Allegiance Blog

Day 2 at VoCFusion 2013 kicked off with an inspirational story by Rulon Gardner, a champion Olympic wrestler. Rulon shared his struggles to success in his talk Never Give Up, Never Stop Trying. Next on stage was Carine Clark, Allegiance CEO, who motivated the audience with her candid and accessible style. Carine brought several Allegiance customers on stage to share stories from their Voice of Customer programs.

Allegiance VoCFusion 2013 began on day one with an eye-opening keynote address by Nate Silver, founder of fivethirtyeight.com and best-selling author of The Signal and the Noise.

Speaking to a crowd of customer experience and Voice of Customer professionals on Powerful Prediction Through Data Analytics, Silver pointed out that 90% of existing data has been created in the past two years, but not all of it is relevant or useful…

Like mobile in general, mobile surveys have gotten major ink lately. Rightly so. They provide a lot of value. They help us reach target audiences at more contextually relevant times and in more contextually relevant places. They also help us collect feedback about increasingly important mobile interactions. With our partner OnePoint Global, we’re capitalizing on this value alongside many others in the customer experience and loyalty world.

But more recently we’ve realized that dedicated mobile surveys aren’t enough. All surveys are mobile now, whether we design them to be or not.

We at Allegiance spend a lot of time helping customer experience (CX) and voice of customer (VoC) practitioners make the business case for their programs and measure financial ROI. Why? Because executives reasonably expect to see evidence supporting investment decisions. Can’t argue with that. We’re here to help companies achieve their business goals, not to [...]

Simply satisfying customers with what you perceive to be their needs isn't enough anymore. 60%-80% of customers who claim to be "satisfied" still abandon a business relationship. Employee turnover averages 20%-50% a year for U.S. businesses, which takes a toll on financial performance as well as productivity. Yet there are companies who continue to grow a loyal customer base, and who steadily grow their profitability. The difference is listening to the voice of your customers and employees.

It’s often said that customers who encounter problems and get good service recovery are more loyal than customers who never encounter problems at all. This is known as the service recovery paradox. It’s a seductive idea, and it’s become standard wisdom in the customer experience and service worlds.

But is it actually true? Sometimes. Maybe.

Monitoring the customer experience has become more complex. Today, it involves multiple channels of engagement, massive amounts of data, and indirect, unstructured customer feedback. There is more complexity — and more opportunity — than ever before.

An improved NPS score and high customer satisfaction are nice, but they aren’t enough. Our clients and partners are increasingly being challenged to make that connection between Voice of Customer (VOC) initiatives and the company’s bottom line. The C-level and the Board, after all, speak to and respond to messages that reflect revenue, costs, profit, ROI, and shareholder value. These elements of “so what” need to be in your VOC language.

I’m thrilled that Allegiance is a 2013 Temkin Group Customer Experience Vendor Excellence Award Winner! Congratulations to my Allegiance colleagues and all of the other firms recognized as finalists – including our strategic partners at Ipsos Loyalty and Waypoint Group. Of course, big thanks to Temkin Group and the judging panel as well for using this award to evangelize customer experience (CX) work.

Okay, I used a crass headline to get your attention. But it turns out to be true. I recently stumbled upon a 2010 Consumer Reports study where Americans rated poor customer experiences like hidden fees and incomprehensible bills as more annoying than dog poop. And the fun doesn’t stop there. By my count, eleven of the top twenty annoyances are customer experiences (and a few others are arguable).