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Alchemer Customer Engagement for Sales

Alchemer Customer Engagement for Sales is designed to help sales teams build hyper-personalized relationships with customers throughout the entire buyer’s journey. Susan McGovern, VP of Customer Value and Enablement, shares her thoughts in a recent interview and went more in depth in this webinar with SVP of Sales, Mary Beth Addison. 

• Watch the ACES Webinar 
• View other Alchemer webinars on BrightTALK 

Employee Centricity is Customer Centricity

It’s been a year since the pandemic arrived and we closed the Alchemer office in Boulder and sent everybody home. Over the last 12 months, everything about the workplace has changed. At Alchemer our customers are the center of our business. However, there’s an additional layer that’s part of that foundation – our employees. Alchemer’s VP of Human Resources, Heather Rollins, writes that fundamentally, employee centricity empowers employees to put the customer at the heart of every business decision.

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Employee Engagement – Anonymous Surveys by Department 

Employees are an important part of your business foundation and can provide critical insights impacting the bottom line. Whether you want a quick pulse check, or a more in-depth review, allowing your employees to provide their feedback anonymously is invaluable. Learn how to set up anonymity in your Alchemer surveys. Learn more.

Customer-Centric Extras

More in Employee and Customer Centricity:

• Get the Customer-Centric E-Guide
• Trends in Customer Centricity
• Employee Cenricity: Behind the scenes at Alchemer

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It’s been a year since we closed our office in Boulder and sent everybody home. Over the last 12 months, everything about the workplace has changed. For the first part of last year we all tried to adjust as best we could, suddenly being thrust into remote workplaces, non-stop Zoom meetings, managing our kids’ at-home learning while working, keeping our families safe, and trying to keep employees engaged while trying to stay engaged ourselves. Now we’re seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, but questions remain about what our new normal will be. 

And, while my focus is on the relationships between our team members, relationships with customers have changed as well. Every customer now looks for ways to do business both online and in-person according to their unique needs and situation. And the most progressive organizations are embracing strategies focused on customer-centricity.  

At its core, customer-centricity is: 

• An emphasis on putting the customer at the heart of every business decision 
• The empowerment of employees to adjust each customer experience  
• A cultural shift in how organizations view their customers 

However, all of this only works if you have a corresponding transformation to employee-centricity.  

What exactly is employee-centricity?   

Much like a customer-centric organization, an employee-centric organization puts people at the core of everything it does. Building an employee-centric business starts by creating a culture where innovation, creativity, and empowerment are encouraged throughout the organization, regardless of the level of the employee. In an employee-centric organization, all employees are connected to their customers and prospects, as well as to their peers and leadership. Employees in this environment are encouraged to: 

• Help customers have a great experience 
• Challenge internal processes that may be impacting productivity 
• Promote out-of-the-box solutions when situations arise 

Most of all, you need to create a culture where employees feel respected and engaged and believe they have an opportunity to grow.  

Empowered employees drive customer-centricity 

Fully empowering employees, regardless of position within the hierarchy, is fundamental to any employee-centric organization. We’ve all been the customer in a situation where something went wrong. We just want somebody who can help to hear our concerns and make it right. It just doesn’t feel very good when an unempowered employee responds by saying, “Sorry, I can’t help you.” Even if we understand, we don’t feel great about that brand experience.  

However, when we encounter an empowered employee who can respond immediately and corrects the situation, we want to tell others about that experience. We also look for ways to do more business with that organization. That scenario represents a customer-centric organization, and it all starts with a foundation of employee-centricity. 

How to design and build an employee-centric organization 

As your organization begins building its customer-centric strategy, recognize that a critical component of success will be the implementation of an employee-centric strategy. Here are some of the cultural and technical issues that will require your attention: 

• Foster employee-focused leadership – Leaders at all levels of your organization must actively listen to employees and ask important questions, rather than simply giving orders and answers. This shift will encourage employees to become more engaged and involved. 
• Build processes based on understanding employee needs and expectations – Often internal human resource processes have been in place for years but are not adjusted to interact with employees in the ways that they prefer. More honest, representative input will be received when the processes are built around the employees.  
• Encourage participation and share performance metrics – Engage employees in product roadmaps, customer interactions, content creation, and more. Sharing key metrics with the entire team and regularly letting them know how their individual role and contributions impact those metrics has a profound effect on engagement. Don’t hesitate to share times when the metrics are not where you want them and ask for input and solutions when that occurs.  
• Continuously enhance employee experiences through feedback – Companies often do an annual “climate survey” – however, what’s true in spring is often not important as the winter holidays approach. You need to capture feedback on a regular basis. Many organizations use Employee Net Promoter Score surveys to regularly do a quick check on employee engagement and experience. Building a culture where employees know they are free to provide feedback will foster employee-centricity. 

We all expect that 2021 will probably redefine the workplace and employee experience. Some of us will be back in the office while others will continue to work remotely. However, you can create more consistency in your people’s lives by putting customers at the heart of every decision you make. And that starts by building an employee-centric foundation that will make your people feel like team-mates more than co-workers.  

Working for a company that creates solutions to bring organizations closer to people, we have developed a product that helps HR people at small and mid-sized businesses become more employee-centric. It’s called The Employee Experience Solution. It offers all the assessments and surveys you need to keep a steady pulse on your people. Plus, it offers ways to make employee access to HR benefits and requests much more manageable for stretched HR teams. 

Learn more here.  

The post How Employee-Centricity is the Foundation of a Customer-Centric Organization appeared first on Alchemer.

Watch the webinar here.   

Trend 1: Customer experience will be powered by leaders on the front lines  

Organizations will move to a more centralized customer experience (CX) yet expand CX to every department as customers touch more parts of the business. Customer experience will be powered by leaders on the front lines, as they are the people who can close the loop with the customer. This helps people feel that they are heard and encourages them to participate in your Voice of the Customer (VoC) programs.  

Trend 2:  Digital transformation efforts will accelerate dramatically. In many instances, customers will no longer engage with a company face–to–face  

During the pandemic, customers lost immediate face-to-face interaction, such as going to the mall to shop or flying to meet a business-to-business customer. Now companies must create (and recreate) that trust and intimacy without the face-to-face experience. More and more, your website will become the storefront for your business. Companies that are thriving today are those that have successfully embraced digital transformation to do business digitally, even though the experience is different.   

Trend 3: The sophistication of CX will skyrocket    

As a result of the pandemic, there will be a new wave of automation at the customer level that will eliminate background activities and give more time to customer-facing teams to engage directly with their customers. Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology will help automate background activities, so that people can focus on customers. To be successful, organizations will need to apply higher-level skillsets to better engage customers and building hyper-personalized experiences.  

Trend 4:  Some companies will over-rotate toward automation  

In the rush to embrace digital transformation, it’s easy to go too far. Automating background activities is a good thing to do as it frees up people to spend more time with customers. It’s not easy and possible to automate too many customer-facing interactions. Companies will need to guard against further separating themselves from the few remaining personal interactions that they have with their customers. Successful companies will use automation to allow for more personal customer engagements, not to replace them.   

Trend 5:  Employee experience will be just as critical as customer experience  

It’s easy to be isolated and transactional with everybody working remotely. Being able to engage your employees in the same ways you engage your customers will help you retain your best people and maintain your corporate culture. Keeping a pulse on your employees allows you keep your employees engaged and passionate about their work and company. As we all adjust to whatever new norms the next six months bring, successful companies will work to keep their employee engagement and passion high, which will help their customers enjoy more of their experiences with your company.  

Hear more from David and Ryan  

While this blog has covered the top trends we see shaping CX in 2021, the webinar offers even more, including more than ten minutes of questions and answers with Alchemer CEO, David Roberts, and Alchemer VP of Customer Success, Ryan Tamminga. To watch the webinar, click here and sign in. You will also find other webinars about NPS, Employee Experience, and Risk Assessments.  

The post What to Expect in Customer Experience appeared first on Alchemer.

Alchemer Customer Engagement for Sales is designed to help sales teams build hyper-personalized relationships with customers throughout the entire relationship. 

“It’s so frustrating to feel you have already told a company what you want and need, and they don’t seem to remember,” says Susan McGovern, Vice President of Customer Value and Enablement at Alchemer. “This happens all the time, especially when you’ve had a long sales cycle, a hand-off, or a long relationship. You have so many opportunities to capture information, and just as many to lose it. Something almost always gets lost or forgotten.” 

Alchemer Customer Engagement for Sales addresses the biggest pain points of hand-offs and personalizes your relationship with your customers. It captures feedback throughout the sales journey in the customers’ own words, so you don’t have to rely on the memory of internal team members. Everything is documented, from the first discovery through renewal and beyond. 

“In a recent report, Salesforce.com found that 73% of business customers expect companies to understand their needs and expectations,” explains Vanessa Bagnato, Director of Enterprise Solutions at Alchemer. “Customer Engagement for Sales solves this problem by empowering sales teams of all sizes and roles to capture customer feedback at defined stages throughout the customer relationship.” 

Alchemer Customer Engagement for Sales works through a dedicated Customer Engagement portal that is integrated directly into Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics. Your team can initiate, receive, review, and share feedback within the system they already use. In addition, all workflows, customer assessments, and handoff surveys can be prepopulated with additional account information already stored in your CRM. 

“With Customer Engagement for Sales, we can capture accurate information directly from customers without relying on the salesperson’s interpretation of what was said,” adds Susan. 

“The problem many sales teams encounter is finding a solution that makes it easy for all customer-facing sales members to capture customer feedback in an organized and consistent way, so that data can be easily analyzed and is fully integrated back into a CRM without manual entry,” according to Vanessa. “The Customer Engagement for Sales solution pre-populates account details, gives sales the ability to personalize the content, collects feedback directly from the customer, and then pushes all the data back into a CRM without the salesperson forgetting to manually enter the feedback or misinterpreting what was said.” 

“Time to value is everything,” explains Susan. “And customers want results as fast as possible. This solution pushes everything you need for a successful hand-off from pre-sales (or sales development) to sales, or to legal, professional services, finance, customer success, and anybody else needed to close the deal or help the customer get results quickly.” 

Meeting the needs, goals, and challenges of each customer is one goal of customer-centric selling. It also helps with longer sales and customer lifecycles. Over an 18-month sales cycle, players can change. The same is true once a customer has been with you for a while. There’s a good chance the person you started with will get promoted or find a new position, and the same might be true on your sales team. When that happens, Alchemer Customer Engagement for Sales provides easy access to all the reasons a customer first chose you, along with all you’ve done for that customer. That way you can bring everybody who is new to the account up to speed and keep things humming along. 

“Customers buy for a certain reason, but those needs evolve,” explains Susan. “This solution lets everybody understand the needs in the customer’s own words. It’s how you personalize each customer’s journey, shorten the sales cycle, and improve internal communications. Every customer wants to be treated like an individual. Now we can do that.” 

To learn more about Alchemer Customer Engagement for Sales, click here. 

The post The First Sales Solution for Anybody Whose Customers Have Said, “I Already Told You That!” appeared first on Alchemer.

Alchemer Support Hero, Topper Shull lives and breathes customer centricity with our customers. Listen to his insights on putting customers at the center of everything he does.

The post Behind the Scenes at Alchemer appeared first on Alchemer.

If loyalty and retention are not the same, how they are inextricably connected? Customer loyalty is about the emotional relationship a customer has with a brand. That connection between a customer and a brand is what drives repeat purchases, and is a primary reason why a customer would stay with a company rather than switch to a competitor.

Profit and growth are therefore stimulated by loyalty which is a direct result of customer satisfaction. Retention is the percentage of customers who stay with you at renewal or purchase time. Retention is an important metric to track, but is a narrower financial focus that leaves behind the human factor.

What do the top brands focus on? For an organization that truly wants to become customer-centric, then they need a strategy for building customer loyalty. And building a loyal customer base should be one of their goals when launching a VoC program.

Striving for a superior customer experience should go hand-in-hand with your VoC program. Deliver upon your brand promise and bring value to your customers. Ensure you are acting upon the feedback your customers share.

Loyalty programs are one method for bringing value to your customers, and to be successful need to deliver upon brand promise and build positive customer experiences. When executed correctly, loyalty programs can often cover potential losses during tougher times because loyal customers will remain customers. Shifting your loyalty program’s focus allows you to stop running promotions and specials and focus instead on creating a customer experience that drives the loyalty you want, and by default, the retention you need.

For example, it’s very common for business travelers to be loyal to one brand of hotels or airlines. Likely they become loyal to that brand over time. They probably tried different hotels and airlines, and the brands that rose to the top had the best customer experience and service. Which is how the emotional connection was made.

If retention is measured by renewal and purchase levels, how do you measure loyalty? Loyalty metrics depend upon the business, their product, and their customer base. And it’s not a single metric. Brands need to decide as a business how they will benchmark and track against a metric or metrics to assess loyalty.

• Net Promoter Score is among one of the most used metrics for customer loyalty.
• Brand Engagement is another score, such as website visitors, organic reviews (not paid), and social media engagement (again, organic, not paid).
• Product Usage metrics are also a way to measure loyalty. If your product is used daily, people are engaged and probably not willing to change.
• Renewal rate (or retention) is a metric of loyalty. If you have loyal customers, they are more likely to renew over and over again.

Are happy customers really loyal customers? A Deloitte report shared that customers who enjoy positive experiences are likely to remain customers for five years longer than customers who had negative experiences.

To get your business on the path to building loyalty, set a business goal of building a loyal customer base and focus on:

• Offering quality products or services
• Empowering customer-facing employees so they can provide superior customer experiences and build a personal connection between your brand and your customers
• Keeping in mind that happy and engaged employees are also more motivated to provide a better customer experience

Build loyalty in small steps, even though it takes time. Look for ways to better listen for signals from your customers on how you can improve their experience. Then use those signals to identify the steps to take to move towards building loyal customers.

What do the best do differently? High-performing companies go the extra mile to build loyal customers and build an emotional relationship to foster the best types of customers. Remember that convenience is a loyalty driver just like a world-class experience, as it gives customers more opportunities to experience your brand.

The post Loyalty and Retention Are Not Synonyms appeared first on Alchemer.

Watch the webinar here. 

On December 16, 2020, Alchemer CEO, David Roberts, and VP of Customer Success, Ryan Tamminga, sat down with Jeannie Zaemes, Director of Growth Marketing, to discuss their predictions for how customer experience will change in 2021.  

What follows is a summary of the main points, but for the full story you’ll want to watch the webinar. 

Trend 1: We believe that customer experience will be powered by leaders on the front lines 

Here David and Ryan talked about how organizations will move to a more centralized customer experience, yet expand to every department as customers touch more parts of the business. Customer experience will be powered by leaders on the front lines, as they are the people who can close the loop with the customer. This helps people feel that they are heard and encourages them to participate in your Voice of the Customer programs. 

Trend 2:  We believe that digital transformation efforts will accelerate dramatically. In many instances, customers can no longer engage with a company face–to–face 

During the pandemic, customers have lost immediate face-to-face interaction, such as going to the mall to shop or flying to meet a business-to-business customer. How do you create trust and intimacy without the face-to-face experience? Your website is now your storefront for your business. Companies that are thriving today are those that have successfully embraced digital transformation to do business digitally, even though the experience is different.  

Trend 3: We predict that the sophistication of CX will skyrocket   

As a result of the pandemic, there will be a new wave of automation at the customer level that will eliminate background activities and give more time to customer-facing teams to engage directly with their customers. Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology will help automate background activities, and organizations will need to apply higher-level skillsets to better engage customers to build hyper-personalized experiences. 

Trend 4:  We predict that some companies will over-rotate toward automation 

In the rush to embrace digital transformation, it’s easy to go too far. Automating background activities is a good thing to do as it frees up people to spend more time with customers. We believe that it’s possible to automate too many customer-facing interactions. Companies will need to guard against further separating themselves from the few remaining personal interactions that the global pandemic permits. Use automation to allow for more personal customer engagements, not to replace to them.  

Trend 5: Employee experience will be just as critical as customer experience 

It’s easy to be isolated and transactional with everybody working remotely. Being able to engage your employees in the same ways you engage your customers helps you retain your best people and maintain your corporate culture. Keeping a pulse on your employees allows you keep your employees engaged and passionate about their work and company. It’s hard right now, but the more you work to keep that engagement and passion high, the more your customers will enjoy their experiences with your company. 

Hear more from David and Ryan 

While we have covered a lot here, the webinar offers even more, including more than ten minutes of questions and answers with David and Ryan. To watch the webinar, click here and sign in. You will also find other webinars about NPS, Employee Experience, and Risk Assessments. 

The post How Will Customer Experience Change in 2021? appeared first on Alchemer.

The team that conceived of and created the first version of the Alchemer Activated VoC (Voice of the Customer) Solution did so for one reason: to better serve their customers. However, the team’s commitment to customer service doesn’t begin and end with the Activated VoC Solution, rather it’s the solution that allows them to treat customers individually. 

“How we support our customers is at the heart of our company values,” said Celeste Vaughn Gonder, Senior Manager of Customer Support. “Everybody we hire as a Support Hero has to embody three core values to even get through the process. They must have a heart for service, they need to be curious, and they must be unrelenting in finding a way to solve whatever challenge they face.” 

“We build partnerships with our customers and build relationships beyond the typical customer-company relationship,” added Celeste. “We truly care about each person, what they say and think, as well as what they care about that day.”  

Surprising and Delighting Customers 

“Most people who leave a passive or detractor score and comment feel like nothing is going to happen,” said Taylor “Topper” Shull, Support Team Lead. “So, when they hear back from us, it’s a brand-new interaction for them. It’s a positive interaction for them, and often they tell other people about it because it’s so rare.” 

“It solves the problem and helps them move forward and do something with Alchemer that they weren’t expecting to be able to do,” added Tawnee Torres, Support Team Lead. “On an NPS reply we’ll hear, ‘I didn’t expect anyone to even read this, let alone reply or provide a solution.’” 

“And promoters get as much attention from us as detractors,” added Celeste. “You shouldn’t have to give us a low score to be heard.” 

Activated VoC Makes It Possible 

The Activated VoC Solution allows the team to take action on individual feedback to ensure every piece of customer feedback is heard. The Solution, powered by the Alchemer Platform, creates a customer support case for each Net Promoter Score (NPS) and customer comment. It does this through an out-of-the-box integration with the service-management system. The team responds to each customer, as though they had emailed in a question. Only after closing the loop with each customer is the feedback aggregated into reports to understand trends. 

On top of each NPS response creating a customer support case, each Support Hero gets an immediate alert on feedback through our enterprise messaging tool, Slack. “Our Support Heroes know, right in the moment, if a customer needs assistance so they can go take action on it,” added Topper. This integration accelerates the Heroes’ ability to respond to customers in real-time. 

Setting High Standards 

In addition to a company-wide Net Promoter Score, the Alchemer Support Team also has their own score, which is currently above 90. “All support teams should be doing this,” said Celeste.  

The Team holds itself to specific metrics.  

• Emails should be answered within 5 hours 
• Phone calls should be answered within 3 minutes 
• The Support Team’s weekly NPS should be above 80 

The reason the team measures each Support Hero’s individual NPS score is to know where help might be needed. “We are really focused on the quality of our interactions,” said Celeste. “If one of our metrics falls below our standards, we know where to focus our attention.”

“We validate the customer and their experience,” added Tawnee. “Whether they are a passive, detractor, or promoter, we reach out to them.” The team views anybody who reports less than a 9 or 10 as a detractor and consequently works hard to help each customer get what they need.  

“We care about each person’s feedback, rather than looking at it only in aggregate,” added Celeste. “Because our Support Heroes can really pay attention to a single piece of feedback and truly help that customer, it changes the way they interact with customers and how they feel about their role here.” 

Since each individual score adds to the cumulative score, this approach is working.  

Celebrating Customer Centricity 

The Alchemer Support Team is extremely collaborative and supportive, which comes from the Servant-Leadership approach exhibited by the team leads all the way up to executive management. Managers and leads know each Support Hero personally and know how to make them feel acknowledged and appreciated. “Generally, we celebrate our successes by coming together. And food!” said Celeste.  

“We also have two internal awards on the Support Team – Superhero of the Quarter and Honorary Support Hero Award,” added Topper. “These are voted on by the Support Team, and the winners receive a cape and a plaque, as well as being recognized in front of the whole company while we read off the comments people share about the winner.” 

Making It Easier to Provide Excellent Service 

The reason the team developed the first version of the Activated VoC Solution was to make it easier for the Support Heroes to take care of customers. Taking advantage of the automation capabilities within the Alchemer solution enables the team to take personal action with a customer. “We automate behind the scenes so that we can give quick, personalized attention to the customer’s feedback,” said Celeste. “We let the systems do the work so that we can spend time taking care of our customers.”

Learn more about the Activated VoC Solution for small, midsized, and enterprise teams. 

Net Promoter^®, NPS^®, NPS Prism^®, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., Satmetrix Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld. Net Promoter Score℠ and Net Promoter System℠ are service marks of Bain & Company, Inc., Satmetrix Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.

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