Stacy Leidwinger serves as product management director for the Vivisimo Velocity Information Optimization Platform. In her role, she assists in driving product roadmap, market requirements, product positioning as well as interacting closely with customers and partners to understand their information challenges. Stacy graduated from Allegheny College with degrees in Computer Science and Managerial Economics. She completed her senior comprehensive project surveying the technical and economic value of Customer Relationship Management. She also holds her MBA from the Katz School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh.

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According to Annette Franz [@Annettefranz], “A key component of a VOC Initiative is getting the right feedback at the right time from the right customers. Then glean insights, create action plans, and drive it all back to the right departments and the right employees who take action at the right touch points at the right time.” This was the basis of a recent #CXO chat as we discussed, “Operationalize Insights to Drive Business” with guest Annette Franz, Seasoned Client Services (CX, VOC, SaaS) executive.

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A few weeks ago I heard a story of “extreme customer service.” Strangely enough, it wasn’t about a great experience but about a failed service experience. My friend absolutely loved a particular fast food chain and ordered the same thing every visit. On her last visit she was charged more than the listed price at the drive thru. Miffed, she pointed this out to the sales associate and then the supervisor on duty. But they both summarily dismissed her indicating that she was charged the new price. She then took measures to ensure the company heard her and fixed the issue. Twitter and FaceBook were immediately alerted. In fact, anytime she has a bad experience, or an exceptional one for that matter, she takes it social. In her words, “I will go to the extreme to get the service I deserve. I own my customer experience.” She expects a good customer experience and will take matters into her own hands to get it!

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Recently, I came across a great quote by Kerry Bodine of Forrester Research, Inc. where she said, “Companies need to start treating customer experience as a business discipline—not a bumper sticker.” It made me wonder if companies, as they start planning their strategy for 2012, are  truly embracing what it means to build a customer-centric culture.

Working in the customer experience industry, weekly I meet with numerous Fortune 500 organizations. I am always surprised to hear comments like, “this year we are focusing on our customers first and foremost” or “we have just hired a new senior director to really lead our customer experience initiative.” For many of these companies, they are just starting to embark on the customer experience improvement journey. A 2011 study from the Temkin Group shows only 7% of companies think they are customer experience leaders while 61% of them want to be at the top in their industry in three years. The question I ask then is, “Why now?” Haven’t you always been concerned about your customers?

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[Excerpt from Vineet Nayar, vice chairman and CEO of India-based HCL Technologies] “The conventional wisdom, of course, says that companies must always put the customer first. In any services business, however, the true value is created in the interface between the employee and the customer. So, by putting employees first, you can bring about fundamental change in the way a company creates and delivers unique value for its customers and differentiates itself from its competitors.”

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When asked to identify the greatest barriers to improving multichannel customer experience, “Thirty-four percent of respondents identified difficulty unifying different sources of customer data.” This would indeed be a barrier as understanding your customers’ needs is intrinsic to delivering an exceptional customer experience. To understand the customer, organizations must take each morsel of information left at touch-points across the organization and weave them together to create the customer’s story. The need for information optimization and big data applications then becomes vital. I had the honor of being in the hot seat as we explored this topic at one of our tweet chats. Here is a glimpse into our discussion:

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Recently I heard a sales representative say, “We use a CRM and I didn’t visit it once to prepare for my sales meeting.” Interesting, yes? The sales rep went on to say that he would probably enter details about the meeting later in the CRM system—not to improve how he interacted with the customer but so that his manager could view the outcome of the meeting. Unfortunately, many organizations have Customer Facing Professionals (CFPs) with this mindset. A big piece in this equation is understanding what creates this mindset and solving it.

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Everyone is talking about “big data” yet we each have a slightly different view of what it means and its impact. One thing we all can agree on is that we must devise strategies to handle and leverage the “Forty percent projected yearly growth of global data.”

One of the things I have heard is, “Well, we have a lot of information scattered throughout, so if we put everything we own in a single, distributed processing system like Hadoop—which is meant to house massive amount of information efficiently—we can start making sense of it.” I want to shake my head, “No, no, no!”

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“When we forget who we are we drift—movement is inevitable.” I heard this statement recently and immediately thought of how much truth resonated from it even with regards to organizations and customer experience.

Sometimes a company starts in overdrive and sets a high precedence for how they serve and delight customers. As Q1 slips into Q4 and years roll by, overdrive slows and service levels dwindle—“Movement is inevitable.” Customer churn rarely happens all at once—it happens gradually. Time leads to a weakened commitment to the customer experience strategy, vision dims, and Customer Facing Professionals (CFPs) lose their passion. The shift in mindset is almost imperceptible as the organization moves from tolerating subpar service, to accepting it, then embracing it.

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This week is National Customer Service Week and organizations across the globe are promoting a heightened awareness of customer service with the theme: “Refresh, Recharge, and Reconnect.” Customer Facing Professionals (CFPs) are encouraged to take this week and refresh their spirits, recharge their energy, and reconnect with customers. It’s interesting that the focus is on the ‘people’ factor in the customer experience as we’ve had quite the discussion about it this past week on LinkedIn. “Refreshing” and “recharging” is an excellent goal as happy employees can connect with customers more effectively. As part of recharging, companies should ensure the free flow of organizational information and knowledge—the oxygen carrier for any organization.

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While researching whether or not to pay extra for Orchestra seats, I read an insightful value statement, “You see the show from the perspective the playwright and director saw it. You are seeing the show the way it was created to be seen.” As a product manager, this got me thinking about whether our customers experience the full value of our products they way we had envisioned. How can I help ensure that my customers always have an orchestra seat as they leverage our solutions? And moreover how can I ensure that my own organization is seeing our customers when we develop our products and our brand message?

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