Found In Translation: Net Promoter Customer Comments Automatically Translated

To have another language is to possess a second soul
- Charlemagne

For some fun last week in CustomerGauge HQ, we counted up the number of languages that we can speak. The result: 13. Maybe more – I think I forgot to count Norwegian. That certainly helps us roll-out complex multi-language solutions for our clients.

And from this week,  we can now assist our clients with a low-cost, instantaneous translation system for Voice-of-the-Customer comments from Net Promoter® Score survey.

Our new CustomerGauge Automatic Translation System uses the Google Translate™ Translation Service API to translate over 60 languages. Translated comments are stored in CustomerGauge, and can be searched and reported on. No need for cut-and-paste, no buttons to press. If you have used Google Translate before, you’ll be familiar with the idea.

Technically it’s a “Gisting” service – you can get the “gist” of a comment – but it’s not a perfect translation. We always recommend that comments be routed to local language speakers to deal with; however, the service has already proved useful for client needs. Some interesting points have already be “found in translation”.

The cost of this service is EUR 0.10 per translated comment. (equiv: US $0.13, A$ 0.13, GBP 0.09). It is available from 2 December 2011 on CustomerGauge b2c sites.

Our Client Operations team are ready to set up translations on CustomerGauge sites now. Or if you are considering a Net Promoter project, let us advise you on acquiring the gift of translation for your Net Promoter project.

Download the presentation here.

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 as a Marketing Tool: Make comments work for you

One of the most rewarding aspects of collecting customer feedback is when you get a positive comment, especially  a glowing unselfish recommendation from a customer that can be passed around the team as sort of virtual “pat on the back”.

“Very easy to use the web site and delivery was extremely quick”

CustomerGauge clients can experience a continuous stream of customer comments, many of which can be published each day to external web sites as testimonials. We show here the latest site to go live with customer comments, Philips Online Store (featured above, also in Dutch, French and other languages). Companies like Philips are surveying hundreds or thousands of transactions each day with CustomerGauge, and depending on their Net Promoter Score are able to use about 15% – 25% of the comments  as positive praise for the service.

“I found the whole purchase and delivery of my iron gratifyingly easy and the product is proving excellent. ”

We offer several ways of showing these comments. The Philips example above is served from an XML feed of comments (available as an API from CustomerGauge) and published with some special code on their site to filter the country and language elements to the relevant pages. Another client uses our RSS feed to publish comments to an intranet site, and also shows the numbers in a dashboard with other key metrics.

CustomerGauge also offers a Testimonial Publisher that allows you to easily publish comments on your site in an i-frame. This is straightforward to implement on any site, with just a line of code. You are able to select which comments you which to use with just one click, and if needed edit the text (for example to hide any personal details).

Whatever way you choose to display positive comments they are likely to make prospective customers feel more confident about buying. A number of comments updated recently is as important as the content. And as with all comments, we recommend you thank customers when they have left you a kind message.

“The whole experience buying was easy & stress free. My headphones arrived swiftly & are comfortable to use. I am a great fan of Philips as I am still using the iron I was given as a wedding present in 1971. It has been in use daily & despite needing a couple of new flexes over the years has never once let me down. Well done Philips!”

More ideas:

• We also can help you Twitter your comments (internally or externally).
• Using comments internally from a post last year (Reasons to be cheerful, part CG).

Details as ever on request.

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.