Benchmarking satisfaction is often an expensive red herring. It can distract the organisation from focusing on what really matters to customers, and obscure the truth that being the best of a bad bunch means that you’re vulnerable to disruption and missing out on the benefits of having really satisfied customers.

Greg and Stephen talk about how to get the competitor information you need, the differences between B2B and B2C markets, and explain why the most important thing of all is making sure you attract the right kind of customers.

https://tlf-public-assets.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/podcasts/Ep30+-+ComparisonsWithCompetitors.mp3

It’s very easy to get too focused on the customer research process; to concentrate so hard on the details you need to get right in order to produce valid and robust insight that you lose sight of the most important thing of all – what are you going to do to improve?

Greg and Stephen discuss Chapter 12 of the book Customer Satisfaction, which is all about making sure your survey results in actionable outcomes for the organisation.

https://tlf-public-assets.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/podcasts/Ep29+-+Actionable+Outcomes.mp3

One of the best things about establishing a robust customer satisfaction survey process is that it will give you a good measure of how your performance changes over time.

Greg and Stephen discuss what you should measure, how often, and what sample sizes you need to reach reliable conclusions. Along the way they discuss butterflies and barnacles, how long it takes customer perceptions to change, and the danger of weaving narratives around volatile survey results.

https://tlf-public-assets.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/podcasts/Ep28+-+MonitoringPerformanceOverTime.mp3

This is the second part of our interview with customer service expert Chris Daffy, this time focusing on his top tips for organisations that want to excel in terms of the customer experience.

We talked about the emotional basis of loyalty, the importance of conviction leaders, and how to go about making sure you have the right staff and customers.

We’re also really happy that Chris has agreed to headline our Customer Insight Conference on November 6th in London, so do come and hear from him in person if you can!

https://tlf-public-assets.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/podcasts/Ep24+-+ChrisDaffy2.mp3

Chris Daffy has earned a tremendous reputation in the world of customer service, so it was a privilege to have the chance to pick his brains. There was too much good stuff to squeeze into one episode, so we’ve made this one a two-parter.

We’re also really happy that Chris has agreed to headline our Customer Insight Conference on November 6th in London, so do come and hear from him in person if you can!

https://tlf-public-assets.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/podcasts/Ep23+ChrisDaffy1.mp3

We’re planning a series of interview episodes to catch up with people across the world of customer experience and insight.

For our first in the series we spoke to Ian Golding. We’ve known and worked with Ian for many years, so it was really good to catch up with him and hear his views on the latest in Customer Experience. He was as articulate and passionate as ever, and talked through some of the things he finds frustrating as well his view on how organisations can unite the customer journey with process and technology.

https://tlf-public-assets.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/podcasts/Ep22+-+IanGolding.mp3

This time Greg and Stephen discuss chapter ten of “Customer Satisfaction”, the basic analysis you need for a customer satisfaction survey to give you an accurate measure and clear priorities.

You need to know when to use a mean or median, what the standard deviation tells you, and how to use correlation in order to get the most out of your survey; but knowing how to interpret the numbers is just as important as knowing how to work them out.

https://tlf-public-assets.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/podcasts/Ep21+-+Ch10+BasicAnalysis.mp3

In this episode Greg and Stephen discuss chapter nine of “Customer Satisfaction”, which looks at getting your questionnaire design right for customer research.

The quality of the questionnaire, making sure you’re asking the right questions in the right way, is vital because it underpins everything that comes afterwards. Sadly it’s often rushed, designed by committee, and doesn’t feel relevant to customers.

Greg and Stephen talk about the balance of questions, who should be consulted, the ideal length, and much, much, more.

https://tlf-public-assets.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/podcasts/Ep20+-+Ch9+Questionnaire.mp3

Chapter eight of the book “Customer Satisfaction” is called “Keeping the Score”, and it’s all about choosing the best rating scale for measuring customer attitudes.

Greg and Stephen talk through the issues, explaining why the ten-point numerical scale is the only sensible option for customer research, whether you’re using a Satisfaction Index or Net Promoter Score.

https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/tlf-public-assets/podcasts/Ep19+-+Ch8+KeepingTheScore.mp3

Greg and Stephen talk about the pros and cons of different survey methods, based on chapter seven of the book “Customer Satisfaction”. What’s the best way to maximise your response rate and get the depth of insight you need? Can you combine survey methods?

Getting the fieldwork right is one of the most important parts of the customer research process.

https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/tlf-public-assets/podcasts/Ep18+-+Ch7+CollectingTheData.mp3