customer experience articles

A CRM effort very often crosses the entire enterprise, setting a course for a new company direction. This usually requires a radical change to mindsets, processes, technology, and in many cases, personnel. Firms must rethink how employees interact with customers, how products and services are positioned, and how employees are compensated.

Thomas Hammond, Vice President of Customer Experience Management, describes the carrier's success in switching from a pure cost focus to more of a customer focus. In 2001, they implemented a customer-centric, closed-looped feedback system with the aim of improving the customer experience while coaching, developing, and retaining employees across 8 contact centers.

HR can - and should - help align employees to deliver the desired customer experience - and ultimately, better business outcomes. Delivering a Branded Customer Experience.

The board frowned when Brad Anderson approached it about spending $50 million to begin his “customer centricity” strategy, which would evolve into a companywide focus on developing employees into more customer-oriented leaders, and a transformation of Best Buy’s more than 650 stores. In the first quarter of this year, comparative sales increases for the almost [...]

Power to the employee. At Zappos, workers are given power to improve the company. Zappos’s three-week training course for call-center reps starts with telling employees to forget everything they’ve learned. Chairman and founder Nick Swinmurn, who calls Zappos “a service company that happens to sell shoes,” believes empowerment means more than giving employees free rein [...]

Happy employees mean happy customers - a lesson learned from USAA’s generous perks and receptive atmosphere. USAA’s 13,000 customer service agents give new meaning to the phrase “frontline employees.” “[We have] a dedication to keeping the decision making at the lowest level of the company,” says David Travers of USAA’s approach to answering customer calls.Employees [...]

The sample program, under which Kiehl’s gives away more than 12 million packets and tubes a year, is the “cornerstone of Kiehl’s customer-service philosophy,” taking the pressure off both reps and customers, says Cammie Cannella, assistant VP of global education development. “It’s very important that our customers believe in the quality,” she says. “There is [...]

What's driving the success of Guitar Center, America's biggest musical instrument chain? More than 4,000 ex-rockers-turned-sales-dudes trained to hustle - or just fade away.

Moving the cheese: Wegmans relies on smart, deeply trained employees to create a “theater of food.” Although the stores range from 85,000 to 135,000 square feet, shopping feels snug, as if you're tucked in by the attention - and deep knowledge - of the employees.

Customer feedback doesn't have to come from sophisticated research. At Trader Joe's, it's all about listening to people. At first glance, they might not seem like a company that listens well. The specialty grocery chain doesn't have a way for customers to email it from its Web site.