Graham Kingma

Most recently, Graham was Vice-President of Customer Experience at The Shopping Channel. At The Shopping Channel he was responsible for all aspects of customer satisfaction for the Rogers Media division. Significant projects included one of Canada's first voice activated automated ordering systems, creation of a 120-person home-based agent program, the launch of an 8000-person online customer feedback panel as well as the development of customer experience measurement program across the organization. Graham managed a team of 150 in-house call centre staff, as well as 120 home-based agents. The Shopping Channel was recently awarded the Call Centre Employer of Choice Gold Certification, as well as Best Contact Centre in the World for 2008.

Prior to The Shopping Channel, Graham created the Customer Care Centre for the online grocery delivery company, Grocery Gateway.

Graham is Vice Chair of the Canadian Marketing Association's Contact Centre Council, member of the Innovators Roundtable (forum for contact centre and customer experience executives) , guest lecturer at Seneca College as well as a Board Advisor to the Greater Toronto Area Contact Centre Association.

Customer Experience During an Economic Downturn

The most successful businesses have ensured that customer experience be at the forefront of everything they do. There have been many great articles written by CMA Bloggers about the importance of the user experience, and how that can translate into customer loyalty and the recommendation of that product or service to others. Apple is a great example of a company that not only ensures the product is very user friendly, but that the support in their stores and support centres put the customer first. SouthWest Airlines posted another year of profits in 2008 while their competitors have lost money.

Unfortunately the reaction of many companies in an economic downturn is to reduce spending in areas where there is not an immediate payback. Marketing and customer support dollars are cut to boost the bottom line in very difficult times.

Customer experience is more critical in these economic times for two reasons:

One, customers still have money but are are more careful where they spend it. They are going to chose to spend their money on products and services that they feel loyal enough to recommend to others. Getting the share of a smaller purse/wallet means standing out from the rest. A great customer experience will help ensure your business is the first a customer chooses when they are ready to spend their hard earned dollars. You may be going out to restaurants less these days, but you are still going. Instead of going out to 4 restaurants this month you may only chose one. You are going to, therefore, chose the one that provides the best experience and value. That one restaurant will not feel the economic pinch as much as the other three.

Two, the economy will bounce back. Loyalty is gained through great customer experience. Growth is realized when your business is recommended by others. Continuing to provide a great experience during the economic downturn will help ensure that you see exponential growth (compared to competitors) when money is, again, spent more freely.

Air Canada is realizing that customer experience is a priority and have plans in place to improve all aspects of their service. Air Canada has won a service award based on data collected between between August 2006 and June 2007. Many would say they have some work to do to be the best Canadian airline when it comes to customer experience.

A focus on customer experience is critical to the success of a business. Perhaps it is even more critical now than ever to ensure the long term survival and success of your product or service.

The underdog makes a move

It's not often we hear about Microsoft being the underdog. Microsoft dominates with a 95% share of the operating system market, a 75% share of internet browser use and somewhere around a 95% share of the "Office Suite" market.

Of course, the big area that Microsoft does not dominate is in the paid search business. Google has a 69% share, Yahoo is at 15% and Microsoft is at 10%. We all know about Microsoft trying to buy Yahoo over the past 2 months. Microsoft saw an opportunity to increase their market share of this very profitable business to more than 25%. Still a far cry from Google's 69% share.

One of the biggest criticisms of Google's paid search is that you pay Google for every "click" regardless of whether the consumer buys or not. Ultimately it doesn't matter since Google is so dominant. You have to work with them whether you like it or not.

Microsoft recently announced a new paid search opportunity for consumers. Currently only available in the US, Microsoft will now be paying consumers to use their Live Search engine to buy products. When you search a product, you will have the choice of seeing online stores that have partnered with Microsoft. When you click on the link, you will see price comparisons as well as a percentage off of the price by purchasing through Live Search. In my test, discounts ranged from 3% to 9% for a Canon Digital Camera.

Will it work? Some think Microsoft's Live Search is far superior to Google's when it comes to products. Online retailers will like the idea of paying for purchases, not just for clicks.

Perhaps this will give a boost to the underdog in the online paid search war...

Starbucks makes some moves

The founder and CEO of Starbucks (Howard Schultz) realized that the organization was headed in the wrong direction. He recognized that the experience that made Starbucks the most popular coffee house in the U.S. was dwindling away.

About a year ago, I wrote about how Mr. Schultz had admitted that the original reasons why customers were coming into their coffee shops were now being ignored The company was slowly commercializing the coffee experience for their customers. Consumer Reports even indicated that McDonald's coffee was better than Starbucks.

In the last few months Mr. Schultz has taken some drastic steps to improve the experience for their loyal customers.

In a bold move on Tuesday February 26th 2008, Starbucks closed all 7,100 stores in the U.S. for a 3 hour training session on what each of the 135,000 associates must do to ensure a great experience for their customers. This is really unheard of in the retail and food services sectors. Mr. Schultz showed some real commitment by telling his Customers we need some time to make things better for you. Dunkin' Donuts took action by offering 99 cent coffees on the day Starbucks was closed.

Starbucks has also launched a quasi-social network website to garner feedback and ideas from their loyal Customer base. They estimated that they would get a few hundred responses in the few days after the launch of the new website. Within the first week they had over 100,000 votes and ideas on what Starbucks should do to improve the experience for their customers.

There are very few companies that have a leader that is comfortable to stand up and admit their failings. It is rare to see a company react with moves that are fairly unprecedented.

We'll have to wait and see whether Mr. Schultz can get his massive organization back on the track he feels they need to be.

Kudos to him and the entire organization for committing to a bold plan and staying the course.

IQPC Customer Feedback Summit

I recently attended the 4th Annual Executive Customer Feedback Summit put on by IQPC in Las Vegas.

The summit was attended by those that are responsible for collecting and analyzing customer feedback as well as how to use that feedback to improve the overall quality of the customer experience. The quality of topics and speakers were exceptional.

We heard from representatives of companies such as JetBlu, Coca-Cola, Ebay, CitiGroup, Harrahs, Zappos, Microsoft and even the NBA’s Seattle SuperSonics among many others.

The common themes from some of the more advanced customer experience companies was to determine the Net Promoter Score of your customers. In its simplest form, taking the results of a 1-10 scale question to their customers of "would you recommend this company to others". Then determining your NPS by doing the following calculation:

Those who scored 9&10's
divided by
Those who scored 0-6's

We also learned how JetBlu used some new data mining technology to search through the 16,000+ e-mails they received in one day in January 2007 when their planes were grounded. The data mining helped them quickly determine what their customers were really saying and ultimately helped them design their Customer Bill of Rights.

Zappos talked about their leading edge customer policies such as free shipping both ways (returns included) and a 365 day return policy. There is a reason they are one of the fastest growing retailers in North America (projected to do over $1 billion in 2008)

A great quote out of the conference was said by David Norton (Senior Vice President, Relationship Marketing at Harrah’s Entertainment).

"The number one driver of dissatisfaction is a lack of respect for your customer's time".

The high price of mail-in rebates

If you have ever gone through the process of sending in a "mail-in rebate" form, you know what level of frustration this can cause.

There is fine print to read, and deadlines to meet. You must remember to include everything that is required, or you will not receive the money. You invest your own time and energy, not to mention the postage stamp. However when you've finally completed all the work, you mail off your forms and expect a cheque back. In most cases you wait 8 weeks at a minimum. 8 weeks in a time when anyone can order almost anything from anywhere and receive it within a week.

I went through this process with a mail-in rebate offer from a major home improvement company. I had to purchase some paint one weekend and decided to go with a particular brand because the nice lady behind the counter suggested that there was a mail-in rebate offer of $20 if I bought 2 cans. Frustrations started when I received a letter back from the mail-in rebate company suggesting I was past the due date. I sent a letter back reminding them that I had sent it in on time and that even the date of their letter was, in fact, within the rebate due date. I received another letter stating that I had not included the correct information. I sent them a letter back reminding them that they had kept my original letter with all the correct information and proof of purchases. I received nothing in response.

I know that retailers "farm out" the mail-in rebate business to third-party fulfillment companies. According to this website the agreements between the two companies have a lot to do with guaranteeing the retailer that no more than a certain percentage of rebates will be mailed in. If there are more actual Customer rebate requests than the guaranteed percentage, the third party company will absorb the refund themselves. This doesn't convince me that these mail-in rebate companies are working in the best interest of the retailer or the Customer.

Retailers rely on the fact that the majority of people do not send in the rebate offer. The retailer gets the sales because of the rebate offer incentive, but is not on the hook for the full rebate amount. We are in an age where Customers are losing their patience and are looking for a retailer that can be open, honest and provide the best experience. There are too many retailers to choose from today. Those that still offer mail-in rebates are putting themselves at risk of losing those Customers in the long run for a quick one-time sale.

Is it worth it? Best Buy has decided it is not. They announced about a year ago that they will phase out all mail-in rebates. They are one of the first major retailers to realize what the rest of us have known for a long time. Mail-in rebates are good for sales in the short term, and bad for business in the long term. The long term plan is to implement the following: when you buy something at Best Buy, the "mail-in rebate" is given to you at the check-out counter. No forms, no proof of purchase requirements, no stamp and no waiting for 3 months to see if an invisible company has deemed your submission to be valid. In the mean time they have made things easier by allowing you to submit a rebate offer online, and track the progress.

If your organization offers mail-in rebates, perhaps it's time to ask your Customers what the cost is to their loyalty?