Which Customer Loyalty Metric is the Best? My Interview with Jeff Olsen of Allegiance Radio

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Jeff Olsen of Allegiance interviews me at VoCFusion 2013.

I gave a talk at VoCFusion last month on the value of Big Data in customer experience management (CEM). After the talk, I was interviewed by the multi-talented Jeff Olsen of Allegiance (the conference organizer).

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Jeff's questions and my abridged answers (along with some links to supporting content) appear below.  We cover specific topics in the area of Voice of the Customer (VoC) and CEM. You can find a more comprehensive discussion on VoC and CEM in my new book, TCE: Total Customer Experience.

1. Q: How did you get started in the field of customer experience management? A: I ventured into the field in 1989 when I worked for Boeing. As an internal consultant, I read much about the importance of customer satisfaction but noticed there weren't any books on how to measure customer satisfaction. So, I decided to write a book on the topic.
2. Q: Which customer loyalty metric is the best? A: It depends. First, define your objectives. Second, select the loyalty metrics that will meet those objectives.
3. Q: What are the top misconceptions or mistakes that people make when they build their VoC program? A: Misconception 1: They use only NPS as their ultimate metric. NPS is not the best predict of growth and the mean score is a better summary metric than the net score. Also, there are other, useful metrics that impact loyalty. Misconception 2: They ask too many questions in their customer survey. General CX questions are just as useful as specific CX questions in predicting customer loyalty.
4. Q: What's your take on social media as it relates to VoC? A: Social media metrics are good macro measures, and the value of social media metrics will increase when we can link them to other customer metrics (for purposes of finding relationships among, say, sentiment, and customer loyalty). Until then, I think social media contributes more noise than signal.
5. Q: How do you deal with cultural differences across the world? A: There are differences across regions in ratings. So, track progress within each region.
6. Q: What is the first hurdle VoC professionals need to overcome before collecting VoC data? A: Understand sampling error - the results of your sample of data may not reflect reality (what is happening in the population). Knowing about sampling error will help you make better decisions at work and in life.

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