From Research to Results…
A Fresh Approach to Management Consulting
In both good times and bad, business leaders are constantly challenged to design, create and deliver the “right” customer experience. Whether online, in person, over the phone or through print and new digital media, the customer experience extends along the entire customer lifecycle and has no boundaries. Winning companies earn more business, profits and loyalty. More importantly, their customers win.
But what is the “right” customer experience for your company or organization? There’s no cookie cutter answer – each company’s strategy and customers are unique. So the customer experience must be custom-designed and then continuously monitored and refined based on changes in customer needs and the overall marketplace. Billions are spent each year on customer experience programs which deliver a fraction of the expected benefits, whether from insufficient customer input upfront, lack of organizational understanding or commitment, or inability to execute the plan.
The Customer Group, LLC was founded on the premise that customer experiences must be thoughtfully designed and do not happen by accident. Our company advises and works hand in hand with businesses and organizations across industries in evaluating and designing their customer experiences for customers of all segments and types. We collaboratively deliver new customer experience strategies (with the business case and organizational buy-in required for approval and staying power), redesigned customer interactions (down to the IVR tree or website navigation when needed), reporting capabilities (to show the needle moving and to keep people focused on the right needles), and ultimately improved business results, the end goal.
Our approach spans from customized customer research, customer strategy development, multi-channel interaction solution design and into planning and deployment. The end result is segment specific customer interaction strategies, defined experience characteristics, priorities and operating capabilities, all designed with the desired customer experience in mind.
How? The work is cross-functional, and has to be. Customer experience is ultimately the culmination of several departments and disciplines. Marketing, Customer Service, Operations, IT, Human Resources and Finance all play a role in the design and delivery. In some cases “Customer Experience” departments have even been created to blend the needed skills and perspectives.
Customer Experience Design assesses customer needs through research, not guesswork or unsupported opinions. We begin by obtaining customer input to define the desired customer experience in qualitative terms in the form of Experience Characteristics. This input can come from qualitative and quantitative research and is often combined with assessment of the current experience, via analysis of actual calls, website traffic patterns, and customer acquisition and retention data to paint a complete picture and to comprehend the magnitude of the potential changes that will be considered, e.g. a cultural shift from transaction and operational efficiency to customer interaction and relationship building. Each Experience Characteristic must then be converted to an operational vision that blends strategic and tactical capabilities. Only then can the organization develop a truly “shared vision” of the desired customer experience.
Experience Characteristics will define “how customers should feel” about a particular company when they interact with it. Enabling capabilities are those required operational components, answering that question, “What must be in place to deliver the feeling – consistently?”
Through Customer Interaction Excellence™ we combine strategic, analytical, operational, technical and project management expertise to effectively “engineer” the customer-facing layer of a business and delivers results in the form of revenue, retention, loyalty and efficiency. CIE allows us to clearly define the necessary capabilities using best practices and proven methods. Our repository of experience from our client experiences, industry research, prominent advisors and experienced staff enriches the caliber of this operational prototype.
Customer Acuity is the overarching methodology used to govern the redesign and change process. This must be followed for any meaningful experience redesign work to take hold.
Collectively, our firm’s capabilities make us a trusted source of leading methods, best practices and an independent, unbiased source of customer-facing and support technology expertise.
We are your customers' advocate working on behalf of your company, rigorously identifying needs and opportunities, bringing practical, effective and customer-driven solutions that deliver results.