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Customer Service Dictionary of the Most Common Customer Support Terms
Customer Advocacy
Customer advocacy is a specialized form of customer service in which companies focus on what is best for the customer. It is a change in a company’s culture that is supported by customer-focused customer service and marketing techniques.
Customer Analytics
Customer analytics is a process by which data from customer behavior is used to help make key business decisions via market segmentation and predictive analytics. Data is collected from various touch-points a customer has with the organization and then analysed to give insights about consumer behavior. In today’s connected world where customer has immense power, it is extremely important for organization to use analytics to get closer to the customer.
Customer Attrition Rate
It is the number of customers lost divided by the number at the start of the period and is typically expressed as a percentage (%) of all customers and on a monthly or annual basis. So for the customer attrition rate you would divide the number of customer lost by the total number of customers at the start of the period.Customer Attrition rate is also the compliment of Customer Retention rate. If a company has a% attrition rate it will have an% retention rate.It is an important variable to track in your business as it indicates how many new sales you have to make just to keep up with your losses.Sometimes it can be difficult to determine when a customer has left, especially in a retail environment but there are ways around this problem.
Customer Centric Organization
As the name suggests, Customer-centric organizations are ones, which have succeeded in keeping the customer at the center of their organization. They spend energy and effort on satisfying internal and external customers by first identifying customer needs, then establishing policies, procedures, and management and reward systems to support excellence in service delivery.They have moved beyond lip service and have re-oriented their operations, their decision making around the customer. This has resulted in increased customer satisfaction, higher advocacy along with higher profits.
Customer Charter
It is a document that sets the standards for a company regarding customer service. It is also known as a code of practice, which improves access to an organization’s service and promotes quality. A customer charter also helps employees too by clearly setting out services their organization provides.
Customer Engagement
Customer engagement is the engagement of customers with one another, with a company or a brand. The initiative for engagement can be either consumer- or company-led and the medium of engagement can be on or offline. Customer engagement can help organizations to understand their customers, their needs, and increase advocacy.
Customer Expectations
The perceptions that customers have when they contact an organization or service provider about the kind and level and quality of products and services they should receive. These expectations are a factor of customers’ own previous experience with the organization or the experience of their friends.
Customer Experience
Customers’ perception of their experience at various touch-points across their lifecycle with an organization. Please note that it is the “perception” of Customers and hence, is based on their experience of the product/service.There are3 levels of Customer experience
Functional – Do you have what customers wants? Accessible – How easy it is for customers to do business with you? Emotional – How do customers feel while doing business with you?
Customer Experience Management
The process of strategically managing a customer’s entire experience with a product or a company” :Schmitt, The process of strategically managing a customer’s entire experience with a product or a company to meet business goals”: Genroe,
Customer Experience Strategy
It is the strategy to achieve the desired level of Customer Experience. As per a survey, only% companies have a well defines Customer Experience Strategy. A detailed CE Strategy makes sure that every employee has same understanding of desired Customer Experience. It acts as a guiding like when managers face business decisions on day-to-day basis.
Customer Feedback
Customers’ opinion about the product/service of an organization. It can be collected using surveys, or proactively listening to what customers are talking on social media.
Customer Insight
An understanding of Customers’ behavior, an insight into why customers like/dislike a brand, why they prefer one brand over others, what influences their decisions, their pain points and their sweet spots. Organizations get customer insights by studying the behavior of their current customers as well as market research.
Customer Journey Mapping
It is the depiction of a customer’s journey with an organization. A customer journey map should include all touch-points that customers have with the organization. It helps in giving a holistic view of customers’ lifecycle and ensures that organizations deliver good Customer Experience to move forward in a Customer’s consideration set.
Customer Lifecycle
Customer life cycle is a term used to describe the progression of steps a customer goes through when considering, purchasing, using, and maintaining loyalty to a product or service.
Customer Lifetime Value
Customer lifetime value is a prediction of the net profit attributed to the entire future relationship with a customer.Customer lifetime value is an important concept as it encourages firms to shift their focus from quarterly profits to the long-term health of their customer relationships. Customer lifetime value is an important number because it represents an upper limit on spending to acquire new customers.
Customer Loyalty
How often and how much a customer purchases from you over other providers?
Customer Relationship Management
CRM is an overall strategy to help organizations learn more about their customers and their behavior. As a result they can develop stronger, lasting relationships, which will benefit them as well as their customers. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software solutions helps to manage these relationships, using a combination of people, processes and technology. It helps businesses attain and retain happy customers.
Customer Retention
Customer retention is the act of keeping customers.There are many studies that show that keeping customers longer is much less expensive than acquiring new customers with some suggesting that it is up to ten times less expensive to keep a customer than acquire a new one. Customer retention is focused on ways to keep customers longer.
Customer Satisfaction Score
The customer satisfaction score, or CSAT as it’s often called, intends to measure a customer’s satisfaction with the service received.
Customer Satisfaction Survey
A survey conducted to measure the level of Customer satisfaction. It can be administered online, telephonic or face-to-face.
Delivering WOW
It is delivering an experience much beyond Customer’s expectations. One way to deliver WOW is to convert a “moment of anxiety” for a customer into “moment of happiness”. Delivering WOW needs huge empowerment and engagement of front-end employees.
Net Promoter Score
The Net Promoter Score, or NPS®, is based on the fundamental perspective that every company’s customers can be divided into three categories: Promoters, Passives, and Detractors.By asking one simple question — How likely is it that you would recommend [your company] to a friend or colleague? — you can track these groups and get a clear measure of your company’s performance through your customers’ eyes. Customers respond on a0-to- point rating scale and are categorized as follows:
Promoters (score9-) are loyal enthusiasts who will keep buying and refer others, fueling growth.Passives (score7-8) are satisfied but unenthusiastic customers who are vulnerable to competitive offerings.Detractors (score0-6) are unhappy customers who can damage your brand and impede growth through negative word-of-mouth.
To calculate your company’s NPS, take the percentage of customers who are Promoters and subtract the percentage who are Detractors.
Online experience
Experience delivered by the organizations to customer using the online channel. It includes things like, uptime for a website, speed at which pages load, ease of navigation, website design, use of fonts, speed of online transactions etc.
Outside-In Thinking
This refers to looking at organizations’ processes and policies from a customer’s perspective. Delivering a superior Customer experience involves an outside-in approach to business.
Service Promise
It explicitly states the minimum level of service customers can expect while dealing with an organization. This helps in building brand and creating trust in customers.
Social Buying
It is a term used to explain the current buying behavior where people ask their friends/colleagues for recommendations before making a big purchase.At times Social buying is used interchangeably with Group buying though the two are different.
Social CRM
Customer retention is the act of keeping customers, customers.There are many studies that show that keeping customers longer is much less expensive the acquiring new customers.
Social Media Monitoring
Social media monitoring is monitoring the social media and proactively listening to what prospects/customers are saying about you and your competitors. Effective Social media monitoring helps organizations target and manage their relationships with more precision than at any point in history. Monitoring helps achieve multiple objectives:
Provide greater Customer Service due to deeper understanding of Customer behavior
Address dissatisfaction as soon as it arrives
Get insights into product innovation
Design targeted campaigns and measure campaign effectiveness
Touch-points
Any point where the customer touches the organization is called a Touch-point. Customers start having touch-points with organizations even before organizations realize. For example if I want to buy a new noise cancellation headset, I search the web. The brands churned by the search engine create a touch-point for those brands. I talk to my friends and they recommend me a few brands. Again there are touch-points with those brands. I visit a friend’s house and try his/her headset; I create a touch-point with that brand.To manage the experience, organizations need to map all the touch-points.
Touch-point experience
Experience delivered at any touch-point is called Touch-point experience. In a customer’s journey with an organization, there are touch-points, which can make or break an organization’s relationship with the customer. It is key for organizations to deliver a great experience on those touch-points.
Access Channels
Definition:
The means by which customers access services. Understanding which customers’ access the service through which channel provides insight into customer groups, their needs and priorities.
Benchmark - Benchmarking Exercises
Definition:
A benchmark is a point of reference or a standard against which an organisation can be measured. The process by which organisations can compare the performance of services they provide with those of other similar organisations.
Best Practice
Definition:
Examples of a working practice within an organisation which is an exemplar for all public services. It should be innovative, transferable and have positive outcomes, which can be disseminated across public services.
Channel Strategies
Definition:
The approaches to determine which access channels are offered to customers (by your organisation) through the analysis of channel usage.
Channel Usage
Definition:
Analysis of how customers access services, contact and interact with your organisation.
Charter Mark
Definition:
The UK Government's national standard for excellence in customer service. Charter Mark is a registered certification mark, owned by the Government Communications Group in the Cabinet Office. It is a positive force for change and customer service improvement.
Citizen(s)
Definition:
Can be defined as a member of the public, consumer, customer or collectively as people or audience. There is a legal definition of a citizen which is not expanded upon here.
Comments
Definition:
Explanation or remarks.
Complaints
Definition:
Grievances about a service provided which are made known to your organisation.
Compliments
Definition:
Praise and positive comments about your organisation or an individual within your organisation.
Customer
Definition:
An individual, business or other organisation to which you provide a service.
Customer Focus (Organisation)
Definition:
An organisation that allows the needs of customers who use the service to drive strategic and policy decisions.
Customer Insight (Principle)
Definition:
"Having a deep, embedded knowledge of the customers and the market around us that helps structure thinking and sound decision making. Comes from a combination of multiple pieces of data, built into a joined-up ‘big picture’ through strategic, business and political analysis.’’Will, S. "The management and communication of customer insight", Interactive Marketing, April/June
Customer Journey
Definition:
The steps customers go through when interacting with an organisation, key points of which can be identified and explored. The information generated through the process of customer journey mapping can be used to help you design and deliver better customer services.
Customer Satisfaction Levels
Definition:
Customers’ opinions about their experience of the service provided, collated and measured to produce an overall indication of satisfaction with the service.
Customer Testimony
Definition:
Verbal or written comments by customers in recommendation of the service.
Customer Understanding
Definition:
A deep appreciation about customers, involving knowledge of who they are, what they do, what they think and feel, and what they need and want from us.
Demographic (Demography)
Definition:
An overview of a population at a moment in time. The study of populations which focus on group characteristics such as size and distribution.
Disadvantaged Groups
Definition:
Groups that find it more difficult than normal to access services, often due to a combination of linked issues.
Examples of Survey Questions
Definition:
See links to surveys
Feedback
Definition:
Reaction and comment in verbal or written form.
Focus Groups
Definition:
The most common qualitative research techniques. Groups are normally attended by six to eight people facilitated by an experienced interviewer.
Hard to Reach Groups
Definition:
Groups that may be (or feel) excluded from access to services that they need due to their personal circumstances and/or previous experiences.
Insight
Definition:
A deep truth based on research into peoples’ behaviour, experiences, attitudes, emotions and or beliefs, that is relevant to the task or issue and is powerful enough to effect change.
Key Drivers of Satisfaction
Definition:
Research by Mori identified a powerful set of five factors that drive satisfaction across public services. The key drivers, in order of their impact, are:1. Delivery - the service delivers the outcome it promised and deals with any problems that may arise.2. Timeliness - the service responds immediately to initial customer contact and deals with the issue at the heart of it quickly and without passing it on between staff.3. Professionalism - staff are competent and treat customers fairly.4. Information - the information given to customers is accurate and comprehensive and they are kept informed about progress.5. Staff attitude - staff are friendly, polite and sympathetic to customers’ needs.
Margins of Error
Definition:
A term used to express the statistical variance in the results of surveys.
Multiple Needs
Definition:
Individuals whose lives may have a combination of linked problems which require their access to more than one service at a time.
Mystery Shopper
Definition:
A process for testing the service provided by employing an individual or group to experience the service as if they were a customer and noting their views.
Potential Biases
Definition:
A tendency towards preferences in the development of questions and the analysis of results of surveys.
Potential Customer Groups
Definition:
Groups which may need to access services.
Qualitative Research
Definition:
Exploratory research among small groups of customers. Typically consists of focus groups or in-depth interviews of individual customers. Tells us why customers do what they do.
Quantative Research
Definition:
Research conducted among a large enough group of customers to generate statistically significant data.
Sample Sizes
Definition:
Sample -A small group (part) which is representative of the whole. The relative size of the sample is significant when designing and analysing the results of surveys.
Segmentation
Definition:
Subdividing a target audience into homogeneous and reachable groups based on shared needs and characteristics such as:- who they are (socio-demographics)- what they do (their behaviours)- how they think and feel (their attitudes and needs)Engage website - ways to segment your customers.www.engage.comms.gov.uk
Social Disengagement
Definition:
A disconnection by an individual or group from participation in society.
Special Needs
Definition:
Requirements of customers which are distinguished or different from the norm.
Stakeholder
Definition:
Any group or individual who can affect or is affected (or perceives themselves to be affected) by the objective or outcome of an initiative, policy or the activities of your organisation.
Vision and Values statements
Definition:
An organisation’s vision makes clear: - its ultimate goal; and - the reason for its existence.
A customer is always right and respect the customer. They are the hub of business profits.
