Customer Management IQ  

How can we make experiences positive for customers? How can we create a cohesive strategy to manage customers at different touch points and across different channels? David Cliche, VP Global Interactive Media for Aon Corporation, knows that you have to meet expectations at any touch-point over a lifecycle. This is not just a marketing tagline; it needs to be ingrained into a company’s marketing philosophy. Customers want to become part of the service culture of an organization and have a role in defining what it is. Delivering experiences consistently across the enterprise is critical, and companies should try to engage customer conversations. The old school thought is that the customer is always right. Well Cliche does not necessarily agree with that, nor does his customer. He involves them in a service oriented relationship. Cliche knows he must deliver on the expectations of the customer, and he asks the customer how he and his team can better meet their needs. It’s a partnership where the customer is sometimes right as long as they have given you the feedback so you can meet the customer’s expectations. A good experience between a customer and the organization is a two way street. Customers must be engaged and the best way to get there is through an information exchange where that feedback is delivered back to the company. The company must be in constant communication with the customer. If the organization’s primary objective is to deliver value to its customers the customer needs to be a part of that process. The structure doesn’t have to be a new department—it can work its way in to how an organization takes its products and services and makes them available. In this podcast, Cliche explains the importance of having clear expectations with customers and delivering on a brand promise.

Emily Yellin knows customer service, specifically what it reveals about our world and our lives. In her book Your Call is (Not That) Important To Us, Yellin reminds us that when you bring up the subject of customer service phone calls, the blood pressure of everyone within an earshot rises exponentially. Otherwise calm, rational and intelligent people go off on extended rants about an industry that seems to grow more inhuman and unhelpful with every phone call. In this interview Yellin cuts through the corporate jargon and consumer distress to provide a candid account of customer management today.

In today's uncertain business climate, it is more important than ever to secure the Loyalty of your customers. Loyalty is the trust, the understanding, and the emotional bond you have with your customers, and they with you. Nurturing this emotional bond is the heart of loyalty advantage. In this session we speak with Brookeside Group CEO Tom Cates who is an expert in a comprehensive approach to customer loyalty.

We are no longer in the customer service economy—we are in the customer experience economy. However, because they are distracted by the economic downturn, most businesses have forgotten the importance of the voice of the customer. In this podcast panel, Marcia Johnson, Chief Marketing Officer of Glacier Bancorp Inc; Dennis Snow, author of Lessons From the Mouse: Applying Disney World’s Secrets of Success to Your Organization, Your Career, and Your Life; and Mary Malone, MS, JD, President of Malone Advisory Services, discuss how to achieve customer service excellence in a recession.