Executive Summary – Return on investment in customer service: the bottom line report (2011)

Description

Executive summary of our research into evidence of the financial returns from customer service. This document summarises a survey of senior directors, a literature review, case studies and a series of recommendations that can be used to start achieving ROI from customer service.

Sponsored by O2, South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive and BT

This report examines:
– the activities that lead to a customer service ROI
– the relationships between customers and organisations that lead to ROI
– how organisations are beginning to measure intangible aspects of customer service such as loyalty, experience and sentiment
– how the more intangible aspects of customer service bring the greater returns
– how ROI in customer service is a developing discipline

It also contains a set of detailed recommendations that organisations can use to achieve a good ROI from their customer service activities.

Main findings

– customer service contributes to the success of organisations
– strong customer relationships are the key to success and profitability
– front-line staff play a critical role in forging close customer relationships
– customer satisfaction is a reliable indicator of business performance
– soft, relational dimensions of customer service are increasingly important but difficult to measure
– ROI in customer service is a developing discipline

Who is it for?

Anyone who is involved in:
– making a case for customer service at a strategic driver
– finding ways of achieving some form of return on investment in customer service
– measuring customer satisfaction, sentiment and other more intangible customer measurements
– measuring return on investment

Published 2011.