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Would you trust this man?
Author: Bill Cusick
January 31, 2005
Apparently, yes, you would. OK, not this guy, but car dealers in general. In fact, in a recent survey, car buyers rated the trustworthiness of their auto dealers higher than the insurance industry: 68.4% to 48.9%. Car dealers also rated more trustworthy than the legal or health industries.
When you think of businesses where "trust" is a critical concept to successful customer relationships, it would seem insurance, health and legal industries would top the list. Yet less than half of those surveyed called them trustworthy.
Some room for improvement? I think so.
It just doesn’t figure
Author: Bill Cusick
January 19, 2005
I saw a number that just got me thinking. First, I’ll remind you of a number many of us have seen in some form before, this time from the Harvard Business Review: just a 5% increase in customer retention will increase profitability anywhere from 25-95 percent. OK, so customer experience and retention are important.
But recently as I’ve talked with different companies about customer experience issues, what I hear is that, yes, retention is of course important, but that ABC insurance company or bank or credit card company doesn’t have a problem with it because their customers "don’t leave." And while many don’t share actual retention figures, they all seem to believe it, that they are the company that keeps almost all of its customers.
But then these numbers, from a recent study by Mobius Management Systems and cited in the TimesDispatch.com, don’t make sense. That study found that 46 percent of those asked had recently left a credit card company, and 43 percent had left a bank. Someone is leaving, in fact, a bunch of people. After all, the industry-leading retention figure for larger banks is around 90%. That means the best bank watches 10% of its customers leave…every year!
Numbers, they’re funny.
There’s always hope
Author: Bill Cusick
January 14, 2005
OK, I’ll admit it. About eight or nine years ago, I had a Hyundai. It was a blue Excel hatchback. I bought it new, drove it 96,000 miles before "trading" it in, and was actually just a little sad to see it go, but not a lot sad. It was never washed; I figured why bother? And at the time I was going through several cans of Diet Coke a day (corporate day job, law school at night, newborn at home) and would throw the empties into the back seat. I figured that when the car died, I could just push the whole deal into a recycling collection center.
But things have changed! While, at the time, Hyundai quality was a running joke, and the brand value seen as just above Yugo (remember those? remember Yugoslavia?) the company has made tremendous strides in both quality and brand loyalty, as seen in a recent J.D. Powers study. By sticking to the fundamentals of improving their product and, perhaps more importantly, backing it up with better service and commitments (like 10 year warranties) Hyundai has moved up to #4 for customer retention among all car makers, and #3 among non-luxury brands.
In other words, by making the customer experience for Hyundai buyers so pleasant, the company has convinced nearly 60% of their car buyers to purchase another Hyundai. So pay attention to the experience…it pays off big. Maybe when my lease is up, I’ll take another look, maybe.
Happy New Year!
Author: Bill Cusick
January 5, 2005
Welcome back from the holidays. At our house, the kids were happy since Santa delivered on a quality "customer experience." Both Christmas and New Years were filled with family and friends, so we feel very lucky.
Like everybody else, I was stunned and overwhelmed by the tsunami disaster in southeast Asia. While we’ve made several donations, it’s hard not to feel insignificant and a little helpless in the face of the sheer magnitude of the suffering. But we will look for ways to do what we can to help. Please let us know if you hear of other ways to make a difference.
On the customer front, there’s much more coming for the new year, so stay tuned.
