Measure and Motivate the Right Contact Center Agent Behaviors
Increasingly banks must operate in a multi-channel environment. While the changing role of the branch, combined with automated channels such as online and mobile, are getting a lot of attention, there remains a key role for the contact center in delivering an effective customer experience. Central to this key role is designing an effective customer experience, comprised of the right sales and service behaviors – those which influence customer attitudes and behaviors in a profitable way yielding the most return on investment.
To provide direction with respect to what sales and service behaviors will yield the most return on investment, Kinesis conducted a series of mystery shops to identify which sales and service behaviors have the most influence on purchase intent. In addition to observing specific sales and service behaviors, mystery shoppers were also asked to rate how the call would have influenced their purchase intent if they had been a real customer. This purchase intent rating was then used as means of calculating the strength of the relationship between each behavior and purchase intent.
To determine the relationship between these service attributes and purchase intent, the data for these different studies was cross-tabulated by the purchase intent rating and subjected to significance testing. [i]
When the percentage of calls in which purchase intent significantly increased is tested against the percentage of calls where purchase intent significantly decreased, nearly all the sales and service attributes are statistically significant at or above a 95% confidence level.
| Significantly Increased | Significantly Decreased | Test Statistic | |
| Product knowledge | 98% | 35% | 9.6 |
| Explanations easy to understand | 99% | 45% | 9.0 |
| When thanked, respond graciously | 98% | 42% | 8.5 |
| Friendly demeanor / pleasant voice | 100% | 60% | 8.4 |
| Express appreciation for interest / thank you for business | 92% | 20% | 8.3 |
| Listen attentively | 99% | 60% | 7.3 |
| Ask probing questions | 79% | 10% | 6.4 |
| Offer further assistance | 85% | 25% | 6.2 |
| Speak clearly and avoid bank jargon | 98% | 68% | 5.8 |
| Listen attentively to your needs | 80% | 25% | 5.3 |
| Mention other bank product | 99% | 75% | 5.3 |
| Clear Greeting | 95% | 60% | 5.1 |
| Invite you to visit branch | 64% | 10% | 4.6 |
| Explain the value of banking with bank | 57% | 5% | 4.4 |
| Offer to mail material / mention website | 66% | 20% | 4.3 |
| Ask your name | 68% | 25% | 3.8 |
| Ask for your business / close the sale | 57% | 21% | 2.9 |
| Avoid interrupting | 100% | 95% | 2.9 |
| If no one available to assist you, offered options | 100% | 0% | 2.2 |
| Professional greeting | 98% | 89% | 1.9 |
The differences between the highest and lowest purchase intent for product knowledge and ease to understanding explanations are the most significant, while a professional greeting is the least significant.
Dividing these behaviors into rough quartiles and comparing them side-by-side, reveals some interesting observations:
|
Quartile I |
Product knowledge
Explanations easy to understand When thanked, respond graciously Friendly demeanor / pleasant voice Express appreciation for interest / thank you for business |
|
Quartile II |
Listen attentively
Ask probing questions Offer further assistance Speak clearly and avoid bank jargon When thanked, employee respond graciously |
|
Quartile III |
Listen attentively to your needs
Mention other bank product Clear greeting Invite you to visit branch Explain the value of banking with bank Offer to mail material / mention website |
|
Quartile IV |
Ask your name
Ask for your business / close the sale Avoid interrupting If no one available to assist you, offered options Professional greeting |
The attributes with the most significant differences between high and low purchase intent ratings appear to be those associated with reliability and empathy. It appears mystery shoppers valued such “core” attributes as product knowledge or interest/enthusiasm for the customer. They seem to be less concerned with more peripheral service attributes, such as asking for names, etc. Influencing purchase intent is not as simple as merely using the customer’s name or answering the phone within a short period of time. Rather it is a much more challenging undertaking of being competent in your job and having the customer’s best interests at heart.
[i] Significance testing determines if any differences observed are the result of actual differences in the populations measured rather than the result of normal variation. Without getting into too much detail, significance testing produces a test statistic to determine the probability that differences observed are statistically significant. A test statistic above 1.96 equates to a 95% confidence level, which means there is a 95% chance any differences observed are the result of actual differences in the populations measured rather than normal variation. For all practical purposes a test statistic over 3.1 means there is 100% chance the differences observed are statistically significant (although in reality the probability never reaches 100%). Finally, in interpreting the following analysis, it is important note that test statistics are not lineal. A test statistic of two is not twice as significant as a test statistic of one. The influence on significance decreases as the test statistic increases. However, the test statistic does give us an opportunity to rank the service attributes by their statistical significance.
Best Practices in Bank Customer Experience Measurement Design
The question was simple enough… If you owned customer experience measurement for one of your bank clients, what would you do?
Through the years, I developed a point of view of how to best measure the customer experience, and shared it with a number of clients, however, never put it down to writing.
So here it is…
Best practices in customer experience measurement use multiple inputs in a coordinated fashion to give managers a 360-degree view of the customer experience. Just like tools in a tool box, different research methodologies have different uses for specific needs. It is not a best practice to use a hammer to drive a screw, nor the butt end of a screwdriver to pound a nail. Each tool is designed for a specific purpose, but used in concert can build a house. The same is true for research tools. Individually they are designed for specific purposes, but used in concert they can help build a more whole and complex structure.
Generally, Kinesis believes in measuring the customer experience with three broad classifications of research methodologies, each providing a unique perspective:
- Customer Feedback – Using customer surveys and other less “scientific” feedback tools (such as comment tools and social media monitoring), managers collect valuable input into customer expectations and impressions of the customer experience.
- Observation Research – Using performance audits and monitoring tools such as mystery shopping and call monitoring, managers use these tools to gather observations of employee sales and service behaviors.
- Employee Feedback – Frontline employees are the single most underutilized asset in terms of understanding the customer experience. Frontline employees spend the majority of their time in the company-customer interface and as a result have a unique perspective on the customer experience. They have a good idea about what customers want, how the institution compares to competitors, and how policies, procedures and internal service influence the customer experience.
These research methodologies are employed in concert to build a 360-degree view of the customer experience.
The key to building a 360-degree view of the customer experience is to understand the bank-customer interface. At the center of the customer experience are the various channels which form the interface between the customer and institution. Together these channels define the brand more than any external messaging. Best in class customer experience research programs monitor this interface from multiple directions across all channels to form a comprehensive view of the customer experience.
Customer and front-line employees are the two stakeholders who interact most commonly with each other in the customer-institution interface. As a result, a best practice in understanding this interface is to monitor it directly from each direction.
Tools to measure the experience from the customer side of interface include:
Post-Transaction Surveys: Post-transaction surveys provide intelligence from the other side of customer-employee interface. These surveys are targeted, event-driven, collecting feedback from customers about specific service encounters soon after the interaction occurs. They provide valuable insight into both customer impressions of the customer experience, and if properly designed, insight into customer expectations. This creates a learning feedback loop, where customer expectations can be used to inform service standards measured through mystery shopping. Thus two different research tools can be used to inform each other. Click here for a broader discussion of post-transaction surveys.
Customer Comments: Beyond surveying customers who have recently conducted a service interaction, a best practice is to provide an avenue for customers who want to comment on the experience. Comment tools are not new (in the past they were the good old fashioned comment card), but with modern Internet-based technology they can be used as a valuable feedback tool to identify at risk customers and mitigate the causes of their dissatisfaction. Additionally, comment tools can be used to inform the post transaction surveys. If common themes develop in customer comments, they can be added to the post-transaction surveys for a more scientific measurement of the issue. Click here for a broader discussion of comment tools.
Social Monitoring: Increasingly social media is “the media”; prospective customers assign far more weight to social media then any external messaging. A social listening system that analyzes and responds to social indirect feedback is increasingly becoming essential. As with comment tools, social listening can be used to inform the post transaction surveys. Click here for a broader discussion of social listening tools.
Directing our attention to the bank side of the interface, tools to measure the experience from the bank side of bank-customer interface include:
Mystery Shopping: In today’s increasing connected world, one bad experience could be shared hundreds if not thousands of times over. As in-person delivery models shift to a universal associate model with the branch serving as more of a sales center, monitoring and motivating selling skills is becoming increasingly essential. Mystery shopping is an excellent tool to align sales and service behaviors to the brand. Unlike the various customer feedback tools designed to inform managers about how customers feel about the bank, mystery shopping focuses on the behavioral side of the equation, answering the question: are our employees exhibiting appropriate sales and service behaviors? Click here for a broader discussion of mystery shopping tools.
Employee Surveys: Employee surveys often measure employee satisfaction and engagement. However, in terms of understanding the customer experience, a best practice is to move employee surveys beyond employee engagement and to understand what is going on at the customer-employee interface by leveraging employees as a valuable and inexpensive resource of customer experience information. This information comes directly out one side of the customer-employee interface, and provides not only intelligence into the customer experience, but also evaluates the level of support within the organization, solicit recommendations, and compares perceptions by position (frontline vs. management) to identify perceptual gaps which typically exist within organizations. Click here for a broader discussion of employee surveys.
For more posts in this series, click on the following links:
- Introduction: Best Practices in Bank Customer Experience Measurement Design
- Customer Surveys: Best Practices in Bank Customer Experience Measurement Design
- Mystery Shopping: Best Practices in Bank Customer Experience Measurement Design
- Leverage Unrecognized Experts in the Customer Experience: Best Practices in Bank Customer Experience Measurement Design – Employee Surveys
- Filling in the White Spaces: Best Practices in Bank Customer Experience Measurement Design – Social Listening
- A New Look at Comment Cards: Best Practices in Bank Customer Experience Measurement Design – Customer Comments & Feedback
- Customer Experience Measurement Implications of Changing Branch Networks
Best Practices in Bank Customer Experience Measurement Design: Mystery Shopping
“You can expect what you inspect.”
This management philosophy is as true today as it was 50 years ago when W. Edwards Deming used it. Mystery shopping is more than a pure measurement technique conducted properly; it is an excellent motivational tool to motivate appropriate sales and service behaviors across all bank delivery channels.
Unlike the various customer feedback tools designed to inform managers about how customers feel about the bank, mystery shopping focuses on the behavioral side of the equation, answering the question: are our employees exhibiting appropriate sales and service behaviors?
It is the employees who animate the brand, and it is imperative that employee sales and service behaviors be aligned with the brand promise. Actions speak louder than words. Brands spend millions of dollars on external messaging to define an emotional connection with the customer. However, when a customer perceives a disconnect between an employee representing the brand and external messaging, they almost certainly will experience brand ambiguity. The result severely undermines these investments, not only for the customer in question, but their entire social network. In today’s increasingly connected world, one bad experience could be shared hundreds if not thousands of times over. Mystery shopping is an excellent tool to align sales and service behaviors to the brand.
So…what behaviors, channels and employees should be shopped?
Sales channels and sales behaviors offer the most ROI relative to other types of shopping. In terms of prioritizing mystery shopping resources, shops of sales channels and sale behaviors should be the first priority. With the increasing use of universal associates and transforming tellers into sellers, it is incumbent on managers to measure and motivate these higher level sales skills, in both branches and contact centers. After sales behaviors have been prioritized, if resources remain for mystery shopping service scenarios can be included in the mix.
As for the specific measurements, the best practice for mystery shop design is to focus on empirically measureable employee behaviors captured with objective questions. (Was a specific behavior present or not?…Yes or no). The best methodology for deciding which questions to ask is to start with your brand promise, and determine which sales and service behaviors animate the brand. Once you have developed a list of expected behaviors, the next step is to map each behavior to a specific question. Avoid compound questions which ask about two different behaviors, unless you expect both behaviors to be present at the same time, and you are not worried about distinguishing if one is present without the other.
For more information about a process to align behaviors to the brand, click here: “5 Steps to Make Frontline Employees Authentic Representatives of the Brand”
Open-ended questions, either in narrative form or qualitatively asking what shoppers liked or disliked about the experience, add valuable context for understanding the customer experience. Many clients consider these qualitative observations the heart of the shop.
While the core of the mystery shop is objective measurements of specific behaviors, there is a place for subjective impressions. Rating scales are used to capture shopper impressions of various dimensions of the customer experience, as well as the overall experience itself. These subjective ratings provide valuable context for interpreting the customer experience, and specifically the efficacy of the objective behaviors measured. For example, purchase intent ratings calculate a correlation between the objective behaviors measured and purchase intent, identifying which behaviors may be more important in terms of driving purchase intent, and which investments in training, incentives and rewards have the most potential for ROI.
Finally, given mystery shopping measures employee behaviors against bank service standards, it is a best practice to calibrate and align service standards with customer expectations by constantly feeding information uncovered with the customer surveys back into the service standards and mystery shopping. Such an informed feedback loop between customer surveys and mystery shopping will ensure the behaviors measured are aligned with customer expectations.
Call to Action
Research without a call to action may be informative, but not very useful. Call to action elements should be built into research design, which provide a road map for clients to maximize the ROI on customer experience measurement.
For more posts in this series, click on the following links:
- Introduction: Best Practices in Bank Customer Experience Measurement Design
- Customer Surveys: Best Practices in Bank Customer Experience Measurement Design
- Leverage Unrecognized Experts in the Customer Experience: Best Practices in Bank Customer Experience Measurement Design – Employee Surveys
- Filling in the White Spaces: Best Practices in Bank Customer Experience Measurement Design – Social Listening
- A New Look at Comment Cards: Best Practices in Bank Customer Experience Measurement Design – Customer Comments & Feedback
- Customer Experience Measurement Implications of Changing Branch Networks
Customer Experience Measurement Implications of Changing Branch Networks
The branch network is evolving based on banking’s changing economic model as well as changing customer expectations and behaviors. As the branch network evolves measurement of the customer experience within the branch channel will need to evolve as well to fit both the changing economic model and customer behaviors.
Deb Stewart’s recent article “The Branch Shrinks” in the June 2014 edition of ABA Bank Marketing and Sales used the experience of Sweden as an example of how the branch operating model in the US may evolve in response to these changes. Ms. Stewart describes Sweden’s branch operating model’s evolution in four primary ways:
- Branches will be less monolithic, with branches tailored to location and market;
- Branches will be much smaller and more flexible;
- Customer facing technology will be more prevalent; and
- Branch staffing both decline and change with increased use of “universal” associates who will conduct a wider range of functions, transforming tellers to sellers.
The article goes on to describe five case studies for innovative branch design in the United States.
Most commentary suggests branch networks will be redefined in three primary ways:
- Flagship Branches: Hubs to a hub and spoke model offering education, advice, and serving as sales centers.
- Community Centers: Branches smaller in scope focused on community outreach driving loyalty.
- Expanded ATMs: These will serve as transaction centers at in-store or other high traffic sites.
In short, there will be a variety of branch types, many staffed with fewer employees, each with a unique role, presenting three customer experience challenges:
- Consistently delivering on the brand promises despite disparate branch types – Does the customer experience reinforce the overall brand promise?
- Fidelity to each branch’s unique role within network – Does the customer experience fit the specific role and objectives of the branch?
- Huge challenges associated with a transformation of skills to universal associates – How do we conduct a massive transition of skills of tellers into financial advisors, fluent in all bank products, and manage these associates fewer less employees on site.
Flagship Branches
The customer experience at flagship branches will best be measured much like it is at traditional branches today with a mix of customer satisfaction surveys and mystery shopping. A random sampling across all interaction types will ensure that all of the services offered at these education and sales centers are evaluated. Mystery shopping should focus scenarios on sales scenarios across all retail product lines, evaluating sales effectiveness, quality of experience and compliance.
Community Centers
Community Center branches offer the greatest need to refine customer experience measurement, and opportunity to use it as a management tool. Universal associates, with broad skill requirements working in lightly staffed branches, mandate that the customer experience be monitored closely. Post-transaction surveys across all interaction types should be used to evaluate employee skill level, appropriate resolution of inquiry, and consistency of service with brand promise. An automated email or mobile survey will provide managers with a near real time view of the customer experience at fraction of the cost of other data collection methods. Mystery shopping across a broad range of scenarios will evaluate employee skill level and appropriate referral practices for mortgage and investment services to Flagship branches or Video Bankers. Fewer employees will allow for better tracking of the customer experience at the employee level, which will be a necessity given the increased expectations on these employees with less onsite management.
Expanded ATMs
As with the other branch types, a random sampling of all interaction types will yield a valid sample of transactions these branches perform. As with the other branch types, automated email or mobile surveys will provide a near real time view of the experience. Mystery shopping may be used to evaluate service interactions with video tellers, investment advisors or tellers.
Evolution of the branch network, particularly with changes in the staffing model, will require changes in how the customer experience is monitored. The good news is survey technology is evolving as well, and will give managers the opportunity to gather intelligence on the customer experience in a highly efficient and productive manner.
For more posts in this series, click on the following links:
- Introduction: Best Practices in Bank Customer Experience Measurement Design
- Customer Surveys: Best Practices in Bank Customer Experience Measurement Design
- Mystery Shopping: Best Practices in Bank Customer Experience Measurement Design
- Leverage Unrecognized Experts in the Customer Experience: Best Practices in Bank Customer Experience Measurement Design – Employee Surveys
- Filling in the White Spaces: Best Practices in Bank Customer Experience Measurement Design – Social Listening
- A New Look at Comment Cards: Best Practices in Bank Customer Experience Measurement Design – Customer Comments & Feedback
Drivers of Purchase Intent in the Contact Center Experience in Retail Banking
What impresses customers positively as a result of a call to your call center?
To answer this question, Kinesis conducted research into the efficacy of the bank contact center sales process by observing a battery of sales and service behaviors through the use of mystery shoppers. The objective of this study was to identify which sales and service behaviors drive purchase intent. (See the insert below for a description of the methodology).
The table at the end of this post shows the relative frequency in which each behavior was observed in shops where the shopper reported positive purchase intent as a result of the call, compared to shops with negative purchase intent.
The seven behaviors with the strongest relationship to purchase intent are:
- Invite to visit a branch
- If on hold, thank for waiting
- Express appreciation for interest/thank for business
- Offer further assistance
- Mention/refer to website
- Listen attentively to your needs
- Offer to send material
Each of these behaviors is at least three times more likely to be present in shops with positive purchase intent compared to those with negative purchase intent.
Two observations jump out from this first group of behaviors:
First, integration of other channels into the sales process appears to drive purchase intent. Inviting the shopper to visit a branch was observed 6.4 times more frequently in shops with positive purchase intent compared to negative. The branch still has a role in the sales process; other research consistently points to the convenience of branch location as a driver of selection of a primary financial institution. If contact centers leverage the branch during the sales process, they have a significantly better chance to advance the sale. Additionally, when the agent incorporated the website into the sales presentation, they also have a better chance of advancing the sale. Mentioning the website was 3.3 times more likely to be present in shops with positive purchase intent compared to negative.
Secondly, the balance of these key behaviors all revolve around personal attention (thank for waiting on hold, offing further assistance, listening attentively, offer to send material) and interest in the customer’s business (express appreciation or thank for business).
Nine more behaviors were at least twice as likely to be present in shops with positive purchase intent:
- Product knowledge
- Ask for name
- Ask for your business/close the sale
- If on hold, check back in 1 minute
- When thanked respond graciously
- Ask probing questions
- Explanations easy to understand
- Explain the value of banking with bank
- Thank for calling
The themes most common in this second group of behaviors that appear to influence purchase intent are competence (product knowledge, easy to understand explanations), personal attention (asking name, checking back on hold, probing of needs) and interest in the customer’s business (ask for business, express value, thank for calling).
So…what drives purchase intent as a result of a call to a contact center? Integrating other channels into the conversation, and sincerely expressing interest in the customer broadly drive purchase intent.
Frequency Behavior Observed in Shops with Increased and Decreased Purchase Intent:
| Increased | Decreased | |
| Invite to visit a branch | 64% | 10% |
| If on hold, thanked for waiting | 97% | 20% |
| Express appreciation for interest / thank you for business | 92% | 20% |
| Offer further assistance | 85% | 25% |
| Mention/refer to website | 66% | 20% |
| Listen attentively to your needs | 80% | 25% |
| Offer to send material | 97% | 31% |
| Product knowledge | 98% | 35% |
| Ask for name | 68% | 25% |
| Ask for your business/close the sale | 76% | 32% |
| If on hold, check back in 1 minute | 94% | 40% |
| When thanked respond graciously | 98% | 42% |
| Ask probing questions | 94% | 42% |
| Explanations easy to understand | 99% | 45% |
| Explain the value of banking with bank | 88% | 43% |
| Thank for calling | 99% | 50% |
| Friendly demeanor / pleasant voice | 100% | 60% |
| Clear Greeting | 95% | 60% |
| Avoid bank jargon | 98% | 68% |
| Use name | 96% | 67% |
| Mention other bank product | 99% | 75% |
| Good pace | 98% | 75% |
| Wait for response before placed on hold | 100% | 80% |
| Demonstrate understanding of question | 100% | 81% |
| Answered in 3 rings | 99% | 88% |
| Speak clearly | 99% | 88% |
| Professional Greeting | 98% | 89% |
| Avoid interrupting | 100% | 95% |
Methodology
To evaluate the state of the in-branch sales process, Kinesis mystery shopped five banks with significant North American footprints. Among the objectives of the study were to:
1) Define the sales process among different institutions.
2) Evaluate the effectiveness of specific sales behaviors.
Shoppers were asked a mixture of closed-ended questions to evaluate the presence or frequency of specific behaviors, and open-ended questions to gather the qualitative impressions of these behaviors on the shoppers – in short the how and why behind how the shopper felt. Finally, to provide a basis to evaluate the effectiveness of each sales behavior, shoppers were asked to rate their purchase intent as a result of the visit. This purchase intent rating was then used as a means of evaluating what behaviors tend to be present when positive purchase intent is reported as opposed to negative purchase intent.
When Mystery Shopping Goes Bad: Best Practices to Avoid Common Pitfalls
Despite the fact that many businesses spend thousands of dollars annually on such research, an astonishing number of mystery shopping programs fail outright or limp along year after year, perennially under-performing against expectations.
Companies recite a litany of complaints, including:
- disputed findings by employees and managers;
- questioning of mystery shoppers’ skills and credibility;
- more internal administration than planned;
- flat trend lines and undifferentiated scores;
- little or no correlation between mystery shopping results and customer satisfaction ratings;
- lack of timeliness and responsiveness from mystery shopping vendors; and,
- difficulty demonstrating return on investment.
There is nothing inherently faulty about the mystery shopping methodology, which is simply a type of observational research. It can and does provide tremendous value when it is designed and executed well.
Here are some best practices to help you avoid these common pitfalls:
Define clear objectives. Considering the high price tag that comes with mystery shopping research, it’s incumbent upon company managers to define their goals in specific and measurable terms.
Keep it simple. In the interest of internal consensus, mystery shopping programs are often designed by committee, which can lead to the program becoming hopelessly complicated and cumbersome. Unrealistic scenarios and long, complex questionnaires are common, creating great frustration for mystery shoppers and program administrators. In such cases the likelihood of shopper exposure is increased and the accuracy of the observations suffers. Simpler designs work better and provide more value.
Hire a vendor that can be a partner. Large companies often employ an excruciating bidding process that rarely identifies the best vendor for their needs. They issue lengthy RFPs for mystery shopping that are meant to weed out the weakest contenders, but by asking bidders to commit to overly detailed and inappropriate specifications they effectively eliminate more sophisticated companies at the same time. The typical RFP process creates an environment in which mystery shopping vendors over-promise in order to make the first cut, thus setting themselves up for failure if they win the account. In addition, it treats mystery shopping research as a commodity, regarding it as a bulk purchase of data rather than a high-value quality improvement tool. Companies have more success when they research the market carefully and identify the companies that have the knowledge and commitment to help them build a truly valuable program.
Obtain buy-in from the front-line. When mystery shopping initiatives fail to meet their potential it is often because the people who are accountable for the results — front-line employees, supervisors, store managers, and regional managers — were never properly introduced to the program. As a result there may be internal resistance, creating an unnecessary distraction from the achievement of the company’s service improvement goals. To ensure success, employees throughout the organization must be fully informed and bought into the mystery shopping program before it is launched. Pre-launch efforts should include training on how to read mystery shopping reports, how to use the information effectively, and how to set goals for improvement.
Provide adequate internal administration. Few companies anticipate the amount of administration necessary to run a successful mystery shopping program. It requires a strong administrator to keep the company focused and on board, and to make sure that recalcitrant field managers are not able to undermine the program before it stabilizes and begins to realize its potential value.
Plan for change. Even well-designed and administered mystery shopping research requires periodic adjustment. Performance scores eventually flatten out or cluster together, diminishing the value of the program as a tool for rewarding top performers and continuously improving quality. Periodic reviews should be worked into the program design so it can be kept relevant and useful, and so the bar can be repeatedly raised on service quality and employee performance.
Meeting the Demand
The consumer demand for better service is growing all the time. Companies struggle to meet this demand in the face of high employee turnover, shrinking profit margins, and increasing competition. At the same time the business landscape is becoming more and more complex, with 24-hour, multi-channel service now a basic consumer expectation.
Mystery shopping is among the more powerful tools available to companies seeking to improve their service quality. Providing objective data about service execution across locations and delivery channels allows managers to identify specific areas for improvement and to reward employees in a consistent, relevant manner.
Compliance and Sales Effectiveness Go Hand In Hand
Compliance and service quality are not mutually exclusive. In fact there is a positive relationship between compliance and, not only service quality, but stronger sales.
To understand the relationship between Truth in Savings Act (TISA) compliance behaviors and the customer experience, Kinesis mystery shopped five US banks with the objective of evaluating TISA compliance and the customer experience. A description of the methodology is at the conclusion of this post.
Employees who correctly quoted APY provided a more satisfactory experience. The overall impression of the entire experience for shops that passed the TISA disclosure requirements was 4.1 compared to 3.4 for shops that failed, on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is “Extremely Dissatisfied” and 5 is “Extremely Satisfied”.
| Passed Ave. (Net Sat.) | Failed Ave. (Net Sat.) | |
| Overall impression of entire experience | 4.1 (70%) | 3.4 (24%) |
Beyond the overall satisfaction with the experience, significant differences also exist across all the individual service attributes measured. In all of the following seven attributes measured, shops which passed the compliance test consistently had higher attribute satisfaction ratings.
| Passed Ave. (Net Sat.) | Failed Ave. (Net Sat.) | |
| Job knowledge | 4.0 (64%) | 3.2 (15%) |
| Confidence in the agent | 4.1 (71%) | 3.5 (31%) |
| Use understandable terms | 4.0 (62%) | 3.4 (24%) |
| Professionalism | 4.3 (74%) | 3.8 (53%) |
| Interest in helping | 4.1 (63%) | 3.7 (40%) |
| Valuing customer | 4.0 (59%) | 3.6 (33%) |
| Friendliness/courtesy | 4.4 (82%) | 4.1 (69%) |
Not surprisingly, there is a relationship between compliance and job competence. Employees who comply with the TISA are more likely to demonstrate competence in other aspects of their job. Job knowledge, confidence in the employee, use of understandable terms, and professionalism are the four attributes with the largest gaps between shops that passed and shops that failed.
Additionally, employees who pass the compliance test are more skilled at connecting with the potential customer; receiving higher average ratings for interest in helping, valuing the customer and even friendliness and courtesy.
Now, as if compliance risk and customer service were not strong enough cases for TISA compliance, what about the sale? What about sales effectiveness?
To evaluate the sales effectiveness of the presentation, shoppers were asked to rate their purchase intent as a result of the interaction. The following chart illustrates the distribution of the purchase intent rating for shops which passed the compliance test compared to shops which failed:
Shops which complied with TISA requirements had significantly higher purchase intent compared to shops that failed. Shops which passed exhibited a net positive purchase intent of 46% (46% more shops received positive purchase intent ratings compared to negative). On the other hand, shops which failed the TISA evaluation received a net negative purchase intent of minus 9%, (9% more shoppers assigned negative purchase intent than positive).
There is a relationship between TISA compliance and the customer experience. Employees who are skilled at compliance behaviors, exhibit similar superior service and sales skills compared to those with weaker skills.
——
Methodology
To investigate the relationship between the overall customer experience and compliance, Kinesis mystery shopped 50 branches and the call centers of five banks with significant North American footprints. Among the objectives of the study were to:
1) Evaluate Truth in Savings act compliance, specifically the presence and timing of Annual Percentage Yield quotes, and
2) Evaluate the effectiveness of specific sales behaviors.
Shoppers were asked a mixture of closed-ended questions to evaluate the presence or frequency of specific behaviors, as well as to rate various service attributes with 5-point scales. Finally, to provide a basis to evaluate the effectiveness of each sales behavior, shoppers were asked to rate their purchase intent as a result of the visit. This purchase intent rating was then used as a means of evaluating what behaviors tend to be present when positive purchase intent is reported as opposed to negative purchase intent.
Opposite Sides of the Same Coin: One Word Descriptions of the Customer Experience In Experiences with Both Positive and Negative Purchase Intent
What one word would a customer use to describe the experience at your bank?
Would your customer experience be described as professional, knowledgeable or informative, or would it be described as frustrating, disappointing, inexperienced or rushed?
One simple and elegant tool to get a picture of your customer experience is to ask customers what one word they would use to describe the customer experience.
Kinesis recently mystery shopped six major North American banks to evaluate the state of the sales and service process at these institutions and identify potential drivers of purchase intent in the customer experience. Shoppers were asked a mixture of closed-ended questions to evaluate the presence or frequency of specific behaviors, and open-ended questions to gather the qualitative impressions of these behaviors on the shoppers – in short the how and why behind what the shopper felt. Part of this research plan was to ask shopper to describe their experience with one word. Finally, to provide a basis to evaluate the effectiveness of each of these brand attributes, shoppers were asked to rate their purchase intent as a result of the visit. This purchase intent rating was then used as a means of evaluating which attributes tend to be used to describe experiences with positive purchase intent compared to those with negative purchase intent.
The descriptions we received from mystery shoppers ranged from professional, knowledgeable, and informative to disappointing, frustrating and rushed. This list of adjectives alone was interesting; however, the purpose of this research was to identify drivers of purchase intent, in part to differentiate experiences with positive purchase intent compared to those with negative purchase intent.
So…how did the customer experience in mystery shops that reported positive purchase intent differ from those that reported negative purchase intent? –OR- Specifically, what adjectives did shoppers use to describe the experience that created positive purchase intent compared to those that created negative purchase intent?
Shoppers who reported purchase intent used the following adjectives to describe the experience.
From this word cloud the drivers of positive purchase intent can be deduced. Potential bank customers respond to bankers who are professional, informative, knowledgeable, friendly, pleasant, helpful and attentive. What customers want is a banker who cares about their needs and has the ability to meet those needs.
Conversely, shoppers who reported negative purchase intent as a result of the customer experience used the following adjectives to describe the customer experience.
In comparison to the shops with positive purchase intent, the list of adjectives that describe shops with negative purchase intent is a little more nuanced. Adjectives like frustrating and disappointing are illuminative but not necessarily actionable; while adjectives such as rushed, inexperienced, indifferent, and pushy provide clear direction with respect to elements of the customer experience that undercut purchase intent.
Bottom line: Customers want to do business with bankers who care about their needs and have the ability to satisfy those needs, and reject bankers who are inexperienced, indifferent, pushy or rush the customer through the transaction.
| Two Sides of The Same Coin | |
| Positive Purchase Intent | Negative Purchase Intent |
| Professional
Informative/ Knowledgeable Friendly Pleasant Helpful Attentive |
Rushed
Inexperienced Indifferent Pushy |
When you look at these adjectives side by side, aren’t these opposite sides of the same coin?
It’s Personal: Drivers of Positive Impressions of the Branch Experience
What impresses customers positively as a result of a visit to your branch?
To answer this and other questions, Kinesis conducted research into the efficacy of the branch sales process and identified several service and sales attributes that drive purchase intent. (See the insert below of a description of the methodology).
In our observational research of 100 retail banking presentations, mystery shoppers were asked to describe what impressed them positively as a result of the visit to the branch. Excluding the branch atmosphere, the five most common themes contained in these open-ended comments were:
- Attentive to Needs/ Interest in Helping/ Personalized Service,
- Professional/ Courteous/ Not Pushy, Positive Greeting,
- Friendly Employees, and
- Rep. Product Knowledge/ Informative/ Confidence in Rep.
In an effort to understand the relative importance of these behaviors in driving purchase intent, shoppers were asked to rate their purchase intent, as a result of the presentation, as if they had been an actual customer. Shops were then grouped into those with positive and negative purchase intent and compared to each other.
Of these drivers of a positive impression, three have positive relationships to purchase intent – they tend to be present with greater frequency in shops with positive purchase intent compared to those with negative purchase intent.
|
Reason for Positive Purchase Intent |
Relative Frequency Positive to Negative Purchase Intent |
| Rep. Product Knowledge/ Informative/ Confidence in Rep. |
2.7 |
| Attentive to Needs/ Interest in Helping/ Personalized Service |
2.5 |
| Friendly Employee |
2.3 |
The banker’s product knowledge was present 2.7 times more frequent in shops with positive purchase intent relative to shops with negative purchase intent. Similarly, attention to needs and personalized service was present 2.5 times more in shops with positive purchase intent compared to those with negative purchase intent. Finally, shoppers were 2.3 times more likely to cite the friendliness of the bankers in shops with positive purchase intent relative to negative.
The observations contained within this research are not rocket science. What customers want, what drives purchase intent, is personal: attention to needs, interest in helping, personalized service, professional, courteous and friendly encounters.
Methodology
To evaluate the state of the in-branch sales process, Kinesis mystery shopped 100 branches among five banks with significant North American footprints. Among the objectives of the study were to:
1) Define the sales process among different institutions.
2) Evaluate the effectiveness of specific sales behaviors.
Shoppers were asked a mixture of closed-ended questions to evaluate the presence or frequency of specific behaviors, and open-ended questions to gather the qualitative impressions of these behaviors on the shoppers – in short the how and why behind how the shopper felt. Finally, to provide a basis to evaluate the effectiveness of each sales behavior, shoppers were asked to rate their purchase intent as a result of the visit. This purchase intent rating was then used as a means of evaluating what behaviors tend to be present when positive purchase intent is reported as opposed to negative purchase intent.
Kinesis CEM 
A New Normal: Implications for Bank Customer Experience Measurement Post Pandemic – Planned Interactions
Part 2: Research Tools to Monitor Planned Interactions through the Customer Lifecycle
As we explored in an earlier post, Three Types of Customer Experiences CX Managers Must Understand, there are three types of customer interactions: Planned, Stabilizing, and Critical.
Planned interactions are intended to increase customer profitability through the customer lifecycle by engaging customers with relevant planned interactions and content in an integrated omni-channel environment. Planned interactions will continue to grow in importance as the financial service industry shifts to an integrated digital first model.
These planned interactions are frequently triggered by changes in account usage, financial situation, family profile, etc. CRM analytics combined with Big Data are becoming quite effective at recognizing such opportunities and prompting action toward planned interactions. Customer experience managers should have a process to record and analyze the quality of execution of planned interactions with the objective of evaluating their effectiveness – regardless of the channel.
The key to an effective strategy for planned interactions is relevance. Triggered requests for increased engagement must be made in the context of the customer’s needs and with their permission; otherwise, the requests will come off as clumsy and annoying, and give the impression the bank is not really interested in the customer’s individual needs. By aligning information about execution quality (cause) and customer impressions (effect), customer experience managers can build a more effective and relevant approach to planned interactions.
Research Plan for Planned Interactions
The first step in designing a research plan to test the efficacy of these planned interactions is to define the campaign. Ask yourself, what customer interactions are planned through these layers of integrated channels. Mapping the process will define your research objectives, allowing an informed judgment of what to measure and how to measure it.
For example, after acquisition and onboarding, assume a bank has a campaign to trigger planned interactions based on triggers from past engagement. These planned interactions are segmented into the following phases of the customer lifecycle: engagement, growth, and retention.
Engagement Phase
Often it is instructive to think of customer experience research in terms of the bank-customer interface, employing different research tools to study the customer experience from both sides of this interface.
In our example above, management may measure the effectiveness of planned experiences in the engagement phase with the following research tools:
These post-experience surveys are event-driven, where a transaction or service interaction determines if the customer is selected for a survey. They can be performed across all channels, digital, contact center and in-person. As the name implies, the purpose of this type of survey is to measure experience with a specific customer experience.
Ultimately, employees are at the center of the integrated customer experience model.
Employee surveys often measure employee satisfaction and engagement. However, there is far more value to be gleaned from employees. We employ them to understand what is going on at the customer-employee interface by leveraging employees as a valuable and inexpensive resource of customer experience information.
They not only provide intelligence into the customer experience, but also evaluate the level of support within the organization, and identify perceptual gaps between management and frontline personnel.
Overall satisfaction surveys measure customer satisfaction among the general population of customers, regardless of whether or not they recently conducted a transaction. They give managers valuable insight into overall satisfaction, engagement, image and positioning across the entire customer base, not just active customers.
Be it a website or mobile app, digital mystery shopping allows managers of these channels to test ease of use, navigation and the overall customer experience of these digital channels.
Mystery shopping is about alignment. It is an excellent tool to align the customer experience to the brand. Best-in-class mystery shopping answers the question: is our customer experience consistent with our brand objectives? Historically, mystery shopping has been in the in-person channel, however we are seeing increasing mystery shopping to contact center agents.
Growth Phase
In the growth phase, we measure the effectiveness of planned experiences on both sides of the customer interface with the following research tools:
Awareness of the brand, its products and services, is central to planned service interactions. Managers need to know how awareness and attitudes change as a result of these planned experiences.
In these unique mystery shops, mystery shoppers are seeded into the lead/referral process. The sales behaviors and their effectiveness are then evaluated in an outbound sales interaction.
These shops work very well in planned sales interactions within the contact center environment.
These surveys are used to evaluate customer engagement with and loyalty to the institution. Specifically, they determine if customers consider the institution their primary provider of financial services, and identify potential road blocks to wallet share growth.
Retention Phase
Finally, planned experiences within the retention phase of the customer lifecycle may be monitored with the following tools:
CIT is a qualitative research methodology designed to uncover details surrounding a service encounter that a customer found particularly satisfying or dissatisfying. This research technique identifies these common critical incidents, their impact on the customer experience, and customer engagement, giving managers an informed perspective upon which to prepare employees to recognize moments of truth, and respond in ways that will lead to positive outcomes.
Employees observe firsthand the relationship with the customer. They are a valuable resource of customer experience information, and can provide a lot of context into the types of bad experiences customers frequently experience.
Closed account surveys identify sources of run-off or churn to provide insight into improving customer retention.
If an integrated channel approach is the objective, one should measure the customer experience in an integrated manner.
In lifecycle shops, shoppers interact with the bank over a period of time, across multiple touch points (digital, contact center and in-person). This lifecycle approach provides broad and deep observations about sales and service alignment to the brand and performance throughout the customer lifecycle across all channels.
Comment tools are not new, but with modern Internet-based technology they can be used as a valuable feedback tool to identify at risk customers and mitigate the causes of their dissatisfaction.
Call to Action – Make the Most of the Research
For customer experience surveys, we recommend testing the effectiveness of planned interactions by benchmarking three loyalty attitudes:
For mystery shopping, we find linking observations to a dependent variable, such as purchase intent, identifies which sales and service behaviors drive purchase intent – informing decisions with respect to training and incentives to reinforce the sales activities which drive purchase intent.
As the integrated digital first business model accelerates, planned interactions will continue to grow in importance, and managers of the customer experience should build customer experience monitoring tools to evaluate the efficacy of these planned experiences in terms of driving desired customer attitudes and behaviors.
In the next post, we will take a look at stabilizing experiences, and their implications for customer experience research.