Ritz Carlton Short Film

Learning From The Ritz Carlton Philosophy.

We can learn much from the Ritz-Carlton Gold Standard and their exceptional customer service philosophy and orientation. "Putting on the Ritz" has always meant top-quality, the best of the best. Where did they acquire this reputation? From their customers - and it is well deserved.

The Ritz-Carlton focuses on taking care of their customers and employees and this creates an amazing standard of customer service. In a recent independent survey, 99 percent of guests said they were satisfied with their Ritz-Carlton hotel experience and over 80 percent stated they extremely satisfied. The key to impressive customer service is to create loyal customers. Loyal customers return again and again to spend there money and are less price sensitive. Satisfied customers might return, but are equally likely to go anywhere else and seek out the lowest price. Therefore, satisfaction is virtually meaningless and only customer loyalty truly counts.

Source: Ezine Articles (http://ezinearticles.com/?Learning-From-The-Ritz-Carlton-Customer-Service-Philosophy&id=1112186)

Inspired by renowned hotelier Cesar Ritz, the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co. has long been recognized as a leader in product and service excellence. Even though Ritz-Carlton has won two prestigious Malcolm Baldrige awards for service quality and maintaining a very loyal customer base, the company's leadership doesn't leave customer engagement to chance. Like many other great businesses, the Ritz-Carlton uses a CRM system. Coined "Mystique," the Ritz-Carlton database is used to track information such as guest preferences, frequency of visits and issues that have come up for guests during their previous stays.

While the data is helpful in understanding an individual guest's relationship with the brand, the data is only as good as the staff's willingness to leverage it to create ongoing, memorable and unique experiences for the guest.

For all the organizational initiatives directed at "putting the customer first," "driving customer loyalty" and "developing consumer evangelists," customer engagement remains elusive. In fact, according to NPD Group, a market research company, almost 50 percent of the consumers who described themselves as highly loyal to a brand were no longer loyal to that brand a year later. So how does a business maintain loyal customers? In a nutshell, by not leaving it solely to technology, such as complex CRM databases, but instead making loyalty and customer engagement an integral part of each employee's daily focus and communicating about it daily.

To drive behavior, leadership at The Ritz-Carlton begins a dialogue about the significance of "customer experiences" and "customer loyalty" that starts even before an employee has been selected for the job.

During the interview and selection process, Ritz-Carlton executives continually reinforce the message that they are looking only for individuals who possess the highest level of service talent. By "talent," they are referring to measurable personality characteristics that reflect the prospective employee's capacity to empathize, infer, communicate about and resolve the needs of others.

The Credo

Upon being selected—not hired—new staff members are required to go through orientation before they can begin their job responsibilities. No employee is ever allowed to start work without going through orientation. Senior leadership attends every orientation to welcome new hires into the Ritz-Carlton family. During the selection process, hiring managers note the preferences of every applicant. At orientation, directors of learning incorporate the preferences in a way that demonstrates the three steps of Ritz-Carlton service:

1. Extend a warm welcome
2. Anticipate and fulfill stated and unstated needs
3. Provide a fond farewell

"During the selection process," one new hire said, "They must have asked me about my favorite snack because at orientation I received my spicy nachos and freshly squeezed mango juice. I was wowed, especially when the chef delivered it. It was all so excellent, and then I realized how I can impact other people by just paying attention to details about them."

It is through such experiences at orientation that new hires appreciate the outcomes leadership wants staff to offer guests. Those outcomes are easily identified in the words of The Ritz- Carlton Credo which states:

• The Ritz-Carlton Hotel is a place where the genuine care and comfort of our guests is our highest mission.
• We pledge to provide the finest personal service and facilities for our guests, who will always enjoy a warm, relaxed, yet refined ambience.
• The Ritz-Carlton experience enlivens the senses, instills well-being and fulfills even the unexpressed wishes and needs of our guests.

Whether a staff member is the CEO or a bellhop, each Ritz-Carlton employee (referred to collectively as "the Ladies and Gentlemen of The Ritz-Carlton") is responsible for driving customer engagement by offering "genuine care and comfort" in a "refined ambiance" by "enlivening the senses, instilling well-being and fulfilling unexpressed needs." Not only is this expectation communicated during the orientation process, but also it is reinforced daily.

The Credo is published on a pocket side card, which includes a listing of the company's service values. Several such values include this one:

I build strong relationships and create Ritz-Carlton guests for life. I am always responsive to the expressed and unexpressed wishes and needs of our guests. I am empowered to create unique, memorable and personal experiences for our guests. I continuously seek opportunities to innovate and improve The Ritz-Carlton experience. I own and immediately resolve guest problems. I create a work environment of teamwork and lateral service so that the needs of our guests and each other are met."

The Credo card is then viewed as a part of the employee's uniform and is referenced daily in a process the Ritz-Carlton refers to as "line-up."

Line-up is held every day of the year at every Ritz-Carlton property worldwide, and attendance is required for every staff member. At line-up, the Ladies and Gentlemen celebrate stories of exceptional service; share new information from the Mystique CRM database; hear presentations on business success factors, such as the importance of driving customer engagement is presented, and research results from customer engagement surveys. And they discuss the information on the Credo card.

In the end, the Ritz-Carlton enjoys world-class customer loyalty—and guests enjoy world-class service—because everyone in the company understands that it's not just about CRM technology. Customer engagement emerges from the creation of a service culture; continuous communication about the mission-critical nature of customer relationships and customer loyalty; and reminding staff that all business is personal.

Source: Customer Think (http://www.customerthink.com/article)/data_nothing_personal_ritz_carlton

Customer Service Jokes

CEM vs CRM and CEM vs Customer Service

Interview between Stefania Viscusi (TMCnet.com Editor) and Randy Saunders (Marketing Director, Customer Experience Management products, Cincom Systems).

SV: How is CEM different from CRM?

RS: Traditionally, CRM systems have been internally or operationally centric--they are about profiling and collecting customer data for marketing and cross selling purposes. Too often the emphasis has been on the company's goals, and not necessarily what the customer wants. CEM is the opposite of that. It is highly customer-centric focused and utilizes systems, technologies, and simplified processes to improve the customers experience with the company.

When it comes to CRM versus CEM, Shaun Smith points out in his book, "Managing the Customer Experience: Turning Customers into Advocates," more than $46 billion was spent on CRM systems to help institutions get closer to their customers. Yet,Gartner ( News - Alert) Research estimates that 55 percent of all these CRM programs actually drive customers away and dilute earnings--bringing forth this emphasis on customer experience.

SV: How is customer experience different from customer service?

RS: Even though people seem to think they are the same thing, customer service is really just a component of the customer experience. According to Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, "Customer experience is bigger than customer service in that it is the full, and end experience. It starts when you first hear about Amazon from a friend and ends when you get the package in the mail and open it."

Therefore, customer experience encompasses every customer touch point with your brand, whereas the service is just a component of it.

Source: http://www.tmcnet.com/channels/hosted-contact-center/articles/4515-understanding-customer-experience-management-talk-with-cincoms-randy.htm

Customer Experience Management (CEM)

For companies in any industry today, success is driven by the ability to attain and retain customers who share a loyal connection with them. While keeping customers satisfied is essential, it is important to remember that it is only a piece to the puzzle. When it comes to maintaining and gaining customers, the focus needs to be on the entire experience.

The following interview was between Stefania Viscusi and Randy Saunders, Marketing Director, Customer Experience Management products, Cincom Systems about CEM. Cincom Systems delivers software and services to simplify complex business processes and help clients outperform their competition.

SV: Can you provide a brief description of Customer Experience Management?

RS: There are many definitions out there, a good way to look at it is as a process or framework for building an organization’s capability to deliver a distinctive customer experience that defines the brand and drives profitable growth.

SV: Why is CEM so important to success? Does it provide measurable returns?

RS: We are dealing with a changing economy right now. We have moved from a product economy to a service economy, and now we’re moving into an "experience" economy-- which adds a level of emotion that the product or service economies did not have.

Many recent brands have been successful by really focusing on the customer experience. So, if you do it right, and you design an experience with your products and services correctly, you generate a lot higher loyalty and advocates for your products-- which is proven to lead to increased company growth and profitability.

SV: Can successful CEM improve customer loyalty, and why is customer loyalty so critical?

RS: Fred Reichheld, a top speaker on management right now, is proving that advocacy leads to growth and increased loyalty.

In his book, "The Ultimate Question," released earlier this year, he proves that exceptional customer experience creates loyalty and that a 5 percent increase in customer loyalty increases lifetime profits by as much as 95 percent. He also proves that companies who are, what he calls, NPS (net promoter score) or customer advocacy leaders, outgrow their competitors by an average of 2.5 times. So, you can look at this one indicator to find out how many advocates you have for your product -- meaning, how likely are customers to recommend your product or service to a colleague. The more advocates you have, the faster your company grows and the more profitable you are. The reason for this is that the advocates drive the growth of your company in 4 areas:

1- They tend to repurchase.

2- They buy additional product lines from you.

3- Referrals-- they tell others about you and give important word-of-mouth marketing.

4- They provide constructive feedback and are always willing to fill out surveys or responses for the company, which helps to better a product.

SV: What information does CEM collect to draw intelligent conclusions from?

RS: The CEM process audits the most profitable customers to understand what things they really value and what really drives their loyalty. With that collected information, a better customer experience is designed through improvements that ultimately lead to more and more advocates.

SV: Can CEM reduce customer churn? How so?

RS: There was an interesting study in Shaun Smith's book where he shows that 80 percent of all customers who switch suppliers express satisfaction with their previous supplier. This is because customer satisfaction just isn’t enough anymore. Again, as we move into that experience economy, it's more about the emotion and getting to an advocacy level. If not, those who are satisfied, or who may seem loyal because they're repurchasing, will switch to another supplier easily if they haven’t reached an advocacy level for your offering.

One of the things we talk about is designing a customer experience that is consistent, intentional, differentiated and valuable to the customer. If you do that right, you can create more advocates from your customers.

SV: Does CEM improve decision-making and help minimize risk?

RS: Yes. It helps measure the key drivers that your most profitable customers really value. If you understand what they really value, and can deliver on those things, you are able to attract more customers just like them.

SV: How can CEM benefit the call center?

RS: Your brand is on trial every time a customer contacts your contact center-- every contact with the center is a test of the organization as a whole. No matter how much money you put into marketing and developing great products, if the call center is the weak link in that total customer experience, then a negative encounter with your contact center, could in fact drive a customer away. Alternatively, a really great experience, where an agent really cared and helped, is also remembered.

A contact center’s ability to respond to a customer's problem or request has a very high influence on the overall experience with that company, possibly much more than the product itself.

Source: http://www.tmcnet.com/channels/hosted-contact-center/articles/4515-understanding-customer-experience-management-talk-with-cincoms-randy.htm

Customer Service Hall of Shame.

MSN Money asked Zogby International to conduct an online national survey in which 7,724 randomly chosen respondents rated customer service at 140 companies from 14 industries. They chose the companies using several criteria, including those with the largest sales in such customer-facing industries as retail, hotels and restaurants. Below are the results:

When thinking about a company's customer service, which one of the following features is most important to you?

Knowledgeable staff (35%)
Readily available staff (34%)
Flexible policies for return/exchange of merchandise (13%)
Friendly staff (12%)
None -- product is all that matters (2%)
Not sure (1%)
Other (3%)

The companies were ranked based on the percentage of respondents with opinions who rated a company's customer service as "poor."

1. AOL
2. Comcast
3. Sprint Nextel
4. Abercrombie & Fitch
5. Qwest
6. Capital One
7. Bank of America
8. Time Warner Cable
9. HSBC Finance
10. Cox Communications

Source: http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SmartSpending/ConsumerActionGuide/TheCustomerServiceHallOfShame.aspx?page=2

Customer Service: Salary / Wages / Earnings

In May 2006, median hourly earnings for wage and salary customer service representatives were $13.62. The middle 50 percent earned between $10.73 and $17.40. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $8.71 and the highest 10 percent earned more than $22.11.

Earnings for customer service representatives vary according to level of skill required, experience, training, location, and size of firm. Median hourly earnings in the industries employing the largest numbers of these workers in May 2006 were:

Insurance carriers	$15.00
Agencies, brokerages, and other insurance related activities	14.51
Depository Credit Intermediation	13.68
Employment services	11.74
Telephone call centers	10.29

In addition to receiving an hourly wage, full-time customer service representatives who work evenings, nights, weekends, or holidays may receive shift differential pay. Also, because call centers are often open during extended hours, or even 24 hours a day, some customer service representatives have the benefit of being able to work a schedule that does not conform to the traditional workweek. Other benefits can include life and health insurance, pensions, bonuses, employer-provided training, and discounts on the products and services the company offers.

Source: US Department of Labor (http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos280.htm#earnings)