Category — Building Strong Customer Relationships

No doubt you’ve heard that Synovate is now part of the Ipsos Group. Over the past few months, we’ve been busy getting to know one another, combining our teams, and just making research a whole lot better for you. So now it is time to shine the spotlight on where the future is and invite you to engage with us on Ipsos’ blog. In fact, that’s the name of the blog! Ipsos Ideas Spotlight.

Fresh insights. Stimulating discussions. And great conversation starters. The Ipsos Ideas Spotlight is your source for frequent updates on what’s happening in the world of research and an open avenue for interacting with the research experts at Ipsos.

So go ahead…get in the spotlight. And check out our blog today!

Ipsos Ideas Spotlight

A couple of months ago I was fortunate enough to be in the audience at a highly memorable Customer Experience presentation in LA. Jim Knight, Sr. Director of Training and Development at Hard Rock International hotel group spoke at the Next Generation CE Conference. The Hard Rock approach resonated with me, so I asked Jim if he would be kind enough to give an interview. Here’s a synopsis of what he told me about their unique approach to Guest Experience Delivery:

Jane Edwards-Hall:  Jim, you told me that you recruit only the world’s misfits – tell me more about that!

Jim Knight: There’s no silver bullet but we do truly recruit for attitude and not necessarily hospitality skills or experience – we can teach that. We look for people who can be themselves and provide an “unpredictable” guest experience – and we take this philosophy worldwide. We want people with a master’s degree in Personality! We have a rigorous process supporting our recruitment methodology. We interview people who are basically square pegs trying to fit into round holes and who honestly wouldn’t get jobs elsewhere – we want the world’s weird!

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One of the main questions clients ask us is how they can use social media monitoring for their business. By now everybody recognises the importance of social media, but we need to be aware that there is much more we can do besides listening to and engaging with social media conversations. Used in conjunction with traditional research, buzz tracking can be a powerful tool for any company to generate ‘real-time’ insights about the things that matter to consumers, thereby optimising their communications and developing business strategies that connect with people.

• Early warning system: social media monitoring gives immediate feedback into how your brand is perceived, what is happening right now around your brand (eg: news, PR, a bad review) and how people are reacting to things you do. When Gap released its new logo, it was immediately hit with thousands of comments on Facebook and Twitter criticising the change and this resulted in Gap switching back to their original logo.

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OK, so my last posts mostly critical; this time I thought that I would compare a negative experience with a positive one instead.

How do you handle having to go back to a store or service provider to return a defective product or to point out a mistake in a transaction? Would you feel a little awkward, intimidated, or defensive? Many customers often feel very strong, negative emotions when faced with the prospect of going back to a store or service provider to tell them of their dissatisfaction with a product or service. Some customers may enjoy gearing up for a fight, others may have to psyche themselves up for the encounter, while some others may consider it an annoyance or a waste of time.

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