Invest in your customers

More recently I have become very interested in the impact of customer experience on businesses.

For the last 14 years I have had an association with Investors in Customers (IIC) – latterly as chairman.

I was so impressed at the insight that IIC provided into customer experience that I was hooked

Back in 2006 I was working for Suffolk Life when it became the first customer of IIC.

I was so impressed at the insight that IIC provided into customer experience (CX) that I was hooked - and have been ever since.

Through IIC I have seen organisations - large and small - embrace CX in a way that has transformed their businesses – and enhanced their financial performance.

I chair a medium sized advisory business and recently suggested undertaking a CX insight and assessment – the results were invaluable.

I have also seen some companies pay lip service to the results – and fail to follow through on the improvement programme that is recommended.

In the current climate you may think it strange that I should be advocating spending time and a little money on gaining insight into what your clients and staff are feeling – but I would argue that now, more than ever, it is important to be listening to both clients and staff, to give them confidence and support through the current crisis.

I am convinced that it will be the businesses that adapt quickest to the new and challenging environment that will succeed.

That means understanding the current satisfaction levels of clients, their current thinking and their changing support requirements.

But it is also important to measure the sentiments of staff and their sense of well-being in what is likely to be a vastly different working environment.

Gaining an understanding of any barriers to performance and importantly any support or pastoral needs is vital as this will impact on the overall client experience.

We have seen many critical headlines recently about long response delays and telephone queues extending to hours in some call centres.

Clients and customers have long memories and there is no doubt that some companies and businesses will have antagonised their customers and loyalties will have been damaged or destroyed.

Now is the time to take action to minimise the impact by undertaking some quick insight and analysis.

This need not take a lot of time and should not be expensive.

For small businesses this can probably be undertaken in-house through phone calls or email. although, even then, an independent viewpoint can be invaluable.

But for businesses of more than, say 25 staff, I would suggest the services of a specialist insight and analysis firm is more useful and economical.

Using a tried and tested research platform this could provide business owners with hugely valuable client and staff data within a few days.

The value to business leaders of this type of insight is huge - and the measurement can be repeated, for example, on a monthly basis with the results readily available via a dashboard so that areas of concern can be readily identified, monitored  and, where appropriate, action taken.

In the past I have seen plenty of examples where the  chief executive or senior managers of an organisation have taken for granted the views of their clients and staff, and have lived to regret it.

In their recent discussion paper DP20/1, which is well worth a read, the FCA say that “consumers who experience firms acting purely and selfishly for profit lose trust and may vote with their feet”.

The regulatory focus on the new Senior Managers regime and its impact on the culture of an organisation requires all Senior Managers “to pay due regard to the interests of their customers and treat them fairly”.

That is particularly true at the present time.

In this fast changing and unpredictable world, the quote from Arthur Nielsen “the price of light is less than the cost of darkness” has never been more relevant.

If you want to ensure your business adapts successfully and in a timely way to the new realities of the post-virus environment now is the time to gain the insight. Don’t delay.

John Moret is chairman of Investor in Customers