Executive Summary

Customer Service Experience

In an increasingly demanding and fast-paced world, where customers are fickle, margins are thin, and profits elusive, managing compelling experiences can make all the difference is crucial to drive home.

Companies focus relentlessly on brand, yet products and services continue to become more undifferentiated. It is essential in this age to understand the relationship between brand management and experience management and act on it in a meaningful, but impactful and strategic way.

Traditional market research techniques have evolved, as well as best practices around marketing to multi-dimensional customers, but what remains is the emotional effect brands have on people. The key to making sense of customer actions is to understand the way that one feels about oneself when engaged with any brand. Customers are people and people are complex and have varying beliefs, attitudes, emotions, experiences, and goals.

There are several brands and CEOs who do well. Amazon, Tesla, and Apple are a few who execute on managing experience value in conjunction with brand efforts, which is why they are industry leaders’ others try to emulate. And still, while they are not perfect, they are leap-years ahead of most other brands.

The development of experience management theory and practice within any business takes people, time, effort, and budget. But it also takes experience, strategy, a strong methodology, and follow-through. It is easy to look at data and jump to conclusions, but to understand your customers and employees, one must be relentless to recognize them as complicated humans, therefore, understanding the context around the data can make all the difference.

This way of thinking and understanding suits well into discovery and design sessions, journey mapping, design thinking, strategic planning, innovation, and transformation. Most importantly, it results in an action plan that is obtainable yet includes stretch goals to push a company and its brand to its greatest potential. This process works with any size audience to identify what is, what could be, and what is needed to propel breakthrough ideas into the marketplace.

Over 25+ years of continued refinement and delivery of thought-provoking initiatives and action plans that focus on what is a ‘human experience’, I found my “home” in customer experience and experience management. From working in a rural grocery store starting at age 13 in northwest Minnesota to working within large corporations in St Paul, Minnesota, my experiences – combined with my enthusiast approach and commitment to best practices – have been my motivation to relentlessly tap into and activate human-centric experiences to create stronger, more meaningful relationships that result in more loyalty among employees, customers, and users.

Service Methodology

Employing universally proven principles around human-centered approach and design, combined with lean design principles and years of experience, we will identify both unknown and underserved needs by the business, the customers, users, employees, or all the above! This practice will also define and build out a customer-centric culture within that exists between today’s expressed needs and tomorrow’s anticipated desires.

It begins with uncovering the ‘why’ behind the stated ‘why.’ Understanding this will allow for various discoveries including compelling articulation of the competitive landscape and compelling experiences resulting in the necessary growth transformations of your brand. With a blend of statistical rigor combined with empathy and genuine understanding, the backbone of your brand will lengthen and grow to new heights and your customers and users will thank you.

Recognizing the importance to identify and rapidly solve problems to help executives, innovators, and organizations looking to solve business problems and challenges faster but with clear actionable outcomes is foundational in the execution of an actional experience management system. This includes, but is not limited to: A deeper understanding of the underlying issues and problems being faced; Hands-on experience with expert guidance to solution the issues and problems; Energized buy-in of from leadership and frontline; Action plan to move things forward immediately; Implementing a sustainable governance plan.

Service Options

Companies can elect whether they just require Appleton Greene for advice and support with the Bronze Client Service, for research and performance analysis with the Silver Client Service, for facilitating departmental workshops with the Gold Client Service, or for complete process planning, development, implementation, management and review, with the Platinum Client Service. Ultimately, there is a service to suit every situation and every budget and clients can elect to either upgrade or downgrade from one service to another as and when required, providing complete flexibility in order to ensure that the right level of support is available over a sustainable period of time, enabling the organization to compensate for any prescriptive or emergent changes relating to: Customer Service; E-business; Finance; Globalization; Human Resources; Information Technology; Legal; Management; Marketing; or Production.

Service Mission

Customer Experience generally is meant to be a guiding statement, a way of working, company culture, and the result of how your customers and users feel about themselves after interacting with your brand. The mission of this work is to provide a consistent purpose around what the experience is and should be inside company walls, whether a customer is present or not. When that is healthy and consistent, it shows inside out and outside in.

Over the past 20+ years, I have continued to refine, define, and deliver thought-provoking CX program focus that unravels the riddle that is a ‘human experience’ and shows us how to tap into its power to create stronger more meaningful relationships and more loyal employees and customers.

This process works with any size audience, in nearly any industry. To truly humanize a business and a brand, as well as drive a sustainable humanized-centric culture, a combination of innovative approaches that promote an inclusive environment to allow for the necessary creative experimentation, measurement, and discovery process are a must.

Service Objectives

The following list represents the Key Service Objectives (KSO) for the Appleton Greene Customer Service Experience service.

1. Customer-centric Culture
   Today’s customers are more educated, socially informed, and increasingly more unwilling to be a passive recipient of what any brand decides is best for them. Customers want to be not only heard but responded to directly from a representative of the brands they purchase from. It is increasingly more important that customers feel they have a say in the products targeted at them. As a result, companies must be customer-centric vs product-centric. But what does this really mean? The goal and objective of a customer-centric culture is not to continue the culture of pushing products and services out the door as quickly as possible, but to create an environment that empowers each employee to provide the best offering and experience that serve your customers’ needs and desires. Customers are not mere wallets who have to be won at the expense of competition but collaborators and co-creators of value. A company must evaluate the strategic landscape to develop realistic goals and then map out the objectives, strategies, and tactics to reach those goals. Strategic planning is a continuous, evolving process that is essential to a business’ long-term growth and viability. As the business landscape changes over time, the strategic plan must also change. Organizations must ensure that all actions, words, and visuals are aligned toward achieving the stated goals. CX Management, when done well, will generate more revenue, improve customer loyalty, and sustain a strong business model. However, this can become extremely complicated at times, especially when one needs to backtrack, or simply get on track, to begin with. Every CX Strategy should consist of forward-looking customer-centric outcomes with an actionable road map to actualize, deliver, and measure progress. Being on emotion is just as, if not more, important than being on message. To adopt a Customer First mindset, a brand must be willing and open to keep learning and keep evolving to stay relevant in the market, rather than reverting to tactical or reactive initiatives. It is important to fully understand the relationship between the customer and the business/brand and note that the customer can choose to leave the relationship at nearly any time. A company and brand must be dynamic and continuously be advancing with age. It is no longer enough to have a unique selling proposition, rather a unique emotional proposition. In this objective to develop a CX Strategy, the leading factors will need to come from a combined Voice of the Customer, Voice of the Employee, as well as Voice of the Process.
2. Adoption & Accountability
   CX is an investment, not an overhead cost. A CX transformation takes strategy, implementation, regular practice, time and accountability at all levels. And to ensure a sustainable framework for the transformation is obtained, there are a few key steps that must be followed in making sure the CX mission and purpose is fully adopted by the organization. This includes: Alignment of internal operations; Policies and procedures; Checks and balances; Regular communication with clear objectives; Empowering employees to do the right thing; Promoting behaviors that align with the CX Strategy; Continuous closed-loop initiatives; Regular check-ins. How a company implements its overall strategy matters. It will define the company’s success, so do it wholeheartedly and follow through. CX is about doing things for the cause of being human centricity.
3. Understanding Insights
   The easiest way to gain meaningful insights while gaining a deeper understanding of your customer is through third-party interviews in addition to collecting data. There is so much more to understand about your customer than survey results indicating a particular “NPS” or “CSAT” score. Understanding the why behind the verbal why is how to help you fully understand your customers’ needs and wants that will give you the confidence and knowledge to ensure your building the right product for your users’ needs. The purpose of this service objective is to help companies understand the importance of seeing the world from an external, customer-centered lens, as opposed to an internal product/service-focused lens. Customer value and experiences are always designed for specific market segments and target markets, never for a general market, because one size does not fit all. Value innovation must begin with a deep understanding of customer needs and behaviors. Companies need to step out of their own operating frames and step into the shoes of the customer. The crucial issue is not what products and services companies can offer, the crucial issue is how customers use the countless variations of products and services offered to them to make their lives better, easier, and simpler.
4. CX Design
   CX starts at the top. And it’s only from there can it trickling down each layer of the business to create an emotional connection with the other human beings, ie employees, and in turn, the customers. You’ve heard the phrase “it’s not what you say; it’s how you say it”? The best customer experiences are achieved when a member of your team creates an emotional connection with a customer. It’s as simple as that. When this happens, it’s a win all around. In simplest of terms, the core objective areas of CX design are: Understanding your customer and reachability; Purchase and service convenience; Simplicity & channel flexibility; Continuation and activation. Information is only powerful if shared. Design thinking is an open-ended process in which the experience design process continues to iterate, but it can only do that when someone is leading the movement. Regularly bringing everyone together becomes a key task for CX professionals. They are the ones who must serve as the guide and interpreter for the various groups that must collaborate as a greater team to pull off a fantastic and profitable Customer Experience.
5. Metrics & ROI
   CX initiatives will often fall short of full ROI if metrics are generically designed and managed to an average performance. Understanding the outliers in your data is a proven way to breakthrough average performance ratings and really start making a positive difference towards ROI. Average ratings are misleading due to a large number of variables (which is quite common in CX data) that will skew the overall average. It’s important to look past the average scores and dig deeper into what and why. Utilizing a deeper understanding of metrics will uncover the outliers that are much more meaningful to both the executives and the bottom line. Insight-oriented AI text analytics will answer the questions that NPS, CLV, CLI, and CES cannot do alone. This objective of metrics and ROI is a way to establish a direct link between ROI and CX strategy. Through text analytics and emotional text mining, one can pinpoint the factors that impact NPS (and CLV, CLI, and CES) and have the numbers to quantify that impact.

Testimonials

Customer Experience Publication

A publication in which 22 international CX professionals share their current strategies for achieving impact and visibility using best practice CX. Co-Authored International Bestseller across 5 countries. Authored chapter 4.4, “How to create a successful CX Program for your organization using Design Thinking”

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Thomson Reuters

“Ms. Stoll has been my secret weapon! A whip-smart and dedicated member of the Global Sales & Strategy Team, Ms. Stoll is responsible for managing the Customer Pulse Survey and providing a comprehensive analysis of the data collected. This data is used to not only understand the performance of our organization but is leveraged to actively manage the behavior of Strategic Account Managers globally. She is a consummate professional with a keen ability to interpret data and making actionable recommendations that impact the business of Thomson Reuters and improve the client experience. It has been said, “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” Without the efforts of Ms. Stoll and the vitally important work that she does to measure client data, many within our organization wouldn’t be able to do their jobs. She is well respected and valued for her contributions. She is a leader among her peers and positioned to be a leader in any company lucky enough to have her.”

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Winnebago

“Having completed numerous customer surveys and interviews in the past, when we hired Ms. Stoll’s help, we received a much deeper understanding of some of the hypotheses we were making internally. She brought a deeper level of insights, uncovering issues we had not discovered before, unlike past feedback efforts. She had also developed an actionable next steps summary for us to help guide us on our way to providing a better experience for our customers. Very pleased..”

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Clarivate Analytics

“Ms. Stoll is able to pull, mind, and provide high-quality opinion and analytics from our customers, allowing us to guide strategy and direction on both a per-bid and a per business-unit level. Later, Ms. Stoll worked with us to formalize a win/loss intelligence program, bringing additional insight into the organization at multiple levels. Throughout both these programs, she brought insight and experience in data capture, customer engagement, questionnaire design, and organizational knowledge management. She engaged brilliantly with my team and was a regular source of new ideas. As a result, both our bids and our strategic bidding operations saw a rich new layer of evidence.”

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Safco

“It was such a pleasure to work with Ms. Stoll to deliver Safcos customer satisfaction surveys. She is incredibly talented, organized, and always brings a level of positivity to every conversation. Her experience in customer insight and retention is unparalleled and I appreciate all of the help she provided to our Marketing team. Ms. Stoll is without a doubt an incredibly valuable asset to any company she is a part of.”

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More detailed achievements, references and testimonials are confidentially available to clients upon request.

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Industries

This service is primarily available to the following industry sectors:

Healthcare

Healthcare has been on the verge of major transformation for years, but with the recent events and pandemic, that verge was both pushed into overdrive and forced to go on hold, depending on which angle one is viewing. The future of healthcare is not only more convenient and virtual than today (or pre-Covid 19 to say the least), but absolutely will have to be designed around the patient’s needs.

The pandemic provided a forceful, but a necessary multi-touch digitally-enabled experience. Healthcare overall has been catapulted towards a consumer-centered model where people can shop for care and share data seamlessly through various apps and brands.

The existing healthcare system is being disrupted in ways unthinkable before 2020. As a result, more and more new and revised provider options have surfaced, making healthcare options more competitive than ever. A company’s employee, customer, and patient experience are evolving and regular communication and feedback will be key to staying in business.

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Technology

Technology is an industry-changing so quickly, it’s changing daily and by the hour. Technology is also changing the way other industries perform and how each live our lives both personally and professionally.

AI-optimization, for example, is helping businesses across the globe to continuously optimize towards higher levels of output and product quality. As a result, we can lower the cost of production and reduce overall waste from our environment.

Having recently introduced 5G, entirely new markets are emerging and previous ones redesigning themselves. From delivery services, economy-boosting activities like smart factories, self-driving bots, gene editing, and immunotherapy, and so more than the world has truly entered into a space that is even more unimaginable than ever. And it will continue to do so by actively listening and responding from all sides of the circle. Customer Experience practices are what will bring our world to the next level.

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Travel & Tourism

Before Covid-19, the travel and tourism sector was booming, and it will again. The Travel and Tourism industry was responsible for creating a fifth of all new jobs worldwide. Travel and Tourism depend largely on technology, which is very interesting considering all of the amazing advances in technology there have been and only more to come. The Travel and Tourism industry now has the advantages of augmented reality, wearables, voice-activated devices, and robotics and biometric technology available to enhance and re-create an already thriving industry.

With all these amazing bits and pieces available, integrating them with the right data platform and customer experience will what differentiates a success vs a failure. The importance of creating and delivering positive experiences plays a critical part in all of this. Connecting deep human and business insights with all of the technological possibilities are how a Travel and Tourism business will be able to define and deliver experiences that are easier, healthier, safer, and overall rewarding.

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Non-Profit & Charity

The Non-Profit and Charities industry has taken a big hit in 2020, but that’s not to say there isn’t a lot of potential for growth and sustainability in the future. This is an industry, like most others, that rely heavily on technology to get more done. This includes the ability to make the most of people’s smartphone usage. Ensuring mobile-friendly webpages, videos, and emails are just scratching the surface. Developing an app, or even multiple apps may help any non-profit or charity provide a more seamless volunteer, partner, and supporters experience.

Social media is also another increasingly important area for Non-profits and Charities to be present. We’ve seen how BLM, Black Lives Matter, mobilized thousands of supporters through various social media outlets within minutes.

Knowing how to utilize these platforms to get the word out, gain visibility through videos and live streaming, connecting with supporters across geographics and more are key to any organization’s success in 2021 and beyond. Through the efforts of a strong Customer Experience plan and execution, Non-Profits and Charities will be able to stay afloat and continue to positively affect our world.

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Entertainment

Heading into 2021, telecommunications, media, and entertainment industry leaders will be focusing on key strategic objectives to overcome the 2020 crisis Covid-19 presented so many.

One of the major objectives will be to renew the focus back on the customers’ needs. There is an increasingly larger pool of competition in the entertainment business with each year and the company with the most effective and personalized customer experience will come out ahead. Converging and mixing experiences through new offerings and partnerships will play a huge role in these efforts.

The Entertainment industry, while recovering from Covid-19, will largely be focused on stronger customer engagements and their relationships with advertisers in the sense of will the 2020 behaviors as a result of stay-at-home orders. This will need to be thoroughly examined and understood, all the while preparing themselves for futureproofing themselves against a future potential global crisis. But with the advances in technology, the possibilities for a thriving entertainment industry are very likely. What will be interesting is who is still left standing and who has emerged to see it in action?

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Locations

This service is primarily available within the following locations:

Minneapolis MN

Minnesota is home to 17 of the Fortune 500 rankings of largest companies. One of the reasons or theories for this is due to what some call the economic phenomenon of “Headquarters Economy: Managers, Mobility, and Migration”. This is when there is a multitude of management roles within a small radius combined with strong connectivity between organizations. With a setting like this, residents in nearby cities and schools have a greater likelihood of sharing resources (including people) to create a strong networking phenomenon which then leads to greater opportunities.

The Twin Cities also has one of the most concentrated populations in the US for CX organization memberships, which isn’t surprising given it’s ‘small town’ mindset in a sea of opportunities. Knowing your customers, your employees, and all those around you will only help you and your business grow.

Competition is everywhere, but so are the opportunities. Regardless of opening a business in a “small town” or “large city”, the only way to survive is to ensure that your business is set up on a foundation of understanding the problem your company is solving and for who exactly. As everything ages and changes, so do problems and the solutions needed to solve them. This means continuous conversations, research, and understanding must be actively practiced for any business to survive. That includes knowing the businesses around you and what their purpose is and how can you both benefit from knowing and understanding each other.

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San Diego CA

San Diego is one of the best places to launch a startup, according to a past year’s issues of Forbes. San Diego has had a thriving economy, diverse population, top educational institutions, and an unsurpassed quality of life that is met with great weather most of the year.

With such a glowing environment for lifestyle, comes a huge population and competition across most industries. More than 400 startups have launched each year between 2013 and 2019, according to the CONNECT Innovation Report. Pre-Covid-19, the economy of the San Diego county region has been strong with a relatively low unemployment rate while having above the average expected job growth.

As one of the largest cities in the USA, employers can benefit from a large pool of diverse individuals giving ample opportunities for qualified staff, including freelancers. But all this comes with significant costs of employee wages, taxes, building expenses, health insurance, gas, electricity, and more. In order to keep a business up and running – and running strong – a company’s employee experience and customer experience can make or break a business quickly in the San Diago area. Listening and responding to your audience is very important, especially in such a highly-populated area.

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Philadelphia PA

Pennsylvania has more than 1 million small businesses, which employ 2.5 million people, according to the US Small Business Administration, making it the 6th largest economy in the nation. While pre-Covid-19, Pennsylvania had low unemployment rates which not only meant a relatively healthy economic system, also that the employment market was highly competitive.

Philadephia, in particular, has great opportunities to offer both employers and the labor market given its geographical location to NYC, Boston, and even D.C. all being accessible within an hour or two drive. Given the location, employers can and do benefit from a larger pool of diverse individuals giving ample opportunities for qualified staff, including freelancers. But all this comes with significant costs of employee wages, taxes, building expenses, health insurance, gas, electricity, and more. In order to keep a business up and running – and running strong in such a competitive area – a company’s employee experience and customer experience can make or break a business quickly within the Philadelphia area. Listening and responding to your audience is very important, especially in such a highly-populated area.

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London UK

London, without a doubt, is a very beloved city not only by its residents but tourists from near and far. London is home to more businesses than ever. One of the things that makes London so desirable is its multi-ethnicity population. Diversity is something many employers are looking for in their staff, but it’s also something that more and more people have a desire to live in and around highly diverse neighborhoods.

Diversity in the workplace helps people and businesses to better understand ALL of their customers better, and ultimately, perform better. And perform better not only in the productive sense but financially as well. With six international airports, 10 major ground transport hubs, and an extensive, iconic underground rail system, London’s infrastructure is among the best in the world.

In order to keep a business up and running – and running strong in such a competitive area – a company’s employee experience and customer experience can make or break a business quickly within the London area. Listening and responding to your audience is very important to sustaining a healthy business model.

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Santiago CL

Chile provides a strong market demand and resources necessary for a business to thrive, be that a startup or corporation transplant. As of the last few years, more and more investors have come to set up businesses in Santiago, which is the most economically developed city in Chile. Some even refer to Santiago as “The Chilecon Valley” as it’s become the entrepreneurial hub of Latin America.

Chile is extremely diverse, and Santiago in particular has developed a cosmopolitan culture and modern telecommunications network. With a multiethnic society, the workplace is able to bring in that diversity and help people and businesses to better understand ALL of their customers better, and ultimately, perform better. And perform better not only in the productive sense but financially as well.

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Clients

This service’s current clients or employers include:

Thomson Reuters

Thomson Reuters is one of the world’s most trusted providers of answers, helping professionals make confident decisions and run better businesses. Our customers operate in complex arenas that move society forward — law, tax, compliance, government, and media – and face increasing complexity as regulation and technology disrupts every industry.

We help them reinvent the way they work. Our team of experts brings together information, innovation and authoritative insight to unravel complex situations, and our worldwide network of journalists and editors keep customers up to speed on global developments that are relevant to them.

We’re on a mission to help professionals advance their businesses and gain a competitive advantage with the trusted answers only we can provide. We are the Answer Company. We are Thomson Reuters.

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Clarivate Analytics

Clarivate is a global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics to accelerate the pace of innovation. Our vision is to improve the way the world creates, protects and advances innovation.

To achieve this, we deliver critical data, information, workflow solutions and deep domain expertise to innovators everywhere. We are a trusted, indispensable global partner to our customers, including universities, nonprofits, funding organizations, publishers, corporations, government organizations and law firms.

We offer solutions that drive the entire lifecycle of innovation: Scientific and academic research, Patent intelligence and compliance standards, Pharmaceutical and biotech intelligence, Trademark, domain and brand protection.

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Winnebago

Winnebago Industries, Inc. is a leading U.S. manufacturer of outdoor lifestyle experiences under the Winnebago, Grand Design, Chris-Craft and Newmar brands. The Company builds quality motorhomes, travel trailers, fifth wheel products and boats with multiple facilities in Iowa, Indiana, Minnesota and Florida. Our common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and is traded under the symbol WGO. Winnebago Industries was incorporated under the laws of the state of Iowa on February 12, 1958, and adopted its present name on February 28, 1961.

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