Customers today have power, and that power is changing the nature of the customer/company relationship. Growth in the adoption and use of mobile devices and social media means that customers can easily share their experiences with companies; both good and bad. In the examples below, we’ll see where good service, and the ensuing positive customer experience, had a positive outcome, and also learn how a negative customer experience can have far reaching consequences.
Customer experience management (CEM) is not just another buzzword. The Aberdeen report State of the CEM Market 2014: It’s All About Better Use of Customer Data shows that firms that are Best-in-Class in CEM enjoy a 31.3% year-over-year increase in annual company revenue.
While the financial benefits of CEM programs are important, so is the impact on company brand equity. When businesses satisfy customers, buyers are likely to share these positive experiences with members of social networks – amplifying the voice of the customer and affecting the organizations’ brand equity. For Panera Bread, a bakery/café restaurant chain based in the U.S., exceeding customer expectations paid off with improved brand equity.
A happy consumer shared a positive experience with Panera Bread via the company’s fan page on Facebook. This customer-generated content received more than half a million likes and more than 20,000 comments (conversations). In other words, one customer sharing a satisfactory (and touching) experience was able to make more than half a million people aware of their story – hence influence their sentiment about Panera Bread.
The above example with Panera Bread is a good demonstration of how delivering positive customer experiences helps to positively influence a company’s brand equity. However, customer empowerment doesn’t mean that buyers will only share the positive stories with others.
A recent customer / company interaction that took place on July 14 reflects this alternative side of social media sharing; business experiencing negative impact on their brand equity as compared to positive. In other words, it shows the negative impact consumers can have on an organization’s image by solely sharing their poor experiences.
The interaction was between Comcast and a long-time client (Ryan Block) seeking to cancel his service. As detailed in this story and reflected in this audio recording, the contact center agent made it incredibly cumbersome for the client to terminate the service contract. After several minutes into the phone conversation, and the phone call not proceeding anywhere close to service termination, the consumer started recording the phone call and tweeted about the experience.
It is the conversations following Block’s tweet that illustrate how modern buyers have the ability to impact brand equity almost overnight, as demonstrated below. Within four days after the original tweet there were more than 1,700 retweets / mentions and approximately 900 favorites (interactions) with Block’s original tweet.
In addition to the potential and current Comcast customers who viewed or interacted with the above tweet, Block’s story was also featured in well-known news and media outlets such as Forbes and Businessweek – reaching millions of individuals across the U.S. and the world. These features resulted in even more consumers becoming aware of Block’s poor experience, which in turn influenced their sentiment towards Comcast. As a result, one day after Block’s original tweet, Comcast issued a public apology through Twitter – see below.
The response via Twitter was complemented by a blog post on the company website by Tom Karinshak, Senior VP of Customer Experience at Comcast Cable – see below.
Comcast’s reaction, in the aftermath of the call recording becoming public, was well-designed and timely. However, considering the number of interactions that Block’s original tweet generated and the volume of consumers from other news and media outlets that became aware of his experience, a blog post is not enough to immediately undo the impact generated by the original tweet and the related conversations that followed it.
Ideally, the company would have wanted to keep the consumer’s business. However, after learning that the customer wanted to terminate the contract, despite the company’s best efforts (offers) for retention, the contact center agent should not have prolonged the conversation. This resulted in frustrating a customer and provided material for an audio recording to be shared across social media portals.
For more on Customer Experience Management, read the Aberdeen report State of the CEM Market 2014: It’s All About Better Use of Customer Data