Innovative Referral Marketing Ideas for Online Marketplaces in 2024

case for a Latin American bank—whose customerexperience strategy over a two-year period produced a double-digit improvement in profitability per client and customer acquisition while reducing churn 10 to 20 percent, gaining it widespread recognition for customer and employee satisfaction. A few years ago, the bank was a leading player in a very competitive market in Latin America. Although the market was experiencing healthy growth rates, several 

international banks were competing for advantage. In order to win against well-diversified and funded competitors, the bank opted for an ambitious customer-experience strategy in order to differentiate itself in the long term. To pursue the strategy, the bank embarked on a multiyear customerexperience transformation program built upon two pillars. The first entailed  

and delivering a world-class customer experience. The second had to do with developing the culture, skills, and behaviors that would allow its frontline employees to deliver such an experience. The bank assembled a multidisciplinary transformation team to tackle the change programs for both customers and employees. The team included process engineers, 

In addition to a framework to address

the contours of a superior customer experience, the team developed an overall framework to cover all employee experiences (exhibit). To transform the employee experience and frontline workers’ engagement with the company and its customers, the team used an integrated and comprehensive set of interventions: a deep understanding of the employees’ needs, using quantitative surveys and qualitative research, including focus groups and individual 

nterviews; a redesign of the employee value proposition; an overhaul of key HR practices such as recruiting and selection, capability building, and performance management;and a set of initiatives aimed at building a true customer-centric culture. These included promoting symbols, such as company mascots with different personalities, name tags and stationery, 

rites and celebrations such as breakfast with management, an award ceremony during the annual convention for leaders, and a peer-recognition portal. Management reinforced these efforts with repeated messages and encouraging habits such as demonstrating transparency in sales. Deploying the program in waves over the course of more than two years, the team 

Worked to motivate and empower frontline

employees to build an emotional connection with the bank’s customers, deliberately emphasizing the principles derived from other successful employee-development efforts described earlier. They included the following. Listening to employees. During the initial phase of the transformation, the bank devoted a significant effort to thoroughly understanding employees’ needs and wants. It segmented employees based on their attitudes, 

requirements, and preferences and analyzed the key attributes that motivated and attracted each type of employee; it also categorized the main behavioral traits. This allowed the bank to tailor value propositions for its employees to their concrete needs and preferences. Using polls, surveys, and focus groups, the team was able to segment whether an employee’s 

attitude toward work was active or passive, map how conditional his or her level of commitment to company goals was, and gauge the behaviors that would motivate performance. For instance, based on its analysis, the bank changed its nonfinancial benefits for employees, introducing a system of points that the employees could redeem. For example, a parent could receive a day off to attend a child’s school party, or a young employee might 

Beyond one off change the company

put in place several mechanisms to better listen to employees on an ongoing basis. For instance, it created contests in which frontline teams would propose improvement ideas twice a year: one for improving employee experience and the other for improving customer experience. The teams ended up implementing several of the ideas, while the company centrally sponsored others that benefited a broader range of company functions. Hiring for 

attitude, not aptitude—and then reinforcing attitude. To ensure that it recruited the best talent to deliver a great customer experience, the bank completely overhauled its recruiting and selection processes. Management changed several job descriptions to emphasize customer service as a key element for evaluation during the recruitment process. It also changed the interview process from a system based on one-on-one interviews by managers to a process 

that evaluated the service attitude of the candidates in realistic environments. For instance, the bank built a simulated branch in its recruiting department where candidates were placed in role-play situations to test their attitude and behavior toward customers and colleagues. It also included additional filtering criteria that would ensure the right behaviors toward customers, such as honesty and integrity in relationship managers. Finally, the bank introduced a welcome pack that would help improve how new employees were brought on 

Conclusion

board, including a manual to help new hires navigate the company, a letter from the president, and brochures with tips. These measures resulted in a 5 to 10 percent increase in the satisfaction scores of customers served by new employees. Other companies have also discovered the connection between hiring customer-oriented people and ensuring friendly service. JetBlue Airways, for example, has embedded this philosophy in its hiring process. To 

recruit frontline staff with a natural service bent, it uses group interviews. Watching how applicants interact with one another enables hiring managers to assess their communication and peopleskills to an extent that wouldn’t be possible in a oneon-one setting. Having hired people with the right attitude, leaders need to ensure they reinforce the behaviors they want to see. Although Disney hires janitors to keep its parks clean, everyone else in the 

organization knows that they share the responsibility for maintaining a clean and pleasant environment. Asked why he was picking up paper in the restroom, one team leader replied, “I can’t afford not to.” As Disney executives tell it, every leader is telling a story about what the company values. Instilling frontline workers with purpose, not rules. Bank leadership understood early on that imposing strict rules on frontline customer representatives has its 

limits. Instead, it opted to provide a common purpose of meeting customer needs that employees could apply to every imaginable situation as well as the criteria that would allow them to appropriately adjust their behavior, especially in the absence of a specific rule or protocol (see “Developing a customerexperience vision,” on page 8, on the role of common purpose in promoting customer satisfaction). In order to mobilize and engage frontline