How the world embraced CX in 2015

A visual journey to inspire CX ideas

Inspirational CX IdeasAs we enter 2016 the temptation is to look to the future for answers, (We’re sure you’ve been bombarded with these articles over the last couple of weeks), even though we can’t be sure what the year truly has in store. Here at Rant & Rave we believe that while the future is of course exciting, the past holds valuable lessons that we can learn from…

“History cannot give us a program for the future, but it can give us a fuller understanding of ourselves, and of our common humanity, so that we can better

face the future.” - Robert Penn Warren

With this in mind we’ve searched high & low for 25 inspiring stories from 2015 that we believe can help organisations achieve their customer experience goals.

To make sure we got a variety of stories, each one comes from a different country… and to help with this year’s holiday plans we’ve also sourced an inspirational picture from each location.

Toledo is a World Heritage Site for its extensive cultural and monumental heritage and historical co-existence of Christian, Muslim and Jewish cultures.

Spain

“NH Hotel Group's goal is to put technology at the heart of our service, to help achieve our leisure and business aims. This will offer our customers a revolutionary service in the industry.”- Federico J. González Tejera, CEO, NH Hotel Group

Spanish business, NH Hotel Group introduced 3D Holographic Telepresence Technology, used for the first time on a permanent basis in a hotel, and also next generation video conference solutions.

This 'High Tech Made Easy' service concept is designed to enable high-performance and high-impact meetings and events.

This innovation was recognised at the 2015 European Hospitality Awards, where the NH Hotel Group won the Best Use of Technology Award1.

Award Winning ExperienceLike NH Hotel Group, Rant & Rave were winners in 2015,

winning the Temkin Group’s Customer Experience Vendor Award2.

Bruce Temkin, Managing Partner of the Temkin Group said:

“Congratulations to Rant & Rave for winning a Customer Experience Vendor Excellence Award. We had a very strong group of nominees this year, and Rant & Rave stood out

for how well it is helping companies improve their Customer Experience.”

Porto has won numerous European Best Destination awards.

Portugal

“Building strong relationships with our customers has never been more important.We will continue to develop more immersive experiences.”- Miguel Seixas, Marketing Executive Director, Continente

Continente, one of the largest food retailers in Portugal, actively scrutinises customer behaviour and uses this information to perfect the in-store experience.

Using visual analysis, ticket analysis and Voice of the Customer techniques, the retailer studied how people behave in the cultural section of the store.

By rearranging stores within the location, it created a more attractive and customer-friendly layout and boosted sales by 6 percent3.

Retail Customer ExperienceThis year, Rant & Rave partnered with retail giant Debenhams to help them

increase feedback response rates and reduce customer effort4.

Peter Foster, Head of Customer Strategy and Insight at Debenhams, said:

“We take customer opinions very seriously at Debenhams and always strive to put customers first. This solution makes it simple for customers to share feedback with us,

so that their collective voice can drive the business forward.

The introduction of Rant & Rave has enabled us to gain real insight into the customer experience across our stores, so we can take action to refine practices as well as champion great service from employees.”

Table Mountain is the only terrestrial feature to give its name to a constellation: Mensa, meaning The Table.

South Africa

“Customers are becoming more demanding, and rightly so. With the proliferation of smart devices and increased data usage, we need not only to keep up, but also be one step ahead at all times. Our challenge is to get things right, first time and empower our agents”- Eddie Moyce, Chief Customer Experience Officer, MTN

South African company MTN use a Smart Phone Tool to give their front-line agents more knowledge to solve customer issues quicker.

They have also launched a ‘customer facing’ version to allow customers to solve their own issues.

This has led to Average Handling Time (AHT) being reduced by 10% and C-Sat up 21 points5.

Frontline EngagementRant & Rave believe in empowering frontline agents and have innovated around this area,

creating a gamified solution to enable organisations to engage their workforces6.

Justin Haines, Customer Service Director at OVO, commented:

“The insight gained from the implementation of Rant & Rave has shaped the way we operate as a company.

The Frontline Engagement solution gave the project a competitive edge and educated staff on the impact they were having on the overall service provided by OVO.

As a result, we’ve reviewed our entire induction training to take into account customer feedback; changed the way we assess quality within customer services and changed the way we coach

and give feedback to agents.”

Find out more about our Frontline Engagement Solution

There are five Danish heritage sites inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in Northern Europe.

Denmark

“If you want to be a premium brand you have to keep demonstrating that you are listening. Never become too big, or too arrogant, because the moment you do, the consumer moves away from you.”- Conny Kalcher, Vice-President of Marketing and Consumer Experiences, LEGO® Group

Danish toy company, LEGO®, uses augmented reality to drive gamification.

In-store customers simply hold a LEGO® box against a flat screen kiosk and watch the LEGO® model come to life in 3D.

The solution helps customers see what the finished model will look like from all angles and understand its features, and it triggers their desire to play7.

CX Day 2015This year Rant & Rave was chosen to host Customer Experience Day in the UK, hosted at Legoland®,

the event brought together 180 CX leaders from some of Europe’s best known brands.

Darren Sanderson-Turner, Senior Project Manager, Barclays, commented:

“Rant & Rave understand CX and successfully bring together current concepts, interesting speakers and products to enable organisations.”

Watch the Highlights & Presentations

Read the Top Tips from the speakers

Annecy has hosted the International Animated Film Festival since 1960.

France

“Bank of the West and BNP Paribas are pushing forward in the areas of innovation and finance with the goal of building a better experience for our customers - no matter where they live in the world.”- Andy Harmening, Vice Chairman for Consumer Banking, Bank of the West

Parisian bank, BNP Paribas, teamed up with Californian finance company, Bank of the West, to run a Hackathon.

The competition took place simultaneously in 5 countries with the aim of developing technology to enhance customer experience in banking.

One of the winners established a semantic analysis engine, able to predict interests and cycle changing in a customer's life8.

Innovation to improve CXIn 2015, the internationally recognised University of Warwick, an academic partner of Rant & Rave,

hosted a series of Hackathons on everything from cyber security to the Internet of Things.

Rant & Rave regularly work with WMG (Part of the University of Warwick) to understand what the latest digital innovations will be and how we can utilise these within CX.

Extensive stretches of Cornwall's coastline, and Bodmin Moor, are protected as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

United Kingdom

“While the score helps us measure ourselves, the sentiment really helps us listen and understand what the customer is telling us.”- Kevin Price, Business Systems Director, HSS

British Hire company HSS started using Sentiment Analysis in 2015 to interpret and act on the Voice of their Customers.

They then take a real-time approach to responding to customers who are dissatisfied to rectify the situation.

Of these customers, a phenomenal 93% choose to do business with HSS again – a true testament to this proactive approach9.

HSS and Rant & RaveThe feedback, captured by Rant & Rave, is also used to make operational and strategic changes

to ensure future customers don’t experience the same problems - leading to high overall satisfaction rates (79% of customers rate them 4 out of 5 or higher).

“We don’t just want to give good service, we want to be the best we can be. For that we need to know how our customers feel, what they are thinking and what we can do more of.”

- Lisa Bartley, Customer Care Director, HSS

Sweden has 25 provinces or landskap (landscapes), based on culture, geography and history.

Sweden

“Consumers increasingly don’t have as much time as they had in the past, so they are looking for convenience and accessibility. They want their homes to work and be functional, so they are finding retailers that meet these needs11.”- Leontyne Green Sykes, CMO, IKEA

Swedish retailer IKEA launched an innovation hub where they hope they can cook up their next big idea.

The aim will be to offer customers unique solutions that focus on making their lives more convenient and better quality10.

Convenient & Easy CXRant & Rave work with Academic Partner, Henley Business School, to ensure our Platform

helps organisations to create convenient, easy and compelling propositions.

“In order for a VoC strategy to be effective it needs to be centred around convenience for the customer. By reducing the effort required to give feedback, allowing them to share their thoughts in their own words

and through the channel of their choice, you vastly increase the propensity for them to give you their honest opinion.

Brands who are able to capture, learn from and act upon these unfiltered views in a timely way have the distinct advantage of being able to differentiate their offering based on customer experience.

The VoC vendor landscape is a crowded and sometimes confusing space but Rant & Rave offer a unique proposition which allows its clients to put their customers first by understanding

the emotional drivers behind their behaviour, all in real-time.”

- Professor Moira Clark, Director of the Henley Centre for Customer Management, Henley Business School

The aurora borealis (or northern lights) is a spectacular natural phenomenon which can be seen from Norway.

Norway

“Organising exhibitions around IoT is yet another testament of Telenor’s customer centric approach and building an ecosystem to facilitate mobile internet uptake – in line with our vision to bring internet for all.”- Irfan Wahab Khan, Deputy CEO and Chief Marketing Officer, Telenor

Telenor organised an Internet of Things (IoT) exhibition ‘The Future is Yours’ as part of its ambition to provide internet to all via innovative products and solutions.

The Norwegian company provided real-time IoT experience to the attendees through experience zones and live demos of IoT enabled devices12.

The future of CXIn March, Rant & Rave wrote an article on ‘Three Emerging Technologies to Enhance your Customer Experience’

which discussed how IoT technologies such as Near Field Communication, Augmented Reality and Beacons can be used to offer greater customer engagement.

Read the article

Rottach-Egern is a municipality and town located at Lake Tegernsee in the district of Miesbach in Upper Bavaria.

Germany

“Customer Experience is the new marketing. If you don’t have a passionate, committed executive leadership team you won’t get out of the gate. It’s the most important thing we do. We have the most demanding customers on the planet. Customer Experience better be at the top of your list when it comes to priorities in your organisation14.”- Steve Cannon, President & CEO, Mercedes-Benz

Focussing on making it easy for their customers, Mercedes Benz has created an intelligent integration between their in-car system and the Apple Watch.

A seamless journey unfolds: giving walking directions to the car on the Apple Watch, driving directions on the vehicle navigation system and again walking directions on the Apple Watch, from the car to the final destination13.

Sentiment Driven MarketingLike Mercedes Benz, we too believe that CX is the new marketing.

Here’s just one way that marketers can take advantage of CX and Voice of the Customer strategies.

Read the article

The Rialto Bridge (Italian: Ponte di Rialto) is the oldest bridge spanning the Grand Canal in Veniceand was the dividing line for the districts of San Marco and San Polo.

Italy

“We know that engaging our customers in new ways will enhance the customer experience, loyalty and profitability.”- Umberto Angelucci, CTO, Sky Italia

Sky Italia has made huge efforts to ensure its processes are easy for customers. It does this by making sure all channels are integrated and information is centralised, ensuring customers get a streamlined experience.

This has been achieved by using The Salesforce Service Cloud, which has subsequently led to a reduction in call times and an improvement around first contact resolution15.

The Sky’s the limit for CXIn August, Rant & Rave partnered with Sky to help them better capture and understand the voice of their customers16.

Simon Hill, Director, Sky Insight & Decision Science, said:

“At Sky we’re always striving to get closer to our customers and to understand how they really feel when they interact with us. Our decision to partner with Rant & Rave and to deploy its real-time technology brings us even closer to that goal.”

This was followed quickly by Sky News using Rant & Rave to poll their viewers in real-time on key issues17…

Daragh Kelly, Director, Sky Insight & Decision Science, said:

“Text messages are such a simple way of gauging the views of the nation quickly and easily. This solution will give our news teams the ability to identify a topic in the morning, decide on the target responders

and instantly initiate the poll, with results ready for transmission later that same day.

Like Sky Italia and many other leading worldwide organisations, Rant & Rave believe in the power of Salesforce, and have invested in the technology

by developing an innovative solution for the Platform.

“Companies are looking to transform the way they connect with customers, partners and employees to thrive in today’s connected world,”

said Ryan Ellis, VP, Product Management, AppExchange, Salesforce. He continues…

“By leveraging the power of the Salesforce App Cloud, Rant & Rave provides customers with the proven social, mobile and connected cloud technologies to

accelerate business success.”

Moscow is the site of Saint Basil’s Cathedral, with its elegant onion domes, as well as the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour and the Seven Sisters.Russia

“Since the moment Lapka launched their first product I have been inspired by their impressive design sensibilities – a combination of beauty, form, and story. These guys have tenacity and drive towards creating the future, and I’m thrilled to get to work alongside them at Airbnb to create a world where people can belong anywhere19.”- Joe Gebbia, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer, Airbnb

In a curious move, Airbnb acquired Russian start-up Lapka, a design company specialising in creative technology.

Although little has been disclosed about the acquisition, it appears the move will help Airbnb’s customers seamlessly integrate into their home, creating a unique and compelling experience18.

Banging the drum for CXLike Lapka & Airbnb, Rant & Rave were recently featured in The Drum:

The Great Wall stretches from Dandong in the east, to Lop Lake in the west, along an arc that roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner Mongolia.China

“The fundamental strength of our business gives us the confidence to invest in new initiatives, add new users, improve customer experience and expand our products and services.”- Maggie Wu, Chief Financial Officer, Alibaba Group

Chinese giant Alibaba is investing in strategic partnerships and an omni-channel & mobile strategy, all with the aim of global expansion and creating an amazing customer experience.

This year they brought all this together during their 11:11 festival, where they sold $5billion worth of products in just 90 minutes20!

Omni-channel CXIn March, Rant & Rave were featured in an article by MyCustomer

that looked into the importance of having an omni-channel and mobile strategy…

Yosemite National Park is honoured with its own quarter under the American Beautiful Quarters program.USA

“Our employees know and live our mission to help facilitate the financial security of our members. This is why they go above and beyond to assist them. We strive to understand and anticipate the needs of our members and continually develop innovative solutions to help meet them. We have an uncompromising commitment to provide world class experiences – it’s simply in our DNA 22.”- Gary McAllum, Chief Security Officer, USAA

In 2015 USAA topped the Temkin Group’s, Nunwood’s and Forrester’s Customer Experience Rankings – by any stretch, no mean feat.

They did so by constantly innovating with the customer in mind.

One of their newest areas of innovation is biometrics, specifically voice and facial recognition. This is designed to make security easier and safer for customers, and has already seen a 16% enrolment rate (1 million members) in its apps - receiving overwhelming positive feedback21.

Security best practiceRant & Rave are ISO 27001 accredited, the international standard that describes

best practice for an Information Security Management System.

Rant & Rave are the only customer engagement vendor in the UK to hold this certification.

"Rant & Rave handles customer data on behalf of some of the world's largest organisations. They have high expectations and trust us to handle this personal data in a professional manner

and to ensure that we never damage their reputations.

Like our clients, we have a low appetite for risk. We understand that we cannot eliminate every risk but aim for best practice in all areas of security. Our ISO 27001 certification demonstrates to the world

our commitment to adhering to international information security best practices."

- Dennis Fois, Rant & Rave, CEO

Busselton Jetty is the longest wooden jetty (pier) in the southern hemisphere, stretching almost 2 km out to sea.

Australia

“Think about those impenetrable things you have been told that can’t be changed - it’s just not true! The success of the Virgin brand is about identifying segments where there is an opportunity to radically change and shape things that are important to making people’s lives better24.”- Mark Hassell, Chief Customer Officer, Virgin Australia

This year Virgin Australia launched Buffed, a shoe shine service to keep their premium and business passengers looking sharp. Not only did this add value to their customers, it gave back to the community as it supports homeless, displaced or marginalised Australians.

Virgin Australia are always striving to differentiate themselves in terms of customer experience and stick to 5 core principals; Challenge the Status Quo, Create a propelling proposition, Have a clear vision, Focus on engagement (don’t be mediocre) and Unlock the power of your people23.

Giving backThis year the Rant & Rave staff have raised over £1000 for Special Effect, Cancer Research and Give a Gift charities.

Vidigal overlooks Ipanema Beach and Ilhas Cagarras. It is located in the South Zone of Rio, between Leblon and São Conrado neighbourhoods.

Brazil

“Surveys in the Brazilian stores show that customers are highly satisfied with this approach. When asked about the refitted shops, they particularly praised the friendly atmosphere and the reception area.”- Franz Petermann, Vice President, Connect Hearing Group

Connect Hearing, Brazil’s largest chain of audiological stores, has focussed on the experience of their customers when revamping their outlets.

The new store concept in pilot branches in the cities of Santos and São Paulo saw new customer numbers rise by almost 40% in the first six months25.

“Being passionate about understanding our customers’ needs, going the extra mile for individual service, and showing professional dedication to providing a comprehensive solution, not just a product, are the central values of the brand and are at the heart of Connect Hearing,” explains Franz Petermann, Vice President, Connect Hearing Group.

Customer EngagementRant & Rave, in collaboration with Contact Babel, released a paper in September that focussed on customer engagement

and how anticipating the needs of customers is paramount to any successful customer experience programme:

“As a company that prides itself on offering first class customer engagement platforms, it’s no surprise that Rant & Rave really do practice what they preach –

their customer service is outstanding and we’ve always felt 100% supported and confident in their ability to deliver. Even though the Fast Feedback solution is clearly impressive, Rant & Rave aren’t complacent with this.

They have, and continue to put a massive focus on new innovations, and actively engage us in this process, which highlights that their customer’s needs are at the heart of Rant & Rave’s future.”

- Brian Henderson, Customer Experience Team Leader, Scottish Water

Download the Report

Jodhpur topped Lonely Planet's list of most extraordinary places to stay.

India

“It was born out of our ambitions to create a large tech business solving a primary customer need in India. We realised local services as an industry is such a central part of our lives but extremely broken.27” – Abhiraj Bhal, Co-Founder, UrbanClap

In India there’s a saying, ‘Chalta Hai’, which roughly translates to ‘anything goes’ – for a long time consumers in the country have felt this when it comes to their shopping experience.

Forrester backs this up by suggesting many Indian firms are struggling to deliver even a mediocre customer experience. This is worrying considering a study by Oracle found that India-based firms can lose as much as 18% of their business due to lack of a good customer experience strategy.

Luckily one company is bucking this trend… New Delhi Startup, UrbanClap, a platform that aims to effortlessly connect consumers with service professionals26.

Cross-functional CXSpeaking at The Future of Customer Experience conference in London,

organised by Rant & Rave, Senior Forrester Analyst Jonathan Browne commented28;

“Companies need personnel dedication to improving customer experience across an organisation, who can work across divisions and not under one department.

Many companies collect data about their customers but fail to listen, react and implement changes that may improve the customer experience.”

Download the Reports

Canada has the world’s largest proportion of fresh water lakes.

Canada

“Telecommunication companies receive a high volume of questions on Facebook, making it a logical place to offer more responsive customer service.” – Jordan Banks, Managing Director, Facebook Canada

Canadian Telco, Rogers, became the first company in the country to offer real-time customer service through Facebook’s messenger solution. They actively encourage customers to use the service and have trained their agents to respond to customer queries29.

“Over 16 million Canadians are on Facebook every day so we wanted to go where our customers are. We met with the Facebook team earlier this year, and immediately began development of this service for our customers.”- Guy Laurence, CEO, Rogers

Multi-Channel Voice of the CustomerRant & Rave work with NewsUK to capture feedback across all their channels including Web Chat,

where feedback is requested after the customer has interacted with an agent.

Speaking at Rant & Rave’s annual customer event, Raveolution, Sean Risebrow, Director of Customer Experience at NewsUK commented:

“Great companies find ways to tune in to customers’ voices every day, and then systematically take action on what they have learnt.

With Rant & Rave we’ve created an operating discipline that enables us to continually close the loop between the brand promises we make and the experiences we deliver.

By aligning customer feedback from Rant & Rave with Salesforce gives us the ability to see what customers have done and go on to do.”

Watch the Highlights & Presentations

Salta, nicknamed Salta la Linda ‘Salta the beautiful’ has become a major tourist destination due to its old, colonial architecture,tourism friendliness, excellent weather and natural scenery of the valleys westward.

Argentina

“Providing good customer service is how we build confidence in the public in Argentina and break the barrier, so more people move from brick and mortar to online shopping.” – Federico Malek, Co-Founder, Avenida

Argentinian E-commerce company, Avenida, has big aspirations – to be the Amazon of South America. Luckily it has a plan to back-up this bold aim.

The company has developed a pure-play model which allows them to ensure the entire customer experience is a great one – from searching, to having the product delivered. Their pick-up locations even have Avenida representatives on hand to help build trust, answer any queries and build loyalty.

This has in part led to over a 300% increase in revenue over the previous year30.

Effortless ExperienceInternational delivery company, DPD, use Rant & Rave to keep customers informed about their delivery.

This has significantly improved first time delivery, a huge cost saving for the organisation and in turn has improved the customer experience.

In 2015 DPD won the Queen’s award for innovation and was voted Which’s best delivery company:

“The benefits Rant & Rave has brought to us are twofold. Not only do our customers enjoy a reliable, convenient and efficient delivery experience, the proactive communication solution has also allowed us to introduce

additional resilience, streamline our processes and enjoy significant cost savings as a result.

The collaborative efforts of the Rant & Rave and DPD technical teams allowed for a smooth, effective and highly successful implementation.”

- Steve Mills, Director of IT, DPD

Dublin was awarded European Capital of Culture status for it’s architecture, literary achievements and sprawling landscapes.

Ireland

l

“Listening to customers has been a spectacularly successful learning experience for us over the last 12 months and we are seeing the changes that we have implemented reflected in our business results too32.” – Michael O’Leary, CEO, Ryanair

Notorious for terrible service, Irish company Ryanair are starting to surprise people – they are getting customer experience right – expectations are set at the right level, their new website is both personalised & intuitive and their strategy ‘always get better’ is constantly improving the service their customers get.

To ensure their proposition ‘always get better’ actually delivers, Ryanair are listening to their customers and using this insight to drive change throughout the business31.

Fly to new heights of CXRant & Rave work with worldwide airline, easyJet, to capture feedback from its 60 million customers.

Sentiment Analysis is used to understand all comments instantly, giving easyJet the ability to take immediate action, rectify issues, and identify training opportunities or areas of praise for staff.

Lis Blair, Head of CRM and Insight, easyJet said;

“At easyJet we’ve always listened very closely to the voice of our customers in order to improve their experience but the introduction of Rant & Rave’s real-time capability means we’ll be able to take action much more quickly.

We’re looking forward to what the future holds.”

Palm Jumeirah, is the world’s largest man-made island and is comprised of a two kilometre long trunk,a crown made up of 17 fronds and a surrounding crescent.United Arab Emirates

“We hope this policy will enhance Dubai Government’s commitment to achieving excellence in customer experience. We want this to offer a delightful, coherent, seamless and omni-channel experience from all services, channels and touchpoints of Dubai government.” – H.E. Ahmad Bin Humaidan, Director General, Dubai Smart Government

In what has to be one of the strangest stories of 2015, The Dubai government released a Customer Experience Policy (CXP) to ensure all its smart services offer customers a seamless, connected and comprehensive experience that will exceed their expectations and add to their happiness, ultimately leading to greater adoption33.

Government engagementRant & Rave work with various UK Government departments to help them proactively communicate

with the public and their employees. This includes the Home Office, the Royal Navy, the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, the Metropolitan Police, The Environment Agency, Number 10 and the NHS.

“The solution helps us to not just capture a satisfaction score but also understand the reasons why they rated us in this way, so we can learn what our patients value and where there may be room for improvement.”

- NHS Director

“Rant & Rave’s Proactive Communication solution is excellent. The support that goes along with the service is first class. The system works perfectly and has been used actively in many real situations

and I only hear positive feedback about it. I am really impressed.”

- Environment Agency Director

The Sahara Desert, flowing through Egypt, is the largest ‘hot desert’ in the world.

Egypt

“In most cases "customer-centric culture" is just a slogan. Organisations that are serious about injecting and maintaining a ‘customer centric culture’ exert a lot of efforts and focus in order to guarantee that35.” – Ashraf Helal, Customer Care and Operations Director, Vodafone Egypt

In October, Rant & Rave attended the Henley Centre for Customer Management’s Annual Conference, where our customers, ATOS, Scottish Water and Vodafone were presenting.

Vodafone Egypt explained how they’ve developed a unique proposition for a particular segment of their customer base – the hard of hearing.

The solution uses video and sign-language to answer customer issues in a convenient way. They empowered their employees to develop the solution themselves and have helped them learn sign language.This approach, combined with a focus on other key segments has seen their complaints decline by 50% and a 23% increase in sales to deaf customers34.

Engaging your audienceRant & Rave have had a partnership with Vodafone for over 10 years helping them with their

internal & external communication. This included their launch of the iPhone…

When it launched the new iPhone, it didn't spray out communications indiscriminately. Instead, it worked out who its top prospects were - based on a few feedback metrics like usage, billing data, and frequently called numbers. These are the people who depend on their phones.

To interest them, this segment received a custom-made video about the new iPhone,sent directly to their existing handsets through Rant & Rave’s Proactive Communication Solution. Not as an intrusive phone call, but as a message that, when clicked, led to the streaming video.

It was simple to experience - and received ultra-high customer attention.

More things draw us together than keep us apart. Divvying up customers by psychographics rather than demographics becomes much easier when you've got a mass of customer feedback to mine for insights.

The Maiden's Tower, is a Byzantine structure lying on a small islet located at the southern entrance of the Bosphorus strait from the coast of Üsküdar in Istanbul.

Turkey

“We aim to further enhance customer service and the effectiveness of our banking services by increasing access to them byusing technology without losing the advantages of human interaction. This will provide more time for our employees to better serve customers with more complex banking needs and help us transform into an even more customer centric bank37.” – Orkun Oguz, Direct Banking Executive & Vice President, Akbank

AKBank, one of the largest banks in Turkey, this year invested in video banking technology to improve customer satisfaction and increase its service offering. This allows self-service technology to still have a human element if the customer so chooses. This aims to make the experience effortless and convenient.

It’s good to see Financial Institutes invest in this kind of technology as Accenture reported this year that 29% of customers in Turkey would consider leaving a bank because of a lack of personal solutions36.

Emotion in Financial ServicesIn February, Rant & Rave hosted a Financial Service CX Director’s Briefing in London.

Titled, The Emotion of the Silent Majority, the event brought together 50 experts from brands including Barclays, John Lewis, Santander and HSBC.

“I thought the session today was excellent. It was so refreshing to hear that the journey that I am on currently with my strategy is in line with what the speakers were saying,

and it was useful to pick up new phrases and snippets of how to convey this.”

- Customer Experience Manager, John Lewis Financial Services

See the presentation here

Navagio Beach (Greek: Ναυάγιο), or Shipwreck Beach, is an exposed cove, sometimes referred to as "Smugglers Cove", on the coast of Zakynthos, in the Ionian Islands of Greece.Greece

“We strive so much to have customer service, it’s a dying art now with so many businesses. That little bit of friendliness and trying to go the extra mile, it goes a long way... People come in, and we greet them with a smile. You’ve got to take a positive approach and just try to give them a nice experience.” – Stathy Stathopoulos, Founder, Yia Yia’s Kitchen

This year Greece celebrated CX Day in both Athens and Thessaloniki, bringing together the country’s execs to discuss their aims for 2016. The country clearly sees customer experience as a way of helping them overcome their financial crisis and winning back the trust of customers.

“Alternative channels are the future of banking. In the coming years the traditional branches will have to change, becoming closer to the alternative channel operations38.” - Pericles Papaspyropoulos, Head of Contact Centre Sector, National Bank of Greece

Financial Services CXRant & Rave work with lots of Financial Service companies, including Standard Life,

who this year won numerous customer experience awards.

“2015 has been the year of Raveolution for Standard Life, Rant & Rave has been received very well within the organisation, the front-line representatives love it! It’s driving coaching & learning, operations and pinpointing actions

we need to take across the business to achieve service and delivery excellence.”

- Jo Mayes, Head of CX, Standard Life

The windmills of Kinderdijk are one of the best-known Dutch tourist sites. They have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997.Netherlands

“One of the things that I strongly believe makes a big difference from an HR perspective, is not to start with the people, but to start with the customer. To really understand who the customer is, what makes her kick and truly understand who she is42.”– Anne Jaakke, Director of Global HR, Hunkemöller

Dutch lingerie company, Hunkemöller International, have coined their customers, ‘Shero’s’ (female consumers who are seen by the brand as heroes).

They want to ensure that their ‘Shero’s’ get the very best service and is why they have centred their recruitment strategy around them.

They encourage their employees to be fun, passionate and ‘in touch’ with customers.

To help with this Hunkemöller actively show their staff what customers are saying about them; the good, the bad and the ugly. By taking this strategy they know their employees will constantly learn.

HR for CXLike Hunkemöller, OVO Energy use customer insight in their HR area.

By using Rant & Rave to understand what their customers are raving about gives them the insight to recruit staff based on what their customers want.

“We hire around what our customers want and then train them so they can deliver.”

This approach helps in part with a 24% reduction in new-customer drop-outs and 40% overall customer churn reduction.

Mount Fuji is one of Japan's ‘Three Holy Mountains’, a Special Place of Scenic Beauty and one of Japan's Historic Sites.Japan

Search Google for ‘Customer Experience in Japan’ and you will be bombarded by articles about why Japanese Customer Service is so good.

What’s interesting though is that according to a report by the Economist39, of all Asia Pacific countries, Japan cares the least about CX initiatives (only 30% believe it is important) and the least about measuring it (only 48% will measure CX) – That said they are still performing better than Europe & North America.

So with this apparent lack of interest why do they seem to be getting it right?Many people believe this is down to the fact it’s engrained in their DNA and has become

second nature. They focus less on what they should be doing and more time actually doing it. A lesson we could all learn from.

"You have to remember that in Japan you don't have a category called service, because it's completely integrated into what you do," says Merry White, author of Coffee Life in Japan and professor of anthropology at Boston University. "It's not an extra. It's valued, but it isn't monetized."

One restaurant in Japan, Yakiniku, takes customer service to the next level by giving customers a list of things they will kindly do for them, including charging their phones, providing umbrellas on a rainy day and even helping pregnant women name their babies40!

“Although Japanese hospitality, or what we call omotenashi, has developed a reputation outside of Japan as being a benchmark for exceptional service, it can be very difficult to define. It's as intangible as it is palpable, something to be felt rather than explained41.” - Masaru Watanabe, Executive Director and General Manager, Palace Hotel Tokyo

Execute don’t strategiseIn October, Rant & Rave CEO, Dennis Fois spoke at Europe’s biggest customer service event,

Customer Contact Expo in London.

Dennis spoke about how organisations need to move from 100% strategy to a plan that puts equal emphasis on execution. This was backed up by Forrester revealing

that 45% of all participants undergoing VoC programmes don’t close the loop for the customer.

“We want to shift to a new approach, whereby we flip the model on its head. This new approach is really about starting with engagement, to let engagement drive execution,

from execution we move to insight and, then, let that drive strategy.

We believe that if you get the engagement level right, you can have a more flexible model for developing your strategy over time. This gives you the space to engage with your customers,

start to close the loop on feedback and recover customers, without the restrictions of the traditional VoC model.”

Making sense of it allAs you can see, 2015 was a busy year for CX.

All around the world companies innovated, invested, improved and illustrated the importance of customer experience.

Taking all this into account, here are the top tips we can action in 2016…

30 Top CX tips for 20161. Measure how customers are feeling through ALL channels – including social and webchat2. When outsourcing make sure you measure how customers are feeling3. Embrace sentiment analysis to truly understand what customers are saying4. Take a real-time approach to responding to unhappy customers5. Use customer insight to constantly make improvements6. Empower your frontline agents to solve customer issues7. Always strive to improve, making incremental changes8. Make services easy and convenient for customers9. Join up customer touchpoints so customers always feel connected 10.Develop journeys from the customer’s perspective11.Encourage ideas from customers to inspire innovation12.Innovate with the customer in mind13.Use new technology to enhance the customer experience – but only when relevant14.Use VoC to see how innovations are perceived by customers15.Humanise your technology so customers embrace it

30 Top CX tips for 201616.Integrate your technology to offer customers a seamless journey17.Add emotional measurement to your CRM to get a holistic view of customers18.Make sure customers are kept up to date with proactive communication19.Develop a customer manifesto so you don’t deviate from your aims & objectives20.Constantly communicate with employees so they know your CX aspirations21.Keep customer information secure to build their trust22.Engage customers in conversations so they feel an affinity towards your brand23.Encourage collaboration, both internally and externally24.Recruit for customers and train for skills25.Gamify customer and employee engagement26.Make sure your Marketing is aligned to your CX27.Segment your audience so you can deliver personal and relevant propositions28.Develop strategic partnerships that can differentiate your organisation29.Focus less on CX strategy and more on executing it30.Your ultimate aim should be to make CX part of your culture

Our clientsWe are proud to work with some fantastic international brands,

helping them engage with their customers & employees throughout the world.

Good LuckWith your future plans

References

1http://nhcollection.pr.co/116211-nh-hotel-group-recognized-at-european-hospitality-awards-for-its-technological-proposal2http://www.rantandrave.com/news/rant-rave-wins-temkin-group-customer-experience-vendor-excellence-award3http://apparel.edgl.com/news/Five-Lessons-in-Customer-Experience-From-Portugal1009184http://www.essentialretail.com/news/article/560162818ac79-debenhams-opens-up-communication-channels5http://www.wds.co/case-studies/mtn-agent-tools6http://ravingcontent.rantandrave.com/agent-engagement-and-gamification7https://www.accenture.com/t20150523T040714__w__/us-en/_acnmedia/Accenture/Conversion-Assets/Microsites/Documents14/Accenture-Augmented-Reality-Customer-Experience-Drive-Growth.pdf8http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bank-of-the-west-and-bnp-paribas-announce-winners-of-second-phase-of-the-first-ever-bnp-paribas-international-hackathon-300188045.html9http://www.rantandrave.com/hss-hire10http://www.wired.com/2015/11/the-innovation-lab-where-ikea-will-get-its-next-big-idea/#slide-611http://www.digitalistmag.com/customer-experience/2015/03/03/how-industry-leaders-reinvent-the-customer-experience-with-ideas-like-device-olation-0230312812http://tribune.com.pk/story/996041/corporate-corner-telenor-holds-internet-of-things-exhibition/13http://www.autoblog.com/2015/05/18/mercedes-mb-companion-app-apple-watch-official/14http://loyalty360.org/resources/article/mercedes-benz-ceo-customer-experience-is-the-new-marketing

15http://www.computerweekly.com/news/4500243310/Sky-Italia-looks-to-the-cloud-for-better-customer-experience16http://www.rantandrave.com/news/skys-limit-rant-raves-latest-client-partner17http://www.rantandrave.com/news/sky-news-extends-partnership-rant-rave-poll-viewer-opinion-real-time 18http://www.thedrum.com/news/2015/09/30/airbnb-acquires-product-design-firm-lapka19http://www.wired.com/2015/09/airbnb-just-bought-bizarro-russian-gadget-company/20http://www.bidnessetc.com/52019-alibaba-group-holding-ltd-enhances-customer-experience/21http://www.mycustomer.com/experience/engagement/how-usaa-leads-its-field-in-customer-experience22http://www.pymnts.com/news/2015/voice-facial-recognition-coming-to-usaa-mobile-log-in/23http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/travel/travel-advice/virgin-australia-launches-hat-valet-service-for-racegoers/story-fnjjv795-122758566665324http://www.cmo.com.au/article/548113/virgin_customer_chief_customer_experience_comes_down_your_people/25http://www.sonova.com/en/features/connect-hearing-focusing-customer-experience26http://www.firstpost.com/business/chalta-hai-no-more-why-customer-experience-strategies-in-india-need-overhauling-2451702.html27http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/services-marketplace-urbanclap-brings-on-demand-services-to-hyderabad-115122100858_1.html28http://www.growthbusiness.co.uk/growing-a-business/marketing-strategies-and-research/1672393/a-richer-experience.thtml#sthash.Eexi7G4X.dpuf29http://www.canadianbusiness.com/innovation/rogers-is-fielding-customer-service-inquires-on-facebook-messenger/30http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/20/argentinian-e-commerce-leader-avenida-gets-30m-series-c-round-from-naspers-and-tiger-global/31http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/may/26/ryanair-profits-soar-66-as-charm-offensive-reaps-rewards

32http://www.forbes.com/sites/adrianswinscoe/2015/05/22/the-humility-of-ryanairs-ceo-is-driving-the-improvement-of-their-customer-experience/

33http://www.gulfnews247.com/2015/10/14/dubai-smart-government-creates-customer-experience-policy-to-align-customer-experience-with-smart-services/

34http://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2015/06/16/15-increase-in-customer-service-agents-this-year-vodafone-egypt/

35http://www.customerloyaltyme.com/media/6530/1645.pdf36https://www.accenture.com/t20150731T022244__w__/tr-en/_acnmedia/Accenture/Conversion-Assets/DotCom/Documents/Global/PDF/Strategy_7/Accenture-Managing-Customer-Relationship-in-an-Era-of-Non-stop-Experience.pdf37http://www.ncr.com/news/news-releases/financial/akbank-chooses-ncr-interactive-video-software38http://www.genesys.com/resources/success-stories-and-infographics/bankgreecess.pdf39http://www.economistinsights.com/sites/default/files/EIU_Genesys_APAC_Infographic_final_EN.pdf40http://en.rocketnews24.com/2015/09/22/restaurant-raises-the-bar-for-customer-service-in-japan-will-help-you-name-your-baby/41http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1000142405270230345610457948982419326226042http://diginomica.com/2015/12/01/holding-out-for-a-shero/#.VoPK6PmLQgs