We want to extend our deepest gratitude to all our clients who took the time to complete our CRQ assessment this year. Your participation provided us with invaluable feedback.
We are truly humbled and thrilled by the positive scores and detailed responses you’ve given us. Thank you once again for your continued trust and partnership!
In summary: we received feedback from 85% of our customers, who gave us a CRQ score of 6.0 and a Net Promoter Score of +55.
We are incredibly proud of these scores and all the positive messages we received about our team.
Our greatest strengths are our exceptional team members
and their remarkable skills in forging enduring relationships
as CX consultants with our clients. Their dedication and expertise
truly set us apart. Big thanks to Fabienne Falvay, Kate Casey,
Fiona Lynch and Jade Flynn!
Our Commitment to Continuous Improvement
While we received a lot of positive feedback on our Products/Services, we are currently on a journey to explore how we can enhance our services and offerings. Navigating this change journey is a complex but rewarding endeavour.
We’re dedicated to discovering new opportunities for improvement and are eager to learn how we can better serve our customers.
How are we planning to do so?
‘Closing the Loop’ with our own clients.
The feedback process is not finished yet. We need to ‘close the loop’ with all clients and discuss their specific feedback. We will be in touch shortly with each one of our clients. We will be asking for time to discuss each client’s specific results and feedback.
Increase CRQ impact
Our customers appreciate the work we do, but they also see opportunities for CRQ to make an even greater impact across their organizations. We share this vision and are committed to enhancing our contributions. Over the past few months, our leadership team has spent significant time reviewing and refining our strategy, vision, and values. More details to follow on this, but in essence, our focus remains clear:
Deep-Insight – Providing innovative CX consultancy to global B2B organisations underpinned by a strong and competitive technical and data foundation.
We’re eager to explore how we can ensure this strategy delivers the maximum impact for your organization. Expect us to dive deeper into this topic during our “Close the Loop” sessions with you.
Before I conclude, I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to Jade Flynn for planning, organizing, and running this year’s client assessment. Jade joined us earlier this year and has quickly become an invaluable asset to our small but highly dedicated team. We’re grateful for her hard work and excited to see the continued impact she’ll make!
Alexandra Calugarici
Operations Manager, Deep-Insight
It’s time to announce the final winner in Deep-Insight’s “Excellence in CX” Awards this year.
Doing the right thing for customers means doing the right thing for your employees.
We award the “Best Focus on ERQ” prize to the company that shows the greatest interest in Employee Relationship Quality (ERQ), the sister methodology to CRQ.
Pelican Self Storage has been a client of ours almost as long as I have been with Deep-Insight, and it has been a privilege watching the Pelican management team take the views of its employees so seriously over that time.
Over the years, I’ve seen effective leadership and organisational success in Pelican. This is all due to the crucial aspect of managing relationships with employees who are able to provide valuable feedback through a safe platform. That has allowed the leadership team to evolve and grow the company while always thinking about their people.
Burkhart Franz is CEO of Pelican and has always been a huge advocate for his management team and all of his employees across Denmark, Sweden and Finland.
“Our twice-a-year employee satisfaction surveys, alternating the eNPS (employee Net Promoter Score) question and the more in-depth Employee Relationship Quality (ERQ) assessment are now in their 7th year.
They have clearly made Pelican a more employee-focused organization. Over the years we have addressed many issues that had previously wiped the smiles off the faces of our collaborators, from slow internet connections and faulty printer set-ups to significant changes in management style, workplace scheduling and internal communication. As a result, we have very low employee churn in what are otherwise red hot labor markets; a premium service proposition; and the happiest customers in our industry.”
Huge congratulations to everyone in Pelican for winning this award.
Alexandra Calugarici
About Pelican Self Storage
Pelican Self Storage is leading Nordic brand within private and business self storage. We have locations in Denmark, Sweden and Finland which are all centrally located and easily accessible.
Self storage is for everyone We strive to be the preferred service partner for people moving to and from the big city – for people moving abroad to work – for people moving in together or back home – for people getting married or having children – for people who don’t have a cellar or attic space at home. In short, we are there when life demands more space.
We take pride in good old-fashioned service Our job is to provide outstanding service so our customers experience the extraordinary when choosing Pelican Self Storage. Every day, we work hard to provide a service level beyond the ordinary, and our staff is dedicated to make customers experience that something extra at our stores.
We distinguish ourselves, among other things, by always having service-oriented staff on site 6 days a week, as well as providing warm and extra secure storage units. Our goal is to ensure that as a customer, you will experience good old-fashioned personal service and a high level of quality in our storage services. Find out more at pelicanselfstorage.dk.
About Deep-Insight
Deep-Insight is a leading European B2B Customer Experience (CX) company founded in 2000 by a small team of ‘magicians’ with one goal: researching a way to read customers’ minds. Today, Deep-Insight supports customers all over the world with the skills, tools and methodologies to establish and operate world-class Customer Experience (CX) and Employee Experience (EX) programmes.
Some time ago, we posted a blog called Help! What do I do with my Stalkers and Opponents? It was about the actions that account teams need to take with clients where there are very poor relationships. This blog is about the accounts with the best, strongest and deepest relationships. We call these clients Ambassadors.
Let’s start with a quick recap of the five B2B client categories that we use at Deep-Insight:
Customer Relationship Quality – the Strongest Relationships
The most loyal clients are Ambassadors. They are your most valuable customers. Ambassadors have a unique relationship with you and will recommend you to others. They are also prepared to pay a premium for your products or services. Price is not an important consideration for them because of the quality of the relationship. Typically, a third of most company’s B2B clients are Ambassadors.
The next segment of clients are known as Rationals. They rate you positively but do not see anything unique in the relationship. Rationals will assess alternative sources of supply and the relationship can become unstable if good alternative offers exist. Typically, half of your B2B accounts fit into this category. Generally they are good clients albeit not as loyal as Ambassadors.
The Weakest Relationships
But wait! That doesn’t add up to 100%. What’s the story with the others? Well, the answer is that in all B2B client portfolios, there are accounts and individuals that don’t love you. We typically find that 10-20% of accounts have poorer relationships with you and fit into one of the following three categories: Ambivalents often have a “love/hate” relationship with you. In some instances, they love the way you solve their problems but hate the way you treat them. More often, you are killing them with kindness but failing to solve their business issues.
Stalkers are often only interested in price. Sometimes they can be large corporate accounts looking for discounts. Other times, they are smaller accounts with high service requirements and view your offering as poor value for money.
Opponents have the poorest relationships with you. They are deeply dissatisfied and often highly frustrated by what they see as consistently poor service.
Are ‘Ambassadors’ the same thing as ‘Promoters’?
If you use Net Promoter Score (NPS) as a performance metric, you’ll recognise the terms Promoters, Passives and Detractors.
Promoters are people who score you 9/10 or 10/10 when asked the question “Would you recommend [Company X] to a friend or colleague?” Passives score you 7 or 8. Detractors score you anywhere between 0 and 6.
Ambassadors are similar but here are the two crucial differences: First, an Ambassador is a company rather than an individual. Second, to become an Ambassador you have to get a good Net Promoter Score AND a good Customer Relationship Quality (CRQ) score. CRQ is our methodology for assessing the quality of B2B relationships and it is based on Trust and Commitment as well as some other factors, rather than Advocacy which is what the NPS metric is based on.
Think of it this way. Suppose you ask 20 people in a Key Account what they think of their relationship with you and would they be prepared to recommend you and your product or service. If the client is an Ambassador, 12 of the 20 individuals might be Promoters, six might be Passives and two might be Detractors. The overall relationship is great but there are still a couple of individuals who will not recommend you.
What do I do with my Ambassadors
For starters, sales and account teams should remember the following three things when they have an Ambassador client:
1. Recognise their importance and don’t take them for granted
The very first thing is to recognise that Ambassadors are generally your most profitable clients, for a number of reasons:
– They are typically less price-sensitive because they see what you offer as being unique.
– Ambassadors are generally willing to pay a premium for such uniqueness.
– Sales costs are lower. Less effort is required to extend existing contracts or negotiate new ones.
– There is less firefighting. Putting out fires can be expensive. Even when things go wrong, it’s generally easier to resolve operational issues with Ambassadors.
Don’t rest on your laurels. Don’t treat Ambassadors as cash cows. Invest time into the relationship to keep it fresh and exciting. It’s easy to get diverted to more problematic accounts where the shouting is the loudest. In our previous blog we talked about poor client relationships that are unprofitable. Unless there is a clear path to recovery, it is often better to re-allocate those resources to Ambassador clients where there is greater potential.
2. Ask them to recommend you
Remember that a high proportion of individuals in an Ambassador client are Promoters so they have already told you that they will recommend you. So take them up on the offer. Ask them for referrals. Those referrals could be the MDs of other divisions in the same company. This is important – it’s easier to expand your footprint in an existing client than to gain ‘new logo’ clients. Referrals could also be senior executives in other companies. Ask for testimonials or for case studies.
Trustmary is a Finnish company that helps clients do exactly that, by using Net Promoter Score as the key metric for identifying Ambassadors for their clients. Once the Ambassadors have been identified, Trustmary acquires testimonials in written or video format from those individuals.
Don’t be afraid to ask Ambassadors to talk at your next industry event or to be a guest speaker at your next conference. They want to help you. So just do it.
3. Start innovating and co-creating
As the account manager for an Ambassador client, you are probably in the enviable position of being a Trusted Advisor. You have the ear of the key decision makers in that account and the opportunity to bring new ideas and propositions to the table. Use that opportunity. Think of possible joint developments that you can do in partnership with the client. As well as adding more value and revenues, your next product line or service could result from such innovation or co-creation.
How many Ambassadors do you have?
The starting point for these decisions is an accurate and objective view of which category each of your major accounts fits into. Once you know that, you can start asking the right questions and taking the appropriate action.
Contact us if you want to find out how many Ambassadors you have!
We are delighted to announce two new clients at Deep-Insight. Both have a strong maritime feel.
Survitec
Survitec is a global leader in survival and safety solutions to the marine, defence, aviation and offshore markets. It has over 3,000 employees worldwide, covering 8 manufacturing facilities, 15 offshore support centres and over 70 owned service stations. Survitec also has a network of over 500 third party service stations and distributors.
Across its 160-year history, Survitec Group has remained at the forefront of innovation, design and application engineering. It is the trusted name when it comes to critical safety and survival solutions. The new management team has made a commitment to focus the company around its customers.
In a recent interview for SAFETY4SEA, Survitec’s newly-appointed Managing Director for its Marine Division, Baba Devani explains how the world’s leading safety and survival partner is restructuring to become more customer-centric.
Port of Newcastle
Port of Newcastle is the largest port on the East Coast of Australia. As a global trade gateway for more than 220 years, the Port of Newcastle delivers safe, sustainable and efficient logistics solutions for its customers. It is also the largest coal exporting port in the world.
Port of Newcastle’s customers include coal producers in the Hunter Valley, non-coal traders including fuels, alumina, wheat, mineral concentrates and fertiliser manufacturers, as well as some of the world’s largest shipping lines.
The Port of Newcastle is at an early stage of development of a customer-centricity programme. Deep-Insight is delighted to be helping CEO Craig Carmody and his management team on that journey.
We’re used to handling questions on how to make CX programmes more effective. One of the most common questions we get from first-time clients is: “What completion rates can I expect from my CX programme?” Another common question from longer-term clients is “How do I improve my completion rates?”
Let’s deal with each question in turn.
“What Completion Rates can I expect from my CX programme?”
Let me preface this by saying that we are talking about business-to-business (B2B) relationships so there is an inherent assumption in the question that our clients have some existing – and hopefully strong – relationships with their customers and that these contacts will be receptive to a request to give feedback as part of that ongoing relationship.
This is usually the case but clients – particularly senior clients – are busy people so it may not come as a surprise to hear that the average participation rate in a B2B customer assessment is around 35%.
But that 35% figure is an aggregate score and there’s a little more to it than that, if you have a look at the graph below.
The spread is wide.
The most common completion rate is in the 26-30% range. We have a smaller number of clients – typically those who have been running our Customer Relationship Quality (CRQ) assessments for many years – who regularly achieve completion rates of 50% and higher.
If this is your first time running a customer assessment – either a simple Net Promoter Score survey of something a little more complex like our CRQ relationship assessments – you can expect completion rates of less than 1 in 3.
This may sound OK if you regularly run consumer surveys where a 5% completion rate can be a good result, but for an existing long-standing B2B client relationship, it’s paltry. And yet we have been running customer assessments of all sorts for nearly 20 years and these are the actual numbers.
So now let’s get to the second question:
“How do I improve my completion rates?”
The starting point is to understand why some B2B companies sometimes get really low completion rates and others consistently exceed 50%.
Our lowest-ever completion rate (4%) came from a first-time UK software client. The quality of contact data was simply terrible. We should have spotted that it was little more than a ‘data dump’ from the company’s CRM system. The list included people who had left their companies three years earlier. It included people who had never even heard of our client. It probably included the names of people who were dead. That’s because there was no governance in place for the programme. The Sales Director was not involved. Account Managers did not personally sign off the client contact names. You get the picture.
Our highest-ever completion rate came from a company that has been a client of Deep-Insight’s for 10 years and whose customers view the annual CRQ assessment as a critical part of their ongoing strategic partnership.
But there are other reasons for low and high participation rates. Here’s a quick summary of the profiles of our clients that fit into both categories:
6 Steps to Improve your Completion Rates
Here are the steps you need to take to get your completion rates up:
Make It Strategic. If the CX programme is CEO-led and driven from the top, it will not be seen as another box-ticking exercise. Make sure this is a key item on the Executive agenda.
Put in Governance Structures. By this we mean things like: a) Account Directors should supervise and sign all contact names, not just pull them from the CRM system; b) the Sales Director should personally sign off all Strategic Client contact names.
Don’t call it a Survey! At Deep-Insight, we ban the use of the term “survey” . For us, a CRQ assessment is a strategic ongoing conversation with the clients and their views will be taken seriously.
“Warm Up” the Contacts. An invitation to complete a survey should not come out of the blue. Ideally, it should be introduced by letter or by email by the CEO or Country Manager, and while an assessment is “live”, the account manager will know to stay in touch with the client and urge them to complete the assessment.
Close the Loop. This is critical. If you ask for feedback, you need to share that feedback with the client, agree the actions that BOTH PARTIES will take to improve the relationship.
Repeat. Get into a rhythm where your clients and your sales/account teams know that every February or October (or whenever), the annual strategic assessment will take place. You may want to run frequent assessments. Some companies have quarterly Net Promoter or Pulse assessments – but don’t overdo the frequency. Your organisation needs time to put remedial actions into effect.
Completion Rates of 90% or more?
Follow the above steps and you’ll get your completion rates to 50% or higher.
But remember that these completion rates are at an individual level. You should be getting feedback from multiple people at different levels within each client. Include Influencers and Operational Contacts as well as Key Decision Makers. That way you’ll get a wealth of information about what your key accounts REALLY think of you.
You’ll also get completion rates of 90% at an account level if you take this approach.
If you are interested in reading more about running a CX programme effectively take a look at our process for running a B2B CX assessment or just get in touch with us today for a chat.
