Counting the cost of bad customer experiences
At a time
when most organisations are searching for ways to reduce
their costs, a major challenge is how to justify
investment in service quality and improving customer
experience.
This
paper cuts through the rhetoric of “customer
satisfaction” and reveals the compelling financial
reasons why business today is ALL about Customer
Experience. It summarises the “bottom line” impact of
poor service and identifies six key economic truths of
customer experience that can help quantify the financial
risks of inaction and justify the imperative for
improving customer satisfaction.
Power industry:
Customer experience baseline study of New Zealand
electricity & gas supply companies (Summary of
industry-wide findings)
The
energy industry is facing a wide range of domestic and
global challenges, from legislative
reform and mixed ownership models, to global fuel
markets, climate change and predatory competition.
This
working paper presents a summary of industry-wide
observations and trends from the national customer
experience baseline study of New Zealand electricity and
gas companies. The study focused on the experience
customers have when doing business with their energy
supplier and provided participating power companies with
a baseline of customer satisfaction, loyalty and
advocacy and established a national baseline against
which improvement initiatives can be identified and
planned. With responses coming from customers of
nine different power companies, the study found a range
of performance across the industry, with customers of
each power company experiencing differing levels of
satisfaction and reporting a differing range of problems
and concerns. This paper presents industry-wide
observations and trends and does not represent the
specific findings of any individual power company.
Local government
Using satisfaction measurement to Improve Service
and Reduce Costs
Responding to customers and actioning their requests for
service is a mounting cost for local councils. Managing
the process to produce a satisfactory outcome for both
customer and council is becoming an increasing and
costly challenge.
This case
study looks at how some New Zealand councils achieved
incremental improvements by building the customer into
their service quality improvement programmes and have
turned satisfaction measurement into a source of
management actions.
Improving customer experience in
Building Consent
and Inspection Services
Although
building consent and inspection services continue to
place significant demands on local
councils, there is evidence that the investment made by
some councils during the past few
years to improve
service has begun to pay-off. In this, its f
ourth
year, CTMA’s annual customer
experience study of
building consent and inspection services is showing
improvement in overall
customer satisfaction and, at
some councils, a significant reduction in problems
experienced.
This
summary of findings from the national study has been
updated with the latest findings from 2010.
