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Be the customer’s first choice

27 October 2010

 

Cable & Wireless Worldwide believes that capturing the “voice of the customer” is an essential part of a successful company’s future. After focusing on internal feedback and only gaining customer feedback irregularly, the organisation launched an action-orientated customer satisfaction programme to become the first choice of its customers.

Cable & Wireless Worldwide specialises in the provision of critical communication infrastructure for large users of telecoms, working with large corporates, multinational companies, governments, carrier customers and resellers across the globe.

Historically, Cable & Wireless Worldwide focused primarily on obtaining internal feedback, but missed a trick by not getting the feedback analysed to identify the key generic issues its customers were experiencing. Customer feedback was sporadic and much of it was internally sourced, without a robust mechanism for understanding what it meant for the business as a whole.

The company appointed ORC International to develop a programme that would ensure action was taken on customer feedback. Cable & Wireless Worldwide initially faced internal challenges surrounding the need to outsource the programme, however they felt that ORC International was able to offer wider coverage, independence, analytical expertise and actionability.

  • Wider coverage: in many cases, customers have to be contacted numerous times before an appointment for a telephone feedback interview can be made, and appointments are often rescheduled. By using a dedicated resource, the interviews could be conducted whenever required.
  • Independence: by using a third party organisation, customers are assured that they can give honest feedback that reveals the true impact of their experience, which is more reliable to Cable & Wireless Worldwide.
  • Analytical expertise: having received feedback, Cable and Wireless Worldwide was acting on individual customer issues and trying to resolve them, but missing the bigger picture that identified the generic issues customers were experiencing
  • Actionability: by using an agency specialising in customer satisfaction research, Cable and Wireless Worldwide would be able to get the most value out of the research data

ORC International conducted a pilot survey of depth interviews, which was well received by customers. Because of the positive impact the pilot had on customer relations, the programme was expanded to more business divisions, with nearly 200 telephone depth interviews conducted with customers across a variety of different channels of the organisation.

ORC International developed a custom-built online reporting portal that allows all relevant staff quick and regular access to analyse feedback data, increasing awareness of customer satisfaction with the organisation. Through the portal, data can be interrogated at a strategic level and analysed in different ways, with managers across the business accessing the most appropriate information for their needs.

To increase awareness of customer feedback even further amongst Cable & Wireless Worldwide employees, face-to-face presentations, video conferences and webinars provided all staff with the opportunity to learn from the survey results. The sessions helped staff understand how their actions impact on how well others in the organisation can deliver to the customer, thereby helping the organisation deliver a less fragmented customer service.

The customer feedback programme was initially designed to provide tactical feedback on an account-by-account basis. Cable & Wireless Worldwide now receives regular, reliable, feedback that links to its CRM, enabling trends to be tracked and improvement areas to be identified, and ensuring that survey data is used at a strategic level.