In common parlance any customer that has not used your product or service, or has not been in contact with the organization is a ‘new customer’. But is this entirely true? Lior Arussy examines this concept in light of the ‘recycled customer’ and how to manage them. Also in this issue, read more about the importance of asking the right questions to your customers.

The new vs. recycled customer: A customer experience challenge

If you represent a mobile phone provider, insurance company or financial services institution, ask yourself how many new customers your organization acquires every year. Before you answer the question, let's agree on the definition of a 'new customer’.

For many companies, a new customer is an individual or business with whom they have never previously conducted business. However, many 'new customers' are in reality recycled customers since they have done business with competitors. I will posit that a new customer is one that is new to your industry entirely, having never used the products or services being offered not only by your company but by your competitors.

At this point you might be wondering the reason behind my insistence on such a strict definition. The answer lies in the mindset of the customer. Unlike truly new customers (to the industry), recycled customers come with the proverbial baggage. They have likely been subject to negative experiences over an extended period of time. As such they will have a set of expectations that are not shared by 'new customers'.

Recycled customers are a diverse group, and their reason to switch product or service providers should cause organizations to reconsider the impending relationships.

Customers generally switch providers for one of the following reasons:

Deterioration of the current provider relationship – in this scenario the provider, rather than the customer, can opt to terminate the relationship due to financial (profitability) considerations

Price shopping – the customer has a low perception of value and seeks a cheaper price elsewhere

Change of taste and preference – the customer is tired of the current products and services, and has decided to try something new

Shopping for a better solution – the customer perceives that the current solution doesn't adequately serve his needs, and is seeking another provider that can offer a better solution

The first three reasons for switching present significant challenges and begs the question whether organizations truly want to conduct business with these recycled customers? Companies need to determine whether recycled customers with all of their baggage are really ideal customers. These individuals have been disappointed for one reason or another, to the point of switching. They are unlikely to immediately embrace a new or different product and service.

They will likely be unwilling to fully engage with their new provider until it has proven that it is different and better than the previous one. Recycled customer baggage becomes an obstacle to an organization’s ability to routinely delight those customers. The relationship is conditional – the new provider must prove to skeptical customers that it can deliver experiences that at the minimum, meet their expectations.

Recycled customers need to be managed differently than new customers. Before establishing business relationships with them, organizations will need to identify their reasons for switching providers. While not easy, identifying these reasons is critical to ensure that relationships will be profitable. After all, competitors might have intentionally terminated relationships, hoping that their former customers bring misery to their competitors.

Successfully managing recycled customers might necessitate the creation of targeted experiences. While their past experiences are not a product of the new organization’s doing, they will still have to manage them nonetheless. If these past disappointments are not addressed quickly, they will overshadow the new relationship and limit the potential profitability and duration of the relationship. Organizations will need to frame the relationship in the context of past experiences, and emphasize referrals and evangelization as a medium to demonstrate customer appreciation.

Unlike new customers who lack a history of disappointment, recycled customers carry many negative experiences. In many markets, there are few truly new customers – most are recycled. This reality dictates that organizations pay these customers great attention and that they create experiences in the framework of addressing past disappointments. However, a more critical issue is deciding whether or not this is a customer worthy of your business.

If price is a primary consideration, the organization will have to decide if the customer would be a good fit. However, when a recycled customer is selected, it is incumbent on the organization to design and provide experiences that address a long history of challenges and frustrations. The experiences should not only exceed past disappointments, but even exceed their ongoing expectations!

Servion Expands Reach of Largest Global VoiceXML Platform to Help Fortune 500 Businesses Enhance Their Customer Service

Servion is working with Tellme to provide customized contact optimization capabilities that help businesses significantly improve their voice-based customer interactions. As a professional services partner for Tellme, Servion is currently developing a customized set of VoiceXML applications for the U.S. contact centers of one of the largest airlines in the world.

Servion’s selection as a Tellme professional services partner is a result of the company’s proven CIM expertise and it’s Contact Optimization Model, which allows Servion to examine a company’s customer interaction requirements from both internal and external perspectives.

“Joining Tellme’s partner program affirms our experience in assessing the customer interaction needs of top global enterprises, and then delivering large-scale, high-quality applications that map to these needs,” says Chris Mills, general manager of the Americas for Servion. “By working with Tellme to deliver customized Interactive Voice Response (IVR)-based applications, we can help bring effective and efficient solutions to contact centers.”

“Tellme’s on-demand voice services platform helps businesses transform the caller experience to achieve better performance and extract more value from their self-service offerings,” said Bob Crissman, general manager of Partner Programs at Tellme. “The combination of Servion’s CIM expertise and Tellme’s powerful voice platform will offer large enterprises compelling, next-generation IVR service capabilities.”

“The current economic climate is causing companies to place increased focus on their customer interaction strategies,” comments Mills. “We look forward to additional collaborative opportunities with Tellme that allow us to help enterprises deliver a superior customer experience that can provide a sustainable competitive advantage.

Your Customers - Have You Asked Their Opinion Lately?

Learn about the importance of having an ‘ask strategy’ and how to implement it

Bound for Savannah, sitting on a transfer boat from a resort island in South Carolina, I cannot help thinking about the resort; beautiful and staffed by nice people. But is that enough? I think not.

How Was Your Stay?
When I checked out of the resort, the woman at the front desk never asked me about my stay; wonderful, good, bad, or indifferent. This is the best time to query guests-asking for their honest feedback about their stay. However, nobody cared to ask me.

Had she, I would have mentioned the cob webs hanging from the ceiling, the fact that the bathroom was in desperate need of repair, that I had to call to request maid service, and that none of the resort's materials were in the room, not even a pen and paper-good thing I did not need to order room service.

My Conversation
As I leave, the conversation that I'm having with myself about the resort is, at best, mixed. While most of the time that I'm visiting hotels and resorts is as a speaker, I also organize a number of small meetings each year. Would I bring my group to this island resort? I really do not think I would. My conversation with myself about the place is, "Pretty property and nice people, however I truly question the competency of the resort's staff”.

Every time one of your customers does business with you, it is your opportunity to develop or strengthen the relationship-or to damage it.

What's Their Conversation?
How in the world can you query all your customers? Simple, ask them. You can have customer service representatives ask your telephone customers and you can have other employees ask in-person customers. How do you get your employees to ask? Motivate them through incentive. This information is golden as you periodically review your business strategy.

Earlier this week, when I was in my office, I received a call from one of my suppliers. The customer service person was calling to ask how we could do more business together. I suggested a strategy change for sample ordering from their web site-to make ordering easier on the customer. They asked! And, if they make the change, I will do more business with them.

Ask Strategies
Consider developing both a formal and informal ‘ask strategy’ for your organization. The informal will consist of your employees asking at every possible opportunity, "How are we doing?" And, truly caring to listen, and record, the answers offered by customers. Offer various low cost incentives to employees that turn in their ‘ask sheets’ each week. Hold contests only allowing the people that turned in their ‘ask sheets’ that week, or month, to participate. Offer positive motivation.

For your formal ask strategy; mail out ‘ask surveys’ with every order. Incentivize your customers to participate. Have your sales staff conduct an ‘ask session’ with every customer quarterly-and incentivize the sales staff for their participation.

Path Towards Improvement
You can improve your products and services much more effectively when you have a deeper understanding of what your customers consider to be valuable and important. Your ‘ask strategy’ will quickly fill in your knowledge gaps in this area. You do want to serve your customers the way they want to be served, don't you?

Source: An article published by Ed Rigsbee on www.customerservicemanager.com

Servion Global Solutions is a fast-growing company that specializes in Customer Interaction Management (CIM) solutions. With more than 400 customers and over 1000 installations spread across 41 countries, Servion’s products and solutions handle more than 500 million voice/fax/ACD/Web/e-mail interactions per month.

Servion takes a consulting-led approach to optimize customer interaction for its clients. Servion offers solutions across eight segments of the CIM industry (technology consulting, Contact Center intelligence and reports, agent productivity, outbound interaction management, self service, workforce management, quality monitoring, and process management) to a wide range of verticals such as banking and finance, telecommunications, business process outsourcing, transportation, retail, and hospitality.

These CIM solutions are delivered through Servion’s Consulting and Engineering arms using five different services - application maintenance, custom development, product development, systems integration, and research and development.

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