The Agitator, especially in the persona of Roger, has been hammering away at the importance of improving ‘customer service’ in the context of cultivating donor commitment and retention. Here, here and here are some examples.

But if you still aren’t convinced, take a look at what blue-chip corporate consultant McKinsey & Company has to say on the subject.

Here’s a relatively brief and — despite the consultant-speak (need to do something to justify those exorbitant consulting fees) — digestible article from the firm, Are you really listening to what your customers are saying?

McKinsey observes: “…many companies don’t have the culture to loop customer feedback through the front line to improve behavior or connect it to innovation.”

What they emphasize, in effect, is why bother listening to customers (or donors) if those on the front line doing the listening have no voice or clout to actually make the organisational or cultural changes that would indeed improve the customer experience.

The article notes: “Leading customer-experience companies systematically improve operations by incorporating employee feedback on perceived customer experience and problem areas … Although employees and customers point out similar problems, employees uncover root causes, while customers only report on symptoms.”

Or simpler still (and I charge commensurately less as a consultant), who’s listening to the listeners?!

McKinsey also emphasizes looking at the entire customer experience (dare I say it Roger, ‘the journey’), as opposed to just individual touchpoints. In other words, did the customer’s problem get resolved in an acceptable way and timeframe, as opposed to how quickly was the call center phone answered? “In business, as in health, the goal isn’t to focus on the test but to figure out how to heal whatever has gone wrong throughout the entire system.”

Finally, says, McKinsey: “Just as companies invest in enterprise-resource-planning systems to collect, measure, and report finances, so investment in technology is necessary to support a superior customer-experience-measurement system.” They note: “Hotel companies generally led the way more than a decade ago on seeing the value of hardwiring ways to capture customer experiences.”

Of course McKinsey is talking to corporate marketers and managers, but the advice holds true for monitoring donor experiences and building donor-centric culture and practices in the non-sector as well. The article suggests that product companies have an easier time — or at least have had more practice — than service companies (which are perhaps more analogous to nonprofits) in using customer insights to create better or more ‘winning’ offerings.

Personally, I believe that most successful marketing these days is about superior service and delivering optimal experiences. Even when a product is involved — and is even the presumed focal point — it’s increasingly just a commodity, easily copied and duplicated.

In any event, you don’t need to be the Ritz-Carlton to systematically monitor customer/donor experiences — e.g., surveys, social media posts, website patterns — and act to improve them.

Don’t you agree?

Tom