insight6.com Blog
Customer complaints are an unavoidable challenge that any business inevitably face sooner or later. Your team will be working hard to maintain a high standard of business in order to prevent customer discontent, however the reality of human error renders total satisfaction amongst every customer impossible. Once in a while, a slip-up will occur, and a customer will make sure that any inconvenience the mistake caused them is known to your organisation. The complaint could be in the form of a disgruntled phone call, a strongly worded email, a targeted social media post or even an in-person confrontation. The folly…
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Across the UK, a huge percentage of private schools are failing to retain the interest of potential clients for one simple and easily amendable reason: neglecting the ‘follow-up’. Failing to ‘follow-up’ on an enquiry or visit means that your school is bypassing a vital ‘conversion window’, during which clients are most amenable to negotiation, and therefore more likely to be converted from a potential client into the parent of one of your students. Ignoring the client in this window could be perceived as a lack of interest and more crucially, an indifference towards the individual needs of the client and…
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Are legal firms taking Customer Experience seriously?
The moment of truth. Last year I sat on a panel at a law firm conference and the topic changed to client feedback. Question from the audience: “Can I ask the CEO of the law firm what feedback he receives from his clients?” I could have predicted the answer, but here goes… “We receive a 96% excellent rating from our clients at the end of the experience.” I had to interject. “So, tell me, what percentage of your clients do you ask?” There was a pause and then “I believe we send out forms to 11% of our clients at…
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Customer Engagement Strategies
Strategies you can implement to improve customer engagement insight6 explores the importance of customer engagement, the impact it has on Customer Experience and the strategies you can apply to your business. What does it mean? Customer engagement is any direct contact between a brand and its customers. It is incredibly important that brands reach out to customers in the right way so that they positively enhance the Customer Experience. Interactions between a brand and its customer can be both offline or online, ranging from surveys and point of sale promotions to mentioning each other on Twitter. How a brand interacts…
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A customer makes an enquiry, you make the perfect pitch, win the conversion and ultimately win the customer’s purchase – success! But does the journey end there? Not if you want them to keep coming back. According to KPMG, customer retention is cited as the biggest revenue driver for businesses putting it above customer acquisition, product innovations, pricing and promotional strategies, and technological advancements. Coupled with the fact that poor Customer Experience is by far the most common reason for a customer leaving a company (68%), you can see why retaining customers and treating them right is so important. With…
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National Customer Experience specialists, Shopper Anonymous, has rebranded to become insight6. The transformation from Shopper Anonymous to insight6 is complete. A leading national provider of client feedback has announced that it has rebranded from Shopper Anonymous to insight6. The comprehensive rebrand aligns the business to ensure it totally represents its full product offer of Customer Experience (CX) tools and support which it delivers to over 1200 clients. The change for insight6, which has a Sussex based headquarters, comes after significant research into the needs of businesses in modern times. Jonathan Winchester, CEO, explained the thinking behind the change: “Our customers…
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Should we be using more technology in customer facing roles? What currently exists and what are the benefits and limitations? It sounds like a statistic that cannot be true but by the year 2025, it is estimated that 95% of all customer interactions will be supported by Artificial Intelligence technology. That may feel like it is a long way into the future but actually, 2025 is only seven years away. Technology is developing at a rapid pace. People are becoming accustomed to using technology at home, in schools and in work so it makes sense that it is increasingly expected…
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Customer experience (CX) strategies are in. Outdated marketing plans based on figures and historic patterns are out. Believe it or not there are still many business leaders out there who sit in their offices and ponder the best ways to launch a new product, develop a new marketing campaign or sign up new business without acknowledging the one most important factor in all of these plans; the customer. The metrics matter. But not as much as the colour of love. The customer of today is more informed and more in control of the experience they receive. Customers don’t just expect…
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You are at your most creative in the early part of the day. You are fresh, full of ideas and clear-headed enough to create and to plan, (well that’s what should happen if you have a good night’s sleep!). Our bodies conveniently run on a natural circadian rhythm, thanks to your hypothalamus, that dictates your natural rise and fall in energy and creativity. Yet many of us do all we can to sabotage our body’s natural rhythms by overloading our senses with digital input. Does the following timeline sound familiar to you? 6.00am : We wake. Our body tells us…
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You will have seen this photo before I’m sure. The interpretation that goes with the image goes along these lines: The three wolves in front are old and sick, walking in front to set the pace of the group lest they get left behind. The next five are the strongest and fittest, tasked with the role of protecting the whole group. The largest pack in the middle are always protected from any attack. The last group are also among the strongest and fittest; positioned to protect the group from the back side in an attack. The last wolf is the…
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February is the month of love. Whether you embrace the whole Valentine’s Day spectacle or scorn the mushy outpouring of sentiment, one thing is evident……. there is a definitely a market for love! In the shortest, but bleakest month of the year, who can blame people for getting excited about a few red hearts and an opportunity to be nice? February is grey and cold, trees are bare and the signs of spring are not yet abundant enough to hint at hope. Whilst most months have some sort of excuse for celebration, February’s only real joy is that it is…
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I was recently browsing the local supermarket shelves for a loaf of gluten-free bread that I was purchasing in anticipation of a weekend guest who suffers from celiac disease. Who knew there could be so many different varieties of bread? I stood browsing for a good ten minutes during which time a young, male employee wandered past on three separate occasions. On one occasion, he even stood within two feet of me to check his hand-held radio. No eye contact was made, however, or any attempt whatsoever to assist me in my product search. On his way into the storeroom,…
Read MoreIn our newsletter, blog posts and articles on LinkedIn, we have written about a vast range of topics over the past few years, incorporating a variety of contributors and sometimes experimenting with different styles and formats. We work with hundreds of UK businesses in a diverse range of sectors including opticians, attractions, legal firms, independent schools, farm shops and care homes. Despite a fickle UK customer service attitude, in all its breadth and depth, and irrespective of a fluctuating economic marketplace, Shopper Anonymous has succeeded over a period of almost two decades. Why? Because one thing never changes. People like…
Read More1. Listen When was the last time you asked your customer how they felt? Do you know what their needs are? Are you familiar with their perception of your website, your premises and your communication with them? Thanks to the huge array of customer analytics tools this is easy to establish and, depending on the size of your business and the level of detail you wish to gather, these tools can provide a critical insight into the habits, behavior’s and trends of your customer. ‘Customer analytics is the use of data to understand the composition, needs and satisfaction of the customer. Also,…
Read MoreCan The Independent Food Retailers Survive?
The bi-annual UK Customer Satisfaction Index has just been published by the Institute of Customer Service and for the third consecutive year, Amazon tops the list. In fact, there are no real surprises in the list at all; First Direct, John Lewis, Jet2Holidays.com, Next, Subway and Aldi were all in the top ten. The bottom performers were New Look, TSB, Skoda UK and Iceland. Eight of the twenty ‘most improved’ organisations were utilities companies which is a much anticipated and welcome change and yet I can’t say I’ve had a surge of customer love from any of my utility suppliers!…
Read MoreCustomer Service; Past, Present, Future
Many years ago, I sat in an education lecture and a very forward thinking professor said “More than half of the information our children will need to survive and thrive in their lifetime has not even been invented yet”. Scary, but how true have those words proven to be. Given the saturation of digital platforms, it is very hard to anticipate what technologies will exist to enhance our purchase power in 2020 but one thing is crystal clear; to increase revenue and custom, every business will be striving to position themselves very overtly as customer-centric. We live in an age…
Read MoreHow To Run A Customer Service Clinic
Customer service. It’s the benchmark that every business knows it should be measuring. It’s the topic that should be featured in every team meeting. It’s the one differentiator that every manager believes they have under control. Yet it is still difficult to measure the ROI of good customer service – there is no clear metric to define it – and therefore, many businesses are reluctant to allocate a fair whack of their budget to it. It’s also the one thing that very few businesses do exceptionally well. And that is the key right there – exceptionally. It is no longer…
Read MoreIs Your Customer Service Vanilla?
In a world of ice-cream parlors, vanilla is no longer enough these days; we expect something different, exciting, unique. We want to find a flavour that really floats our boat. Maybe honey-lavender or chili-chocolate? Something that keeps pulling us back to the one place and something that creates conversation; ‘have you been to…..?, ‘have you tried the…….?’ As competition and buyer empowerment increases, what is the one differentiator in businesses? Customer satisfaction. A Gartner study from 2014 predicted that ‘by 2016, 89% of companies expect to compete mostly on the basis of customer experience, versus 36% four years ago’. Those…
Read MoreWhy Thought Leaders Are Worth Thinking About
Whatever your services or product, it is no longer enough to be a business name in the background with a catalogue of items that you hope will jump off the shelf, or the web page, into the hands of your customers. In our blog, Let’s Get Engaged, we talk about the importance of creating a relationship with your customers and of offering more than just a ‘product’ and, unfortunately, it’s a concept that some businesses are still struggling with. What differentiates you from your competitors? Great price? Reliable service or product? Customer-focused attitudes? Possibly. Customers are seeking more. They want…
Read MoreUsing Text Messaging To Capture Your Customer’s Loyalty
It is estimated that millennials now send between 60 and 85 text messages per day. That’s a lot of texting and a lot of time spent looking at a very small screen! According to their article of August 2015 ‘The UK Is Now A Smartphone Society’, OFCOM says the UK is now clearly addicted to the smart phone. Statistics tell us the mobile phone has overtaken the laptop as internet users’ number one device. There isn’t much we can’t do on the smartphone these days. Several years ago it was quicker and more reliable to surf the internet and make…
Read MoreThe Three Things You Must Do To Increase Your Profits Today
Customer engagement strategy? Or outdated marketing plan based on figures and historic patterns? Believe it or not there are still many business leaders out there who sit in their offices and ponder the best ways to launch a new product, develop a new marketing campaign or sign up new business without acknowledging the one most important factor in all of these plans; the customer. The rapid explosion of digital technology means that your customer can rate or decimate your reputation in seconds. Customers have, in their hands at all times, access to you, your products, your reviews and their own…
Read MoreFeedback : Do you ask the right questions at the right time?
I am always stunned at how poor businesses are at asking their customers the right questions. Let me give you some recent examples: I recently was late on an EasyJet flight and I received a questionnaire entitled “We are sorry you got diverted.” I did not get diverted, it was late. Did I respond? No. A BA questionnaire about my recent web experience when I had actually spoken to a team member over the phone A large hotel group’s questionnaire that was so long the final third was all answered “Yes” just to get through it. In each scenario the…
Read MoreFive Ways To Earn Your Customers' Trust
‘I trust you because your customer service is great. I trust you because your product is good quality and reliable. I trust you because I know I can get in touch with you if I need to. I trust you because you clearly value my custom and I feel special. I trust you because I like you. I trust you because you keep me updated with news and ideas or products. I trust you because you don’t always want to just ‘sell’ to me.’ ………said the happy customer to the customer-centric, modern day business. If you have loads of customers…
Read MoreWhat Would I Say About Your Business?
It is so easy to get bogged down in the ‘to do’ lists or action plans of every-day business. The more you do, it seems, the more there is to do. You decide to ‘just check your emails’ and before you know it, mid-morning coffee is calling. LinkedIn and Twitter should take up 20 minutes max and yet three hours later you’re still deciding whether to comment on that Pulse article about time management?! Is there anyone out there who actually ticks off ALL of their tasks each day? If you’re serious about your business success, there is one ‘must…
Read MoreWhy Eight Out Of Ten Is Not Good Enough
This is the age of the customer. Yes, the customer is king, queen and ruler of our retail landscape. I remember decades ago when my purchases were made on one of two determiners; was the product or service that I required within actual driving distance or, was it a price I could afford? In the 21st century marketplace of online shopping and efficient delivery systems, driving distance rarely matters. Sure, the product has to be affordable but it’s usually a choice of 20 or 200 providers. My choice as a consumer is like a web of bottomless options and vivid,…
Read More‘Unexpected Item In Bagging Area!’ or ‘Hello, How Has Your Day Been?’
Wagamamas was the lunchtime destination at Bluewater on the weekend for my daughter and I. We knew we would be guaranteed a speedy, healthy meal. When we were handed the menus on arrival we were also given a Qkr! Brochure with information on how we could pay our own bill at the table, on our mobile phone, in our own time! Very handy I thought, no more waiting around to catch the team member’s eye and ask for the bill. No more waiting for the bill to be placed on the table in readiness for my card or cash. No…
Read MoreThis guide will help you transform your business – if you take action. Customers are the lifeblood of every business as business owners we all want our customers to like us, buy more from us and keeping returning to us week after week, month after month, year after year and recommend us to friends and colleagues. The experience you give to your customers determines how much they buy, if they return and if they recommend you. Thus customer experience has a direct impact on the growth and profitability of every business on the planet. Our fourteen steps below will help…
Read MoreAre You Over-Analysing And Under-Thinking Your Business?
When Heineken was developing a US advertising campaign for their tequila-flavoured beer called Desperados last year, they experimented with two different platforms. In some states in south-eastern America, Heineken ran traditional television commercials. In other states they ran ads only on mobile phones at specific times of the day. Within three months the statistical analysis showed that Desperados had grown from zero awareness in the states where the mobile ads were run to a massive 23% awareness. This was well above the rate of awareness in the states where only television advertising was used. Heineken’s senior media director Ron Amram,…
Read MoreFive Ways To Sell More …. OF ANYTHING!
I like quiet time. It was during one of my quiet times that I started to really think about the key levers that allow businesses to sell more of what they do. Whether it be more donuts with the coffee, more legal time for your client or more rooms in your care home, what really drives your sale? My quiet time thinking led me to five key conclusions…(oh, plus a bonus one!)…. 1. We all have to sell – get over it. So often I hear team members telling me that they don’t sell. They find it uncomfortable or it’s…
Read MoreExit interviews – good or bad?
Having been invited to conduct some exit interviews for a local garden centre, we stopped a couple of customers to ask if they had found what they wanted and to enquire what they bought. They said they had been intending to buy a lot of plants but had been concerned to see there were vine weevil eggs in all the pots and as a result, decided not to buy anything at all; the last thing they wanted was to take home an infestation of vine weevils. (Note to non-gardeners – vine weevils are real pests but the larvae are the…
Read MoreCall Centres – What can we learn from them?
Whether we love or hate them, we all spend time talking to Call Centres. I am sure we have all come across those recorded messages of press 1 for this, press 2 for that, press 3 for a bit of this and that, and press 4 for anything else. I am also sure we have also been in the position of hearing that friendly and polite automated voice of ‘your call is important to us’. You are probably hearing this message for the tenth time after being on hold for the last 20 minutes thinking if you care, why don’t…
Read MoreHow do you make your customers FEEL?
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”–Maya Angelou Whilst driving into work this morning, I was trying to sum up my holiday experiences and that ever-present factor, customer service. In Cornwall, Spain and France over the past few months I have encountered some very interesting characters in the service industry, as we all do on a daily basis. On occasions I left a store, hotel, market or restaurant feeling satisfied. On several occasions I left feeling good. On one or two occasions…
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