Category: Blog

By Samantha Mehra
fonolo.com/blog – Your Source for Customer Service News

To read the original, full-version of this article, visit: https://fonolo.com/blog/2020/03/unlock-your-potential-adp-canada-and-the-secret-behind-customer-service-success/

Sidhu attributes customer passion as the drive behind succeeding in more senior roles. Eventually, ADP called on him to join their ranks, and within one year they promoted him to manage the National segment, a responsibility he did not take lightly.

It was ADP’s culture and leadership that crystallized the pursuit of being ‘customer obsessed’ for Sidhu, forging the path towards a never-ending pursuit in bettering ADP’s customer service offerings. “Frankly, I would credit my drive to our CEO being so obsessed about investing in people — hiring the right people, retaining the right people, and having trust in the knowledge that the people will do amazing things for you and your company.”

But that’s not all he credits his successes to.

It doesn’t matter if you’re selling nuts and bolts or you’re in banking — to me it’s about driving that customer experience to be better than anyone else, says @amar_sidhu_TO

“I’ll be honest: The number one contribution to my own success is the actual people I support. Everyone that I have the opportunity and privilege of leading and growing and developing are all doing amazing things driving a different level of customer experience which, in turn, helps me as well.”

Sidhu’s laser-focused approach to customer service and customer experience were also nurtured by managers in his professional past. While in Regina, he remembers one manager saying to him with conviction:

“Make it easier for the customer to do business with you and you’ll always win.” Yet another manager, this time from Scotiabank, offered this memorable thought: “If you make the right decision on the spot, the better the customer experience. You never go wrong with making the right decision for your customer.”

Both are now mantras which Sidhu lives and works by.

ADP Canada: The Inner Workings of Customer Service

ADP, a B2B enterprise, services corporate clients that run the gamut from small businesses and entrepreneurs to multinational and global brands. ADP is able to solve hundreds of complex customer queries every day, and much of its ability to do this lies in its mechanics.

Indeed, it aims to keep pace with its famous proof point: “One in five Canadians get paid by ADP,” signaling how massive its client base truly is.

It’s unsurprising that ADP is framed as a customer-obsessed brand: Globally, the company is host to 60,000 employees, 2,100 of whom make up the Canadian satellite, of whom 1000 work in customer service and under Sidhu’s leadership. The proof is in the numbers: Nearly 50 percent of Canadian ADP employees are in customer service. That’s a statement.

To be able to manage an entrepreneurial-type client (which might be less than 10 employees) and a multinational one — which can be upwards of 10,000 employees — ADP has the necessary business arms and legs in place. “We’ve got a solid set up, beginning with 1-800 or contact center agents,” Sidhu explains.

“We’ve also set up one-to-one customer-agent relationships, which we call a “dedicated model.” We also have team models or help desks in place, which offer more complex support than a contact center but less than the one-to-one dedicated model.”

While chatbots, social media support — ADP has a client-only support page called ‘The Bridge’ — and traditional voice channels are present in the ADP ecology, again, the success of the customer support structure rests on the back of human interaction.

The “dedicated model,” which sees 100 clients developing a relationship with the same five ADP associates, was designed to increase what the brand refers to as ‘client intimacy,’ a powerful piece in the customer experience puzzle. Says Sidhu:

“Once you strike that balance, where they are certain you know their business, and they feel they can ask you anything, especially around something as sensitive as a paycheque, you know you’ve gotten there with the customer by building a trusting, long-term relationship with them.”

Culture Starts at Home: ADP and Investing in People

Employees, associates, agents. Whatever their title, customers aren’t the only people that ADP is ‘obsessed’ with. The focus on cultivating the best people in the industry to work in its ranks is notable: A point of pride for the company is that it employs the highest number of payroll and HR certified associates of any competitor in Canada.

While employing good people is a goal and a dream, it can also be a challenge. Keeping talent motivated and inspired is top of mind for Sidhu, who as a result encourages supplementing the education of ADP employees, whether that’s CSPN training, CPA training certification, or accounting certification (among others).

And it’s working.

“Our Associate Engagement Scores, which is associates telling us how engaged they are, have grown about 30 basis points in three years — double-digit annual growth,” Sidhu explains with pride. “So, we’re doing a lot of the right things. For me, it starts with caring. Until they know and they feel that you care about them, nothing really matters.”

This humane and empathetic approach guides the company and its leadership on a mission to continuously better the employee experience, and in turn, the customer experience.

The culture is rich at ADP Canada in the customer service portfolio; this is because the relationships amongst associates and leadership are humane and high in quality, not superficially embodied in the form of pizza parties or occasional balloon-decorated gatherings.

Those celebratory events in the workplace can be meaningful, but the employer and employee relationship need to be mutually beneficial, where employees know their ideas are heard by senior leadership, and in turn, leadership can see plainly and transparently the issues faced by associates and customers.

This is why Sidhu is a jet-setter. Rarely in Toronto for long stretches, he chooses instead to frequently cross the country to hold round tables and get the low-down from CSRs and other front-line agents.

“I always ask two distinct questions: 1. What bugs you? And 2. What bugs clients? And they’re very transparent with me,” Sidhu paints a picture. “It’s a program I initiated here called You Speak, We Listen.

It is a testament to the fact that if you show that you care, you listen, and you actually make changes based on their insights, that means more to them, and keeps them engaged — our end goal.”

The Tools of the Trade: Technology and Metrics

People obviously power this ADP operation to an astonishing degree — but they are buoyed by technologies with which to effectively reach customers and metrics that keep them careening forward.

On the technology front, Sidhu is particularly impressed with consolidated desktop technology, something which has changed the customer-associate experience for the better. “One of the worst things you can do to your agents is force them to open 16 windows to answer a simple question,” he explains.

“The information is all over the place. With that in mind, we’ve invested in one technology called the Client Experience Hub (CEH), which has consolidated about 80 percent of an agent’s log-on windows into one area, making them more prepared to deal with incoming calls from clients with a history. That makes a big difference. That excites me (and them).”

When we talk metrics, there arises a strong opinion about one in particular. “There’s one metric I don’t like: AHT (Average Handle Time),” Sidhu says without hesitation.

“That metric is designed for efficiency. We’re not about efficiency. We are literally about being customer-obsessed — so if whoever is calling needs to talk to the agent for 20 minutes 30 minutes 40 minutes, nobody’s going to say, “Well, why is your AHT so high?” So, that metric? Gone.”

While ADP Canada is aware of the less useful metrics, it’s even more aware of the strong ones. FCR (First Call Resolution) falls into the latter category, a signal of associates bending over backward to resolve customer issues so they have no reason to call back.

This includes answering every and all dimension of a customer question and anticipating what may happen in the future, and what secondary and tertiary questions could arise at that time and dealing with those at the moment.

“The other big one for us is simple but important: Calls per client per month,” Sidhu says. “That’s my measure of how well we are doing with our customers. They’re not calling to say ‘Hello’ or ‘Happy Birthday’; they’re calling because they can’t get something done and they’re frustrated, they have questions, or something’s not working for them. If a customer is calling more than twice a month, then something is not quite right. Calls per client per month helps us identify weak spots and improve them.”

And that makes sense for some for an organization that’s really taking all the time they can to meet customer needs. Another metric, NPS (Net Promoter Score), shows that ADP Canada is doing just that.

“When we started measuring NPS about three and a half years ago, it was evident we had an opportunity. NPS has increased by about 35 basis points in these three years — to me, that’s a great trend!” He glows.

ADP and CSPN: An Award-Winning Relationship

Sidhu says of CPSN: “I’m a big of what CSPN does, what it stands for, and what their objective is in investing in customer service and client experience.” An important piece of the intensive culture-building that ADP Canada has done has been its relationship with the customer service network, who last year honored ADP with its Customer Obsessed award.

The CSPN conferences have become known in the GTA for their engaging workshops, inspiring speakers and panels, and intensive networking opportunities. The Customer Obsessed award itself acknowledges customer service teams who differentiate themselves in their industry and are viewed as ‘customer-obsessed’ by their own clients.

“This year was the second year that we’d given out industry-focused awards,’” says Jessica Cryer. “We were really excited and proud to give this Customer Obsessed award to ADP: It was an opportunity to spotlight an organization that puts the customer at the center of everything they do.”

“The investment in training that they’ve made over the past year, and the way that they’ve improved their processes internally to make it easier for their employees to serve customers, have resulted in a fantastic customer experience for end-users.”

This mutually-beneficial collaboration, coupled with years of hard work and time invested, is one of the many reasons ADP Canada is a leader in its field. The secret, as you know by now, is paying time and respect to every human being involved in the daily magic of business: Customer. Agent. Manager.

“That’s kind of my story,” Sidhu says, sitting back.

And it’s a good story — a story about unlocking the potential of people to power a brand.

By Samantha Mehra
fonolo.com/blog – Your Source for Customer Service News

To read the original, full-version of this article, visit: https://fonolo.com/blog/2020/03/better-drives-us-how-hyundai-canada-issignaling-a-new-era-for-the-auto-industry/

“Hyundai, like Sunday.”

I asked for it. I asked for the correct pronunciation of that internationally-renowned and beloved car brand, and now I’ll never forget it.

And neither will you.

Hyundai: You’ve probably heard of it; the name again on the tip of everyone’s tongues thanks to a memorable, highly-lauded SuperBowl Hyundai Sonata 2020 commercial featuring John Krasinski, Rachel Dratch, and Chris Evans sporting some iconic Boston accents — “Smaht Pahk” — an ad which has so far attracted around 55.2 million views on YouTube. Now that’s some good traffic!

Who better to school me on the ins and outs of pronouncing “Hyundai” than Don Romano, the President and CEO of Hyundai Canada, a person whose job it is to champion the name, and ensure it reaches its greatest potential.

I spoke with Romano at the top of 2020, exciting times for an auto brand zooming forward with its customer service, employee culture, technology, and brand loyalty. And these areas have been top of mind for a while: Only a few years back, Romano penned a compelling case for adjusting customer service strategy to better a brand, even after the initial attempts to do so fail.

“Almost four years ago we decided that our company … needed to change. Our customer service scores were embarrassingly low. For an automotive company, in a rapidly changing and highly competitive environment, poor customer service is the kiss of death,” Romano wrote, with strategic scrutiny. But happily, in 2017 and after much trial and error, Hyundai Canada rose to have the fourth-best customer service standing in the national automotive space.

‘In a rapidly changing and highly competitive environment, poor customer service is the kiss of death’ says Don Romano of @HyundaiCanada #custserv #customercare #cx

Now, their goal is to be number one.

I wanted to know more about the journey to this destination, and how Romano and Hyundai Canada are forging a strong customer service ecology and employee culture for this brand. Joining in the conversation was Jessica Cryer, VP of Business and Customer Service strategy at Hyundai partner CSPN (Customer Service Professionals Network). As the Q&A unfolded, it became clear that Hyundai Canada’s customer service game has been enhanced by an unconditional investment in people, in product, and in processes, which ultimately succeeds in building an unwavering brand ‘belief system’ and trust in “Hyundai, like Sunday.”

If You Don’t Know Hyundai, Here’s Why You Should

Talking to Don Romano is an education. Within the exchange of a few sentences, I learned that Hyundai is the second-largest seller of pure electric vehicles in Canada, coming in a close second to Tesla. This is quite a feat, as the majority of the major car brands have yet to produce what is slowly realizing itself as the car of the future.

Year after year, the demand for these electric wonders has doubled: In 2018, Hyundai Canada sold 1,200. In 2019: Over 5,000 left the lot, and this notable uptick is expected to continue well into the new decade. Hyundai also has the honour of being the first automotive company in Canada to begin retailing fuel cell vehicles — which are electric but run on hydrogen.

“Our commitment to environmental progress is pretty much unmatched in the industry,” beams Romano. “We are very proud to be one of the leaders in the new technologies that will make the world better. I think that probably ties into listening to customers and feedback and the overall landscape.”

Yes, the customers, the marrow of automotive life. With leadership roles at Toyota, Mazda, and Nissan in his rearview mirror (forgive the occasional car pun), no one knows the value of the customer better than Don Romano, who has lived and breathed the auto industry for a healthy segment of his career.

When I ask him how he ended up journeying down this road, he says with amusement, “Accidentally.”

A Career Takes Flight (or Rather, Takes Off)

Romano cannot say with sincerity that he was ever a car enthusiast, a surprise given that he was born and bred in Southern California, an indefatigable “car country” where driving is on par with breathing and waking and sleeping. “As long as the car could get me to the beach, that was good enough for me,” he laughs.

No, he was interested in another kind of locomotion: flight. While in his final year of university as a marketing student, he had enrolled in a pilot training program with Flying Tiger Airlines, which unfortunately went out of business.

On a drive home from picking up his pink slip, he pulled into Nissan’s headquarters on a whim. “I said I was interested in filling out an application. They laughed at me,” Romano remembers. “They said, “We don’t need pilots. We sell cars!”

After the initial amusement died down, Romano was introduced to a Nissan employee and fellow pilot who — bemused by the fact that a young pilot had come into headquarters on a whim (which had never happened before) — invited Romano in for a conversation.

By the end of it, he’d been offered a job in Nissan’s marketing department, which he accepted and kept while he finished his undergraduate degree. It was there he stayed, in Marketing and Sales Operations for the Nissan and Infiniti brands, for close to 15 years.

From there, he switched lanes and spent six years at Mazda’s North American Operation, navigating several senior roles (including President of Mazda Canada and CMO of Mazda North America) during his 12-year tenure there. After spending two years in the Middle East as a CMO, Managing Director and Chief Brand Officer for Toyota, Romano landed in Canada to take on his latest mission: President and CEO of Hyundai Canada.

And he was excited about it. “Hyundai’s technology was moving in a direction my heart was also moving in,” Romano remembers. “They had a vision of really changing the world, building a sustainable automotive business that produced non-carbon-producing vehicles, and they were very advanced in their technology, autonomous systems, and safety systems. That excited me.”

And the exhilaration continued. Added to this new venture was the addition of a new luxury brand to manage (Genesis). Now, more than six years later, Romano remains at the wheel of Hyundai, one of the fastest-growing car companies in Canada.

The Hyundai Way: (Feed)Back is the Way Forward

Hyundai is deeply invested in improving the product, process, and customer experience. Indeed, multiple systems are in place to ensure that the voice of the customer, and the know-how of the employees, are used to effect change and propel the company forward: A virtuous communication cycle with two key areas.

First, Hyundai Canada’s customer service department is at the forefront of initiating customer input, via proactive surveys and consumer feedback sessions, with a magnifying glass on customer satisfaction and vehicle performance. “We get that feedback, consolidate it, and feed it back to the engineers and designers at the flagship in Korea.

Then, that information is turned into adjustments and product changes in the future,” Romano explains. “We have to understand and promote the product attributes, but we also have to understand the way in which customers make a purchase, how it was handled, and the way our service scene is being conducted. So, there are a number of areas which we constantly keep a pulse on.”

This is in addition to feedback gathered through the warranty departments, which analyze the product itself, where wear and tear are occurring prematurely, and whether a vehicle is performing at its most optimal – all of which is filtered into future decisions by the Research and Development and Engineering departments.

It’s a lot of information. And while most car companies have a similar data-gathering system in place, Hyundai Canada is aiming to do things differently on that front.

“I think the difference with us specifically in Canada is the Voice of Customer reviews we conduct with every Director, so we can understand the challenges and address them,” Romano points out. “We’re dealing with franchise dealers, district managers, and regional managers, so we have to focus on the pain points that customers experience when buying and servicing cars so that we can eliminate that pain.”

The ‘Voice of the Customer’ review is an instructive monthly meeting where internal data is gathered and scrutinized in the interest of bettering company operations and, in turn, customer experience. “It’s an opportunity for us to look at ourselves in the mirrors and ask, “What are we doing well? What are we not doing well? What do we need to change? What do we need to enhance?”

But how does the customer reach the brand directly on the day-to-day? Hyundai Canada has leveraged an omnichannel approach: Customers reach out via social media platforms, phone numbers, and the email channel.

Romano is quick to point out though that, more and more, customers prefer to document their inquiries via the written word. This is an ideal way of gathering pertinent information in a customer service interaction, like VIN (Vehicle Identification Number), year, and the dealership in question.

“We are rapidly adjusting to a very easy format where you can log compliments and complaints. It’s good when a customer can take the time online to email an actual form to us and say, “Here’s something I want you to be aware of.” That way, you know exactly where they’re coming from. The more we get in writing, I think the better we are at handling it. And we want to continue to move in that direction.”

The Customer Feedback Loop-de-Loop

The gathering of these golden nuggets of information is a strong initial step, but the question is: How does a car brand with a significant customer base, and so many moving pieces, make sense of that information?

First, they hone in on the number of customers contacting them.

“The first line of communication is with the actual dealer that you do business with (We don’t sell Hyundais directly; we sell them through franchised dealers). So, if they’re reaching out to us, something has broken down between customer and dealer. And we want to understand: Is that issue more prevalent in one area than another?”

With that information in tow, changes are made that are made to strengthen customer service, sometimes via training and tools that fix the initial issue that the numbers revealed. In the long run, this betters the customer-dealer relationship.

“The stronger the relationship between the dealer and the customer, the better,” he says. “Our dealers are a part of local communities; they’re there to service those customers. [Looking at the numbers] allows us to address issues, and really, that’s what we’re here for: Upgrading our dealer capabilities and, in doing so, and making them more customer-oriented.”

The data from the customer surveys also brings clarity to where the attention should be laid, with a shrewd audit of the buying and service processes, asking questions like: Was it easy to get your car scheduled? Was the car delivered on time? Was the repair explained in advance?

Was the car returned to you in the clear condition that it was dropped off? Answers to these questions help the company to develop and meet fundamental KPIs. “Through the voice of the customer, and through their survey comments — that’s how you can achieve continuous improvement.”

Hyundai Canada: An Award-Winning Culture

Customer service can be a tough gig. For service agents, the occasional pat on the back from the boss won’t cut it. But a good culture will. I asked Romano how the company keeps its people and departments supported and nurtured, and how it is able to covet such a positive culture.

“You nailed it: It’s all about the culture.”

As much as brand strength is buoyed by how customers perceive a company from the outside world, Romano notes that employee perception is equally important. Hyundai Canada has been hyper-aware of this, and the awards and accolades it has reaped is a testament to that fact:

For the third year in a row, it was selected as one of the greatest places to work in Canada. For the past two years, they’ve made the top 50, and expect to do so again. It’s also been rated as one of the top businesses for women to work.

This is not by accident, but rather due to a strategic investment in diversifying workplace culture and remembering that employees are living, breathing, thinking human beings with diverse needs. “I attribute that to a human resources department that doesn’t just do payroll: They really care about how people feel about coming to work,” Romano points out. “They put in place many policies that recognize that we all have different challenges in life (whether it’s having children, raising kids, medical issues, and more) and that we need to become a more flexible organization on a cultural level.”

And what happens when culture is top of mind for an organization? In the case of Hyundai Canada, it results in almost no turnover, and in some cases, boomerang employees. An added bonus? It improves customer relationships: “If we take care of our employees, they’re going to take better care of customers. And it works.”

In 2019, Hyundai’s Canada was recognized as the top-performing subsidiary of Hyundai globally and awarded the company’s Platinum Award of Excellence for this incredible achievement — something not often achieved by North American subsidiaries.

“It’s not just about selling cars. It has to do with the culture of the organization,” Romano says, gratefully. “I’ve been so fortunate to work with really, really good people who care about the culture and the employees. And it’s produced some pretty good results.”

Hyundai and CSPN: On the Road to Changing the Auto Industry

We know now that the company has been on a mission to make a change but it hasn’t done so in isolation. They’ve worked closely with organizations that have helped make significant changes to Hyundai’s cultural clockwork.

CSPN is one such organization.

The change Hyundai resolved to make is part of a larger systemic problem that Romano, CSPN, and Hyundai Canada are actively working to fix through thoughtful shifts in company culture and recruitment: “For over one hundred years, the industry has been overwhelmingly male-driven,” he says. “Yet, over 80 percent of the purchase decisions belong to females. If that doesn’t show a real problem, then nothing does.”

And therein lies Hyundai’s opportunity to differentiate from competitors that still sport a male-dominated work culture.

“I think that, especially in our great country of Canada, you have to have a diverse workforce. And you definitely have to have a roadmap to get your female talent to the top. We have to actively change that fact. To think that we’re strong enough to change it on our own isn’t good enough. We need training. We need seminars. We need help to get there. And the need for that is really how the relationship with CSPN was forged.”

Jessica Cryer, CSPN’s VP of Business and Customer Service strategy, explains that to effect change at Hyundai Canada, they took a multifaceted approach with training seminars and workshops, as well as a high-level customer journey mapping session.

“It was really insightful to help with Hyundai’s service improvement opportunities, not only for their people but from a process perspective as well,” she says.

And CSPN recognizes Hyundai’s good work, too: Nadia Elliott, recently promoted to Senior Manager of Customer Experience for the Genesis brand, and a key player in making change at Hyundai, won the annual Customer Engagement Leader Award at CSPN’s Women in Leadership Awards in the fall of 2019.

Another award. Yes, Hyundai Canada has won awards. It’s been deemed a top Canadian workplace. It’s been recognized by the flagship brand. It’s an improved culture. Isn’t that enough? Not for Don Romano, who is on a mission to continually grow, especially from a customer service angle.

“We want to be number one, but we’re not number one yet,” he says. “But our customer service improvement journey is well on its way. We want to be the best service you can possibly get in the automotive industry, and with the help of resources like CSPN, we’ll get there.”

There, in that statement, is the drive that will propel Hyundai Canada into the new decade, and beyond. At the core of it is an unflinching dedication to making customer service the best in the automotive business, from the inside out.

“We are a service business. It’s our responsibility to take care of our customers and constantly get better. You want to make customers say: “The car is great, but the service is even better.”

“That’s my vision,” Romano says, smiling.