NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun. 26, 2012--
Barclaycard US, Cisco, and The Vanguard Group are the winners of the
2012 Forrester
Research (Nasdaq: FORR) Voice Of The Customer Awards, announced
today at Forrester’s
Customer Experience Forum 2012 East. The Voice Of The Customer
Awards recognize organizations that excel in collecting, analyzing, and
acting on feedback from their customers. More than 1,400 people attended
the New York event, which provided Customer Experience Professionals
with best practices, case studies, and tools for delivering a great
customer experience.
“This year we opened the competition to global nominations and were
impressed with the scope, scale, and quality of the voice of the
customer programs we reviewed from around the world,” said Forrester
Research Analyst Adele Sage. “VoC programs continue to incorporate
more customer data, influence more internal stakeholders, and deliver
more value to their customers and their bottom lines.”
Forty companies, representing leading brands in financial services,
healthcare, retail, technology, and travel, submitted entries to this
year’s Voice Of The Customer Awards. Winners were judged across five
categories: clarity of approach, business value to the organization,
positive impact on customer experience, innovation, and potential for
other companies to repeat the practice. “The best VoC programs this year
connected the dots between their VoC activities and a better customer
experience and associated business results,” said Sage.
Barclaycard US. The credit card provider stood out for its
VoC-fueled cultural transformation. Employees begin each day by
listening to a randomly selected real customer call, a practice that has
led to cross-functional dialogue and swift changes to policies. A newly
created Customer Experience Hopper, consisting of 75 “customer
evangelists” from across functional areas, has already implemented 25
key initiatives and plans 60 more this year. This approach has even
spurred a change to the way the company creates products, including a
new model in which it combined social media, financial education, and
online banking to craft a crowdsourced credit card. These collective
initiatives have paid off: Customer complaints are down 50%, and
customer attrition has improved by 28%, adding up to more than $10
million in annual benefit.
“It’s all about making the basics great. Customers seek a simple and
transparent experience with us all the time. And when we don’t deliver,
they expect us to resolve and remediate the issue quickly,” said Susan
Schmidt, chief operating officer for Barclaycard US. “Our fantastic
showing in the Forrester Voice Of The Customer Awards tells us we’re
able to surprise and delight customers. We see this as an ongoing
journey, and we’ll continue to challenge ourselves to deliver for the
customer.”
Cisco. The network technology company stood out for its laser
focus on making it easy to do business with Cisco. The program analyzes
insights from surveys, social media, and a core employee listening post
to identify opportunities to simplify processes and remove customer,
partner, and employee pain points. For example, the online customer
support website needed some help, so the company streamlined processes
and improved navigation to enable customers to solve their issues
quickly. The result is that 81% of issues are now resolved online, which
avoids 356,000 cases a month.
“At Cisco, it’s about listening to our customers, partners and employees
and translating that insight into action,” said Karen Mangia, director,
Listening Services Center of Excellence for Cisco. “Cisco’s executive
teams take this valuable feedback and use it to inform new strategies,
processes, and drive policy improvements.”
The Vanguard Group. The investment firm stood out for its ability
to integrate and centralize data. Using both passive and active
listening techniques, including in-depth interviews, focus groups,
analytics, and client feedback surveys across channels, the company
integrates all the data sources to understand clients fully. All this
data lives with a centralized Client Insight group, who act as “client
advocates” by delivering tailored, actionable insights and research to
the rest of the business. The resulting improvement projects range from
crew coaching to streamlining processes to service recovery efforts.
Collectively, these improvements have resulted in $5.1 billion in
additional assets, $1 million in savings, and a 33% increase in
referrals of leads valued at $100,000 or more.
"As a client-owned company, Vanguard's customers are also our owners,”
said Shannon Nutter-Wiersbitzky, director of Market Research & Voice of
the Client at Vanguard. “So we feel a special obligation to listen and
to gain insights into how to improve their investing experience."
Forrester’s Customer Experience Forum 2012 East
More than 1,400 people attended Forrester’s
Customer Experience Forum 2012 East in New York. Sessions explored
new research, best practices, and case studies from Forrester’s upcoming
book, Outside In: The Power of Putting Customers at the Center of
Your Business (Amazon Publishing/New Harvest). According to
book authors Harley Manning and Kerry Bodine, customer experience is now
the only sustainable source of competitive advantage for companies. More
than any other factor, the experience a customer has with a brand
determines whether that business will thrive or struggle. Customer
Experience Professionals can use the 80-plus case studies and examples,
tools, and analysis in Outside In to build a road map for
attaining the customer experience advantage. For more information about Outside
In, visit outsidein.forrester.com.
Industry leaders who spoke at the event included:
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Phil Bienert, Senior Vice President, Consumer Digital Experience, AT&T
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Richard Char, Head of Information Services, Global Enterprise
Payments, Citi
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Laura Evans, Chief Experience Officer and Researcher, The
Washington Post
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David Lessing, Chief Operating Officer, US Wealth Management, Morgan
Stanley Smith Barney
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Mary McDuffie, Executive Vice President, Delivery Channels and
Communications, Navy Federal Credit Union
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Kevin A. Peters, President, North America, Office Depot
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Laurie A. Tucker, Senior Vice President, Corporate Marketing, FedEx
Attendees took part in peer networking and a technology showcase where
37 sponsors — including platinum sponsor Acxiom and gold sponsors
Acquity Group; Autonomy, an HP Company; EffectiveUI; ForeSee; Oracle,
SapientNitro; SDL; and Tealeaf Technology — shared their solutions.
Members of Forrester’s Marketing & Strategy Leadership Boards, including
members of the Customer Experience Council, took part in peer networking
events. More information on Forrester Leadership Boards is available at: www.forrester.com/LeadershipBoards.
About Forrester Research
Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR) is an independent research
company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice to global
leaders in business and technology. Forrester works with professionals
in 17 key roles at major companies providing proprietary research,
customer insight, consulting, events, and peer-to-peer executive
programs. For more than 28 years, Forrester has been making IT,
marketing, and technology industry leaders successful every day. For
more information, visit www.forrester.com.
© 2012, Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Forrester is a
trademark of Forrester Research, Inc.
Source: Forrester Research, Inc.
Forrester Research, Inc.
Simone Levien, 212-857-0754
Public
Relations Specialist
press@forrester.com