Converting eCommerce Customers into Volunteer Affiliates (webinar)

Jump-start your 2012 marketing planning in this free webinar by learning how to extend your e-commerce platform to get your customers working for you.

16.00 UK / 17.00 CET 23 November 2011 Register

In today’s tight business environment, companies cannot afford to miss opportunities to gain customer insight, and find ways of using it to engage with customers. And with even a modest online shopping site, companies have started to amass sophisticated customer databases with a great deal of demographic and purchase data included. But there is a key piece of information missing: Which customers would actually recommend you?

Knowing who are your most prolific buyers, and then adding this loyalty dimension is surprisingly easy to do, and costs little. Armed with this knowledge, you can build a small army of mavens and volunteer salespeople who will help you spread the word. And you also gain the benefits of real-time, continuous feedback, and can quickly find out what is working (or not) on your site.

In a short webinar we bring together two experienced customer service executives to discuss the importance of using this valuable tool, your e-commerce platform. Here’s a clue: you will be amazed at what you can learn by just asking your customers.

Rob and David will discuss how you can start this with low-impact initiatives, extending to fully-automated online systems, based on Net Promoter® Score. Agenda:

• Turning data from your e-commerce system into valuable customer insight
• Make the link between loyalty schemes, e-commerce and social marketing
• Continuously survey customers to recognize needed improvements in your business
• Identify advocates and turn them into customer evangelists

Length: Approximately 40 mins (30 mins presentation/10 mins questions)

REGISTER NOW – limited places!

About the presenters:

• David Marklew, Companion of the Institute of Customer Service, over twenty years of senior operations and customer service management experience with major brands including HMV, Virgin, TK Maxx, specialising in service strategy, engagement and best practice.
• Robert Kerner, Director, Business Development, CustomerGauge, formerly: independent consultant, HP, John Deere

“If you leave me now”: How to hold on to e-commerce customers (Webinar)

Chicago’s 1976 cheesy chart-topper echoes the mournful cries of e-commerce retailers as their expensively-won customers fail to return to purchase again. With an average of 89%* of customers leaving after one purchase it really is “Taking away the biggest part of me”.

In a short webinar we bring together two experience e-commerce executives to discuss ways of keeping customers loyal, and returning to buy again. Here’s a clue: it’s not repeatedly sending marketing emails.

Agenda:

Examining the strategy  behind the customer retention strategies of major ecommerce vendors including Sony, Philips and others.

• Looking after the important customers – we show how 7%** of ecommerce customers drive more than half the revenue
• Using an open source KPI as a benchmarking tool: the Net Promoter® Score
• Making customers feel like VIPs – involving them in service improvements

Learn practical examples and hear some little-known facts, and put your questions to the experts.

About the presenters

• Jos Williams, international e-commerce expert: Former Director of Philips eShop Europe, currently with GetLenses.co.uk.
• Adam Dorrell, CEO CustomerGauge, former Director of SonyStyle Europe and Dell.com.

This webinar is now archived (30 minutes): watch it here

The presentation is available in our Download area.

(first broadcast Tuesday 19 July 2011)

 

*/** based on anonymised retention numbers/RFM data from 10 major ecommerce clients (CustomerGauge)

Fighting “Fear of Feedback” – Webinar Recording

Feedback is part our everyday life, from parents, school, sports/fitness, through to 360 degree appraisals at work.  Why then do many companies seem to be afraid of receiving feedback from their most valuable resources – customers?

In a short webinar, Robert Kerner and Adam Dorrell of CustomerGauge will examine:

• Reasons behind the “Fear of Feedback”,
• Examples of best practice – world class companies doing it right
• Using Net Promoter Score® as a measurement tool
• Practical ways to deal with positive, negative comments, as well as customer suggestions
• Automated processes to help close the loop: strategic and tactical
• Feedback on the feedback – examples of how to get back to customers

Access the recording: 35 minutes.

https://directness.webex.com/directness/ldr.php?AT=pb&SP=MC&rID=12383597&rKey=0284A2C27B7FF6A2

“Fear of Feedback” Webinar
June 29, 2011, 5:44 pm Amsterdam Time
35 mins

 

 

More about this webinar:

There are some fearless companies out there – business leaders that engage with their customers on a regular basis, receiving and processing feedback to improve their business and reward loyal customers. Examples include Harley Davidson, Amazon, Philips, Apple etc. These companies see their customers as valuable resources. [more]

But it seems these are not the norm. Either companies are getting worse, or consumers more choosy. According to a recent survey, more than 80% consumers stopped doing business with a company because of a bad customer experience, (up from 59 % four years ago)*.

Companies need to stay closer to customers to be able to spot problems early and react quickly.

In this webinar, aimed at customer experience professionals, we promise you will pick up some useful tips on how to use customer feedback to increase customer loyalty/retention and identify problems to be improved.

Net Promoter: Is there a “Dutch Effect”?

Thoughts on how cultural differences impact Net Promoter® Score

Yesterday we had three webchat enquiries within an hour from different countries relating to exactly the same topic. This one is typical: “I’m searching for information if there are cultural effects that impacts the NPS. I’m specially interested in if Dutch customers are “harder” to receive a high NPS score from then the rest of Europe”. It’s not normal to hear such a specific pattern of questioning like this, and at first we thought it might be some kind of sophisticated botnet attack attacking customer loyalty firms. But when we spoke to one of the questioner it was clear it was genuine, apparently triggered by one of the company’s Big Client survey results just coming back. And you guessed it, a low score from the Low Countries.

I was asked, in a conspiratorial way “Is there something like a “Dutch Effect” on scores?”

Read more

Worms turn election strategy, also business?

In a few hours, the United Kingdom will vote in the most closely fought election in years. The most memorable moments have been due to the introduction of the TV debates, and the now famous “worms” that accompanied the first one. Pundits delighted in showing how the audience reacted to favourably to Nick Clegg. After the debate, it became clear that the two main parties adapted their communication strategies based on the wavering red, blue and yellow lines on the screen.

In fact this continuous audience monitoring is not new.  Back in 1946, TIME magazine reported that the Gallup Handheld Hopkins Televoting device was wowing movie moguls in Hollywood (we wrote about it here). A handheld device allowed cinema-goers at preview screening to dial “like very much” or “very dull”, which drew a red line on a chart as a staffer noted key scenes in the movie. Most films were not significantly altered but the reaction made a difference to the way they were marketed  (sounds like the politicians have been doing the same).

Dial M for Measurement

Customer feedback has also been used in business for years. Waiters have always asked diners what they thought of service. Unfortunately, “And how was the meal, sir?” is  just not a very scientific way of collecting feedback. Firstly, waiters can be quite intimidating, and secondly, you have a unreliable way of getting feedback to the proprietor. Like a turkey voting for Christmas, the server is hardly likely to admit “Customer says service was awful…”.

To make feedback more scientific, companies have invested in consumer research – but it’s expensive and can take time to process. Lack of common standards mean that one company’s results are hard to compare to another. And small sample sizes (like in the TV Worm example) can result in error. Finally, customer feedback can end up in the “Market Research ghetto” – giving useful strategic information, but rarely used to solve operational customer issues.

Last weeks Economist magazine had an article on firms focusing on customers: “...shareholder value should give way to ‘customer-driven capitalism’ in which firms ‘should instead aim to maximise customer satisfaction’. [...] Paul Polman [boss of Unilever] said ‘I do not work for the shareholder, to be honest I work for the consumer, the customer’…“. It is clearly becoming a boardroom priority – so how can business better tune into customer needs?

Many companies, including Philips, Vodafone, Canon and Electrolux have found the most effective method is real-time customer feedback through direct sales. Using a tool from CustomerGauge, these companies invite their online store to answer a one-page survey after each transaction, which asks for  feedback and a 0 – 10 recommendation rating. They have standardised on the Net Promoter (R) methodology, which is simple to communicate to front-line staff, and allows benchmarking against other companies. Between 10% and 30% of all customers respond, many with comments that are used to shape the business.

In doing so, they are getting real-time feedback with a numeric score they can systematically graph and track (like the worm) and written customer feedback they can match to that customers history. Recently, one of these companies responded to customer comments by changing packaging on products and printing manuals in larger type which had a positive effect on their Net Promoter Score. Another succesfully re-launched an almost forgotten product that was highly rated by customers, who were acting as evangelists and introducing friends. A recent CustomerGauge innovation is digital signage to show comments coming into the business as they happen.

These companies have already found best practices which include

• responding to customer feedback within 24 hours (even the most unhappy clients respond positively to this)
• routing comments to department managers (and more junior staff members who are empowered to solve problems)
• and weekly review meetings where projects are reviewed a prioritised on the basis of customer sentiment.

The good news for customers is that real-time sampling of transactions like this is becoming more widespread, and businesses are waking up to its potential. Executives know customers can “sack” them and defect to the competition immediately. That is unlike the winning party on Thursday, which might be able to last around four years before being subjected again to the worm of customer opinion.

Real Time Customer Feedback Done Right

Net Promoter Score, Verbatim Comments on a Digital Sign.

Inspired by the “crawler” (or news ticker) on SkyNews and CNN, or maybe by the “Calls Holding” message boards in call centres, we proudly present the new CustomerGauge Real Time Feedback Screen. It’s designed as a digital sign (a new buzz word that as far as we can tell means “giant plasma display” and a spare PC running Firefox or Safari). Ideal for placing in your marketing department, lobby, canteen or even boardroom.

We pack a lot of information on this screen. As a CustomerGauge client, you can survey your customers continually. As comments and scores come in they are displayed in the upper part, on a sliding carousel of the most recent comments. All the relevant transaction information is shown next to the comment.

In the “lower third” we show the Net Promoter Score® for the current week, past week, month and year to date, plus sending stats and other useful information.

It is the latest iteration of our display board, and is designed to:

• understand the “zeitgeist” by reading customer voice in real-time
• help react immediately to customer comments
• motivate staff

For CustomerGauge b2c clients, it’s a simple low cost add-on. Let us know if we can show you more.

NB: Can’t see the Flash image above? View it on YouTube.

Silent Running: Automatically looking after your best e-commerce customers

There is a moving final scene in the 1971 film Silent Running. Bruce Dern sets his robot adrift in a spacecraft to tend the last remaining plant specimens from Earth. Although it’s 40 years old, this image of a machine trusted to look after living organisms inspired recent films like WALL*E, and was perhaps a foretaste of our current age with machines looking after our health, even agricultural robots starting to grow our food.

Not so much of a stretch then to imagine a system that could look after your customers?

It’s a theme we have been developing – we recently wrote about a Simple Customer Rescue and Reward Plan and followed it with a webinar “The Loyalty Robot”: Learn how to increase customer loyalty and grow online sales automatically.

We wanted to share our current thinking on how you can build “robotic” systems to enhance the e-commerce customer experience. The key elements:

• • automated customer surveys to understand voice-of-customer and Net Promoter® Score in real-time
  • automated customer segmentation by lifetime value
  • automated customer segmentation by loyalty (using Net Promoter Score)
  • process to help customers needing immediate response
  • clustering customer issues together for longer-term strategic fix
  • close-loop monitoring of results (Net Promoter Score and other metrics)
  • Responding to customers with updates on your actions

You could roll-your-own solution, but we believe CustomerGauge has all the parts you need to start this now – and we have proof points from our major e-commerce clients including Canon, Philips and Vodafone.

It’s all in a presentation you can download here: Building your own e-commerce Loyalty Robot (PDF, 8Mb) – or you can watch/listen to the archived webinar here.

When you are ready to add some “Silent Running” on your e-commerce site, we would be delighted to help you.

Real-Time Customer Comments via Twitter

With Google Real-Time Search launching today, we thought it appropriate to show off the CustomerGauge Real-Time Customer Comment Feed, which works via Twitter. Ideal for customer-focused companies that like to rapidly react to feedback and issues.

It started when a client asked: “Could we put a desktop widget on the bosses desk, so that every time a new comment comes in it pops up?”. Actually we’d been thinking about this for a while, trying to find the right component.

Now we have a solution that’s super easy and flexible: we integrated CustomerGauge with Twitter. As soon as a customer makes a comment, an API connection to Twitter is made and a “Tweet” sent – and you get a real-time feed on your favourite device (PC, mobile phone etc). It is customisable, so you can filter on comments – examples: “Score 9 + 10 comments for call center staff” or “Detractors commenting in Manchester with ‘reception’ keyword”. The feed can be public (if you are proud of what your customers are saying) or private so it’s secure for selected subscribers. A link takes you to the full comment and customer details.

We would be happy to give you more details, by tweet (@adamdorrell) or old-fashioned phoning. Contact us for details.

API: DemonstratorGauge Event Upload

API Documentation – DemonstatorGauge Event Upload 8 December 2009 – v0.2

What this API does:

SUMMARY: Using a cURL command in a PHP file hosted on your server, you can upload multiple event information into DemonstratorGauge from a prepared XML file also hosted on your server.

Detail:

In the file clientCanon.php a cURL command uploads the XML file eventsCanon.xml to the DemonstratorGauge server.

The XML file can contain multiple events. Each event contains information on user, event, date etc. Up to 4 photos can be added. Any number of products sold or featured can be added.

Note: You must be able to enter correct IDs for the following:

• Demonstrator
• Venue
• Product

These can be retrieved from DemonstratorGauge as a user or using the API DemonstratorGauge Data Download

At this stage we do not have an API to add users or venues. These must be done manually in the system. Canon maintain the list of products manually – requests for products to be added must go to Canon.

Using the API

To use the API, upload clientCanon.php and eventsCanon.xml to your server. You will need a valid key. Requirements: PHP 5.

Insert the required information in the XML file. Then run client.php to call and upload the XML file.

On a successful upload, the system will return “X records  uploaded”

Validation

Successful upload: Upon completion, the page will display two download links:

DGResultList.csv -- Displays the successfully uploaded records today
DGErrorList.csv -- Displays the error(s) that occurred.

Typical result:

Validation – contents of successful report:

Error messages:

error1: Key Invalid
error2: API key needs renewing - out of date - please contact API@directness.net to reset
error3: Duplicate record(s) detected
error4: Product ID(s) is unrecognizable
error5: Venue ID(s) is unrecognizable
error6: record(s) has  Invalid Event Date
error7: record(s) has invalid PersonID

Error Notes:

• error3: Duplicate record detected: If demonstratorID AND venueID AND eventDate match a previously uploaded event (for 1 event)
• error5: VenueID will be invalid if system can NOT find VenueID in the database, or system can find VenueID in the database but Venue address dows not belong to Agency’s country.
• error6: Invalid Event Date: Date of event is in the future  ( EventDate > today) or incorrectly formatted

Example of Error result:

XML and contents:

Event details

	Mandatory?
<EventActivity> </EventActivity>		Place all event details inside these tags. Allows you to upload multiple events at one time.
<DemonstratorID>	Yes	Integer: The ID of the Demonstrator e.g. ‘10112’ (Adam J Dorrell) Source: Person Table. Agents can add themselves.
<VenueID>	Yes	Integer: ID of venue. E.g. ‘8290’ (Dixons Travel Heathrow Terminal 5) Source: Venue Table. Agents can add Venues.
<VenueCountry>	Yes	Two letter code: eg ‘DE’, ‘UK’
<SingleProductGroup>	Yes	Focus of the event. Text. Choose ONE from Video Compact Cameras Compact Photo Printers Inkjet PrintersMF Inkjet PrintersSF Digital SLR Other Laser DesktopColourFlatbedScanner Video Inkjet Consumables Scanner Digital SLR
<EventDate>	Yes	Date of event in YYYY-MM-DD
<NumberOfHours>	No	Decimal: Number of hours spent on site. Eg ‘3.5’ (3 hours 30 minutes)
<NumberOfContacts>	No	Integer: Number of contacts made on site, eg ‘34’
<Comments>	No	Free text description of what happened on site. Example: ‘Super Promo. Super Angebote: Cashback und 500D für 899, mit 18-200mm für 1319.-‘ Limit 1024 characters
<Photo1URL>	No	URL. The system will retrieve the photo from a remote system. Example ‘http://images-1.redbubble.net/img/art/size:large/view:main/1072108-2-vermont-autumn.jpg’ Please no larger than 4Mb. We resize to 1600×1600 (max) so higher resolution not needed.
<Photo1Caption>	No	Text describing photo: Example ‘Canon Booklet Info Display’ Limit 255 characters
<Photo2URL> <Photo3URL> <Photo4URL>	No	As Photo1. You can add up to 4 photos.
<Photo2Caption> <Photo3Caption> <Photo4Caption>	No	As <Photo1Caption>. You can add up to 4 captions.
<UploadRef>	No	Text. You can add your own event reference. Eg “Agent444, Event56”. 40chars.

Product section – you can add up to 100 product items focused per event

	Mandatory?
<ProductDetails> </ProductDetails>		You can add Products focused in this section
<ProductID>	Yes	Integer. Unique iD of product. Eg ‘47’ (Selphy ES1). Source: Product Table. This table maintained by Canon.
<NumberOfSales>	Yes	Integer: Number of units sold of this product. Eg ‘23’
<FocusProduct>	No	String. Was this product “focused” on the day? Example ‘Yes’. Choose from ‘Yes’ or NULL

Data: XML formatting Example

<EventActivityArray>

<EventActivity   xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<DemonstratorID   xsi:type="xsd:integer">9</DemonstratorID>
<VenueID   xsi:type="xsd:integer" >120</VenueID>
<EventDate   xsi:type="xsd:string" >2009-10-01</EventDate>

<EventDetails>

<NumberOfHours   xsi:type="xsd:decimal" >3.5</NumberOfHours>

<NumberOfContacts   xsi:type="xsd:integer" >5</NumberOfContacts>

<Comments   xsi:type="xsd:string" >The event was very busy</Comments>

<SingleProductGroup  xsi:type="xsd:string">Video</SingleProductGroup>

<Photo1URL xsi:type="xsd:string" >images/1072108-2-vermont-autumn.jpg</Photo1URL>

<Photo1Caption   xsi:type="xsd:string" >Autumn</Photo1Caption>

<Photo2URL   xsi:type="xsd:string" ></Photo2URL>

<Photo2Caption   xsi:type="xsd:string" ></Photo2Caption>

<Photo3URL   xsi:type="xsd:string" ></Photo3URL>

<Photo3Caption   xsi:type="xsd:string" ></Photo3Caption>

<Photo4URL   xsi:type="xsd:string" ></Photo4URL>

<Photo4Caption   xsi:type="xsd:string" ></Photo4Caption>

</EventDetails>

   <ProductDetails>

      <Product>

         <ProductID   xsi:type="xsd:integer" >5</ProductID>

         <NumberOfSales   xsi:type="xsd:integer" >6</NumberOfSales>

         <FocusProduct   xsi:type="xsd:string" >Yes</FocusProduct>

      </Product>

      <Product>

         <ProductID   xsi:type="xsd:integer" >7</ProductID>

         <NumberOfSales   xsi:type="xsd:integer" >6</NumberOfSales>

         <FocusProduct   xsi:type="xsd:string" >Yes</FocusProduct>

      </Product>

   </ProductDetails>

</EventActivity>
</EventActivityArray>

PHP: clientCanon.php

<?php
$requestPath = "eventsCanon.xml";
// Calls the file name containing the data
$url = "http://www.d1-gauge.com/canon/API/my_server.php?key=a1";  
// fake key - obviously!

$request = file_get_contents($requestPath);

$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $request);
// what to post
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_BINARYTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 0);
$result = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

print $result;
?>

Files:

Download the files here:

DemonstratorGaugeUploadAPIv1-0.zip

Support

Please send comments to API@directness.net

Apple Tops Sat Survey, No One Surprised

As reported in The Register, Apple has the highest highest level of customer satisfaction among computer-buying consumers, according to a recent study (PDF) conducted by ChangeWave Research. Apple scored 81% “Very Satisfied”. Dell, HP, Lenovo languished around the 50% mark – or to put it another way, around 50% of their buyers were only “somewhat satisfied” or worse…

As the owner of multiple PCs and Macs, I completely relate to the scores, but it’s not for hardware reasons. Using a computer is more than the the box design or reliability – it’s the operating system and the software. And I suspect that I am not alone in having a poor experience with Vista that has caused this score. We have perfectly nice HP and Sony notebooks. Hardware design and build: excellent. Software: Not so great. Slow performance of Windows Vista and lost productivity. Overall user experience: Mediocre to lousy.

Compare this to my new MacBook Pro: Instant start up. Immediately finds WiFi. Search is a breeze. “Just works”. Overall experience: superb. I would be one of those voting “very satisfied”.

PC makers – I feel sympathy for you. If I was in your crew, I would seriously consider if the Windows platform is damaging the hardware brand. Better hope Windows 7 is as good as OS-X…

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