Voice of the customer support strategy
Ekelem Airhihen, a trained mediator, chartered accountant, certified finance and IT consultant, certified in policy and public leadership, and an airport customer experience specialist, has an MBA from the Lagos Business School. He is a member, ACI Airport Non-aeronautical Revenue Activities Committee; and is certified in design and implementation of KPI for airports. He can be reached on ekyair@yahoo.com and +2348023125396 (WhatsApp only)
The feedback from the customers about their experiences with and their expectations for the products and services of an organisation is referred to as the voice of the customer. Airports must tune in to what their customers are saying, thinking and feeling. They should then use this understanding to shape their strategic and operational decision making.
Voice of the Customer programmes represent a huge opportunity for driving loyalty and increased sales. This comes from the very many types of information that can be gathered listening to the customer. It is important to listen to customers because the experiences you create for customers have a direct impact on your business.
Consider these information:
-
It costs six times more to attract a new customer than it does to keep an old one – Understanding Customers by Ruby Newell-Legner
-
89% of Consumers purchase from a competitor following a poor customer experience – Harris Interactive, 2011 Customer Experience Improvement study.
-
Only about 4% of dissatisfied customers complain. 96% just go away. Harris Interactive, 2011 Customer Experience Improvement study.
-
50% of Consumers give a brand one week to respond to a service concern before they stop doing business with them. Harris Interactive, 2011 Customer Experience Improvement study. https://www.
brandingstrategyinsider.com/ 18-customer-facts-marketers- cant-ignore/#.W4f30bA-eqA)
In listening to the voice of the customer recognise that customer journeys are more important than touch points. Recognise the most important touch points in the customer journey. Looking at the entire journey and assessing customer satisfaction gives better feedback.
Organisations should be able to connect, analyse and act on feedback. Get the staff on the frontline to understand the outcomes of customer feedback. This will help improve behaviour and create a drive towards innovation. This is a very important ingredient in crafting a customer experience strategy.
Airports should think through and reevaluate their methods of receiving feedback. Look at the feedback across all channels used and think of better ways of collecting the same. Then put insights received from them to work with a focus on continuous improvement. The feedback should form part of meeting agendas and may require reviewing the performance management metrics as well to incorporate them.
The employee journey is as important as the customer journey also. Have a different means that does not get mixed up with the customer journey, to collect, analyse and act on employee feedback. Employees are crucial actors in any organisation as they help convey what the customer is really experiencing. Better employee experience and engagement leads to the organisation performing better in customer experience.
Leverage on technology to transform data received into operations to achieve impact with customer experience. For instance, AirAsia has detailed data on 75 million former passengers in its database. They know you purchased a nasi lemak on your last three AirAsia flights. (https://simpleflying.com/
Technological systems make it possible to tap many more customer voices over and above the various individuals with whom an airport or airline interacts with most. They have inbuilt analysis engines which can incorporate all kinds of data. They are able to link operational data, survey results as well as social media posts to be able to provide information for decision making.
Customer insight provides a trend in customer behaviours, expectations and feelings so that priorities for improving the customer experience are identified. To get value from customer feedback, it is important that results are transparent, feedback is made a part of the continuous improvement effort and also to create a pipeline of feedback of actions so that the voice of the customer is always present.
-
business a.m. commits to publishing a diversity of views, opinions and comments. It, therefore, welcomes your reaction to this and any of our articles via email: comment@businessamlive.com