The Research Says (Article on CMO Loyalty Studies)

In a recent review of the Center For Media Research, according to a new study by the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council, with Satmetrix, 58% of the 480 executives surveyed said their companies do not compensate any employees or executives based on customer loyalty, satisfaction improvements or analytics. 38% said their companies have no programs in place to track or propagate positive word of mouth among customers, and only 29% said their companies rate highly in their ability to handle and resolve customer problems or complaints.

Senior marketers admit their companies are failing to take decisive, company-wide action to integrate customer voice and experience into key business and marketing processes, says the report. The study underscores critical deficiencies in the way companies measure, optimize and leverage customer experience to drive loyalty, improve brand value and increase business performance and growth, including:

• Insufficient availability and aggregation of real-time customer experience data across touch points that should be shared across the organization
• Poor use of customer interactions to collect insights and intelligence or maximize up-sell and advocacy opportunities
• Lack of Internet processes and systems to track online word of mouth and drive customer advocacy
• Intermittent or deficient monitoring of customer experience that fails to provide true and timely insights into problems and opportunities
• Too few compensation programs tied to customer experience, loyalty and satisfaction gains

CMO Council executive director, Donovan Neale-May, says “Customer experience is one of the most critical determinants of brand strength and business growth… we are missing a major opportunity to turn customer pain into competitive gain… through better use of web and contact center technologies and processes.”

Survey data shows that most companies are not taking advantage of opportunities to drive company-wide performance improvement and business growth:

• Only 38% of companies gather customer insight from customer engagement situations
• Just 32% look for ways to turn problems into new sales opportunities
• Only 15% introduce new products or services to further monetize the relationship
• Merely 17% use the opportunity to identify and cultivate potential customer champions and advocates

Although 34% of respondents said their companies have made no changes to the way they track and analyze customer experience in recent years:

• 45%  of respondents say their companies have taken steps to better integrate and analyze customer data
• 39% said they have increased personalization and intimacy in their customer communications
• 20% say they have embraced intelligent Internet analytics

18% are capturing real-time information at the “point of pain.”

Nearly two-thirds of companies do not have a formal Voice of Customer program in place, and other key findings of the study include:

• 13% of companies have deployed real-time systems to collect, analyze and distribute customer feedback
• 74% say they receive customer feedback via e-mail, only 23 percent say they track and measure the volume and nature of these messages.
• 14.5% track word of mouth on the Internet
• 12% are using a word-of-mouth marketing platform to drive online customer advocacy

Laura Brooks, Ph.D. and vice president of research for Satmetrix, concludes that “Companies must become more… committed to leveraging… customer experience as a key business metric… but measurement is not an end in itself… companies need to commit… to understanding the key determinants of their score… to improve their customer experience competitiveness.”

For more information about the Giving Customer Voice More Volume study, please visit the CMO Council here.