Great Read About Customer Satisfaction

Bruce Temkin from "Customer Experience Matters" blog recently hit a milestone with his 366th blog post. He summarized many of his recent posts in a recent article. This is one of my favorite blogs to read because Bruce takes the research he and Forrester gather and publishes his views about them. While not directly related to the Benefits Business, many of the lessons are universal.

Here are some snippets that I selected from Temkin's summary:

The maturing of customer experience. Forrester’s second annual Customer Experience Index that rated 113 organizations across 12 industries showed that there’s a lot of opportunity to improve. This also showed up when consumers rated Web, phone, and in-person interactions in Experiences That Satisfy Consumers, 2009, The good news is that customer experience management is definitely maturing which I highlighted in the following posts: Customer Experience Grows Up, Six Trends Reshape Voice Of The Customer Programs, and The State Of Customer Experience.

Customer experience correlates to loyalty. In Customer Experience Correlates To Loyalty, I found that customer experience correlates to three key elements of loyalty: willingness to repurchase, reluctance to switch, and likelihood to recommend. And the correlations got even stronger since 2007. I dug a bit deeper into the data in More Info On Customer Experience And Loyalty.

Building a customer-centric culture. Culture is a key ingredient for good customer experience — so I introduced the 6 C’s Of Customer-Centric DNA. And it’s also why I told execs that they need to Invest In Culture As A Corporate Asset. Other posts that looked at culture included: The Cultures Of Best Buy, Google, GE, And Semco, WL Gore Succeeds Without Employees, At Four Seasons, Customer Experience Is Everyone’s Business, and Execs Need To Focus More On Culture.

Managing through the recession. I’ve been writing a lot about how to manage in a recession. Here are some of the key posts in this period: Recession Strategies From IDEO And Potatoes, Jeff Immelt On Managing In A Downturn, Turn Hard Times Into Goat Stew, Recession Leadership: Be Real, Communicate, And Look Ahead, Retail Execs Discuss Leading In A Recession, Learn From Home Depot And Macy’s, But Not Office Depot, and Lessons From Condoms And Canned Goods.

Customer service is a critical experience. In Don’t Confuse Customer Service With Customer Experience, I made the point that customer service represents a critical set of customer experiences. That became crystal clear from consumer responses in Customer Service Trumps Price. Who’s doing well? Look at Customer Service Champs From BusinessWeek.

The Apple/Windows customer experience battle. As part of my Customer Experience Index research, I publish snapshots on the results in 12 industries. It turned out that my PC industry snapshotcaused quite a stir. It was picked up by major news outlets, a ton of bloggers, and drove many comments on my blog. I felt the need to clarify my view in another post about the results. Apple even created a Mac ad that referenced the results.

I encourage my readers to check out Bruce's blog regularly!