Case studies and working papers

Counting the cost of bad customer experiences

At a time when most organisations are searching for ways to reduce their costs, a major challenge is how to justify investment in service quality and improving customer experience.

This paper cuts through the rhetoric of “customer satisfaction” and reveals the compelling financial reasons why business today is ALL about Customer Experience. It summarises the “bottom line” impact of poor service and identifies six key economic truths of customer experience that can help quantify the financial risks of inaction and justify the imperative for improving customer satisfaction.

Customer experience baseline study of New Zealand electricity & gas supply companies (Summary of industry-wide findings)

Customer experience baseline study of New Zealand electricity & gas supply companies (Summary of industry-wide findings) The energy industry is facing a wide range of domestic and global challenges, from legislative reform and mixed ownership models, to global fuel markets, climate change and predatory competition.

This working paper presents a summary of industry-wide observations and trends from the national customer experience baseline study of New Zealand electricity and gas companies. The study focused on the experience customers have when doing business with their energy supplier and provided participating power companies with a baseline of customer satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy and established a national baseline against which improvement initiatives can be identified and planned. With responses coming from customers of nine different power companies, the study found a range of performance across the industry, with customers of each power company experiencing differing levels of satisfaction and reporting a differing range of problems and concerns. This paper presents industry-wide observations and trends and does not represent the specific findings of any individual power company.

Using satisfaction measurement to Improve Service and Reduce Costs

Responding to customers and actioning their requests for service is a mounting cost for local councils. Managing the process to produce a satisfactory outcome for both customer and council is becoming an increasing and costly challenge.

This case study looks at how some New Zealand councils achieved incremental improvements by building the customer into their service quality improvement programmes and have turned satisfaction measurement into a source of management actions.

Improving customer experience in
Building Consent and Inspection Services

 Although building consent and inspection services continue to place significant demands on local councils, there is evidence that the investment made by some councils during the past few years to improve service has begun to pay-off. In this, its fourth year, CTMA’s annual customer experience study of building consent and inspection services is showing improvement in overall customer satisfaction and, at some councils, a significant reduction in problems experienced.

This summary of findings from the national study has been updated with the latest findings from 2010.