Customer feedback is an important piece of the customer experience, according to Michele Kertzie, First Niagara Customer Experience Director.
“It is the only way to truly know if the changes we make to improve the customer experience are doing just that,” Kertzie told Loyalty360. “Our customers are very vocal, and given the chance will gladly provide us with feedback on every interaction they have with First Niagara. We just need to provide them with the venue to make those suggestions and, most important, listen and learn. We have done just that through a link on our website. Customer suggestions are reviewed daily and often serve as a catalyst for improvements to processes and service delivery. We value every piece of feedback we receive from our customers, whether it comes into our online suggestion box or through a survey. We leverage this feedback to ensure we are putting the customer at the center of everything we do.”
Kertzie explained that First Niagara Bank’s customer experience strategy is based on short-, medium-, and long-term goals.
“To do that, we have our long-term guiding values, strategic objectives, and various strategies which all work together to achieve a truly customer-centric culture,” she said. “Foundationally, providing a Best in Class Customer Experience is a long-term journey that is constantly evolving and changing. It presents many unanticipated deviations. To keep us on track during these fluctuations, we devise medium- and short-term strategies to re-center us on our journey.”
Kertzie offered an example to explain the strategy.
“Imagine a picture with the customer in the very center,” she said. “All around the customer are contributing variables that affect and guide the CX. All continually change over time at different rates. All are affected by things like the economy, industry, organization, and customer needs. This causes the adjustment of our medium- and short-term strategies. The term is differentiated between strategy content and implementation process. The overall strategy of providing a best-in-class customer experience and to fulfill our vision and mission is long-term. Conceptually, and strategically, this will remain the same. How we educate our organization to achieve this strategy and the overall key performance indicators will determine the medium and shorter term strategies.”