Original Publication: Customer Management Insight - April 2008
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Egg, the UK’s largest online bank, would be but a shell of itself without its highly strategic and successful customer experience management initiative in place. Driving the initiative is a sophisticated feedback management system that surveys customers at key moments during their relationship with Egg — such as just after they open an account online or complete a call to one of the bank’s contact centers — and then drills down into the survey data to uncover critical trends, opportunities and problems.
“The biggest impact this system has had lies in its ability to integrate with our customer databases and call center systems,” says John Jennick, head of customer experience measurement and action at Egg, “and in its ability to drive action within our organization.”
Keeping the Customer in Clear View
Egg’s customer experience management initiative is more holistic than most, with surveys being conducted by various departments within the organization — not just the contact center. For instance, Marketing may survey customers for new product development or new product introduction; or IT may conduct a survey to gauge Egg’s Web site usability and effectiveness.
The key is that, regardless of who is surveying customers and for what reasons, the same system — provided by enterprise feedback management software firm Confirmit (www.confirmit.com) — is used, and all results are integrated and managed by Egg’s dedicated Customer Experience and Action team, thus ensuring a clear and consistent view of customer needs and expectations across the enterprise.
All customer surveys are conducted online, though invitations to the surveys are sent out via various means — email, mail (with the survey URL provided in the paper invitation) and phone, as well as via pop-ups on the Egg Web site. Thanks to the integrative power of its Confirmit system, Egg is able to deliver personalized invitations immediately after each customer interaction with the company, thus ensuring that the customer knows why they’ve been invited and in what context, which helps to improve response rates.
When designing each survey, Egg focuses less on the actual number of questions, and more on the length of time it will take customers to complete the survey. “We design surveys so that they take no more than 10 to 12 minutes to complete,” explains Jennick.
He adds that Egg places a strong emphasis on question value, asking business owners to consider very seriously the business purpose for asking each question.
“If they can’t explain why they’re asking a question, we reject the question. The most valuable questions have been those that help us to understand the underlying drivers behind consumer behavior, and that therefore help us to improve the effectiveness of our processes.”
Fresh Feedback Means No Rotten Egg
Regarding the contact center specifically, Egg surveys not only customers who contact the center via traditional phone, but also those who interact with the center via IVR, email and Web self-service. This goes a long way toward helping Egg manage its complex multichannel environment and ensure high customer satisfaction regardless of the contact medium that customers choose.
So does the Confirmit system’s “alert” feature: Any time a customer answers a question indicating dissatisfaction, the system sends an alert to a contact center manager — as soon as the response is received.
“Contact center managers are empowered to make the right decision in order to make the customer whole, and will do whatever is necessary where possible to address customer dissatisfaction and resolve the issue,” says Jennick.
Managers also do what it takes to keep agents abreast of customer issues and opinion. Every week, managers and supervisors use current customer feedback from surveys during coaching and development sessions with agents, thus fostering continuous performance improvement in line with what customers want.
In addition to sharing key customer feedback with agents for coaching and training purposes, Egg shares aggregate customer survey data with the entire organization via a dashboard reporting tool that is delivered via the corporate intranet.
Initiative Not Always Over Easy
While certainly a success, the customer experience measurement initiative brings with it its share of challenges. For one, says, Jennick, Egg needs to constantly make sure that it isn’t over-surveying its customers, marring satisfaction via the very process that is intended to measure and enhance it. He adds that keeping surveys fresh and captivating for customers, thus securing strong response rates, is also no simple task.
Of course, Egg works hard to overcome such challenges, and in doing so, has realized big benefits.
“We’ve tracked the results of the surveys and the business improvements that were driven by the survey responses to business results,” says Jennick, “with an increase in the perceived value of both the contact center operation and the customer experience measurement program.”
At a Glance
LOCATION: Derby, U.K.
HOURS OF OPERATION: 24/7
NUMBER OF AGENTS: 600-plus
PRODUCTS/SERVICES PROVIDED/SUPPORTED: Credit cards, loans, savings accounts
CHANNELS HANDLED: Phone, IVR, email, Web
NUMBER OF CONTACTS HANDLED: 20,000/month
NOTABLE: An innovative and comprehensive customer experience measurement initiative has led to big improvements in agent performance and customer satisfaction, as well as decreased operational costs.
