Viewpoint: Jenny Cranfield

Jenny Cranfield, Head of Customer Experience at Inchcape Fleet Solutions, talks to Pace about minimising customer effort.

Jenny Cranfield

PACE: Inchcape Fleet Solutions is renowned for looking after its employees.  What advice do you have for managers who must present a business case for longer-term investment in their employees above and beyond the immediate requirements?

Jenny Cranfield: Firstly, prepare well in advance and consider what you need to achieve to drive your business forward. Once you’ve got your objectives, ensure that it’s discussions with the team that lead your decisions.

Allow realistic timescales and expectations when implementing benefits.  No single action will be perfect and it takes ongoing, consistent effort to keep your team happy and driven.  It’s about consistency – you can’t just dip in and out of demonstrating commitment to them. Rewards quickly become the norm and the shine tends to fade over time; the team needs to be reminded of all benefits and opportunities every now and again.

Plot your progress because it will be gradual. Regular updates are essential and communication is key.  The more the team understands the bigger picture, the better the progression will be towards the company’s goals.

P: Where do you draw your best practice or inspiration for great Customer Service from?  Are there any companies you keep a keen eye on?

JC: I draw my inspiration from previous experience with Virgin and Sir Richard Branson. I have worked with Sir Richard and his senior management team and love the open-minded, creative approach, always looking for the next good idea.  He makes himself readily available to the team and they like the way he interacts on a casual and friendly basis to chat about what’s going on.

P: Fleet management is a service which companies want to work perfectly with minimal intervention – especially when using an outsourced provider. How does Inchcape Fleet Solutions work to minimise Customer Effort?

JC: Inchcape Fleet Solutions’ products and services are specifically tailored to the needs of each client. We can either run the fleet in its entirety, without any need for client referral in response to routine management; or it can simply provide selected services as per the client’s requirements.

Many of our team have a long history of vehicle management across all areas of the industry. With such knowledge so readily available, staff instantly recognise best practice methods and can adapt to any situation, giving sound advice and ensuring maximum efficiency and cost savings.

The Generation Game – Adapting to generational differences across your staff and customers

The challenges

You may have already heard of terms such as ‘Baby Boomers’ and ‘Generation Y’ – relating to a series of general traits often shared amongst people born in the same broad period of time – but what are these traits and how do they affect the way we do business?

These generational differences affect our customers as well as our staff, and not taking due account of them can lead to, amongst others:

• Struggling to empathise with each other, and therefore not being able to meet needs and expectations
• Ineffective briefing of new tasks or teaching of new skills, leading to failure to meet objectives
• Customer dissatisfaction, for example due to inappropriate complaint handling

 

Understanding the generations

 The following is a brief overview of some common traits amongst each generation group – naturally, each individual is different and there can be much overlap.

Click for full-sized image

 

Bridging the gap

So what can we do as organisations and employees to combat the challenges above? Here are some ideas:

1. Being open and transparent gives people the opportunity to absorb and use information as they feel comfortable, and share it as they feel appropriate
2. Encouraging empathy enables tolerance and understanding, minimising resentment and facilitating flexibility
3. Offering breadth of choice empowers people to make the decisions that will improve their individual experience
4. Dispelling myths and selling the benefits of diversity and adaptability
5. Investing in improving skills and understanding provides the flexibility to help bridge the gap
6. Recognising and utilising the natural ‘brokers’ between generations

 

The potential

As well as overcoming challenges, a proactive approach to generational differences can provide opportunities to improve customer experience, increase up- and cross-selling,  enhancing profitability through added value, and strengthening of positive emotions towards your brand. Good luck!

 

Recommended reading

Responding to the Millennial Generation by City University London

The New Consumer Behaviour Paradigm by PricewaterhouseCoopers

Inheriting a Complex World  by IBM

Understanding baby boomers, generation X and generation Y by Calcom Group

Does better customer service generate ROI?

The Institute of Customer Service’s recent “Bottom Line Report” has found that when it comes to measuring ROI from better customer service, organisations are continuing to measure what is ‘easy’ rather than ‘important.’ Furthermore, those organisations that are moving away from this ‘hygiene factor’ approach towards more ‘emotional measures’ are often struggling to justify the additional expense of this detail.

There are many difficulties in assessing Return on Investment from better customer service. Whilst there has been much written about the ‘service profit chain’, many of the benefits are linked to organisations’ intangible assets such as their brand, and improved results are difficult to attribute to particular initiatives.

Some additional challenges in assessing impact on ROI include:

• Finding proof of a causal link, rather than just correlation
• Challenges include periods of measurement (e.g. reputation building over many years)
• Benefits are often linked to an organisation’s intangible assets, rather than profits or cashflow
• Costs and benefits are sometimes divided across departments, which can distract from aligning with organisational strategy / achieving organisational objectives
• Many of these indicators are easier to discuss when there is already a programme of customer service reporting in place

The ICS’s report also provides the following tips and linkages for your own assessments of ROI:

• Each organisation’s ‘path to profit’ will be slightly different, although there are definite trends (we recommend taking a look at some of the case study diagrams in the report)
• Ensure that you have the information you need to model your pathway (e.g. cost to serve, current brand position, etc.)
• Empowering staff to make decisions delivers increased value for both customers and the organisation
• Interaction between frontline staff and customers is a key activity leading to ROI – ensure that you maximise the value of each interaction, as well as keeping the interaction cost low
• Remember to track informal feedback such as number of ‘thank you’ letters, or Christmas cards!
• Focus on critical metrics that relate to your business drivers (e.g. we need to regain / retain our prominent position in the market)
• Finally, trust that as long as your strategy is sound and your fixed assets are aligned with your strategy, then asset value will follow!

In closing, the table below highlights the variety of financial and non-financial returns that can be experienced from customer service investment, as well as how difficult they are to measure (Accelerator has further developed the ICS’s own list of benefits).

	Financial returns	Non-financial returns
Easier to measure / associate	Cost savings (fewer complaints, more self-service) Increased referrals	Better place to work (leading to engagement and retention) Visible accountability (public sector)
Harder to measure / associate	Less price sensitivity Up-selling Cross-selling / share of wallet Increased market share Increased lifetime value of customers Prompt, reliable payment Longer product cycle / sustainable growth Process efficiencies Lower market research and product development risk (better client data / intelligence)	Excitement and anticipation – an ’emotional connection’ Increased opportunities for partnerships or strategic collaboration Better equipped with information for crisis / risk management

You can download the full report from the Research and Publications section of the ICS website.

This article was featured in Pace, the email newsletter from Accelerator.

Viewpoint: Eric Dancer

Eric Dancer, Head of Operations at Knauf Drywall, talks to Pace about the importance of handling complaints with speed and fairness.

Eric Dancer

PACE: You place a lot of emphasis on handling complaints positively, receiving particular recognition in the Institute of Customer Service’s National Complaint Culture Survey. Why is handling complaints so important, and what are you doing differently?

Eric Dancer: Yes, six years ago it took an average of 64 days to resolve a product quality complaint. We pulled the process apart, introduced specialised software and offered training to all our staff. We wanted to benchmark all our hard work across markets, so we entered the ICS’s National Complaint Culture Survey – and  were the only business to achieve ‘World Class’ that year!

Six years on, we realise that speed and fairness are of the essence.. Even when the claim is not settled (for instance where it was a workmanship issue rather than a product issue), as long as we deal with the issue swiftly and we are fair, generally the relationship is not impacted.  In terms of speed, we now achieve an average of 16 days per product quality complaint. In terms of fairness, we have worked hard to remove any grey areas from our claims procedure.

Now we are looking at further training to help when dealing with difficult situations, so providing people with the soft skills to deal with the emotional side of a complaint.

P: In the construction industry, the impacts of delays and incorrect orders can be particularly significant. How does Knauf minimise these potential impacts for its end users?

ED: The key factors are consistency to ensure expectations are clear, and having the product available when it is needed to meet demand.  We have very strong internal process around forecasting demand in the market, and where there may be supply issues we are often able to deal with them several months in advance.  We are now at the point where we consider 98.5% stock availability as a bad result;  we are constantly striving for 99% and beyond.

P: Aside from further developing your range of low-environmental impact products, what other initiatives are you involved in to minimise carbon throughout the supply chain?

ED: The key areas we are investing in at the moment are reducing energy consumption in manufacturing and road miles in delivery – both of which also provide a strong business case. We are now able to capture the heat created during certain stages of production, and redistribute it to other points in the process. We are working with our delivery partners to improve efficiency, and our deliveries are now networked to reduce the radius between drop-offs.

There are other areas in our supply chain that we need to understand more about in the coming months and years – by understanding our suppliers’ carbon footprints we can make better choices.

This article was featured in Pace, the email newsletter from Accelerator.

Viewpoint: Jo Causon

Jo Causon, Chief Executive of the Institute of Customer Service talks to Pace about the role that customer service plays in our economy.

Jo Causon

PACE: The service sectors now represent 76% of the UK economy. How important is the role of customer service as a differentiator on an increasingly international stage?

Jo Causon: Clearly it’s extremely important. We’re in a period where product differentiation is often minimal, value for money is an inherent expectation, and customer feedback and opinions are both immediate and highly visible. This leads to high quality customer service providing the only sustainable competitive advantage in the long-term. This will be key for competing in the current global environment. Research published last year showed that poor service costs the UK £15.3bn annually with the average annual value of each customer relationship lost put at around £250.

P: What changes are necessary at boardroom level to ensure UK PLC stays ahead of the curve?

JC: Change is already happening in many ways, including the growing recognition that customer service is a strategic driver – that customers should be in the DNA of the business. Some of the key drivers are technological – developments on the internet and social media altering the balance of power between organisations and their customers. Companies need to rethink how they view customers, because the traditional model of ‘pushing a product out to the masses’ isn’t going to work anymore. Instead, there must be a greater focus on personalisation and narrower customer segments.

P: The Institute of Customer Service predicts that growth in customer service employment will outstrip other groups in the period up to 2014. What are the key skills we need to be investing in across our education systems to prepare for the future? What sectors currently best exhibit these skills?

JC: Customer service skills are transferrable, enabling career progression both within organisations and across industries. These include problem-solving and communication skills such as listening, as well as softer areas like empathy and an interest in the issues at hand – all underlined by true professionalism.

We also need to be thinking about the fact that we’re all ultimately customers of each other. That means not just the frontline customer-facing staff, but the internal relationships and organisations need to recognise this.

This article was featured in Pace, the email newsletter from Accelerator.

‘All change, please’: How people react to change

A lot of our training initiatives involve change – to processes, behaviours or even culture and mindset – and it’s our job to help make it stick.

The power of simple steps: When exploring change, we often run a great training exercise that we call ‘All Change.’ Picture the scene: we ask a roomful of people to find a partner, and make a change to their appearance – it could be repositioning an arm, or removing a tie, for example. Then the partner has to spot the changes. Next we ask them to make another change. This time it could be removing a pair of glasses or rolling up a sleeve. Finally, we ask them to make yet another change. This time people have to get really creative, with silly faces, jackets turned inside out and some bizarre poses! When we ask them to look around the room at each other, it becomes evident how drastically things can change in just three steps… and also how creative you need to get!

Tackling reversion: But the really interesting thing happens when we tell people the exercise is over, and they start putting themselves back into their normal state straight away. Once we notice people doing this, we let them know and the message gets through quite powerfully – we have to work hard to make change stick.

Getting everybody on board: It’s important to recognise that there will always be some people who are averse to change – and to some extent the status quo is important for stability in business. But conversely, there’s likely to be a group of people who are hungry for change, have lots of great ideas and will lead the way through team dynamics.

Committing to action: What looks like resistance can often be nothing more sinister than lack of clarity. Whilst it’s really important to make sure that everyone knows about the drivers behind the change, and the ultimate objectives, it’s also important that they have simple, inspiring actions that they can build into habit without worrying about the big picture – “let’s try these tasty salads for a week” is more likely to succeed than “we should all eat healthily”.

And finally… For some recommended reading, try Switch: How to change things when change is hard by Chip and Dan Heath.

This article was featured in Pace, the email newsletter from Accelerator.

Accelerator Power Hours

Accelerator’s Power Hours are a great way to energise and focus your whole team ready for National Customer Service Week.

Just pick from our pre-designed, interactive workshops and we’ll deliver the program up to five times in one day, to groups of up to 20 people. That means you can train up to 100 people in a single day – high impact and cost-effective!

National Customer Service Week is promoted by the Institute of Customer Service, and this year runs from 4 – 10 October.

 

This article was featured in Pace, the email newsletter from Accelerator.

Viewpoint: Andrew Haines

Andrew Haines, Chief Executive of the Civil Aviation Authority, discusses how to unify and engage a diverse workforce.

Andrew Haines

PACE: How did joining an organisation commended by Sir Joseph Pilling as a “world class regulator” compare to joining First Great Western, when you worked six-day weeks to help turn it around?

Andrew Haines: They were wildly different experiences. The case for change and leadership at FGW was self evident – customers and colleagues were crying out for it. So whilst the pressure in one sense is immense, there is also the feeling that the only way is up.

At the CAA the challenge is much more subtle – ensuring we stay on top of the game, modernising so that as aviation continues to change then we keep apace with it – in terms of our efficiency, our ability to identify and regulate risks and in working with government to implement policy. Making the case for that sort of change requires a different approach.

P: The CAA employs just under 1,000 staff (FTE) ranging from test pilots and engineers to economists. How do you bind such a diverse workforce into a single organisational culture?

AH: Two words – Vision and Values. We are at once very diverse and yet united in that we only exist to protect the public. If there was no public interest there would be no need for a regulator. So ensuring we share a common vision to put the protection of the public at the heart of what we do is key.

Secondly then, the way we do that – by ensuring we share common values that we embrace and abide by we develop the glue that binds us together – values of Integrity, Clarity, Respect, Collaboration, Learning and Drive.

P: You once stated that your personal motivator is helping to make people and organisations as good as they can be. How do you balance leading staff with a vision and empowering the next leaders to create their own?

AH: That’s a great question. Keys for me are to involve the team in articulating what the vision should look and feel like for them, creating a climate where constructive challenge and debate is encouraged and holding tomorrow’s leaders to account for development and implementation with their own teams.

All of this can mean that things are a bit messier than you might have liked, but in my experience it’s essential to achieving real buy-in and development.

This article was featured in Pace, the email newsletter from Accelerator.

Understanding your people – A life cycle approach

Making decisions about your team can be a risky and time-consuming affair. Although assessment tools are already popular for recruitment and appraisals, there are a number of other ways in which they can increase effectiveness throughout the employee life cycle.

Screening and selection: Job matching tools ‘profile’ a number of your existing high flyers, allowing you to assess potential recruits against a tried and tested ‘recipe for success.’ Assessments can also help with promotion decisions just as well as with new recruits!

Managing: Understanding preferred communication and management styles allows managers to build employee confidence and enthusiasm as well as helping to navigate situations involving conflict, stress or frustration. It can also be useful to marry complementary strengths and weaknesses in team selection for important projects and committees.

Developing: Whilst 360-degree reviews are becoming commonplace, it’s important that these filter through to business outcomes – increasing the effectiveness of training by focusing on identified developmental needs. Executive Derailment reports can help identify reasons for and solutions to a plateau in the development of a high potential individual.

Forward planning: Unplanned departures can prove extremely disruptive for your team and clients. Assessing employees can identify potential leaders and provide talking points for discussing and planning for succession needs.

If the ideas above could meet a need within your company, please find out more about our development capabilities.

This article was featured in Pace, the email newsletter from Accelerator.

Viewpoint: David Bird

David Bird, Customer Services Director at E.ON, on the role that customer service plays at the frontline and in the boardroom.

David Bird

PACE: Are there any elements of customer service from your previous roles in the telecom and rail sectors that you have been able to introduce at E.ON?

David Bird: There are a number of fundamentals that you need across any service operation and certainly I’ve taken things I’ve learnt from other organizations across to Eon. You have to understand the culture and background when joining a new company but more importantly understand how customers perceive things. The easy thing to do is to deliver the standard contact centre metrics but it is the quality and engagement metrics that are more difficult. This is where a really good understanding of the brand is critical. You have to deliver your brand in every single customer contact.

P: You recently announced the construction of a 100,000 sq ft “first-class workplace” in Nottingham to house your staff. To what extent do you feel the engagement of your employees translates into to a positive customer experience?

DB: It is hugely important for staff to feel motivated and engaged with an organization in order that they can deliver a fantastic service to customers. The big question is how you can achieve this? We know that an individual’s line manager is the most important piece in this complex jigsaw but other key elements include the right tools to do the job, such as IT systems, and also having a great working environment. The new building in Nottingham gives us an amazing opportunity to create a first class working space and also to develop this in a way that minimizes the impact on the wider environment through using new environmental friendly building technologies.

P: How important is it that customer satisfaction measures reach the boardroom?

DB: Critical. I am a big fan of the Net Promoter Score concept, even though I know it is not perfect. It has the ability to drive the change that is required to better understand what customers are telling you and the financial value of taking action.

This article was featured in Pace, the email newsletter from Accelerator.