Imagine a customer has just left your store. They comment on their experience using a technology of their choice. You get an immediate alert and stop a customer service crisis right in its tracks or celebrate a wow moment with your team as it happens.

This is what Vigil is all about; a service that spans all sectors from retail outlets and academic institutions to funky daredevil operations like bungy jumping.

This is critical technology in these times of instant digital information circulation accompanied as it is by negative or positive repercussions. This is according to Vigil MD, Richard Potton, who emphasises that there is no better time than now to manage a customer’s experience and to respond to any negative sentiment quickly, before it gets posted across various social media sites.

Vigil is part of an Auckland-based group of companies which incorporates the 25-year old Mystery Shopping market leader, Hoed NZ Ltd.

Potton explains that now, more than ever, market leaders must build a customer-driven enterprise that removes barriers to doing business by seeking out and fixing problems that customers experience in order to outperform competition.

Vigil enables this by providing a full-service measurement of a customer experience to suit all types of clients in both private and public sectors spanning retail, industrial and commercial markets.

“This technology brings to the fore questions such as: are you really listening to your customers, are you aware of what they feel about your service as it happens, what’s motivating them, what’s truly important to them, what they’re dissatisfied about, and where they feel their needs haven’t been met?” explains Potton.

In response to the old adage “you can’t manage what you don’t measure”, Vigil specialises in customer experience management (CEM). It collects, collates and analyses customer service feedback in an unprecedented way to create beneficial outcomes for companies.

However, having a great platform alone will not generate exceptional business results. A team of CEM experts is also required to guide the design and implementation of a program. Vigil’s client services team bring years of experience and CEM best practise to the table, enabling the optimisation of a program while avoiding common pitfalls. This is why Vigil is a “full service” solution, preferring to work alongside the client.

“It’s less expensive than you think, and it’s getting more powerful and even easier to do all the time,” says Potton. “All setup and design is handled by the Vigil team as Vigil recognises every business has unique requirements and challenges.

“Vigil CEM recognises that today customer experience is the single most important aspect in the achievement of success by companies across all industries and sectors.

“Study after study shows that the single cause of failure for public and private sector organisations isn’t product related. It all comes down to service and the experience customers have.

“CEM is effectively all-encompassing customer experience management but it’s just the beginning of the client’s journey to monitoring engagement, the team and the overall health of the business.

“CEM’s aim is to advance clients’ customers from satisfied to loyal and ultimately to advocates of the company.”

Key features of Vigil’s service include setting up the study to ensure clients receive an accurate and immediate read of their service delivery and point of sale. The service also includes long-term collated data that provides insight into people’s service delivery across a client’s network, with optional text response, QR codes, or web link access from anywhere.

“Client customers can provide feedback using any device such smartphones, tablets and iPads,” says Potton.

In partnership with service consultancy Great Outcomes Ltd (www.greatoutcomes.co.nz), Vigil provides a service experience monitor for its clients such as enabling them to receive internal feedback from their own staff for service requests completed.

Great Outcomes manages new service centre development and service performance improvement for best practice in existing service delivery operations while also undertaking service research, professional development and training delivery.

Great Outcomes’ clients need to confirm very quickly how the interaction went in terms of service delivery, completion and resolution.

Vigil gives instantaneous online feedback which can be seen via a dashboard or alerts. Monitored over time, trend information can be gathered and presented for action.

“This is one example of how Vigil’s service and product are able to tackle major issues and set up full bespoke survey services with instant feedback and trend analysis to meet client specific requirements,” says Potton.

In addition, and very significantly, Vigil manages the technology and works alongside the client as opposed to sending them online to get results alone, which can be intimidating.

“We understand that launching a CEM program is just the beginning of the journey,” adds Potton.

One of Vigil’s more funky clients is bungy jumping operation, AJ Hackett. In AJ Hackett’s case, Vigil provides instantaneous customer feedback after a customer has bungy jumped.

Instantaneous alerts via a live dashboard are received at different levels within the organisation, with specific alerts being sent to relevant senior managers for action.

“Our guests will remember us for how we make them feel and not what we say or do. Knowing how we make them feel is paramount if we’re to deliver the best possible customer experience. Vigil gives our guests a say, which we’re immediately able to see through the system’s online dashboard. By monitoring our customers experience out on our bungy sites we’re able to celebrate our successes while working on areas that need improving,” says Mike Voyce, AJ Hackett marketing manager.

“Knowing what our bungy guests think about us is extremely important to us – if we’re not listening to our customers how can we ensure good business as there are many fantastic tourism products in NZ. The result is bespoke CEM.”

Potton explains that AJ Hackett Bungy NZ has operations across the country, including ones in Queenstown and Auckland.  For further information visit its website at  https://www.bungy.co.nz.

“Vigil enables dashboard updates that span various sites on a daily basis. This is an example of information that aggregates and thereby ensures the health of a program as well as determining what is required,” says Potton.

The alerts are colour coded. Red indicates a bad rating or “rescue”, which has to be actioned while green indicates a good result or wow moment. These alerts are sent via text or email the instant the customer submits their results.

On a technical level a NPS or net promotor score is included in every survey to assist clients to diagnose the drivers that promote or detract from a brand.

Vigil’s purpose is to help diagnose the root causes that drive promoters or detractors of a brand whilst creating a clear path towards increasing customer satisfaction.

Products from Vigil include: Vigil Immediate, which allows a constant measurement of the customer experience via text, QR code scan or web link (provides management with a simple and clear dashboard for a quick response to negative or positive comments); Vigil Marketing, which is an email campaign manager that communicates prospects and new opportunities; Vigil Intensive, which goes further by monitoring customer experience over the long term and isolating difficult locations, (helping to set KPI standards and allowing industry and competitor comparison); and Vigil Barometer, which measures customer brand experience and commitment.

“Tap into Vigil team’s experience garnered from thousands of surveys and CEM solutions and transform your business based on the voice of the customer,” concludes Potton.

Richard Potton can be contacted at richard@vigil.net.nz or vigil.co.nz.

Nerine Zoio: nerine@insideretail.co.nz