breakthrough research

return on investment in customer service

the bottom line report
executive summary

research sponsored by:

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breakthrough research: return on investment in customer service the bottom line report executive summary

A research paper by Ashridge Business School All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in an information-storage and retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without written permission from the Institute of Customer Service, 2 Castle Court, St Peters Street, Colchester CO1 1EW. Institute of Customer Service 2011

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contents
introduction ............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 4 methodology and research approach survey sample
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5 5 6

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survey findings

case studies ............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 9 recommendations

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13 15

acknowledgements

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breakthrough research: return on investment in customer service the bottom line report executive summary

introduction
Customer service is now a key strategic driver for senior executives across all sectors of the UK economy as they recognise that customers have a direct impact on customer retention, reputation and bottom line performance. Customer management is becoming a priority issue in an environment where customers are becoming more demanding and customer feedback is immediate and highly visible. The challenge for many organisations is to find strategies to deal with an ever expanding breadth of customer touch points. What organisations have been looking for is clear evidence to prove that there is a return on investing in excellent service. This prompted the Institute of Customer Service to conduct its most comprehensive piece of research to date return on investment in customer service the bottom line report with Ashridge Business School. This document is an executive summary of the full research findings. Many chief executives are moving towards a fundamental shift from viewing customer service as a largely transaction-based cost centre; to a strategic driver that helps generate value for the organisation. The report focuses on service providers in both the private, public and third sectors and looks for evidence of financial returns of customer service including ROI, profit, revenue, business growth, business value, share-of-wallet, customer equity and lifetime value of the customer. Calculating the ROI in customer service is complex compared to other organisational activities and the report looks at the various drivers of customer service and any causal evidence of how these drivers could be combined to deliver financial returns and intangibles such as loyalty, delight, trust, customer commitment etc. Excellent service provision is a composite of many of these drivers, including efficient quality processes, capability in providing customer experience, staff training and development, the effective use of knowledge and, not least, a service strategy that is often highly personalised and customised. Perception of value is a major driving force for customer satisfaction and is inherently subjective and liable to change over time as customer expectations change. Service takes place across many touch points in the service provider organisation, delivered by both frontline and back office staff. Our research points to a number of changes, which can be classified into three clusters: strategic, operational and cultural. We believe these shifts signify a profound change for the customer service world and can serve as a checklist for individual organisations. Customer service is as critical as price in todays business environment. Excellence in customer service is the route to creating satisfied and loyal customers, resulting in higher revenue, business growth and enhanced shareholder value. The case studies featured in the report suggest there is no one simple set of activities to undertake or one-size-fits-all solution to achieve optimum return on any investment in customer service. These activities and choices have to be determined by those who know the environment best the service provider with significant input from the customers, business partners, and employees, especially those at the frontline who have the clearest view of customer needs.

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methodology and research approach

The findings of the report are based both on qualitative and quantitative data from a range of information sources: An online survey targeted at senior executives in a wide range of mostly UK-based organisations from both the private, public and third sectors. Case studies, focusing on a cross section of organisations from the private, public and third sectors. They include business-to-consumer and business-to-business service providers. Where possible and relevant, multiple perspectives were gathered from senior executives, customer service managers, customers and frontline staff. A literature review of empirical evidence of ROI in customer service. This review looked for evidence of financial returns of customer service such as ROI, profit, revenue, business growth, business value, share-of-wallet, customer equity and lifetime value of customer. It also explored public sector returns such as value for money.

survey sample
The overwhelming majority (85%) of respondents* reported they were in senior managerial roles (chair, partner, senior management). 51% worked in organisations with more than 1,000 employees and 22% of the total came from companies having at least 10,000 staff. Close to one quarter (23% of the total), came from the customer service function, general management (20%) and marketing and sales (16%). The main business sectors were all represented. Seventy one per cent of the respondents worked within organisations in the private sector and the remainder were in the public and third sectors. The private sector respondents were mainly business-to-business (63%) whilst data from the public sector showed an almost equal mix of organisations servicing other organisations (45%) and serving users directly (55%).

*survey sample: 153 reponses.

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survey findings
The study demonstrates conclusively that the relationship organisations forge with customers is at the heart of customer service success and ROI. The nature of this relationship varies significantly from one respondent to another. However, there is remarkable consistency between respondents in the survey on the customer service activities which they believe lead to the highest return. Most significantly, 81% of the sample believe that gaining an understanding from the customer viewpoint is very likely to lead to ROI; 74% say that gathering and acting on customer feedback is also very likely to produce ROI (see exhibit 1).

Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Activity Gaining understanding of the customer viewpoint Gathering and acting on customer feedback Training and development of staff in soft skills Developing processes from a customer point of view Selecting the right staff Being responsive in terms of quality Empowering staff Being responsive in terms of speed

exhibit 1: ranked activities that lead to ROI

Having the right staff with an inborn attitude to customer service, and the freedom and capability to make customer-based decisions are seen as increasingly important contributors to this goal. Out of a total of 26 prioritised activities in the survey, employee-based items occurred in three of the top seven positions (exhibit 1). Interestingly, allied to their belief in strong employee-customer relationships, the survey respondents voted outsourcing/offshoring as the least likely activity to lead to ROI in customer service. Achieving ROI from effective customer service is frequently seen as a given among respondents. However demonstrating the link in quantitative terms poses a number of challenges. For a start, measuring ROI is contextual. Capturing the whole value of ROI requires an understanding of context and strategy and needs to be evaluated across the whole organisation. The final end goal is commonly customer satisfaction (typical in the public sector), a close working partnership (found in business-to-business) or a tighter customer relationship (often in commercial organisations with a strong customer service ethic). These goals determine the view of what should be measured and how it is defined. The changing nature of customer service in todays business climate also impacts measurement choices. The survey suggests that the public and private sectors have significant differences in how they view complex customer events such as the whole customer experience and customer perception of value. In all cases the private sector sees these items as having more impact on their business, now and in the future, compared to the public sector. Yet public sector respondents see big changes on the horizon. Only 14% of public sector organisations say linking processes, people and strategy has a high/very high impact currently, but this figure increases to 61% when asked about impact in the next three to five years (see exhibit 2).

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Linking processes, people & strategy

100 90 80 70
Percent

60 50 40 30 20 10 0
Private Public

NOW

FUTURE

exhibit 2: importance of linking processes, people and strategy

The survey shows that indicators of customer service quality are changing. Customer service measurement is not all quantitative; according to the survey, qualitative data is now the most common type of measurement of ROI in customer service. Customer satisfaction ranks as number one for impact on the business, both for now and in the future. Evidence demonstrating measurable ROI (in the opinion of the respondents) is mostly from customer feedback (41%), of which nearly half is via customer satisfaction surveys. The question of whether the customer satisfaction survey will continue to be the dominant method of the future remains unresolved as does how new technology will change the landscape. Underneath customer satisfaction there are significant changes. Loyalty, seen as very important now, is ranked only ninth for the future. However, a culture of service quality and the whole customer experience shoot from lowly positions to prominence in the future (see exhibit 3). The survey suggests that ROI in the future will increasingly come from activities that are difficult to measure. High-ranked items which are difficult to measure are linked to activities which the respondents in the survey believe are most likely to lead to a return on investment.

HARD to measure

Competitive ADVANTAGE

Trust Emotional connection

Customer satisfaction, Loyalty

HYGIENE FACTOR LEVEL EASY to measure

Operational measures, KPI

BASE LEVEL of service quality expectation

exhibit 3: competitive advantage: the measurement challenge

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Some 53% of respondents said soft/emotional activities (such as treating customers as individuals) are very likely to lead to ROI compared to 38% for hard/measurable activities. Measures like a culture of service quality and customer perception of the value offered rank highly among respondents as being both very likely to lead to ROI and hard to measure. In consequence, the approaches to measurement adopted by respondents fall into a number of types. The first is the use of standard measures, such as operational KPIs and customer satisfaction surveys, where the approach to evaluation is well known and has been in place for some time. Organisations believe they have real evidence of ROI from customer satisfaction, the quality of customer facing staff and customer loyalty. The second is the use of partial measurement in which softer areas like trust and emotional connection are starting to be tracked, if not measured comprehensively for example where unsolicited positive feedback is counted but not analysed. The third is the use of new more complex evaluation methods, often underpinned by innovative computer software, which are able to track patterns of feedback and other behavioural elements in order to evaluate qualitative data such as human emotions. Some organisations are also exploring alternative, more indirect sources of feedback, for example via Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites. Among respondents, more complex people-driven concepts such as the culture of service quality and the whole customer experience are seen as much more important in the future than at present. Organisations are now seeking new ways to measure these variables. The trend points towards the behavioural aspects of customer service becoming the critical differentiators over the next five years. However, it is important to stress that there is no obvious causal model underpinning these evaluation methods: at best it takes the form of a network with some direct links in the service-profit chain that are not easily comparable across organisations. The review of external research publications describing evidence of ROI in customer service suggests that: There is insufficient understanding of how customer service delivers value through complex chains of cause and effect. There are a small number of established service-profit chains but these are difficult to use. There is no such thing as absolute proof of impact when evaluating intangible returns, such as when a close relationship with a valuable customer helps attract similar customers or provides entry into a new market. The survey and case studies suggest that, faced with the dichotomy of the hardest-to-measure factors being also the most likely to lead to ROI, many organisations opt for simpler measures instead and take on faith the return on investment of soft factors like instilling a culture of service quality. This lack of measurement may be because organisations think it is not costeffective to measure softer returns or because they are not yet capable of measuring them. Nevertheless, these softer factors are seen as highly valuable in producing a return and are critical for the future success of customer service.

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case studies
The in-depth case studies, drawn from organisations that have a strong belief in the value of customer service, and available in full in the main report, highlight a number of key points. They include the highly contextual nature of customer service measurement; the increasing trend towards customer service as a strategic element of the business and the organisation-wide commitment to quality customer service. In all of the case studies, the commitment and active involvement of both line managers and senior managers is an important enabler for achieving ROI in customer service. These individuals help ensure customer service is aligned to organisational priorities. They also send a message to sceptics that customer service matters. Over half the case studies rely on standard customer service measures that focus on customer satisfaction as a clearly demonstrable denominator of ROI. Eurostar, and to a lesser extent T-Mobile and Kleinwort Benson use measures that attempt to quantify the nature of their relationships with customers in a more detailed and complex manner. Eurostar measures, for example, its customer service return via both tangible standard service industry metrics as well as attempting to evaluate intangible returns. The company supplements its customer satisfaction survey with an emotional survey to see how customers feel during their journey. Employee feedback is also important. Terminal staff have regular briefings with a new one page scorecard which contains everything from customer satisfaction, service behaviour, sales and other key business indicators. Employees have an opportunity to view and comment on overall business performance. It creates greater ownership of the corporate results at all levels and stimulates ideas for improvements in customer service. A comparison of the case studies should not imply that customer service has a lower priority among the case studies that adopt simpler measures. Organisations use the measures that are appropriate for their own context. A striking theme across all the case studies is that ROI in customer service is driven by a clear, organisation-wide vision about the importance of customer service. Although the organisations surveyed have a variety of service strategies (primarily choosing between pursuing customisation or standardisation), there is a tight alignment between organisational priorities, customer service strategy and brand identity. The case studies share common components, which clearly cluster into foundation, interaction and outcomes and which focus on the customer relationship (see exhibit 4 page 10). O2 has customer service representation on the Board, increasing both the visibility and influence of the operation. O2 is a business driven by customer insights and to achieve that we do more research than competitors. If you dont understand how your customer perceives you, youre kidding yourself. Customer perception is king.

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The customer service operation within O2 is driving to become more deeply involved in product design, using the voice of the customer gathered from extensive feedback. Their open culture ensures the attention of the senior team over big issues, whether raised by end customers, business partners or employees. Employee pride and retention rates are high as customer service has turned into a visible profit centre for the organisation.
Key ROI Components

Product quality Customer Service as strategic vision

Service quality

Organisation

Employee Engagement with customer Employee attitude/ Commitment to customer Business process improvement

Culture

Reputation Brand image PROFIT

Mgt support

Employee job satisfaction

Engagement in organisation

Trust
Service recovery Meeting expectations

Trust
Customer satisfaction Loyalty Customer relationship Advocacy Repeat business Outcomes Relationship

Customer Engagement Customer Perception Customer attitude

Delight Wow factor Exceeding expectations

Foundation exhibit 4: key ROI components

Interaction

The case studies underline the view that senior executives are moving swiftly from a view of customer service as a largely administrative function to one that delivers strategic value. For private sector case studies, a very strong message emerged: customer service is a source of competitive advantage and differentiation. Healthcare provider, Elective Orthopaedic Centre, places customer care at the heart of its strategy and identity. One of the key investments (estimated at 250k per year) has been in its dedicated patient transport. The Centre employs a fleet of ambulance taxis to guarantee patients have easy access to the hospital before their operations and to make sure that they return safely home afterwards. Although a significant cost, the company feels the return on this investment is justified through the 0% DNA (did not attend) rate, the need to ensure patients are ready on time and are safely transferred from hospital to home. Wasted theatre slots at the Centre are estimated to cost 2,700 per hour, so providing a service that ensures patients arrive on time and are well prepared for their surgery is a clear and tangible return on investment for the organisation.

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T-Mobile has a vision to be a top service provider within the telecommunications industry. This shift in strategy is the result of the companys recognition that in a near saturated market, fighting on the basis of price is no longer sustainable. The company has turned to service as a way of generating new revenue streams. It built seven core goals around this vision. In the banking sector, the breakdown of trust in financial institutions has made Kleinwort Bensons commitment to lasting customer relationships even more important. The private bank has a philosophy of clients for life and has a set of core values focusing on achieving the best for its clients. Unsurprisingly, the case studies also show that a re-aligned customer service strategy is a catalyst for culture change. This has both been within the customer service function and more importantly across the organisation. For some organisations, culture change has been a gradual process. Others have taken more explicit steps to redefine behaviours and mindsets and link them more obviously to customer relationships. BPI Recycled Products, a manufacturer operating in a traditionally product based industry where customers range from NHS organisations through to construction firms, has worked to embed a culture of customer service through every level of the organisation. The company created a new customer-focused organisation structure and division managers are now working to embed a new mindset about customer service, so that employees concentrate on delivering quality service and meeting diverse customer expectations. Eurostar has taken a direct approach by implementing a culture change programme across the whole organisation. The Avantage programme aims to strengthen Eurostars reputation for service. After using employees, customers and representatives of best-in-class service organisations such as BMW and Virgin Atlantic to define a service personality, the Avantage team created 11 workstreams to cover training, recruitment, reward and recognition, performance management and coaching, leadership, reputation as service leaders, service design from a customer viewpoint and work environment and tools. The aim was for these activities to change the culture of the organisation. Service scores rose from 7.5 to 8 out of ten in the first six months and qualitative customer feedback on the staff now contains the key phrases that Eurostar sought as part of the service personality. Customer issues are resolved proactively; the independent organisation London Travelwatch rates Eurostar highly based on the low number of issues referred to them compared to other transport operators. Eurostar passenger numbers rose by 6% and revenues by 18% in the first half of 2010. Most importantly, there is a real corporate team spirit at Eurostar with a strong belief in customer service excellence throughout the organisation. T-Mobile has worked hard to achieve a large culture shift from a price and product focus to value/service orientation. The company has eschewed a top-down culture change programme. It chose to engage employees in the shift to new values and behaviours by concentrating on critical customer interactions, dubbed T-Moments. These interactions had the potential to drive disproportionately positive value for the company. Through this programme, employees were given opportunities to understand how their behaviour could help communicate the brand, change customers perceptions and support the new strategy. The results were impressive with a 20% increase in first time call resolution, saving about 9m per year, the mystery shopper rating growing from 84% to 92% and an increase in conversion to sales/upselling of over 50% from a telesales pilot. The impact on staff morale and motivation was very positive with a call centre manager claiming the customers are hitting the Richter scale with delight.

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Employee engagement is critical for the case study organisations. The emphasis is on empowering frontline staff to make wider decisions about how best to resolve problems. At Eurostar, research revealed that customers wanted something beyond punctuality and price. Anthropological specialists created an emotional map which plotted the highs and lows of train journeys against the corporate service personality. Frontline staff then used this information to define how to adapt their behaviour to the needs of customers. Hire those with the right attitude and develop core skills is a key message from organisations such as CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accountants) and Southeastern Railways. The latter aims to get 50% of its workforce trained up to NVQ level 3 by 2012, mainly in customer service subjects. The support of senior executives and managers becomes more important as service providers move towards bespoke offerings and a closer customer relationship. Frontline service staff cannot rely on scripts or well honed procedures in their interaction with customers, and the case study organisations believe that shifting higher level decision-making to frontline staff improves customer perception, loyalty and ultimately profit. It also improves employee satisfaction. The support and involvement of senior leaders can be an invaluable source of help for frontline staff in these service contexts. Personal bankers at Kleinwort Benson, for example, made special mention of how their managers acted as role models, giving valuable pointers about how to behave with often wealthy and powerful clients. These senior staff also provided the bankers with support and encouragement when they grappled with difficult issues. Southeastern Railways hold regular meet the manager events on stations where senior directors talk to commuters, and gather on-the-spot feedback on their services. Customer service, and the measurement of its success, is definitely changing as can be seen in the summary (exhibit 5).

View of customer Source of data

Whole population By dept/function

Segmented Cross-functional plus external plus qualitative

Individual Startegic/consolidated/ Internal and External plus behaviours, perceptions and intentions Trust Relationship Ongoing/regular/ All phases of cycle

Data type

Hard facts

Measurement focus Timing

Customer satisfaction Single event Post-sales

Loyalty Service quality

Tools

Happy sheet/ Customer Service Survey

plus interviews Focus groups

Twitter/web feedback On the floor observations

exhibit 5: customer service future trends in measurement

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recommendations
Return on investment in customer service is a complex area that is only just emerging as a business science. A gulf between academic thought and business practice still exists, but many organisations are progressing towards meaningful ways to measure it. There is, however, a need for methods to help prove to senior executives that they are doing the right thing to add strategic value and competitive advantage to their organisation. Senior executives should focus on their most profitable/priority customers if they are to gain a range of financial and intangible returns. The evidence suggests that financial success comes from ensuring profitable customers are satisfied by their service encounter and become loyal customers. The link between satisfied customers and various forms of financial returns is firmly proven. Customer satisfaction is a robust indicator of business performance. Drivers of customer satisfaction include service quality, effective service recovery, meeting and exceeding customer expectations (through delighting customers) and providing valued customer experience. There are several service-profit chain models which attempt to identify causal links between service activities and profit. The models appear straightforward but real-life scenarios may be more complex. It is difficult to determine if relationships are truly causal or just correlative. However, these models are a useful basis for discussion and to help formulate an organisations specific model of its own business.
Take customer viewpoint

Embed Customer Services In culture

Investigate new tools/ methods Track right variables

Review Customer Services strategy

Review investment approach

Remember the basics

exhibit 6: key recommendations

There is a tendency to measure what is easiest, rather than most important to performance and/ or profit. Many organisations are basing their customer satisfaction measurement on the easier to measure activities which 38% of our survey respondents rated as having an impact on the bottom line. Over half of (53%) said soft/emotional activities are very likely to lead to ROI. The most common recommendation that comes from the executives who participated in our research is step back and take a long hard look at the value of customer service in your organisation. How is it perceived internally and externally? How successfully is it measured?

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The critical questions that we urge organisations to ask fall into seven areas: Customer service strategy how effective, how is it perceived and how does it compare to the competition Customer service culture is it embedded in your organisation are there silos, consistency across the organisation, attitudes and behaviours, staff empowerment Customer viewpoint value-added activities, priorities, strong relationships Investment approach drivers of investment, life cycle of returns, measuring intangibles, valuable customers The right measurement variables cross-functional, meaningful New methods social media, CRM systems, language analysis tools, internal communication approaches The basics build on a foundation of quality product, price, ethics, service and efficient business processes. The potential to use new forms of measurement to support this role is there but needs to be fully realised. The use of innovative thinking and emerging software technology to quantify more accurately the softer aspects of the customer relationship (such as its emotional content) is being demonstrated by companies like Eurostar, T-Mobile and Kleinwort Benson but the potential has yet to be reached by many organisations. As the report has already stressed, both the findings of the survey and feedback from the case studies suggests that, faced with the dichotomy of the hardest-to-measure factors being also the most likely to lead to ROI, many organisations opt for simpler measures instead and take on faith the return on investment of soft factors like instilling a culture of service quality. There is a clear challenge for chief financial officers and other board-level executives to develop new methods to quantify the value of hard-to-measure factors. Most importantly, at a time of economic uncertainty, senior executives and customer service managers need to draw on robust analysis to champion investment decisions and ring-fence essential customer service activities. The research highlights how the private and public sectors business focus differs. Private sector organisations see customer service as having impact on their business, now and in the future, where the public sector predicts big changes on the horizon. Only 14% of public sector organisations say linking processes, people and strategy has a high/very high impact currently, but this figure multiplies more than four-fold when respondents were asked to rate its importance in the next three to five years. It is clear from this research that there is a weight of evidence proving the link between service and profit. Furthermore, the case studies we have featured provide specific examples for this return on investment. What is also apparent is that there is no single, simple silver bullet which will deliver excellent customer service to an organisation. Senior executives need to review what is important to their customers and contextualise their aims according to those needs, the marketplace and their competitors.

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As the Institutes Model for World-Class Customer Service identified some years ago the only path to consistently deliver customer service excellence is through building the organisation around your customer; aligning your culture and strategy, people and processes around their requirements. This present investigation also indicates a growing realisation among senior executives in the UK that customer service provides a sustainable competitive advantage. As a result, customer service is now moving centre stage as a boardroom and corporate strategic issue. In many organisations, it is already there, in others this journey is only just beginning. A consistent theme in the responses we have had in this work is the anticipated changes which are expected to take place in customer service and the measurement of its impact on the bottom line in the next three to five years, in all sectors of the economy. These are changes driven by the shift in customer expectations and power and also developments in technology which will place new demands on service providers. As a result, senior executives will be looking for new ways of measuring ROI in customer service and, as we have seen, assessing the impact of some of those hard to measure parameters such as a culture of service quality and customer perception of the value offered. If customer service is to establish itself firmly as a strategic driver for organisations in all sectors then it will need in future to bring hard evidence of its impact on the bottom line to the boardroom table, in the same way that IT and marketing functions have done in the past decade. Having opened the debate with this research, the Institute of Customer Service, now plans to assist organisations to identify these returns that customer service excellence can provide.

acknowledgements
The Institute of Customer Service thanks the sponsors of this report, O2, BT and South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive for their ongoing help and support. We also offer special thanks to Ashridge Business School and to the organisations who contributed to our research.

The full report, return on investment in customer service the bottom line report, will be published in February 2011.

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contact us at: Institute of Customer Service 2 Castle Court, St Peters Street, Colchester, Essex CO1 1 EW 01206 571 716 enquires@icsmail.co.uk instituteofcustomerservice.com ISBN-978-1-906080-04-4

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