Tim Thornton Consulting

Improving your organization's service experience by “exploring the voices” of your service model.

Every organization wants to provide a great client experience; unfortunately, many organizations, even many great ones, have service “broken windows” that turn loyal customers into detractors. After 30+ years of working in the front lines of a major financial services company with over 3,000,000 on-line users, I can offer a relatively simple process to produce an objective review of your organization's customer service experience and produce an objective prioritized list of improvement recommendations. Removing service broken windows is not only the right thing to do, but will turn unhappy clients into promoters of your business or non-profit.

The process is simple and can be described as “exploring the voices”. The best way to objectively and thoroughly know what your customers are experiencing is to experience it. To really experience your service model you need to do more than listen to customers via a survey or listening to anecdotes. In order to be thorough and “get all the data” you need to listen to more than just your client's voice. Every organization has two additional “voices” that directly impact the client experience. The “voice of the process” (software, web sites, vendors,invoices, etc ) and the “voice of your customer facing teams” (what they say about limitations, system issues, policy issues, etc). If you listen to all three you will fully experience what your clients are experiencing. My bank is a great bank with a nice web site, but the bill pay interface is horribly slow, which makes me a detractor. They have a response time report somewhere, but “its voice” is not being heard. Our hospital changed their lock box address and refunded a bill pay—and then sent us to collections for not paying the bill. Several “process voices” are speaking loudly but no one is listening. I called my health care insurance provider the other day because my COBRA was canceled. The representative said “it was a technology change and it happens all the time”. Someone at the insurance provider is not listening to their customer facing employee's voice. Unfortunately my examples are not shocking, they happen to everyone all the time.

How to “listen to the three voices” in more detail:

1. Voice 1 – What is the voice of the client? This is obviously the most important, but many times is anecdotal and can have a negative sample bias (happy or passive clients never write or complain). Most companies usually listen to clients via on-line surveys, reviewing social media, and reviewing complaint letters and emails to your customer service departments or executives. While all that is important data, there is a better method. NPS (Net Promoter Score) is probably the best way to get an objective voice of client. Made famous by Fred Reicheld, NPS is based on a direct question: “How likely is it that you would recommend our company/product/service to a friend or colleague?” The scoring for this answer is based on a 0 to 10 scale. Promoters are those who respond with a score of 9 or 10. Detractors are those who respond with a score of 0 to 6. Scores of 7 and 8 are passives, and they will only count towards the total number of respondents, but not directly affect the formula. NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of customers who are Detractors from the percentage of customers who are Promoters. If someone does not say “9 or 10”, the subsequent question asking “what would it take to give us a 9 or 10?” will solicit a list of voice of client service model opportunities. While the NPS methodology is primarily focused on loyalty, it is also a great way to get a good sample of service improvement ideas directly from your client, and a way to segment voice of client by promoter, passive or detractor.

2. Voice 2 – What is the voice of the process / system? Operational processes and system constraints can impact a client experience in a negative manner. Many call centers have a series of prompts and questions that “seem like prison”, sometimes offering little value to the business, and always detracting from the service experience. It is common when using various web sites to see error messages saying “invalid entry”, “not valid”, “page can not be found”, “404 error”, and many others. It is near impossible to get a bill from a hospital, physician or mobile phone provider that is readable. The best way to listen to a “process or system” is to process map the major client service interactions. “Get a giant board” and show in great detail what systems and processes are involved when clients use the web, call the call center, receive an invoice or statement. The key to getting this step right is to immerse the process mapping in actual client experiences. Listening to calls, mystery calling, and actually becoming a client are three common techniques.

3. Voice 3 – What is the voice of the customer facing employees? The front line voice is always critical. No one knows more about an organization's service strengths and weaknesses. The customer facing employees have a treasure of improvement ideas. Small focus group interviews and asking front line staff to be involved in the process mapping steps are two great ways to get front line feedback. Many times front line employees have developed “work arounds” for system and process limitations. “Work arounds” are always ripe for process improvement. This last step of involving front line staff always yields an extra win. People love to be asked about how things might be improved, especially when it is clear the request is not perfunctory.

The final step of the process is to list the improvement opportunities by “voice,” impact, cost and degree of difficulty. Having a few quick wins by going after the less difficult opportunities is always a great morale booster for the team and gives momentum to solve the more nettlesome issues.