Voice of the Customer - Customer Loyalty

If your VOC program isn’t driving change, it isn’t a VOC program - #5

Rick Emery — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 19:18:00 GMT

I am the proud father of three children, the oldest two (8 and 10) play Little League Baseball. I was lucky enough this year to manage the team for my 8 year old and assist on the team for my 10 year old (next year, thank the gods of baseball and busy parents, they should be on the same team). One of the things we humans naturally do is look for similarities and differences in our day-to-day experiences. It’s part of what helps us to make sense of the world and, early on, to survive: If a certain plant turns out to be poisonous, we’re likely to avoid eating other plants with similar characteristics in the future.

Perhaps my mind is overly attuned to this type of thinking (I’m certain in my undergraduate courses in English at UCLA, I wrote somewhere in the neighborhood of two - three million essays and papers doing ostensibly the exact same thing) but as the Little League season winds down (coincidentally along with this occasional series), I find myself thinking about the following realities of both coaching a little league team and trying to drive change off of a VOC program:

If your VOC program isn’t driving change, it isn’t a VOC program - #4

Rick Emery — Sun, 01 May 2011 17:18:00 GMT

Most of the time we talk about “change initiatives” as giant, global, enterprise-wide projects that take years and face dozens if not hundreds of hurtles and more often than not struggle to succeed. And most of the time they are.

But for many of us, taking the initiative to improve our companies begins on a much smaller scale, within the realm where we can affect direct control. If you are striving to make an impact on your organization below the radar, here are a few key strategies for you to consider …

If your VOC program isn’t driving change, it isn’t a VOC program - #3

Rick Emery — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 08:00:00 GMT

Everybody knows it is hard to drive change and a tens-of-thousands of people think they know why (just search Amazon.com’s book listing for “driving change”). In this post we list four of the common broad, general reasons change programs fail … and 1 or 2 specific examples for each about how a VOC program can help overcome that particular obstacle.

It’s all about the people ... IV

Rick Emery — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 15:33:00 GMT

Being in my job, I can’t help but focus on how companies treat myself and the people around me … both the good and the bad. While we will use this forum to share some of those stories, we welcome your experiences as well. Click on “Comment” below to share a particularly good or bad story or email us at vocblog@knowledge-wave.com.

Good experience? Delighted Customer? Why not both?

Rick Emery — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:58:00 GMT

The Customer Experience Management group on LinkedIn has a rather lively discussion right now triggered around the question: What is the relationship between ‘having a good experience’ and ‘delighted customers’? And, can you create an ROI around ‘good experiences’. For my two-cents, I felt it worthwhile remembering that the customer’s perception of the value a company provides is more than the interaction with an agent … it is the entire relationship, which is driven by your differentiation / innovation strategy.

It’s all about the people … III

Rick Emery — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 17:31:00 GMT

About three months ago I was in Portland and stopped by a local music store looking for the sheet music to Bob Dylan’s “To Make You Feel my Love.” In the interests of full disclosure, I don’t play the piano as much as I hack my way through it. But I have a couple songs for which I can keep the butchering to a minimum and this was one I wanted to try to add to my repertoire.

The store was out and the clerk wrote my name on a sticky note and said he would check with the publisher and call me. A couple days later I had a voicemail on my mobile stating that that particular song was out of print.

Okay, not a big deal. Besides, Joan Osborne’s version was definitely better than mine would ever be.

Last week I had another call from the store.