Customer experience crucial in keeping brand

CEBU, Philippines - With customers increasingly becoming demanding, assertive and informed, their interaction with a brand through actual experience with business frontline employees is seen to determine whether these customers will come back or avoid a brand altogether.

So believes Michelle Perez-Patel, who, guided by this vision, pioneered customer experience measurement (CEM) in the Philippines which seeks to give businesses a more “thorough, insightful and actionable” report on their clients’ customer service performance.

In a media briefing, Patel shared that during the early 2000’s, companies never gave as much premium on customer service as they currently do. Back then, “consistency of service had always been the main problem.”

Patel also said that the Filipinos’ intrinsic traits like patience and “pwede na” attitude did not help businesses realize that how service is delivered is critical in any business, whether it be a financial institution, restaurant, retail store, a company operating in mass production or even the government.

“As soon as the store is ‘selling,’ the owners already felt happy. But what they failed to see was how doing or failing to do a simple customer service could further maximize or limit their sales potentials,” Patel said.

How it started

While the Internet and the social media provide customers a platform to voice out their dissatisfaction over a product or service, Patel strongly felt the need to introduce a more effective way for customers’ sentiments to be heard, especially the “silent customers” or those who don’t have access to online tools. 

The idea led Patel to establish SatisFIND in 2005.

As an organization, SatisFIND broke new ground by introducing a comprehensive system that would provide business owners and management a truthful picture of what their customers really experience in visiting their stores.

This is done through conducting CEM studies with the help of thousands of SatisFIND’s customer experience advocates (CEAs) whom Patel described as “passionate and empowered customers themselves.”

What they do

SatisFIND’s goal is to improve an establishment’s customer service performance, leading to a better experience for the customer and better business for the brand.

Acting as “undercover customers,” CEAs visit the stores in order to report back what they have experienced from the frontline employees, such as whether they were greeted upon entering the store, and if so, how long it took before the employee greeted them.

"These are little things, but little do business owners know that when these are observed in their restaurants, offices or stores, they would actually contribute to the overall appreciation of customers on a given brand,” Patel explained.

The “advocates” are then given a token or fee for their involvement in the study.

Patel, however, noted that CEAs are only assigned to brands of which they are the target market in order to ensure that their feedback will be more relevant and valuable to a company. She said CEAs understand that the reports they submit are read by those with authority to change the way things are run to make it better for customers.

SatisFIND then analyzes the CEAs’ reports and gives actionable recommendations for its client-company. But apart from CEM, it also develops service standards for companies and guides them in refining service standards.

Last year, SatisFIND won the Department of Tourism’s bidding as the third party responsible for assessing customers’ experiences that eventually became part of the foundation of the implementation of the new National Accommodation Standards for Hotels, Resorts, and Apartment Hotels. These standards, using a star rating system, are aimed at boosting the hotel industry’s competitiveness.

Patel also shared that a mayor in Bayawan City once tapped their services for a two-week study to gather feedback on his constituents’ experience in his office.

At some point, companies would also use the results of their CEM studies to validate the customer service attitude of their employees nominated for an award.

Cebu expansion

“Our thrust now is to expand to the Visayas and Mindanao areas,” stressed Patel, who added that all companies actually need CEM in order to further enhance overall customer experience and promote the brand.

Not all companies, however, are ready to embrace this, Patel said.

Since early this year, SatisFIND has started to break into the Cebuano market with already two Cebu-based companies tapping its services. Hundreds of Cebuano CEAs have also signed up for SatisFIND, said Patel.

Aside from keeping its grip in the local market, they are also building a good customer experience base in India, where they have 9,000 CEAs to date and in Singapore, where they have opened an office just last month. (FREEMAN)