Assessing the Impact of an Effortless Experience

We’re delighted and honored to share our silver Stevie Award for being one of the Customer Service Training Teams of the Year! I’ve decided to share this story behind the nomination because it represents one of the things we do best: helping our clients assess the impact of their Effortless Experience journey. In the words of Jerry McGuire: “Show me the metrics!”

Oh wait . . .

Well, I’m going with it. Service organizations love a dashboard. One client recently told me, “We have dashboards for our dashboards,” and I’m sure if you’re reading this, you can relate. So it isn’t shocking that one of the first questions we often get in commercial conversations is how we will measure ROI.

Some metrics are impacted more directly by Effortless Experience programs, while others may be influenced in a less obvious, less immediate way. We help our clients think through which KPIs to track because, while it’s tempting to look at everything, there is more value in measuring a few things and understanding them an inch wide and a mile deep, rather than a mile wide and an inch deep. We advise clients through the ideal reporting cadence, as well as how and when to pull relevant data.

We also want our clients to think through the best methods to share program impact with leadership and participants of the program. Flashing another dashboard (or a dashboard of a dashboard) might not garner much attention, even if the results are impressive. To give the data more punch, translate it into more concrete terms that business leaders can relate to. For example, saying something is a 10% improvement is fine, but it’s hard to quantify or visualize. Instead, look for a more concrete equivalent.

For example, imagine a [sample] announcement that said, “We experienced a 10% increase in FCR. This might feel abstract, but this was equivalent to a 5% reduction in call volume, which means, as a company, we saved $96,000 and were also able to dedicate more time to rewarding experiences like projects or career development.”

Which brings me back to our Stevie award. Long leadup, I know . . .

We used our Orkin client success story as part of our submission and it got the attention it deserved! Orkin trained a cohort of their agents in the Effortless Experience skills. The Orkin agents were expected to engage with customers in quite a few loyalty-building metrics, such as acquiring subscription renewals for their termite packages. This made measurement EXCITING because it could be translated to a direct dollar amount!

As a result of our Effortless Experience training, the agents experienced:

• a 64% average increase in client retention offers accepted (i.e. customer LOYALTY).
• a 76% average increase in outbound renewals (again, more LOYALTY).
• an 83% reduction in escalations.

We did have the opportunity to view the judge’s comments, and one quote stood out to me. It embodies what we hope for when we work with clients to bring about meaningful change, and how we work together in a respectful fun environment:

“While never a direct-engaged client of their training team, I have been impressed with the overall impact that the Challengers Effortless Experience approach has bought to the customer service industry. As the nomination relates to the work of their small but mighty training team, there are clear examples of the positive impact that the team has made for clients through the attached case studies and cited increased YOY revenue expansion from existing clients, as well as addressing the positive internal employee experience that has enabled them to be successful as external partners to the companies they are training.”

We’re super proud of what we do to transform the service organizations of our Effortless Experience clients, and the above quote embodies us more than the award itself.

If you want to learn more about partnering with our small but mighty team, let us know!