Want to Reduce Churn? Close The Loop

If there was something worse than churn, not having a close the loop would be it because I think it accelerates churn with people because it really aggravates people when you're not closing the loop.

Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Account Experience podcast. And in this episode we cover one of our favorite topics, closing the Loop. In this talk, we cover why you're guaranteed to accounts if you do not close the loop properly. How you can properly close or feed the loop at every level of the organization. That includes frontline, middle management and C level, and our own personal journey and learnings gained through our Close the Loop process. It's pretty clear, guys, if you want to start reducing account churn, you need to close the loop effectively. So get your pen and paper out and let's dive into the latest episode.

Welcome back. I am here with my partner in crime, Carrie T. Self.

Hello everybody.

And today we wanted to talk about something that's near and dear to our heart. It's Closing the Loop. For those of you that don't know, Customer Gauge did some research a little while ago with mit and one of the really kind of cornerstone stats that came out of that research report was that if you don't close the loop at all levels, that's upper management, middle management, frontline. And if you don't close the loop at all of those different levels, you're pretty much guaranteed to churn. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of really how much you're going to churn. So closing the loop, when we're talking B2B experience, when we're talking account experience, is the most important thing or one of the most important things you can do in your program. And I'm going to kick this over to Kerry now. Kerry, what are your thoughts on that stat and maybe just closing the loop in general?

Yeah. You know, one of the things you learn from running a program, you know, is that if you're not closing the loop, what you're really doing is the reverse effect. It's you're going to create a CCX or an AX program, an account experience program, a customer service program. And if you are not doing something with the questions you're asking, the data you're collecting, the training you're putting out there, it almost has a reverse effect. Your employees get frustrated because it feels like you're not reacting or responding to what the customers they're dealing with. You also get a customer pushback that says, well, why am I providing feedback? Why Am I saying anything if nothing's coming from that and it's that black hole that we talk about where data and information goes to and nothing is done with it. So I'll go a step further. I think if there was something worse than Churn, not having a close the loop would be it because I think it accelerates churn with people because it really aggravates people when you're not closing.

The loop, it angers people. And I've been there before, right? Like I've had a terrible experience. I've given detailed feedback and when I give feedback, you know, it. I'm very not happy with something because I'm not one of those people give random feedback. I think I pick my spot. So either I'm really, really happy or I'm really, really upset. Generally, if you're as expected, service level wise, I wouldn't necessarily give a comment, but I'd give the score. And if I don't get followed up within a day or two or a week, and then a month goes by and I still haven't heard from you, I pretty much cut ties. Like, it's a pretty profound thing to give detailed feedback about something that went wrong in your eyes. Just never to hear back from the, the client or the company or the brand can do a lot of damage. Like exactly what you said. More than Churn, it's more like you sign up, you write off the entire brand. I mean it's, it's that level of disconnect that can happen. So I think closing the loop is so important and I think the key piece for me too, which is interesting, is like closing it at every level. So, so for example, me right there, right? Like that's most likely closing the loop at Frontline. So I'm most likely a consumer. I took a survey that's probably on the customer service rep to close the loop with the customer. Let's talk about like closing loop at the middle management, middle management level and closing the loop at the upper management level or the C suite. How do companies go about doing. Let's maybe start with middle management. How would you do that if you were back in your practitioner shoes?

Well, let's look at it as relationships, Ian. I mean, how many relationships do we have with different companies, brands? And you and I are the kind of person, the reason why we're in this industry is because we become fans, right? When we love something, we're wearing it into the office and we're talking about it, or we're online and we're Celebrating it. Right? I already know what you're thinking. I know what products you're thinking about already. Right. But we become like these loyal followers to it. And when we take the time to pick up the phone or send an email or to get someone on the phone, it's kind of like, let me tell you why I love you and let me tell you what's wrong right now with this relationship. And I think what management, they fall into a false sense of, well, the front line will handle that or I need to handle all of it. And I think there's a division there that you kind of have to learn what's right and what's wrong. But you know, I think good management empowers the front line to own decision making that give them the power to make decisions that are going to make the customer happy. Right. Or the client happy. I think a lot of companies miss this. So as a management, I fight to give the front line the ability to make decisions. Listen, if it's a couple of hundred dollar decision or it's giving away something inexpensively or then give them the power to make that decision. If I have to wait for that decision to be made, I've already lost value in my front line and now I just want to speak to a manager. Get the manager on the phone, I want to talk to the manager. I don't want to talk to you anymore. You have no power. So empowering the front line as a manager I think is one of the key first things and then train that group up on how to own that. Going back to my restaurant days, we had a thing that was always don't desert the customer. And you know, and one of the things that happens when you go out to eat, when you have a bad experience, they offer you free dessert at the end and it's like, no, no, no, you missed the point here. This is my favorite restaurant. I want to come back and continue to enjoy it. I want to bring people in and show you off. Don't give me a free dessert and think it's all going to go away. Right.

Don't desert the customer.

But it also has that other meaning of don't desert the customer, meaning don't just throw a dessert and run off because you're not really helping them out. And I think it's the same thing as in management. How do you take that feedback? Yes, you're there to help assist and be tactical and making sure that you're making those day to day operational changes. But management also has the responsibility to feed that Information up the chain, right? How do you get into the C suite? How do you put a report together? How do you communicate? Look, this is 1, 2, and 3. These are the three things that are crippling us on the front line or we continue to lose. You want me to tie churn to something? Here are the three things that our churning customers are telling us and that we need to do something about. And I mean, as a CEO, would anything resonate more than to hear that kind of feedback? Like, this is the reason they left us? Well, that's priority number one.

And I think that's something worth digging into as well. And I think that's also very misunderstood. At most B2B companies is like a lot of them lead with health scores and they lead with just random analysis. And it's really tough to maintain the C levels. Number one, attention if you're leading with like these crazy algorithmic presentations. I think it's like exactly what you said. Simplify, right?

What are the three things you should.

Care about that is causing the biggest drain on your revenue that we preach this night and day at Customer Engage, which is always lead with revenue. When you're talking C suite, that's at the end of the day all they really care about. I hate to say it, but they are tasked to make a company more money. That is their job. And if it doesn't fit into that bucket, they're most likely going to challenge it or save money, but mostly make money. So following up and closing the loop with your C level execs, these are the three things that are the biggest drain on your revenue. That's powerful, man. I mean, that's, that's really how you speak their language. That's how you maintain buy in for your program. And that's important, right? I mean, you ran an NPS program at a large multinational company. How did you maintain that buy in? Did you get that C suite buy in through that kind of revenue talk? Did you focus the feedback at the upper level versus the front line? What was the differences there?

Yeah, there's no doubt money talks, right? And I think you're right. I don't think any program I ever ran took off until I could plug revenue into it. And you know, we love nps. We know that there's a complexity and it's simplicity. We know it's a simple question. We know we drive a lot of feedback from that. But where you start to close the loop is not in the NPS score, not in the necessarial score that you get but it's in the drivers and the feedback you receive. And when you start looking at your customers and your clients, your other. Your businesses that you're working with, and you start looking at them in buckets of. And again, this is where it all comes from. What's their value and what do they love about you? But also, where are the challenges coming from? You know, and it really is that simple. You know, we've done this, Ian. We've gone back and looked at customers who have turned on us, and we went back and looked at their feedback and we said, hey, these were the things that they were maybe not screaming, but at least telling us or saying to us. But it's the same thing with our current clients. If a client takes the time to stop and tell you something, there is value in that. There is huge value in that.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think that that's where the closing the loop with that sweet suit and getting the buy in is important. I think this, you know, the C Suite has a lot on their plate. There's a lot of decision making. There's a lot of conversations. We sit in those rooms. We do it ourselves. We've been involved with other companies that do that, and you have to grab their attention quick and fast. And I hate to say it, but when you can put a dollar amount next to one single item, one touch point, and say, this is how many customers this is a sensitive point for. And take a look at that first. That's a. That's an attention grabber. But then you need to put some action behind that. You know, we've done committees in the past. This is where I've gotten. I think this is where in my past history where it really took off. I pulled together a collection of people throughout the company. I put those three topics up there and go, listen, guys, this is where most of our churn is coming from right now. Number one. And this is what they said is the reason, one of the reasons why it comes up over and over again. Let's start talking about solutions, you know, no excuses, no. Why? Oh, well, last month was. No, don't want to hear that. What are we going to do moving forward? And how can we take that feedback and turn it into something that we can apply, something that we can, can do? And then I think the last piece of closing that loop is whatever it is you're working on, whatever it is you're doing, communicate. I think this is where a lot of companies really miss the boat. You know, there's a couple of brands that I love to death. They survey me religiously on the monthly. Every time I log in, every time I pick up a phone, every time I interact with them, I'm getting a question. If I'm willing to do some feedback for them, I would love to, right? But then it's quiet, it's silent. And I know they're working on something. I see the improvement in the update down the road. But tell me you're doing that, communicate that to me. Give me almost a pat on the back for giving you that feedback, you know, and I think that's the other part that becomes really, really key to say to your, to your client base, hey, we heard you. You know, it's wearing your mistake and putting it out there and saying, we get it. This is something you're all screaming for. This is what we're currently doing to improve on that.

My favorite example of that illustrated in real life is the Domino's campaign. And I think we've talked about this in the past, where it's the CEO and it was some genius, genius bit of advertising. They took the feedback from customers and the CEO and like all of the top brass were in a room and it was very, it almost looked like it was a webcam filming it, right? It was very gritty. And you could see them just reading out loud, the pizza tastes like cardboard. It's complete crap. And the CEO just like, oh God. Oh my God. And it was like piece of feedback after piece of feedback from their customers. But then predictably, the ad spins to. And we listen to you and this is what we did. We're launching a new Domino's and we're launching new pizza and skyrocketed their sales. I mean, I think it was one of the best pivots from a large scale brand I've ever seen as long as I've been alive. And now people are buying Domino's again and Pizza Hut just went, I think, bankrupt, right? Or some of them around here, like closed down or at least. But that was an amazing example of listening to your customers, letting them know that they were heard. It gives them the feeling of empowerment. And then you position your company around that feedback to better serve that customer. And I think that you nailed it, man. That is such an important thing for companies to do. And it's missed often.

You know, I'm a fan because I tell the Domino story a lot. I got to actually hear them, you know, present that. You know, their, their CEO and chief communications officer was up and really told that story. And he gets up and says we did what most people say is the dumbest thing to do in the industry. We found it to be the best decision we ever made. It was a real simple thing. We said, you know what? We suck at this. We're really bad at this. And it just happened to be the most important part of our business. Our pizza. Like, we're a pizza company and we have crappy pizza, you know, and we were bold enough to say that. And even before we had the full solution, we at least put it out there that we heard you. Our pizza doesn't taste great. But we're working on it. This is what we're doing. And people get, well, that's brave. So first off, you get credit for being brave and putting it out there. But it let people know, hey, hold on, we're working on this. We're not gonna abandon you. We're not going to take your feedback and spin it in a way that's like, oh, no, no, you're wrong. We're right here. We know all the answers. And yeah, I'm super fan of that.

Example, and I'm a firm believer, too, that B2B generally follows B2C. So whether it be marketing or strategy, there's a lot of things that transfer over from B2C. And B2B is just a little bit behind the ball on that. So I think this is one of those things that was pretty well utilized by B2C companies, like the before and after, all that good stuff. Very B2C. But I feel like this is the next way for B2B experiences is kind of taking this type of approach where it's like, hey, guys, we listened, and it's honest, it's authentic. It just makes total sense right now, especially with the global situation. I think people are craving authenticity. They're craving just real people talking in real kind of tones and things like that. So can you imagine if a large B2B company took the feedback, CEO, made a video and said, hey, so and so from Oklahoma, I heard this piece of feedback. We're adjusting our product as a result of that. Thank you. So and so from California, we also heard this. We're adjusting our product. I mean, that would be. That would blow my socks off if I. If I had a video like that. And I'm proud to say that you did something recently with our CEO where we kind of did something similar. Right. Why don't you go into that a little bit?

Well, it's funny because, you know, we keep calling it close the loop. And I like to Call it feeding the loop. Yeah, when you have a good relationship, it should be circular and continually to go. So one of the things that we did is we really looked back at our feedback that we received, and it wasn't just me and the CEO. We sat in with the entire leadership team and we went comment by comment, literally, and we pulled it out and we started to group these together and we identified. We had some opportunity. You know, everyone, Everyone acts like their poop doesn't stink. We had some flaws, we had some areas of opportunity. And instead of us running from it or spinning up a campaign, we said, okay, how do we take this head on? And each of us, it was like our personal kind of motivation and cry to say, okay, I'll own that. This is what I'm working on. This is what we've done. And we provided that feedback. But then our CEO, Adam, took that information and said, well, let me do two things. First off, this is what we heard, this is what you told us, and this is what we did about it, or this is what we're doing about it. We hear that, and I think it's a pivotal change for any company when you start to take that feedback, apply real changes, but the real kind of takeoff moment is then giving that back to that base. And the feedback and the response we got, I wasn't expecting this, but we crafted it in the form of an email. We sent that out to all of our partners because I consider them partners. You know, they're not our customers, they're partners of ours. We work together. And the response was amazing. To get them on phone calls, to go out and meet them, or get them on office hours or a webinar to hear their feedback on how important that email was to them. And then how did that feed the loop, not close the loop? Well, what it did was these people ended up giving us better feedback the next time around. They felt very motivated to give us richer feedback, more detailed feedback. They motivated their team. You know the difference between a CX solution, let's say in an account experience solution, that with an account, you might have one client, one business partner, but they've got multiple users. In that audience, you're not just dealing with one person, you're dealing with a large audience. And what we saw is that audience grew the next time around. More of them were invested in giving more feedback. We saw user ship go up, more people were logging in, more people were using the system. So. So, yeah, that does open the opportunity for more possibly negative feedback. But we'll take it and that we're feeding that loop because more feedback, respond, let them know what we're doing. More users means more feedback, and now you start to accelerate your program. And I think that was the real takeaway from that exercise.

This episode of the Account Experience Podcast.

Is sponsored by CustomerGage, the leading B2B account experience software that ties radio revenue.

To your experience data in real time.

To help you make better account centric decisions that drive revenue growth. Quick question. What do you guys think is the number one reason B2B experience programs fail? Believe it or not, it's lack of C suite buy. In CustomerGage's research with MIT, they've found the quickest way to align yourselves with the C suite is to actually align with what they care about most, which is revenue. That's why CustomerGage is literally built from the ground up to to maximize and track the revenue contribution from your experience.

Program in real time.

Companies like dhl, Anheuser Busch, Heineken, uh, yeah, we get a good amount of FreeBear1 login, IronMountain, H&R Block, SuperOffice and SugarCRM are already using Customer Gauge to maximize their growth by tying their programs to revenue. And with over $10 billion worth of account revenue actively being managed in CustomerGage, yeah, that's billion. With a B, they're the leader in the space. But maybe even more interesting, they found that once you get alignment with that C suite, the needs of these B2B practitioners or the program champions are evolving too. In such a complex account environment, it can be really tough to measure and act on feedback quickly across multiple departments, divisions, or even locations. Luckily, Customer Gauge has you covered there as well, with account native features that easily help you not only measure the feedback for multiple stakeholders in an account, but act on that feedback in real time. Because at the end of the day, if you're not empowering your frontline staff with the right insights to address customer issues, you're going to be dealing with the churn issue. It's not a matter of if, it's really a matter of when. Customer Gauge helps you distribute this experience data across your entire organization, regardless of department or regardless of location, regardless of.

Division, all in real time.

No manual spreadsheets or a team of analysts are needed. Customer Gauge's mission is to help B2B companies harness the power of account centric growth to drive meaningful change in their businesses. And that's a powerful thing. If you want to see Customer Gauge in action, go ahead and check out CustomerGage.com and get a demo of account experience today.

You won't regret it. And I think the engagement piece, the uptick in engagement. Right. Is an important thing to call out, too, because, like, if you take the time to follow up and say, hey, we used your feedback. Exactly what you said, man, they're going to want to take the next one because they know they're going to be heard and most likely have some sort of a say in where the product's going or how it's being communicated or adjusted or built or whatever it is. Like, they feel like they have a say in it, which can't tell you. For B2B is one of the most important things because they're partners, like you said, they're not just customers.

So what about speed?

Let's talk about speed real quick, and then we'll wrap this thing up.

But speed real quick.

Yeah, speed real quick. Totally plan to say that. So you have again, back. Back to your previous experience. You have a kind of a really cool story about what can happen, um, when you have a system that prioritizes close the loop speed, or feeding the loop, as we're probably going to call it from now on. Feeding the loop speed. Um, and I thought it was a really great story. It's not necessarily super B2B on the front end, but we know that you had a B2B business that you were managing with the experience program as well. But this one is very specific to, I think. What was it? Wendy's?

Actually. It was actually donuts.

Okay.

It happens. And I do love this story. And I think it speaks to one simple thing. I think everyone has expectations in life. And our goal in any experience program, employee experience, customer experience, or business experience, our goal here is to exceed expectations. That's how you get people not to churn. Meeting the expectations no longer works. Right. The whole NPS philosophy is be a promoter, be a 9 out of 10. And we're going to generate people that are excited and fans for us. And I think the basic expectation is I'm going to give feedback and I might or might not hear back in the next week or so. And this was pretty amazing because we were. I was sitting literally in a boardroom with my CEO on one side, my COO on the other side, and they wanted me to walk them through our new dashboards and our solution that we had with Customer Gauge. And I really wanted to show off all the bells and whistles and all the wonderful things it can do. And I couldn't have scripted this any better looking Back on this, knowing now what I did know then, and reverse, I would have probably planned this or scripted this. But literally, while we were sitting there in the room and I was talking with them, our digital scientists had a feedback that popped up. One of the comments from. From somebody that was standing at the counter of a Dunkin Donuts and basically was a complaint of what was happening right in front of them. And I was. So, yeah, I couldn't have planned this any better. So if I. If I could have. So basically, I was in the boardroom with my CEO and coo, and I wanted to show them all the bells and whistles of our new solution. Right? This is what customer gauge can do for us, right? And I was really excited about it. While we were sitting there on our digital signage, which we also had playing on the screen, a comment pops up from one of our Dunkin Donut locations. And this was in Maryland. And again, crystal clear, because this was such a cool experience. And they both turned to me and laugh and go, you're the customer experience guy. It looks like you got a problem out there. And a customer came in with the expectation of getting good service, getting hot food, and leaving. But when he walks up to the counter, of course, the experience wasn't that, you know, they were talking to each other. It was moving too slow. The person was upset. So in the moment, live customer provided us some feedback, pops up on a screen. And I said, well, let's dive in and take a look at where that's at, and let's see. Let's go. So we went into our system. We pulled that individual response up in the time it took me to log in and to pull it up, which is only about a minute. A manager had already seen the alert on his phone, put a note that he was on his way to talk to that person and to go ahead and get to the counter. Within four minutes, he was standing at the counter talking to the customer who left the feedback.

Wow.

Now, I know this is perfect scenario, right? But this does speak to exceeding expectations. This person probably thought he was gonna get back in his car, drive away with whatever it was, be a little, you know, frustrated, maybe have hit social media and left that feedback. We already know the damage social media can do, right? But instead of that, he was so wowed in the moment that someone came out and it was made important in that moment, we turned a very negative. We called it recovery, Call it close the loop or feed the loop. What. What happened? We created fan, a champion out of that person that became his weekly stop. He knew the manager by name. You know, his social media posts went from let me share a horrible experience to a great experience. And I think that speaks to how closing or feeding the loop becomes so important. The amount of time you take to do that, even just, hey, we gotcha. We heard you. We're working on it. Even that message alone, I even saw you smile a little bit, because it's how I feel, too, when I give that feedback. And it's not great. But someone says, I heard you, and we're working on it, I immediately relax. I'm in good hands. Because, Ian, I think we both know something. No matter what business you're running, no matter what you do in life, you're gonna run into some. Some. Some problems. It's gonna be a glitch. There's gonna be. There's gonna be. Someone's gonna let you down somewhere. Nothing is perfect. But these moments are our moments to show how good we really are. And the sooner or the quicker you can get back to that customer, client company and let them know, hey, I heard you. We're working on it, the better.

Speed matters. I think the other thing that's really interesting about that story that grabs me is that most CX practitioners I talk to, they don't spend a ton of time on detractors. They kind of say, all right, they're detractors. Maybe we focus on trying to get the passes to become promoters. That's an easier play. But you literally turned a detractor that left feedback to a promoter and probably a ten promoter, and like you said, became a loyal fan that stopped every single week at a. At that one particular Dunkin Donuts to return to get his coffee or whatever it was. I mean, that we don't talk about those enough because they're hard and they take a good system, but they can happen, and you can do it often, and you can get your hit rate up if you continue to have a process that builds that in and you can address it exactly. Like you said, very quickly.

Well, and the other thing I wanted to put in there, though, is not only do you become a promoter, they become the most critical promoters you have in your bank. Also, some promoters just give you a 10 because everything's fine and they're quiet. But, you know, we have promoters for us that love us, but their comments and their criticism is the hardest we get. It's the hardest to stomach. And then, you know, he became that, and that's. That's when you're running a CX Program and AX program. You got to start empowering your promoters to be overly critical. Why? Because now their expectations are even higher. They understand when you run into problems, but they also give you some of the most valuable feedback you possibly can.

It's a really good point, man. It's almost like there's a different level of promoter. There's the people that give you the 10, but then there's the people that give you a 10 with like a six paragraph response of why it's a 10. I mean, these are exactly what you said. These are the types of people that will make their opinion known on anything even if you don't ask. I mean that's like, that's the true word of mouth. I mean, the people that just give a 10 and don't leave comments usually are promoters, but they're not going to go out of their way to maybe sing your praises. These guys are passionate. They're types of people that will shut up the top of the rooftops for you. Um, so that's, that's a really interesting point, man. And that's a really good spot to I think, come to a conclusion of this episode is Speed Matters. Closing the loop matters. That's one of the most critical things you can really focus on in your program to not only drive retention gains, revenue gains, but client and account satisfaction. I think that's, that's a really, really critical piece of any experience program, but especially in B2B. What do you think, Gary? Anything else to add to that before we close out?

No, I think it's an excellent close and if I know you well enough, we're gonna, we're gonna continue to dive into close the loop a bit and I think breaking it apart a little bit and looking at some other components of it too and how important it is.

Yes, sir. So I want to get tactical. So we figured we kick it off with this episode and kind of go into a broad overview of why it's important. But then next couple episodes, hopefully guys, we'll get into very tactical tips on how you can do that at a B2B org. So we're looking forward to that one. But thank you guys for listening again. My name is Ian, this is Carrie over here and make sure to subscribe and we'll talk soon.

You.