Customer Service & Effort Ratings, CX Maturity & Middle Managers

June 2015

Employee engagement plays a critical role in creating a customer-centric culture, that's why it's one of Temkin Group's four CX core competencies. I'm excited to announce that in an effort to help organizations understand and improve employee engagement, we're kicking off the Engage Employees Challenge, where we will be awarding up to $1,000 for innovative ideas.

We recently published the 5th annual Temkin Customer Service Ratings. This year, USAA took the top spot for the third year straight, while Comcast remained on the bottom for the second year in a row. See all of the top and bottom companies below.

We also published the Temkin Effort Ratings, a component of the Temkin Experience Ratings. Hannaford, Publix, and Aldi earned the highest scores, while Coventry Health Care earned the lowest.

In addition to these ratings, we also published two reports during the previous month:

State of CX Management, 2015. Our sixth annual study of customer experience activities, competencies, and maturity shows that only 11% of companies have reached the highest two levels of customer experience.
Activating Middle Managers to Drive CX Change. This research shares best practices for activating middle managers -- a group of employees that are critical to the success (or failure) of organizational change efforts.

We also published a new video that explains Temkin Group's SLICE-B Experience Review methodology. This approach provides a structured way to examine a customer experience.

In Case You Missed It...

Here are some reports we discussed in recent journals:

Data Snapshot: Media Use Benchmark, 2015 is an annual study that examines the amount of time consumers spend on activities such as watching television, browsing the Internet, reading books (both print and electronic), listening to the radio, reading a print magazine, and using a mobile phone.
Data Snapshot: Social Media Benchmark, 2015 is an annual study that examines how often consumers use Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Tumblr, and third-party rating sites.
Engaging Millennials in the Workplace identifies strategies to engage the growing number of workers born between 1980 and 2000.
Customer Experience Expectations and Plans for 2015 shows where large companies expect to spend their time and money this year.
The Future of Customer Experience Insights highlights five trends that every VoC, market research, and customer insights professional should expect to see.
The Secret to B2B2C CX Success shares best practices for companies that reach their end-customers through partners.

2015 Temkin Customer Service Ratings

The fifth annual Temkin Customer Service Ratings

uses feedback from 10,000 U.S. consumers to rate how likely customers are to forgive 278 organizations across 20 industries.

USAA earned the highest rating for its banking business, closely followed by Chick-fil-A. USAA also made the top 12 for both its insurance and credit card businesses. These companies were joined at the top by credit unions, Aldi, Trader Joe's, Publix, Panera Bread, H-E-B, Amazon.com, and Bed Bath & Beyond.

For the second straight year, Comcast earned the lowest score, taking the bottom two spots for both its TV and Internet service businesses.

2015 Temkin Effort Ratings

Have you ever wondered which companies are the easiest to work with? What about the most difficult? Well, we have the answers.

For the previous five years, we've measured effort as part of the Temkin Experience Ratings. This year, we calculated the effort score for 293 companies across 20 industries. Here are the companies that were the most above and below their industry averages in the 2015 Temkin Effort Ratings.

State of CX Management, 2015

In our sixth annual State of CX Management report, we found an abundance of CX ambition and activity. Most companies have a CX executive leading the charge, a central team coordinating significant CX activities, and a staff of six to 10 full-time CX professionals.

Using Temkin Group's CX competency and maturity assessment, we found that 32% of companies have reached the highest three levels of customer experience. And companies have also achieved the best scores we've ever seen for two of our four core competencies (Employee Engagement and Customer Connectedness).

Activating Middle Managers to Drive CX Change

Despite playing an indispensible role in any CX transformation, middle managers are often seen as barriers to changing. Which is why Temkin Group identified "activating middle managers" as one of the key strategies in our concept called Employee-Engaging Transformation.

In Activating Middle Managers to Drive CX Change, we share 21 best practices for mobilizing these key influencers across five categories:

Involve middle managers in shaping the change: Help middle managers to personally embrace the change by soliciting their input on how the organization can best accomplish its change goals.
Engage middle managers in goal setting: Jointly set targets with middle managers for individual performance and team progress.
Train middle managers on key skills: Help middle managers gain the knowledge and capabilities needed to lead change and to succeed in their role in the new environment.
Provide middle managers with tools to engage their teams: Make it easier for middle managers to introduce, reinforce, and sustain the change by designing specific tools for that purpose.
Connect middle managers with customers: Shrink the gap between middle managers and the customers that will ultimately experience the change.

Customer Experience Matters Blog

Here are some of the recent posts from the CX Matters blog:

Message From Proud Ex-Chair of the CXPA. After co-founding and the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA.org) and being it's chairing the board for four years, it's time for me to step down.
Most Popular CX Matters Posts Over 5 Years. In honor of Temkin Group's 5th anniversary, we identified the 5 most-read posts over the previous five years.
Reflecting on Five Great Years of Temkin Group. See a video describing what Temkin Group has worked on since its inception five years ago.
2015 Temkin Experience Ratings: 20 Industry Snapshots. Here we provide links to detailed analyses of the Temkin Experience Ratings for 20 different industries.

Temkin Group Research Plans and Updates

We have quite a few exciting new reports underway, including CX Metrics Best Practices, 2015 Temkin Web Experience Ratings, Extracting Customer Insights from the Contact Center, and the Economics of Net Promoter�.

Here are some ways that Temkin Group can help accelerate your CX success:

Research & Advisory subscriptions. Get access to leading-edge best practices, assessments, and benchmark data, in addition to ongoing advice from our CX Transformists to help keep your efforts on track.
CX training. We deliver leading-edge CX practices through in-house workshops, open-enrollment workshops, or customized training programs.
CX assessments. We identify gaps and opportunities in your CX plans and competencies.
Speeches and webinars. We will inform and inspire your internal or client audiences.

If you're interested in Temkin Group's research or services, then drop me a line at bruce@temkingroup.com, visit our website at www.temkingroup.com, or give us a call at (617) 916-2075.

Sincerely,

Bruce Temkin, CCXP
Customer Experience Transformist
& Managing Partner
Temkin Group

Co-founder, Customer Experience Professionals Association

Customer Experience Matters is a registered trademark of Temkin Group.

NPS is a trademark of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, Inc., and Fred Reichheld

In This Issue

> In Case You Missed It

> Temkin Customer Service Ratings

> Temkin Effort Ratings

> State of CX Management

> Activating Middle Managers

> CX Matters Blog

> Temkin Group Update

July 22 & 23
in Boston:

Mapping and Improving Your Customers' Journey

Temkin Group is a leading CX research and consulting firm. We help the world's largest brands accelerate their transformational journeys towards customer-centricity and build loyalty by engaging the hearts and minds of customers, employees, and partners.

Temkin Group Calendar:

June 2 & 3:

Temkin Group Workshop in San Diego: Driving Customer Experience Transformation

June 10:

Aimee Lucas will present a Temkin Group Webinar,

Activating Middle Managers to Drive CX Change

June 11:

Bruce Temkin will be speaking in Chicago for Confirmit session: The Power of Linking Customer and Employee Engagement

June 16:

Bruce Temkin will be speaking in Orlando at

Infocomm Solution Summit

June 24:

Bruce Temkin will be speaking in Miami at