Customer benchmarking
Do you know what your customers think of your service levels and how you compare against your competitors?
Many of the customers we work for are looking for ways to win market share by differentiating themselves in a competitive commodity market. One of the best ways to stand out from the crowd is to deliver outstanding customer service in the areas that your customers say are most important to them. It is also vital to benchmark your own company’s performance against your competitors so you can target the areas where you need to make up ground or stay ahead.
Collecting the right data and then feeding it into your strategic decision-making and marketing plans will help to ensure that resources are directed to improving those areas of customer service that will keep customers buying from you.
Customer service benchmarking - how to approach it
Customer service can be improved through people, processes and an organisation’s culture. But the understanding of how this can be done relies on collecting data at an operational level. These are what we call the customer interaction ‘points’, where changing and improving your approach to customer service can have the biggest impact. For example, ensuring someone is always available to pick up the phone or that deliveries arrive when the customer needs them.
We have a specific tool to help our clients measure their customer service levels, called 'ACE'. This stands for an ‘Audit of Customer Expectations’. We will work with you up front to gain a complete understanding of the key interaction ‘points’ for your company, which will ultimately allow us to identify what your customers expect from your company and how they perceive you compared with your competitors.
We also have a cost effective web based system that has helped a number of our clients improve their customer loyalty and retention.
Key deliverables from a customer service benchmarking project
The output is usually in the form of a presentation, typically covering the following deliverables:
- Which areas of service each customer thinks is most important
- What your customers think of your performance against these aspects of customer service
- A comparison of how your company performs compared with your competitors
- A list of action points to work through to improve customer service levels
- Anecdotal examples of how the service fails to meet customers’ expectations and insights into how it could be improved
- Each audit package is company specific and can be carried out again at a later date to see what progress has been made with developing a more customer focussed approach.
Our experience in customer service benchmarking
We have completed over 10,000 ‘ACE’ interviews for our clients. This level of experience allows us to quickly understand the key issues and develop a questionnaire template that will deliver the customer insights needed.
The majority of our ACE projects are carried out for our clients in the construction and building materials industries. However, we have successfully applied the ‘ACE’ methodology to other sectors such as IT, recruitment and the NHS.
Our track record
Visit the About us area to find out more about our customer benchmarking experience. This includes past clients, case studies and testimonials.
Graham Skyes, Devon PCT, NHSI was impressed with the analysis and how Leading Edge presented the results of this benchmarking project. I will be communicating the findings across my team to help drive service improvements.