What is the most important part to keeping customers happy?
IP: It’s important to have quality products for customers, but good service will determine you keeping those customers. We try to be a customer-centric organisation, obviously that is what lots of companies will say, I can’t claim that we are the first or the last to think like that, but I’d like to think that the amount of effort that we put in on a daily basis is significant.
I’ve been working for Carestream (in its different forms) for nearly 17 years, and now look after the support team. I love talking to customers, all customers. Obviously working in any kind of customer service environment you have to speak to people who are unhappy, the aim is to always end the conversation with them being happy.
I champion continuing improvement. It’s very easy to just be like fire fighters, fixing problems as and when they happen, but we’re trying to change that. We want to be proactive and stop it happening, similar to how dentistry is at the moment. We’ve gone past the times of drill and fill and moved on to a preventative type of work, if we can prevent the telephone call then that’s a great scenario.
What practical steps have you taken to ensure you are a customer-centric organisation?
IP: Last year we launched Exceed, our corporate programme for bringing in a customer-centric environment, leading to profitable growth of the company. It’s not there as a vague wishy washy promise, it’s there because it is a key foundation of what we’re trying to do. Exceed links in with our vision and our values, it links in to us being the best, reducing defects, and having a zero defect mind-set. It is about relying on data to understand how customers see you.
We had programmes before where we’d get people in to phone customers but that has had its day and we needed to find a new way of doing things. Exceed is a corporate initiative, supported by our CEO and it is run by the quality office, it’s a global mechanism to align us with our visions and values. Exceed is a brand in its own right, to get everyone onto the same hymn sheet and pushing forwards. I can honestly say that it makes a difference.
How have customers reacted to Exceed?
IP: When we’ve had negative responses people have been quite impressed that we’ve phoned them up to query it and shown that we actually care. That’s probably the biggest thing that we’ve noticed, and we’ve had some really nice comments about it. It can be very easy to deliberately forget about the negative comments but I troubleshoot and want everything to be perfect, so when I do see negativity I see it as my duty to correct it.
How exactly does Exceed work?
Exceed uses the net promoter score (NPS) mechanism. We survey customers after each support call and we survey customers that have installations from us; we ask them a number of questions – the key being “Based on your interaction with us would you recommend Carestream?”
It’s a very challenging scoring mechanism because it’s not from one to 10, it’s a clear answer, the options are:
? Yes if I was asked,
? Yes if I wasn’t asked,
? Neutral,
? No I would not recommend you if I was asked, and
? No I would not recommend you if I wasn’t asked.
You then get a score based on how people answer. A neutral is considered a negative, which perhaps is harsh but that is what we want, we always want to improve. It’s challenging and our scores are compared against other Carestream areas, and other business units. It’s a great measurement system. Two years ago I could have given you a good idea of how customers see us, but now I could give you a great idea and with the data to back it up. I’d be lying if I said every one of our customers is happy, but with NPS we want the feedback, good or bad. If we’ve not got any bad feedback then firstly the selling process is not good enough and secondly, it limits your opportunities to improve. I believe Exceed is the best thing we’ve done for customer service for a long time.
How do you use the information gained from Exceed?
IP: We’ve been using the NPS for just over a year and we have seen improvements already and we will continue to do that. We get the feedback and any that is negative is put into a morning market programme which we have once a day. We look at the feedback and contact the customer from a neutral perspective, and make comparisons to try and understand where or if we went wrong.
You have to get out of the mind set of being defensive because dentistry is a professional outfit, so you have to try not to misinterpret things. We look for a short term solution: “What do we need to do to make this customer happy now?” Then we look at a long term solution: “What do we do to ensure this does not impact on any of our other customers?”
Every week we survey customers that called in the previous week (if they’ve not been surveyed in the last 90 days). We use the comments to feed back to the reps so they know how they’re doing and it gives them a lift. It’s important that we get the feedback not just for the company but for the staff.
How has your attitude towards customer service changed since introducing Exceed?
IP: Improving customer focus is about putting yourself in the customer’s position, providing empathy, being understanding and listening. It’s all about trying to do what’s best for the customer, but there are times when we’ve got to do what’s best for the business, it’s chicken and egg and it’s trying to find that happy balance. We used to follow the policy many years ago that “the customer is always right”.
However I think it’s more accurate to say “the customer always thinks they’re right”. So some cases the customer is right, and when they’re not it’s our job to help them understand why it isn’t the way they think it is.
The NPS system is based on a sound footing, and though some organisations do tailor it, we stick to the way it is. The only thing we’ve altered is that we have made it more for the negative in respects of a neutral response. Ultimately Exceed helps us improve the customer experience and keeps them as happy as possible.