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white paper | 201

Creating True Customer IntelligenceGather more actionable insights using a blend

of cloud-based VoC and financial data



©2011 Peppers & Rogers Group. All rights protected and reserved. 2

Creating True Customer IntelligenceGather more actionable insights using a blendof cloud-based VoC and financial data

Executive Overview

Is your company maximizing its use o all available customer insights in order to createthe best possible product o ers or to build the most optimal marketing campaigns? I your

organization is like most companies, the answer is probably, “No.”Most companies learn more about their customers in two primary ways. They gather

behavioral insights about their customers through transactional in ormation that’s gener-

ated by CRM systems. They also rely on customer surveys or other eedback mechanismsto ind out what their customers are looking or 1. All told, companies are sitting on moun-

tains o customer data. The trouble is, they’re not taking ull advantage o it.

A big part o the problem is that Voice o the Customer (VoC) and CRM insights are usual-

ly separated like oil and water by organizational and unctional silos and are rarely synchro-nized. That makes it di icult or decision-makers to analyze the entirety o each customer’s

interactions with a company in order to develop the most e ective product o ers, deliverpersonally tailored marketing campaigns, etc 2.

In short, the broad spectrum o customer insights available to companies isn’t being ullyexploited. As a result, the business cases being cra ted by executives to support product

and marketing strategies aren’t as on target as they can be. When companies cannot con-duct a comprehensive analysis o all customer data, corporate leaders are orced to take a

leap o aith on projected business outcomes.

Developing a Complete View o CustomersThis scarcity o holistic insights not only impacts strategic planning; it also hurts a compa-

ny’s competitive positioning. According to a recent customer insight benchmarking studyo more than 800 executives across 40 global companies conducted by Boston Consulting

Group, only 35 percent o executives elt their companies were “best in class” in customerinsight, while just 41 percent consider their use o customer insights as a source o competi-

tive advantage 3. Clearly, something is missing.Information from customer surveys and other types of cus tomer feedback—including

high-level willingness to r ecommend—is essential, but doesn’t provide decision-makers

with all of the actionable insights they need to effectively craft and execute retention,

support, sales and marketing strategies aimed at producing the best-possible busi-

ness outcomes.

For instance, let’s say a major airline discovered that its customer satis action scores

are down in ive cities. That in ormation helps alert executives that there appear to beproblems that need to be addressed, but the satis action scores on their own don’t in orm

them o what those customer issues might be or whether there are any common trendsa ecting operations or those locations.

However, i decision-makers or the airline were able to draw upon customer eedbackand CRM data, they’d be much better positioned to identi y the root causes and poten-

tial business consequences o customer dissatis action. They could then determine whatchanges could be made to prevent such possible outcomes as customer churn through the

use o predictive analytics and probability scoring.

ContentsExecutive Overview ________ 2

VoC and CRM Insights:Essential but Incomplete ____ 4

Four Steps or IntegratingDisparate Customer Insights _5

Blasting Past Barriers _______ 6

The Benefts o Cloud-basedCustomer Intelligence ______ 8

Case Study: Nicor __________ 9

Case Study: EMC __________ 10

Conclusion ________________ 11



©2011 Peppers & Rogers Group. All rights protected and reserved. 3©2011 Peppers & Rogers Group. All rights protected and reserved. 3

“I I can tell a business executive that or every point they lose on their customer satis actionscores the company is losing $50 million in quarterly net revenue, that’s a compelling business

story,” says Chris Cottle, Executive Vice President o Marketing and Products at Allegiance.

Beneftting rom a Blended ApproachAs essential as it is or companies to gather eedback rom their customers, all too o ten the in or-

mation that’s relayed is either incomplete or skewed. “Customer eedback is critical, but custom-ers sometimes don’t do what they say or tell you what they eel,” says Don Peppers, oundingpartner o Peppers & Rogers Group. “It’s always important to validate customer eedback with

real transactional data, in order to ensure that customer behaviors can actually be correlated withcustomer eedback.”

Listening to customers has always been vital, but it’s only one piece o the puzzle. The key tosuccess lies in success ully marrying qualitative customer eedback with more quantitative CRM

data, or what Allegiance re ers to as Voice o Customer intelligence (VOCi) 4. This is most e ective-ly accomplished through a cloud computing-based architecture that provides decision-makers

easy-to-use reporting and analytics tools to develop compelling business plans, in orm marketingdecisions, and guide service strategies.

Readers o this white paper, rom Allegiance and Peppers & Rogers Group, will learn how toe ectively blend customer eedback and CRM insights to determine the actionable steps needed

to improve their business outcomes.

Readers will also discover:

• The strengths and shortcomings of sing Voice of the C stomer and CRM insights ontheir own. This includes opportunities to identi y hidden intelligence and patterns that can’totherwise be detected.

• Fo r steps for marrying clo d-s pported VoC and CRM insights to attain customer intelli-gence that will enable managers and decision-makers to cra t compelling strategies and buildsupporting business cases 5.

• Recommended approaches for addressing the key c lt ral and organizational challengesthat prevent executives rom integrating the customer eedback and transactional data neededto make the most act-based decisions and cra t actionable business strategies.

• M ltiple bene ts gained by obtaining c stomer intelligence “in the clo d,” includinga centralized approach to gathering and acting on customer insights rom numerous chan-nels and unctions. This can also help companies to cost-e ectively leverage vast computingresources rather than invest in additional on-premise hardware, storage technologies, and ITsupport personnel.

• Best practice examples of enterprise companies that are success ully deploying thesemodels, including lessons learned and quanti iable business outcomes.

“ It’s always importantto validate customerfeedback with realtransactional data. ”

– Don Peppers,ounding partner,

Peppers & Rogers Group

Source: Aberdeen Group February 2011

An Incomplete C stomer View Hampers C stomer Retention

A recent study conducted by Aberdeen Group found that an inability among retailers to capture and analyzecustomer data are among the top challenges they face regarding customer retention 15 .

High customer retention costs

Inability to capture customer data

Lack o promotion e ectiveness

Lack o uni orm marketing across all channels

Inability to analyze customer data

29%

28%

26%

21%

21%




VoC and CRM Insights: Essential b t IncompleteClearly, customer eedback and CRM or transactional data provides corporate decision-makers with

valuable insight. By using online surveys and other eedback mechanisms, companies can learnmore about what their customers want. That in ormation can help companies as they devise prod-

uct o ers and marketing campaigns 6. It can also help companies to identi y and address customerissues more quickly and e ectively 7.

Still, VoC in ormation only goes so ar. VoC data is o ten composed o scores such as customersatis action ratings. These scores might in orm business leaders whether customer satis action has

risen or dropped, but they don’t say why. Nor do they provide actionable insights on steps that com-panies can take to ix problems or to improve customer satis action or the customer experience.

A House DividedThere are other reasons VoC in ormation isn’t complete enough on its own to provide decision-

makers with prescriptive outcomes. For example, customer surveys are o ten designed with gener-alized questions that are intended to capture the interests o most respondents and generate high

response rates. But they may miss out on capturing the needs o speci ic customer segments, thus

making it di icult or sales and marketing leaders to develop targeted product o ers and marketingcampaigns that will resonate with specialized customer groups.

Customer surveys also don’t capture the nuances o individual customers, such as their behaviors

and traits. Customers might be able to verbalize their needs to some degree via eedback channels,but these interaction points don’t always in orm decision-makers what speci ic eatures or unction-

ality customers are looking or in products. Consider that no one knew they “needed” a portablemusic system until Apple released the iPod and iTunes.

“VoC data can be a leading indicator i it has been validated with actual behavioral data, but byitsel it might not be as thorough,” says Peppers.

Additionally, CRM or transactional in ormation can provide decision-makers with use ul insightsabout customer behaviors. But transactional in ormation by itsel also has shortcomings in helpingmanagers and executives to develop ull-blown business cases or product and marketing strate-

gies 8. For example, transactional data doesn’t include in ormation about a customer’s uture needs

or motivations to purchase. And it may not provide decision-makers with enough in ormation as towhy customer churn is increasing in certain markets or sales o a certain product are down 9.

Both customer eedback and operational insights need to be brought together so business lead-ers can uncover hidden intelligence and patterns that can’t otherwise be detected. For instance,

through its analysis o customer metrics and loyalty drivers, EMC discovered that a major pain pointor customers was that they had to discard dozens o large cardboard boxes that EMC equipment

was shipped in. To make this easier or its customers and more cost-e ective or EMC, the irm’s

engineers developed a 12’ x 12’ “Big Blue Cube” that collapses to a 2’ x 2’ container when emptiedthat customers can then send back to EMC or reuse.

Arming decision-makers with power ul insights such as these can help them to take action to ad-

dress customer issues more quickly and e ectively 10.Additionally, collecting and analyzing in ormation gleaned rom customer eedback, social media,

unstructured data, and operational inputs can enable executives to establish better views o emerg-

ing customer trends, develop a clearer picture o a customer’s current and uture needs and potentialvalue changes, and track those changes by segment.

“We can do statistical and correlation analysis on each data type until we’re blue in the ace, butit’s never going to impact business change unless we can tie those insights together and connect the

dots to tell a business story,” says Allegiance’s Cottle.

“ VoC data can be a lead-ing indicator i it hasbeen validated withact al behavioral data,b t by itself it might notbe as thoro gh. ”

– Don Peppers,ounding partner,

Peppers & Rogers Group




Ens ring Collective C stomer IntelligenceIndeed, the value and competitive advantage or blending VoC and CRM insights was borne out in a

recent study conducted by Forrester Research. In a review o its 2010 Voice o the Customer Awardsinalists, Forrester uncovered several major trends among best-in-class companies, including a pro-

pensity among them to link customer eedback to other business data 11.The Forrester study notes, or instance, how USAA was able to help prove the value o customer

satis action by linking customer reviews with transactional data. “By analyzing customers’ behaviorduring the year a ter submitting a review, the irm showed that positive reviews correlate with aver-age incremental revenue o $108 per customer per year,” writes Forrester analyst Andrew McInnes.

USAA’s e orts demonstrate that its management team knows the value o analyzing and actingon a wide range o customer inputs that have been integrated to create a more complete picture. It’s

a strategy many decision-makers can learn rom.“C-level executives make million dollar and billion dollar bets based on two things: data and in-

tuition,” says Cottle. “The intuition part is partly drawn rom their experiences and they’re expectedto use that as part their decision-making. But the scary part is that they’re making these high-stakes

bets with only a percentage o the data they should be considering.”Clearly, business leaders can’t make in ormed decisions until they have all o the necessary in-

ormation. Building a knowledgeable business case is a lot like trying to ly an airplane. Armed onlywith in ormation about the plane’s altitude, but lacking vital details such as plane’s air speed, load

actor, etc., the pilot can’t make an in ormed decision about the best light strategy. Pilots and busi-ness leaders alike need a holistic view o the data required to determine the best path orward.

In the sections that ollow, we’ll explore recommended steps or blending VoC and operationaldata (CRM, inancial, etc.), along with tips or breaking through the cultural and organization barriersthat o ten prevent decision-makers rom accessing all the necessary customer in ormation in order

to cra t relevant and timely product o ers and marketing strategies and better respond to issues thatwill improve the customer experience.

“ C-level exec tives aremaking high-stakes betswith only a percentage ofthe data they sho ld beconsidering. ”

– Chris Cottle,executive vice president,Marketing and Products,Allegiance

Fo r Steps for Integrating Disparate C stomer Insights

Companies need to bring together VoC and CRM insights to attain the holistic customer intelligencethat’s required or decision-makers to develop a compelling business story. There are our steps to do-ing so in a way that ensures a smooth transition to a repeatable approach, according to Allegiance andPeppers & Rogers Group:

1. Apply the right balance of reso rces. Generating a compelling business case requires the right mixo data and technology, as well as support rom IT and customer- acing unctions. Success ul initiativeshave at their core the ability to tell a business story around the merged data. For instance, a companymight learn that or every one point decrease in its willingness to recommend, it experiences a loss o$1.5M in net revenue per quarter.

2. Develop b siness stories that are relevant for each b siness ser. Frontline workers, midlevelmanagers, and C-suite executives all have di erent responsibilities and in ormation needs. Make surethe message is aligned with the recipient.

3. Integrate VoC and CRM data sing a clo d-based approach. Cloud-based architectures and toolscan eliminate pain ul systems integration issues between customer data sets and databases.

4. Obtain rights from data ownership gro ps to share and blend data. The same business leaderswho approve the use and sharing o this data are also those whose divisions will bene it most rom it.Show them early successes and build on those to help win their endorsement.




Blasting Past Barriers“We can do statistical and correlation analysis on each data type until we’re blue in the ace, but

it’s never going to impact business change unless we can tie those insights together and connect

the dots to tell a business story.”

–Chris Cottle, executive vice president, Marketing and Products, Allegiance

One of the primary obstacles that decision-makers face in their effor ts to draw upon collective

customer intelligence are the cultural and organizational snags that result in different types of

customer data being siloed between organizational functions and departments 12 . It’s not that

the technology isn’t available to integrate and centralize disparate customer data set s across

the enterprise; these sys tems do exist and are helping companies like USAA to gain competi-

tive advantage by examining and acting on the full suite of customer insights.

Instead, business leaders and other players are often beset by ownership and control issues

where operational landlords are reluctant to share valuable customer information managed

by their groups with other parts of the business. In other cases, different departments are

tasked with gathering and maintaining these distinct types of information separately from one

another. For instance, market research or cus tomer service teams will gather and process VoC

data, while CRM analysts and number crunchers in the IT organization handle transactional

and behavioral data sets, says Peppers.

A Pathway to S ccessEither way, these fiefdoms of customer data prevent operational managers from developing

thoughtful business cases . They also block company leaders from gaining a complete view of

the company’s customer inputs from ac ross the enterprise, thereby hindering their ability to

make sound business decisions.

I it appears that no one atthe C-level cares abo t c s-tomer data sharing, thenintegration will be viewedas just another project.

A Remedy for Identifying and Responding to C stomer Needs

Even taking the first step of combining different sources of VoC information can havean impact. For example, Allegiance customer Robert Wood Johnson University Hos-pital is composed of numerous semi-autonomous departments, just like many largehealthcare institutions. Patients often interact with many of these departments, suchas radiology, lab services, etc. However, the hospital didn’t have a smooth process inplace for sharing patient feedback between departments. In addition, patient satisfac-tion surveys and feedback forms were managed via paper forms and email, furthercomplicating the ability to share patient input between departments and to fully un-derstand patient needs and concerns.

By creating interdepartmental collaboration and combining patient and employeeeedback into an integrated system designed to deliver better customer intelligence, the

hospital has been able to increase its patient satis action scores rom 67 percent romwhen it irst began its patient satis action improvement journey to 90 percent currently.

“Getting people within the organization to share customer data is one of the big-gest challenges that many companies face,” says Allegiance’s Cottle. “Organizationssuch as Robert Wood Johnson that are able to bridge those gaps are going to be moresuccessful.”




“ When decision-makersare able to access allcustomer inputs romacross the organiza-tion, they’re able toassemble more compel-ling b siness stories andset realistic targets or

actionable res lts. ”– Chris Cottle,executive vice president,Marketing and Products,Allegiance

“These challenges are not insigni icant,” says Cottle. “It’s one o the biggest di iculties thatpeople who need access to this in ormation are acing.”

Cottle and Peppers o er recommendations or breaking through the customer data logjam:

• Gain active C-s ite commitment and participation. Obtain C-suite support by clearly ar-ticulating the inancial bene its and highlight early wins. I it appears that no one at the C-

level cares about customer data sharing, then integration will be viewed as just another proj-ect. However, i C-level executives communicate the importance o these e orts and align

compensation to support them, then employees across the enterprise will act accordingly 13.

• Acq ire and retain vital b siness champions. Recruit two or three business leaders who

recognize and support the benefits of using integrated customer intelligence. Work with

them to use that data to uncover insight that helps them build strategies that will deliver

measureable business outcomes . Then, take action on that information.

• Keep the program alive. Actively sell the merits o the program to major stakeholders by con-

tinuously sharing results rom business improvements achieved and key wins. Tell simple, easily

understood business stories that will resonate with listeners based on their role and goals.

When decision-makers are able to access all cus tomer inputs rom across the organization, they’reable to assemble more compelling business stories and set realistic targets or actionable results.

In the pages that ollow, we’ll explore the advantages o using a cloud-based approach to as-semble and then take action based on customer intelligence. We’ll also examine how companies

such as EMC and Nicor National have been able to gather and act on a wide range o customerinputs using an integrated approach and the successes they’ve been able to achieve 14 .

Banking on Integrated Insights

Retailers and other companies struggle with developing e ective promotions and marketing cam-

paigns due to incomplete customer intelligence. One Allegiance customer, a midsize inancial servicescompany based in Texas, has generated solid returns on its savvy use o uni ied customer insights.

Since the bank began uniting VoC and CRM data using an integrated customer intelligence systembeginning in 2008, it has been able to gain deeper insights into the needs o speci ic customer seg-ments. As a result, the company has been developing more meaning ul and e ective campaigns ando ers or its existing customers. That’s been critical at a time when customer churn has skyrocketed in

inancial services, thanks in part to consumer mistrust that’s accelerated since the credit crisis beganin 2007.

According to the J.D. Power and Associates 2010 U.S. Retail Banking Satis action Study, just 34percent o bank customers say they plan to stick with their existing bank, compared with 46 percentin 2007 16. As such, inancial services companies need to gain deeper insights about their customers’pre erences and needs in order to do a better job o retaining high-value customers. The Texas bank is

doing just that.By blending and analyzing customer eedback and operational insights, the bank has been able toidenti y and address customer retention issues in its checking division. As a result, since 2008 the bankhas been able to retain 6,300 customer checking accounts, which translates to more than $2 millionin saved revenue. Meanwhile, the company has been able to retain an additional 840 customers whouse other inancial services products, resulting in another $400,000-plus in rescued revenue. Looking

orward, the company is anticipating even greater inancial returns based on its ability to track andrespond to customer service issues in real time .




The Bene ts of Clo d-based C stomer Intelligence“The emergence o the cloud is re lective o the kind o impact that consumer

technology is having within the workplace.”

–Don Peppers, f ounding p artner, Peppers & Rogers Group

There’s a lot of buzz these days about cloud computing or, quite simply, “the cloud.” So what is

“the cloud” and how can companies draw business benefits from using customer intelligence

through a cloud-based approach?

Simply put, cloud computing is a means of accessing shared resources, software applica-

tions, information, and other services through the Internet 17. The emergence of the cloud is

reflective of the kind of impact that consumer technology is having within the workplace, says

Peppers. Just as consumers are demanding easy-to-access, real-time services over the Inter-

net such as online banking, travel updates, and online self-service, corporate customers are

also increasingly demanding more accessible Web-based services.

There are multiple benefits to accessing and acting on customer intelligence through the

cloud including:

• Generating faster access to information versus waiting on an IT staffer to generate a

report, thus providing opportunities for faster time to market.

• Developing a centralized approach to gathering, analyzing, and acting on all types of

customer intelligence, including CRM information, financial and operational data, social

media interactions, and VoC insights.

• Enhancing the ability to have real-time, relevant dialogues with customers thanks to

fresh insight.

• Avoiding nnecessary costs by using Internet-based resources versus adding to your

company’s internal server or storage footprints.

• Deploying fewer internal reso rces needed to support premise-based systems and data.

The ability to access cus tomer insights from a plethora of sources (financial, operational, mo-

bile, social, etc.) is convincing cloud computing skeptics to reverse course as they’re seeing

the benefits of being able to access and act on customer insights in real time, says Cottle.

“ At the core of all successful initiatives is the

ability to tell a compelling business storyusing comprehensive information. ”– Chris Cottle, executive vice president, Marketing and Products, Allegiance



©2011 Peppers & Rogers Group. All rights protected and reserved.

9

CASE STuDY

Nicor NationalPowering Up Operational E fciencies

Business leaders at Nicor National believe that customer experience is a re lection o the environ-

ment a company creates or its employees. To help prove that, executives or the provider o energy-management and warranty products sought a way to quanti y the business value o having engagedemployees and how that correlates to customer experience.

“We really wanted to demonstrate the value o this to the business as part o our e orts to improveour inancial results, as well as our customer retention,” says Barbara Porter, Vice President o Busi-

ness Development and Customer Service at Nicor National.Porter and her team began by gathering in ormation about employee engagement within Nicor

National’s call center in mid-2009 using Allegiance’s cloud-based tools. The company integrated thatemployee engagement data with its customer experience and CRM in ormation and then conducted

analyses to help identi y the correlations that exist, says Nancy Korman, Senior Manager o NicorNational’s 200-person call center operation, which ields roughly 1 million customer calls per year.

For example, the company’s marketing organization conducts monthly transaction surveys and

reports this in ormation quarterly. Nicor National also conducts quarterly pulse surveys to captureits customers’ eedback on the value they receive rom its products and services. “The outcome o

the surveys helps us measure the value o our engaged customers and how well we are respondingto their needs,” says Porter.

“We use all o that in ormation to help us to determine the amount o business impact we might see

i we make an operational change or i we make certain tactical decisions,” says Korman.“One o the things this has enabled us to do is to better understand who our customers are and the

drivers or our most pro itable and loyal customers and or speci ic customer segments,” Porter adds.

Pinpointing Opportunities or Operational ImprovementsNicor National’s use o blended customer insights has enabled it to achieve several business improve-ments, including operational e iciencies that were identi ied and incorporated into its customer sup-

port activities. For instance, i 20 customers call into the contact center within the span o a ew days

all complaining about their inability to pay their bills online, the company can spot the problem asterby analyzing its contact center interaction data, resolve the issue quickly, and then communicate the

ixes it puts in place to its customers “Be ore, it was harder or us to spot those trends or identi y thosetypes o issues,” says Porter. “Now we’re able to see those trends pretty quickly.”

Having the ability to identify customer support issues and address them quickly has enabled

Korman and the contact center team to generate $1.8 million in contact center operational e iciencies

throughout 2010, in part by pinpointing problematic processes and making necessary changes.continued

At a Glance • Calls handled per person increased by 30 percent, leading to 18,000 more sales per year • Conversion rates improved by 15 percent thanks to increased employee performance • Cost per sale decreased 20 percent in 15 months due to higher employee productivity



©2011 Peppers & Rogers Group. All rights protected and reserved.

10

CASE STuDY

“One o the great things about the way that the Allegiance plat orm is built is that not only can we

isolate a customer support issue, but we can also quanti y the impact o resolving an issue and howhaving happier customers translates in business terms,” Korman says.

Nicor National’s use o the Allegiance cloud-based plat orm provides other productivity bene its,

as well. Because Allegiance manages and stores Nicor National’s customer eedback and CRM dataon its servers, the energy-management services provider doesn’t need its IT sta ers to provide any

server or so tware support or the plat orm, including help desk support, “which allows our internalIT resources to ocus on our core business” says Porter.

“I don’t know i we would have made the decision to use these tools i we had to house them inter-nally,” adds Korman. ”We would have had to have examined the impact on our internal IT resources

and on our server and storage ootprints. All o those things add overhead to an area (IT) that’s not ourcore business and it would have been much tougher to get the buy-in we needed or this.”

EMCEMC Connects Customer Experience with Business Results

In 2004 EMC began a produc t quality initiative called Total Customer Experience. The goal was to drive

improvements in product quality and product interoperability. As the computer storage company got

deeper into the e ort, it became clear that the TCE initiative could do more to measure other aspect s o

the customer experience, says Jim Bampos, Vice President o Customer Quality at EMC.

“It became very clear to us that we weren’t looking holistically at customer experience,” says Bam-

pos. For instance, customer surveys were conducted by individual groups, such as product develop-

ment, service, support, and sales, who weren’t sharing the in ormation. In some cases these groups

weren’t acting on the customer eedback.

As a result, Bampos and his team now also draw upon more than just customer survey data or

customer eedback. The company is using Allegiance cloud so tware to collect and analyze customer

eedback in customer councils, other touchpoints, as well as operational metrics like contact center

per ormance measures. EMC also plans to examine customer eedback through social channels.

For example, EMC developed a methodology or correlating customer quality metrics to customer

loyalty results. Response time was cited as one o the top loyalty attributes by EMC’s customers and

was proven to result in low satis action scores. “We went back to our services organizations and said,

‘Show us how you track response time’. What we discovered was that they were tracking queue time,

which had nothing to do with customer response time,” says Bampos.

The ‘Aha’ Moment for using C stomer MetricsThat “aha!” moment helped Bampos and his team to determine that the metrics they were tracking

internally weren’t “customer-impact ul metrics,” he says. Out o this, EMC developed a methodologyto track metrics that were based on product and service quality characteristics cited by its customers.

The company then began correlating that in ormation closely with customer-de ined loyalty attributes

to help EMC establish a set o goals and targets. In act, EMC was awarded a patent or its correlation

methodology between customer metrics and loyalty drivers.

The company has since used this in ormation to create a TCE scorecard or some o its top 20

continued




accounts where it can show customers the metrics they track on their behal and the steps thatEMC has taken in response to their eedback. “Customers are blown away by this because they

consider it very special treatment ,” says Bampos.

Correlating Loyalty Into Val eBy 2010 EMC had evolved the program to the point where it looks at customer quality and customer

loyalty metrics across all o its businesses to help identi y and then drive improvements to products,

services, and customer experiences “that are most impact ul to customers,” says Bampos.

In 2011 the company is taking its e orts a s tep urther by investigating how customer loyalty trans-

lates into customer value, in part by examining the types o products di erent customer segments

purchase and not only address how valuable those customers are to the company, but also determine

the value to the customers in being loyal to EMC. EMC does this by analyzing a mix o customer eed-

back data, operational data, and inancial in ormation.

“We want to produce a customer value or customer loyalty ROI model so that we can demon-

strate to business leaders that if you drive these t ypes of improvements or increase willingness

to recommend by X amount, how that will translate into market share or revenue opportunities,”Bampos adds.

Bampos points to one o the company’s business units where his group had o ered a set o recom-

mended improvements to act on based on customer metrics and loyalty drivers that were gathered in

2009. Since the business unit has acted on those recommendations, the division has seen a 20-point

increase in product loyalty, a double digit percent increase in revenue, and a solid gain in market

share. “Now we’re examining whether we reduced our operational costs in any way,” says Bampos.

EMC’s early use o integrated VoC and operational intelligence has already advanced the com-

pany’s knowledge about its customers and is guiding it with the steps it needs to take to improve their

experiences and optimize business outcomes.

“We’re able to show leaders throughout the company the business results they can obtain with this

kind o cus tomer intelligence,” says Bampos. “We are on a journey, have more progress to make, butwe’re now in a position where we’re able to recommend operational improvements that can be acted

on and then show business results that have teeth.”

CASE STuDY

ConclusionSuccessful leaders don’t merely rely on their gut instincts to make game-changing business deci-

sions. They draw upon the collective wisdom of their most trusted managers and staffers. Great

leaders are also effective communicators. In other words, they’re typically great storytellers who

can inspire their employees by illustrating the potential impact of their vision or strategies.Similarly, company leaders also need access to a diverse set of customer insights in order to

make the best possible business decisions. This includes having a cross-functional view of cus-

tomer feedback and operational information across all channels, including voice, email,

IVR, mobile, online, and social, as well as insights from different business divisions and opera-

tional units.

“At the core of all successful initiatives is the ability to tell a compelling business story using

comprehensive information,” says Cottle. Without an integrated view customer insight from

across the organization, you’re telling an incomplete s tory. n




Allegiance, Inc.Allegiance helps companies translate customer insights into actionable business intelligence.

Using Voice of Customer intelligence (VOCi™), Allegiance combines any form of Voice of the

Customer (VOC) data with any operational data (CRM, financial, etc.) to create actionable

customer intelligence delivered in the cloud. Allegiance multi-channel feedback collection

includes ad-hoc, transaction, relationship, and customer experience surveys, solicited feed-back through Web sites and phone, and unsolicited, unstruc tured feedback from social media.

Allegiance ranked No. 5 on the Inc. 500 list of fas test-growing private soft ware companies in

2009, and was named a “Top 10” by Software 500 in 2010.

For more information about Allegiance, visit www.allegiance.com.

Peppers & Rogers Gro pPeppers & Rogers Group is dedicated to helping its clients improve business per ormance by

ac quiring, retaining, and growing pro itable customers. As products become commodities and glo-

balization picks up speed, customers have become the scarces t resource in business. They hold the

keys to higher pro it today and stronger enterprise value tomorrow. We help clients achieve thesegoals by building the right relationships with the right customers over the right channels.

We earn our keep by solving the business problems of our clients. By delivering a superior

1to1 Strategy, we remove the operational and organizational barriers that stand in the way of

profitable customer relationships. We show clients where to focus customer-facing resources

to improve the performance of their marketing, sales and service initiatives.

For more information, visit www.peppersandrogersgroup.com

Endnotes1 1to1 Webinar, “Customers Speak Across All Channels: Are You Getting the Full Message?” Sponsored by

Allegiance. April 22, 2010.2 1to1 Webinar, “Best Practices From the Frontlines: How companies are using voice o the customer to lock

in loyalty and grow their business.” Sponsored by Allegiance. April 2, 2009.3 Tsai, Jessica (2010, Feb. 18). “Business Is Calling or the Customer Voice,” destinationCRM.com.4 Edmunds, Adam (2010, Dec. 6). “Announcing VOCi; Voice o Customer ‘Intelligence’,” Allegiance.com.5 Cottle, Chris (2010, Dec. 13). “Where’s VOC Going, Anyway? Answer: VOCi,” Allegiance.com.6 Bowman, Matthew (2011, March 3). “The Growing Role o Customer Feedback in Marketing and Sales,” Al-

legiance.com.7 “The Top Ten Voice o the Customer Best Practices” (2010, March 30). CRM Daily.com.8 Fluss, Donna; Rogers, Maureen (2011, February). “How to Listen to the Voice o the Customer in a Multichan-

nel World,” destinationCRM.com.9 Ho man, Tom (2011, March 1). “The Coming Convergence o Customer Feedback and Behavioral Insights,”

1to1 Magazine.

10 Frost & Sullivan (2011, Jan. 19). “Rede ining Contact Center Analytics.”11 McInnes, Andrew (2010, Sept. 17).” Ten Major Voice O The Customer Trends,” Forrester Research.12 Berkowitz, Jim (2010, May 4). “Use `Customer Intelligence’ to Drive Business Strategy,” CRM Mastery.com.13 Peppers, Don (2009, July 31).” Alignment, Compensation, and Engagement,” peppersandrogersgroup.com14 Allegiance (2010). Case Study: Nicor National.15 Cunnane, Chris (2011, February). “Next Generation Customer Loyalty,” Aberdeen Group.16 “J.D. Power and Associates Reports: Customer Loyalty and Brand Image Decline Among Retail Banking

Customers For a Fourth Consecutive Year” (2010, April 22). J.D. Power and Associates.17 Cunnane, Chris (2011, March). “Next Generation Customer Loyalty,” Aberdeen Group.

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