Whitepapers

Because I’m The Customer (785 KB)
Customer experience and brands are so tightly interrelated that it is very difficult to tell them apart. Understanding where experiences and expectations come from and how they are affected by social media is critical to managing customer and prospects perceptions of your brand and can make the difference between acquiring a new customer and retaining an existing one.

Moving from Data To Insight to Action (2000 KB)  

One of the key challenges facing business executives in today’s increasingly connected world is having the right information to make informed business decisions. The problem isn’t lack of data. Most businesses track a myriad of data points ranging from basic financial information to CRM and ERP information and, more recently, information from social media.

Evolving From A Product Centric Business to a Solutions Provider (2530 KB)
In today’s business climate the most effective methods to differentiate your business from everyone else are through value added services and outstanding customer experience. This two-part article focuses on transitioning a business to become a solutions provider.

Survey Mode Impact Upon Responses and Net Promoter Scores (143 KB)
In August 2013 Fred Van Bennekon and Sam Klaidman presented this peer reviewed paper at a Joint Meeting of the Art & Science of Service, the Service Operations Management Forum of EurOMA and the POMS College of Service Operations. The findings are very important if you use NPS and collect feedback using both phone and web form surveys.

Articles About Customer Value Creation

Annuity Revenue Creation Through Value-Added Services (121 KB)
Many value-added services create a long-term revenue flow. For example, the ultimate value-added service is SaaS. Another is outsourcing. But not all value-adds have to be implemented on such a large scale.

Taking Care of Your Customer’s Customers (149 KB)
An important element of a B2B strategy can be to help your customer do good for his customers. This article uses 4 case studies to demonstrate how this strategy works in the real world.

The Power of Combining CX with Services Marketing (197 KB)
This article was published in Volume 1 of the Customer Service Journal (http://www.csjournal.info/). In this article we demonstrate the benefits of combining Services Marketing and Customer Experience techniques to add customer value.

Business Selling: Why Simple and Easy Matters (1893 KB)
In order to acquire and retain customers, it is critical that each one feels comfortable doing business with you. And a key driver of satisfaction is how difficult it is for them to work with you.

7 Key Elements To Generate Agent Engagement in the Contact Center (340 KB)
As call centers become more complex, and customers become more demanding, it is critical to upgrade the level of agent engagement in their job. Here are some ideas.

Articles About Customer Experience

Gratification Surveys Are A No-No (557 KB)
Have you ever been “bribed” to report a high score on a survey? Who hasn’t? These types of surveys will never yield actionable insights to improve an operation and are a total waste of time.

The First Step of A Survey Design Is Knowing The Importance of Touchpoints (222 KB)
Before creating a transaction survey you should first make sure that your questions will result in insights that can be used to improve areas that your customers really care about.

21st Century Alchemy—Turning Data into Insight (123 KB)
When implementing a CX program, one of the big challenges is turning data into insight. For large companies, the answer today is “Big Data”. For the rest of us its about linking customer and internal operational data to get answers to the hard questions.

CX Programs – There Is No Such Thing As One-Size-Fits-All (138 KB)
When starting out down the path of implementing a CX program be aware that each business unit is unique. Selecting the project leader will make a hugh difference in your ultimate success.

Leveraging Customer Feedback (1307 KB)
The hidden gold in surveys is usually buried in customer stories – the verbatims. Mining their insights will pay off massively!

Customer Loyalty and Choice (137 KB)
One of the key drivers of customer loyalty is how they feel about doing business with you. And a key driver of that feeling is personalization – are you treating them the way they want to be treated?

Six Sources of B2B Customer Expectations (219 KB)
We always talk about meeting or exceeding customer expectations but we never talk about where these expectations come from. Until now! This article discusses the 6 most important sources of the metrics used by your customers to measure your performance.

Articles About Service Revenue Growth

Why Customers Buy Contracts and Why Companies Sell Them (276 KB)
This is our most downloaded article and is being used by a number of companies to help sell service contracts. The information will help dispel customer push-back.

A Customer Retention Strategy is A Key Component Of Any Business Plan (1568 KB)
Retaining a customer costs about 20% of what it costs to acquire a new customer. Therefore, every company’s strategic plan should include a major section discussing how the business will retain its existing customers.

Service Contracts: 9 Top Reasons For Non-Renewal (179 KB)
If your contracts offer good value there are still 9 reasons why the customer may not renew a contract. Some are well within your control and some like going out of business, are beyond your reach.

Five Leading Indicators of Organic Growth (441 KB)
To maximize organic growth, businesses must acquire new customers and get existing customers to stay with them and buy more products and services. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? If it were, though, we wouldn’t hear so much about businesses declaring bankruptcy or planning layoffs. This article explains the 5 key metrics used to make sure you stay on track.

Annuity Revenue Creation – A Unique Opportunity (456 KB)
In a world full of continuing business uncertainty, what would you give for a predictable, growing revenue stream that creates loyal customers and helps sell product?

Build Competitive Advantage Using Customer Loyalty (165 KB)
The best opportunity for most businesses to create competitive advantage is by differentiation. And the easiest, and longest lasting for of differentiation, is through customer loyalty.

Annuity Revenue, Complexity and Loyalty (166 KB)
This article provides a comprehensive overview of the value of generating annuity revenue.