recent service incident experience.

Particularly in B2B markets, telephone surveys offer invaluable insights and significantly increase survey responses to achieve statistically valid sample size.  As we know, valid sample size is the key component in all survey research.  Also, research shows that telephone responses provide a higher quality response in measuring the customer experience and allows capturing detailed information from key customer contacts (e.g., decision maker, recommender) on critical failures.  This invaluable information can trigger action alerts used to initiate the appropriate corrective action to address key customer issues from the key customer contacts.

In addition, telephone surveys allow a company to insert that personal, human touch that online surveys lack.  Such an approach enhances customer loyalty, as respondents feel they’re part of the process and that their input can effect change. Online surveys do tend to offer open-ended opportunities for feedback, but telephone surveys enable customer service representatives to speak directly with customers so they may gain thorough insight into the reasoning behind the responses as well as the loyalty based on the customer’s overall relationship with the company.  While such data may ultimately be difficult to quantify, it’s this qualitative information that’s necessary to get to the heart of what might be plaguing the brand in question.

Companies must identify their market research objectives carefully before they can determine the ideal channel that will help them achieve their goals. For those looking for responses that go beyond the multiple choice styling of the average online survey, phone surveys are likely to deliver those precise results—but only if the company proceeds with caution. While telephone surveys embolden customers to speak up, such methods must be strategic and succinct.

Researchers must develop hard-hitting questions that maximize value in the shortest amount of time. In today’s busy world, few have the time or desire to spend 20 minutes talking to anyone without adequate notice. The questions, therefore, must allow both representative and customer to get down to business relatively quickly. Prioritizing time in any and all customer interactions, survey or not, demonstrates how deeply the company values its customers, for time has become currency in its own right.

Once the brand has chosen its sample, representatives will conduct the interviews to gather data. The information collected will then be analyzed in an effort to assess the primary pain points driving customer frustration and the overall highlights sustaining customer loyalty.

To further increase survey response rates, companies might also benefit from incentivizing customers to complete the initial online survey. For instance, a company might offer discounts upon survey completion to gain basic feedback. This will allow the company to ease customers into the idea of connecting via telephone. Regardless of channel, however, all companies must reward customers with a consistently superior service experience. By demonstrating that they’ve listened to their base, leaders can bolster brand loyalty and advance their bottom line simultaneously so everyone wins.

Always remember, it’s customers, not products and services, that are the source of all revenue and profits.  Follow these recommendations to drive higher and better responses to customer service surveys and you’ll strengthen your efforts in customer acquisition, retention, growth and even win-back.

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3 Ways Customer Surveys Will Benefit Your Business

A successful business needs honest feedback from its customers to evaluate how well those customers’ needs are being met. But customer feedback should be far more than a generic gauge of customer satisfaction. Obtaining customer input is a valuable way to hear firsthand what customers think of your customer experience, products, and services, as well as how to improve them. Just as important, asking customers for their feedback builds customer loyalty and increases retention.

Here are three key benefits of using customer surveys as an information gatherer and relationship builder.

Detailed Insight

The number one benefit of customer surveys is gathering customers’ honest opinions about various facets of your business. Surveys can help you gain insight into how the customer feels about your company and the experience you deliver. Asking the right questions will help you determine, for example, how much customers value the products or services you offer, which provides additional insight into their likelihood to switch providers. Surveys can be an outlet for customers to share detailed feedback not only on products and services, but also on everything from customer service and sales interactions to billing and shipping to ad campaigns and the website experience. Surveys also can help identify potential areas for growth.

Long-term View

Surveys can be repeated. Running a survey multiple times with a defined control will provide you with data ready for comparative analysis. As you collect more surveys, you will have more data to draw deeper analysis and conclusions about your business. Over time, the data will not only reveal important and perhaps unexpected trends, but also may uncover changes you did not anticipate.

Commitment to the Customer

Asking for feedback shows customer commitment, which helps build loyalty and trust—especially if it’s clear to customers how their feedback will be used. If customers’ values, opinions, and feelings are important to your company, demonstrate that by involving customers in ensuring and improving the quality of your products or services. Their input can uncover opportunities for improvements or expansion that you might not have discovered otherwise. And using their feedback is a powerful way to build engagement and loyalty if you close the loop and communicate back to customers the ways that you’ve acted on (and plan to act on) their input and the outcomes of doing so.