“Excellence in CX” Awards 2023 – That’s a Wrap!

“Excellence in CX” Awards 2023 – That’s a Wrap!

Congratulations to our 2023 Winners

2023 That's a Wrap

This is the second year of Deep-Insight “Excellence in CX” Awards.

These awards focus on companies that we have worked with in 2023 that have embraced our Customer Relationship Quality (CRQ) framework and methodology to make meaningful change for both their customers and their employees. 

That makes us very proud!

Before we talk about the winners, let’s answer the following question:

What do we mean by ‘Excellence in CX’?

Deep-Insight is a small team of Customer Experience (CX) consultants who work extremely closely with our customers. The single question which drives us in each engagement is “will this programme inspire transformation in our client organisations?”.

Transformation does not need to be, and usually isn’t, a huge significant event in itself. When done well, transformation is a series of small, well thought through changes and improvements. Transformation is only worth it if it leads to growth, and it always does when it is inspired by the customer.

Also, we are not interested in vanity projects! We are focused on our core mission of Inspiring Transformation i.e. effective, growth-oriented use of Customer Experience (CX) and Employee Experience (EX).

This is what excellence in customer experience looks like and it is the foundation on which our customers build their CX and EX programmes.

AND THE 2023 WINNERS ARE…

 
open eir wins Best CRQ Newcomer 2023 award

open eir has been awarded Best CRQ Newcomer in the Deep-Insight Excellence in CX Awards for 2023. We are thrilled for them.

If you live in Ireland, you’ll know open eir. It’s the wholesale arm of Ireland’s largest telecommunications company. At some point you will have seen their vans on the streets, and their technicians out and about, installing fibre lines and connections into business premises and homes across Ireland. 

This is a truly deserved award as it’s hard to believe that open eir’s very first Customer Relationship Quality (CRQ) assessment was launched to its customers as recently as October 2023.

Maeve O’Malley recently took on the role as Managing Director at open eir Wholesale and in recent weeks has been leading the charge with open eir’s response to its clients and partners.

Maeve has over 24 years of experience in the telecommunications industry and joined eir in 2013. According to Maeve:

open eir is delighted to be working with Deep-Insight and are already finding huge value in the insights and input from the team as we continue our journey of transforming our customers’ and partners’ experience with us.”

Best CRQ Engagement

When we run a Customer Relationship Quality (CRQ) assessment at Deep-Insight, the average completion rate for our surveys is around 35%. If it is a first-time assessment, the average participation rate is lower – typically 30%. So that’s the figure we were expecting to achieve at Insight.

However, the senior leadership team at Insight had different plans. Jill MurrayVice President Marketing EMEA at Insight led the programme. Adrian GregoryPresident of EMEA, sponsored it. Together, they felt that 30% was a pretty low hurdle to achieve so they mobilised their regional and country managers, plus all of their account managers, to start a conversation with key clients across Europe. The message was simple: We want to be better partners for you, so we need your help to tell us what we’re good at, and where we need to improve.

Insight contacted 203 key individuals – key decision makers, influencers and operational contacts – from a selection of their strategic clients across Europe. 100 of the 203 responded – a whopping 49% engagement rate

Jill Murray has this to say about receiving the award:

Our unwavering commitment to our clients drives us to constantly improve our solutions and expertise in order to provide exceptional service. It is with great pride that we accept this award from Deep-Insight, a testament to the hard work and dedication of our teams in building strong client relationships and driving meaningful business outcomes.

As a leading Solutions Integrator, we are thrilled to continue supporting our clients on their digital journeys and enhancing the experience we deliver.

Best CRQ Score

DWF, a long-standing customer of ours, has been awarded Best CRQ Score in Deep-Insight’s “Excellence in CX” Awards this year.

We will always be the first to say that great Customer Experience should NOT be about scores only. It’s about much more than that. However, this year we want to recognise DWF for their amazing Customer Relationship Quality (CRQ) scores regardless as they have been consistently rewarded with glowing reviews from their clients as part of the CRQ programme.

With a CRQ score of 6.0 (as well as a Net Promoter Score of +62) we can call this a truly phenomenal set of scores. On top of this, DWF is notorious within Deep-Insight for struggling to get their clients to give any negative feedback at all – a true testament to how much their clients value their relationships with DWF!

 

Sir Nigel Knowles is CEO of DWF, having previously served as Chairman of the Group from September 2017 to May 2020. Sir Nigel Knowles shared:

“We are very proud of this award from Deep-Insight which reflects the exceptional client relationships we have been able to develop thanks to the hard work, dedication and excellence of our colleagues.

The valuable insights provided by Deep Insight are helping us to go even further, continuing to enhance the way we support our clients.”

Focus on Employee Relationship Quality (ERQ)

Doing the right thing for customers means doing the right thing for your employees.

We award the “Best Focus on ERQ” prize to the company that shows the greatest interest in Employee Relationship Quality (ERQ), the sister methodology to CRQ.

Pelican Self Storage has been a client of ours for years, and it has been a privilege watching the Pelican management team take the views of its employees so seriously over that time.

 

Burkhart Franz is CEO of Pelican and has always been a huge advocate for his management team and all of his employees across Denmark, Sweden and Finland.

“Our twice-a-year employee satisfaction surveys, alternating the eNPS (employee Net Promoter Score) question and the more in-depth Employee Relationship Quality (ERQ) assessment are now in their 7th year.

They have clearly made Pelican a more employee-focused organization. Over the years we have addressed many issues that had previously wiped the smiles off the faces of our collaborators, from slow internet connections and faulty printer set-ups to significant changes in management style, workplace scheduling and internal communication. As a result, we have very low employee churn in what are otherwise red hot labor markets; a premium service proposition; and the happiest customers in our industry.”

Insight wins “Best CRQ Engagement 2023” Award

Insight wins “Best CRQ Engagement 2023” Award

Today we are delighted to announce the second winner in the 2023 Deep-Insight Excellence in CX Awards.

Today’s category is “Best CRQ Engagement“.

CRQ stands for Customer Relationship Quality but what exactly is Engagement, you might ask? Engagement is all about convincing your customers to give you feedback on your performance, and then working closely with them to improve the overall customer experience. The “Best CRQ Engagement” winner is the company that does the best job at eliciting the most feedback from its customers. Think of engagement as the completion rate you achieve when you send out a customer survey to all of your key accounts.

This year’s winner is Insight EMEA, the European arm of the Fortune 500 leading Solutions Integrator Insight Enterprises.

What exactly is a Solutions Integrator, I also hear you ask? Well, Solutions Integrators work as both a service provider and an advisor to ensure a project is successfully delivered from the initial concept all the way through to execution. That advisory work can also extend beyond implementation to ongoing support, management and optimisation. Also, Solutions Integrators are equipped to deliver meaningful change and a greater return on investment at a global scale.

What is a Good Engagement Score?

Some time ago our Operations Manager Alex Calugarici wrote a blog on the topic of engagement rates in a B2B environment

In that blog, Alex explains that when we run a Customer Relationship Quality (CRQ) assessment at Deep-Insight, the average completion rate for our surveys is around 35%. If it is a first-time assessment, the average participation rate is lower – typically 30%. So that’s the figure we were expecting to achieve at Insight.

However, the senior leadership team at Insight had different plans. Jill MurrayVice President Marketing EMEA at Insight led the programme. Adrian Gregory, President of EMEA, sponsored it. Together, they felt that 30% was a pretty low hurdle to achieve so they mobilised their regional and country managers, plus all of their account managers, to start a conversation with key clients across Europe. The message was simple: We want to be better partners for you, so we need your help to tell us what we’re good at, and where we need to improve.

Insight contacted 203 key individuals – key decision makers, influencers and operational contacts – from a selection of their strategic clients across Europe. 100 of the 203 responded – a whopping 49% engagement rate

Jill Murray has this to say about receiving the award:

Our unwavering commitment to our clients drives us to constantly improve our solutions and expertise in order to provide exceptional service. It is with great pride that we accept this award from Deep-Insight, a testament to the hard work and dedication of our teams in building strong client relationships and driving meaningful business outcomes.

As a leading Solutions Integrator, we are thrilled to continue supporting our clients on their digital journeys and enhancing the experience we deliver.

About Insight

Insight Enterprises, Inc. is a Fortune 500 Solutions Integrator with more than 13,000 teammates worldwide helping organisations accelerate their digital journey to modernise their business and maximise the value of technology. We enable secure, end-to-end transformation and meet the needs of our clients through a comprehensive portfolio of solutions, far-reaching partnerships and 35 years of broad IT expertise.

Rated as a Forbes World’s Top Female-Friendly Company and a Great Place to Work, we amplify our solutions and services with global scale, local expertise and a world-class e-commerce experience, realising the digital ambitions of our clients at every opportunity. Discover more at uk.insight.com.

About Deep-Insight

Deep-Insight is a leading European B2B Customer Experience (CX) company founded in 2000 by a small team of ‘magicians’ with one goal: researching a way to read customers’ minds. Today, Deep-Insight supports customers all over the world with the skills, tools and methodologies to establish and operate world-class Customer Experience (CX) and Employee Experience (EX) programmes.

For more information, go to www.deep-insight.com or email us at sales@deep-insight.com.

open eir wins “Best CRQ Newcomer 2023” Award

open eir wins “Best CRQ Newcomer 2023” Award

The ballots are counted and the results have been confirmed!

open eir has been awarded Best CRQ Newcomer in the Deep-Insight Excellence in CX Awards for 2023. We are thrilled for them.

If you live in Ireland, you’ll know open eir. It’s the wholesale arm of Ireland’s largest telecommunications company. At some point you will have seen their vans on the streets, and their technicians out and about, installing fibre lines and connections into business premises and homes across Ireland. 

This is a truly deserved award as it’s hard to believe that open eir’s very first Customer Relationship Quality (CRQ) assessment was launched to its customers as recently as October 2023.

open eir wins Best CRQ Newcomer 2023 award

The Deep-Insight team was led by Alexandra Calugarici and Kate Casey. Here’s Alex’s perspective:

“We started working with Orlagh Nevin and the senior leadership team at open eir in mid-2023, and were immediately impressed by the way everybody showed engagement with the process and were keen to make the project a success. 

Kate’s perspective is similar:

“open eir embraced the Customer Relationship Quality (CRQ) process from the very beginning. They approached it with an open mind and showed a real bias to action when the results came back. They started making decisions quickly from the feedback and insights they received about their products, services and people.”

Maeve O’Malley recently took on the role as Managing Director at open eir Wholesale and in recent weeks has been leading the charge with open eir’s response to its clients and partners.

Maeve has over 24 years of experience in the telecommunications industry and joined eir in 2013. According to Maeve:

open eir is delighted to be working with Deep-Insight and are already finding huge value in the insights and input from the team as we continue our journey of transforming our customers’ and partners’ experience with us.”

For me, the key word in Maeve’s comment is ‘journey’ as it acknowledges that transformation doesn’t happen overnight. open eir has some fantastic strengths in terms of its products and its people, and under Maeve’s leadership has already started on that journey.

Congratulations again to everyone at open eir and a special shout out to Orlagh Nevin and John Gregg who were our team’s day-to-day contacts over the past few months at the start of this CRQ journey. We’re looking forward to working with them over the next few years as they and the open eir transform the company into a truly customer-centric organisation.

About open eir

open eir is a division of eir and is the largest wholesale operator in Ireland, providing products and services across a range of regulated and unregulated markets.

For more information, go to eir.ie.

About Deep-Insight

Deep-Insight is a leading European B2B Customer Experience (CX) company founded in 2000 by a small team of ‘magicians’ with one goal: researching a way to read customers’ minds. Today, Deep-Insight supports customers all over the world with the skills, tools and methodologies to establish and operate world-class Customer Experience (CX) and Employee Experience (EX) programmes.

For more information, go to www.deep-insight.com or email us at sales@deep-insight.com.

“Excellence in CX” Awards 2023

“Excellence in CX” Awards 2023

We have the privilege of partnering with some of the most amazing organisations in the world who are working hard to ensure that their customers’ (and employees’) voice drives strategy across all areas of their business.

We are excited to share some of the great CX work that we see daily while working with them.

At Deep-Insight we are not interested in vanity projects. We are proud to work with customers who align with our mission to ‘Inspire Transformation’ based on open and honest feedback from customers. That is what our Customer Relationship Quality (CRQ) framework and methodology is designed for and is what we are focusing on for these awards.


4 Award Categories in 2023

Last year we had four categories and made four awards. 

This year we also have four categories but the awards are a little different. We are keeping the ‘Best CRQ Newcomer’ award but adding some different categories including one that will reward one of our clients for its focus on Employee Relationship Quality (ERQ) which is arguably as important as CRQ.

Best CRQ Newcomer

 

We award this prize to a company that has never deployed Customer Relationship Quality (CRQ) before but embraces the CRQ approach for the first time with gusto, takes the client feedback seriously, and truly commits to improvement. 

Best CRQ Engagement

 

Engagement is all about convincing customers to give their feedback and working with you to help you make significant improvements. The winner is the company that does the best job at eliciting feedback from customers.

Best CRQ Score

 

We know that Customer Experience is not all about the score, but we feel it is still worth recognising the company that recorded the best Customer Relationship Quality (CRQ) score in 2023. Remember that customer centricity isn’t easy!

Best Focus on ERQ

 

Doing the right thing for customers means doing the right thing for your employees. We award this prize to the company that shows the greatest interest in Employee Relationship Quality (ERQ), the sister methodology to CRQ.

Next week we will announce the winners.

Let the Games Begin!


A Reminder of the 2022 Winners

Six Degrees has won best leadership response to CRQ

Vreugdenhil Dairy Foods was awarded ‘Best Newcomer to CRQ’. This is a truly deserved award as Vreugdenhil embraced the CRQ process like they had been at this for years, and kept their momentum up all through the live survey and afterwards.

Six Degrees won the ‘Best Leadership Response to CRQ’ award. Everything in Customer Experience starts with leadership commitment and drive, and Six Degrees have this in spades.

invenioLSI was awarded ‘Best CRQ focus amid change’This is a truly deserved award for an organisation that has seen exceptional growth and transformation over the previous 24 months.

BT Ireland won ‘Trailblazer in CRQ’ for its courage in leading the way in customer experience. They disrupted an already successful Customer Relationship Quality programme in order to re-focus the entire business on the basics – the value of growing customer relationships.

The Lionesses have a Net Promoter Score of -82

The Lionesses have a Net Promoter Score of -82

Lionesses

Back to one of my pet topics: What is a ‘Good’ Net Promoter Score? 

More specifically, what’s a good Net Promoter Score score for a football team? OK, I know NPS wasn’t designed as a footballing metric but bear with me as I try to illustrate a point about how Net Promoter Score works and how NPS scores are significantly lower than most people think.

Let’s have a look at two fabulous teams that battled it out in the 2023 Women’s World Cup Final in Sydney last Sunday: England and Spain.


How did the Lionesses score in NPS terms?

I first looked at NPS for football teams in 2020. That year Liverpool won the Premiership for the first and only time and did so with a Net Promoter Score of -45, based on the player ratings of the Liverpool team.

Based on their performance in the Women’s World Cup Final last weekend, England’s Lionesses have a Net Promoter Score of -82. If you include the three English substitutes, their NPS drops to -86.

That’s not my view. It’s based on the player ratings for the starting 11, as compiled by The Guardian’s Louise Taylor in the aftermath of their 1-0 defeat to Spain. And Louise Taylor is not being particularly harsh. Most English – or European – sports commentators adopt a similar approach to scoring. 

It’s not that England were poor last Sunday. They played well in the Final and had a great tournament. They were unfortunate to be matched against a Spanish team that was simply brilliant. Spain controlled the game superbly from beginning to end. Their passing was sublime. Olga Carmona’s goal was inch perfect. It had to be to beat Mary Earps.

By the way, Mary Queen of Stops was only rated 8, despite a penalty save late in the game. That’s a ‘Passive’ in Net Promoter terminology.

A quick recap on the scoring system: 9s and 10s are Promoters. 7s and 8s are Passives. 6 and below are Detractors. The Net Promoter Score itself is the percentage of of Promoters MINUS the percentage of Detractors.

Have a look at Louise Taylor’s player scores for the starting 11 below. 0% Promoters; 18% Passives (that’s two players: Earps and Hemp); 82% Detractors. That’s how the -82% NPS result is calculated. 0 – 82 = -82.

So did the Lionesses deserve a NPS of -82? Of course not. But at least the victorious Spanish team scored well in the NPS stakes. Or did they?

ENGLAND PLAYER RATINGS

Mary Earps. Mary Queen of Stops made vital saves from Paralluelo at the near post and Caldentey before denying Hermoso from the penalty spot. Had no hope of saving Carmona’s goal. Sometimes furious with her defence. 8

Jess Carter. Her great late block from Hermoso epitomised a fine tournament contribution. Coped well with second-half switch from right-sided central defender in a back three to left back and generally held her own. 6

Millie Bright. England’s captain advanced from central defence to join the attack in the closing stages. Sometimes struggled to cope with Paralluelo’s pace and movement but her decent positional play almost certainly kept the score down. 6

Alex Greenwood. Required a Terry Butcher-style head bandage after being caught by Paralleulo’s knee late in the second half. Showed flashes of her classy distribution but, for once, it was not enough from the elegant defender. 6

Lucy Bronze. Targeted by Spain and at fault in the preamble to Carmona’s opener, losing concentration and possession after taking one touch too many. A big mistake and too reckless at times. 4
Georgia Stanway. Did not see as much of the ball as she would have wanted and proved wasteful in possession but worked hard to help protect her defence. 5

Keira Walsh. Not at her best in the final – or the tournament – and still looks slightly uncomfortable in a midfield five. Struggled to retain possession. Conceded a handball penalty awarded after a lengthy VAR review. 4

Rachel Daly. Like Bronze, targeted by Spain and often pinned back by advances from Batlle, Bonmati and Redondo. Replaced by Chloe Kelly as England switched to a back four at half-time. 5

Ella Toone. Preferred to Lauren James in the starting XI but her poor positioning and slow reaction exacerbated Bronze’s error before Carmona’s opener. Replaced by Beth England in the 86th minute. 4

Alessia Russo. Worked as hard as ever but largely isolated as Spain dominated possession and was replaced by Lauren James at half-time. 5

Lauren Hemp. Reborn in a central attacking role, Hemp scared Spain, hitting the bar with an accomplished first-half shot. Should have scored after connection with a Kelly cross. Harshly booked. 7

Substitutes
Lauren James. Back for the second half after a two-match suspension but initially struggled to get on the ball before later growing into the game. 6
Chloe Kelly. Ran at Spain with menace and crossed brilliantly for Hemp but failed to supply sufficient killer final balls. 6
Bethany England. 6


The Spanish performance: NPS = +9 (or maybe -7)

As I said, the Spanish team performance in last Sunday’s Final was magnificent. So what was their Net Promoter Score? Surely it was +50 or higher?

Actually, Spain’s NPS was a paltry +9. If you include the three Spanish subs, its NPS was -7. Yes, that’s right – a negative NPS for the 2023 World Cup Winners.

How can that be?

The answer is pretty simple. Net Promoter is an American scoring system that rates advocacy on a 0 to 10 scale and only recognises scores of 9 or 10 as excellent. Americans tend to score more positively than Europeans. Northern Europeans are particularly tough in the way they score. 9s and 10s are generally reserved for extra-special performances.

It’s a culture thing.

Look at the player scores below. Only 2 Promoters in the Spanish side: the goal scorer Olga Carmona and midfielder Aitana Bonmati. That’s 18% of the starting 11. Subtract 9% for the one Detractor (Jennifer Hermoso, and no, she didn’t have a bad game). NPS = 18 – 9 = +9.

If the three substitutes are included, that an additional 7 (Passive) and two 6s (Detractors). Now the NPS score becomes 14% (2 Promoters out of 14 players) minus 21% (3 Detractors out of 14). 14 – 21 = -7.

SPAIN: PLAYER RATINGS

Cata Coll. Spain’s inexperienced goalkeeper saved smartly from Lauren Hemp early on and Lauren James late on. Well protected by her defence and not really threatened by England but did not put a foot wrong in only her fourth senior appearance. 7

Ona Batlle. Stretched England when advancing from right back and combined well with Aitana Bonmatí. Gave Rachel Daly quite a workout and defended extremely well too. 8

irene Paredes. Sent a first-half chance flying wide and repeatedly second-guessed England’s attacking intentions superbly. 8

Laia Codina. Defended well before limping off injured to be replaced by Ivana Andrés in the 73rd minute but, unsportingly, got Lauren Hemp booked. 7

Olga Carmona. Her third goal for Spain was a piece of left-footed technical perfection directed low into the bottom corner. It deserved to win a World Cup. Defended well, too. 9

Aitana Bonmatí. Brilliant and utterly irrepressible. Showed off a wonderful change of pace as she regularly fazed England. Fractionally off-target with fine second-half shot. Too hot for the Lionesses to handle. 9

Teresa Abelleira. Helped Spain hog possession and ensured that England’s increasingly midfield were left chasing shadows. 7

Jennifer Hermoso. Had a second-half penalty save but that was about the only moment nerves got the better of the midfielder. 6

Alba Redondo. An important outlet for Spain down the right. Her low crosses created some good chances but faded slightly in the second half and was replaced by Oihane Hernández after 59 minutes. 7

Mariona Caldentey. Saw a shot brilliantly saved by Mary Earps after nutmegging Lucy Bronze early in the second half. Replaced by two time Ballon d’Or winner Alexia Putellas after 89 minutes. 8

Salma Paralluelo. The 19-year-old Barcelona winger has been a star of the tournament and her quick, clever feet stretched England. Should have scored. Reminded England she was once a star 400m runner. Hit a post. Booked and very lucky not to receive a second yellow late on. 7

Substitutes
Oihane Hernández. The right-back arrived on the wing to help maintain Spain’s lead. 7
Ivana Andrés. 6
Alexia Putellas. 6


The average B2B Net Promoter Score in Europe is not much above zero

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote another blog called Things that never happened: a NPS of +91. Same topic; same message.

B2B companies may claim very high Net Promoter Scores but the reality is quite different. An average NPS result for a Northern European B2B company is only +3. Close to half of companies will have negative scores.

Rarely will European B2B companies score greater than +50. That’s a truly exceptional performance.

Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet!