I have a question that still rings in my mind that was asked of the very first friend I made on my visits to New Jersey.\u00a0 I had grown up in small towns – in the mountains of Colorado and Western Montana.\u00a0 I was very fortunate to have my view of the world expanded with summer visits to the East Coast.\u00a0 The first time I was asked the question, I was not prepared.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhy would you live there?\u201d was that question.\u00a0 I stammered a response of \u201cmy mother wanted to live there, I didn\u2019t have a choice\u201d.\u00a0 The question was awkwardly worded in the same manner of my awkward answer.\u00a0 Later, I knew that question was more about why would \u201csomeone\u201d want to live in an economically depressed area with very large distances between cities and people.\u00a0 I was usually prepared for that question after that.\u00a0 Why did I end up in Colorado?\u00a0 Why would I move from Colorado to Montana?\u00a0 What would make me move from Florida to New Jersey?\u00a0 Strangely no one really questioned my move from New Jersey to Colorado.<\/span><\/p>\n My latest move to Hawaii was similar – really – who wouldn\u2019t want to live in Hawaii? However, a family member recently listed the pros and cons of living in Hawaii versus Florida.\u00a0 After all, this family member has lived in Florida for nearly 30 years.\u00a0 I have family there, the cost of living is lower, it is easier to get from place to place and while they both have strong tourism industries, the larger landmass certainly helps spread out the impact.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Why indeed?\u00a0 Then I really had to get philosophical in my response this time.\u00a0 My move was not about economics (it definitely was cheaper in other places) or convenience (we are generally considered the most remote large city in the world and certainly within the United States).\u00a0 The logical reasons for moving here eighteen months ago were not going to be a part of this argument.\u00a0 It really was about the indescribable reasons – the uniqueness of the situation, the seduction of the islands and the idea that it is almost like living in a foreign paradise without living in a foreign paradise.\u00a0 Something I call the intangible reasons.<\/span><\/p>\n Everyday, consumers, customers and clients make choices in the same way.\u00a0 If we ask them about the logic behind the decisions, they might even stammer.\u00a0 Why would a customer choose a store location that is further away from their home with higher prices?\u00a0 Why would a consumer pick the name brand over a private label or generic version?\u00a0 Why would a B2B client stay with a more expensive <\/span>customer experience management platform<\/span><\/a> provider that does not service them well rather than making the logical switch to a great platform like QuestionPro CX?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n All good questions, even if the last one is a little self serving.\u00a0 Often, if asked, someone will try to rationalize their decision(s), but often it comes down to some intangibles.\u00a0 That store that is further away just \u201cfeels\u201d cleaner.\u00a0 The private label brand didn\u2019t have an eye-catching label.\u00a0 The customer experience program from the low-service yet expensive CX provider was so difficult to get up and running, I don\u2019t ever want to go through that again.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When we look at all the surveys we field and all the data we collect, these types of reasons are unlikely to show up.\u00a0 I see it all the time, our client will hear about a reason for churn, then they will try to formulate an attribute question that adequately measures that perception.\u00a0 Yet it never really ends up capturing that customer \u201cmood\u201d, rather it just lengthens the survey and becomes yet another reporting metric that gets lost in the mix.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n We try in so many ways to put a number against an opinion, feeling or inclination.\u00a0 Even in adding that seemingly harmless \u201cone more question\u201d never really gets at what we are trying to accomplish.\u00a0 That goal should be put in place surrounding our <\/span>CX Management Software<\/span><\/a> – which is usually summarized as we want to retain customers and find what drives them to our competition so we can fix that.\u00a0 At QuestionPro, we have a revolutionary approach to measuring Net Promoter Score with <\/span>NPS+<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 The idea was simple, we can replace all those attributes with just a one-click root cause identification.\u00a0 Why do we have them rate a bunch of \u201cfeelings\u201d on a scale then try to create summary analytics?\u00a0 This is even difficult to do with <\/span>customer sentiment analysis tools<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 Then some thought they would just add more tasks surrounding <\/span>closed-loop tools<\/span><\/a>, just creating more tasks in closing the <\/span>customer feedback loop<\/span><\/a>, but not defining strategy.<\/span><\/p>\n Early on in my days in customer experience, the goal of <\/span>closed-loop customer experience management<\/span><\/a> was to find those reasons; they just needed to have a low overall score then it was the role of the customer experience manager to understand the reason for that score.\u00a0 Despite the mass surveying of the population, those of us within the industry forget that our predefined list of attributes does not necessarily represent the entire consideration set of our customers and that attribute analytics will bubble up some themes, but not necessarily define the cause.\u00a0 My score of a seven might be very different from your perception of a seven.\u00a0 I could list many ways that our survey approach might be flawed, though someone might take that as a challenge to add more surveys.<\/span><\/p>\n Instead of asking each customer to participate in more surveys and longer surveys, within our <\/span>CX Enterprise Software<\/span><\/a> we have developed a <\/span>CX Workflow<\/span><\/a> that pushes the right survey at the right time.\u00a0 It is not a simple router with an overriding resting period, rather an engine that is designed to flexibly get feedback where it is most needed.\u00a0 Rather than just add \u201cmore sample size\u201d to a particular touchpoint, we should take more time to listen to customers.\u00a0 I have a current client that puts people into the home.\u00a0 They have chosen to receive <\/span>every<\/span> survey response, not just the low ratings.\u00a0 They, in turn, are responsible for a discussion with each of their respective customers so they can understand things that went well in a bad move-in experience and those that could even be improved during a good experience.\u00a0 All ideas that could just be filtered out as an average now instead become a source for taking action even where there was no \u201cnumber\u201d.\u00a0 Every conversation can start with \u201cWhy would you choose to live here?”.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n QuestionPro offers some of the most advanced customer experience tools available.<\/strong> Gain valuable insights into your customers\u2019 thoughts and feelings using\u00a0<\/span>QuestionPro CX software<\/span><\/a>\u00a0today.<\/span><\/p>\nThe choices our customers make<\/b>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n
Some things just don\u2019t have a number<\/h2>\n