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The Customer Experience. No Laughing Matter!
The Company
Jerry Seinfeld, Robin Williams, Jay Leno, Joan Rivers, John Cleese, Tina Fey, Russell Peters, Milton Berle, Bill Cosby, Lilly Tomlin. These are just some of the A-List comedians who have performed at the Just For Laughs comedy festival in the past 25 years. In fact, many of the best known comedic entertainers in the world attribute the Festival as their "big break" in show business. Founded in 1983, Just For Laughs is the largest comedy festival of its kind in the world. With festivals in Montreal, Toronto, Chicago and Nantes, France, and soon in Bermuda, Just For Laughs is a truly world-renowned comedic landmark and entertainment brand. Its award-winning TV shows such as the popular "Just For Laughs Gags" are broadcast in 140 countries and carried by 95 airlines world-wide, Just For Laughs comedy reaches millions of viewers around the globe. The Just For Laughs Group is also active in other areas of entertainment, managing close to 50 artists and producing shows and tours including approximately 15 shows a year in the United Kingdom, 15 in France and about 20 in North America. What’s the real reason for the ongoing success of the Festival? "The philosophy that comedy can be reinvented year after year and that laughter is a key element in bringing together people from all walks of life," according to Just For Laughs Founder and CEO, Gilbert Rozon. The Situation
Just For Laughs takes humor seriously. It also takes the customer experience seriously too. Understanding how customers feel about the brand, their level of advocacy, likelihood to return and their feedback on the quality of the shows are all critical indicators for a company so fixated on delivering memorable spectator experiences. Just For Laughs has been conducting customer surveys for nearly a decade, says Vice President of Business Insights, Eric Naveteur, "and a large part of our success can be attributed to the feedback from our spectators." In the past, Just For Laughs collected feedback mostly through telephone interviews and paper surveys to gather basic information on the ticket purchase experience, overall satisfaction, brand affinity and customer demographics. Although this information did provide valuable insight, the process was time consuming, costly and conducted long after the actual Festival event took place. Moreover, sample sizes were typically small and only included feedback from "ticket purchasers," not necessarily those who may have actually attended the show. At best, this information yielded an incomplete picture of the spectator experience and did not provide sufficient insight on the actual quality of specific shows. As a result, Just For Laughs looked for a vendor who could help improve the entire customer feedback process, capture data closer to the moment of experience and deliver real-time insight to key personnel including show producers, event/venue staff, customer service and senior management. "We needed a vendor who understood the importance of gaining timely access to our feedback data", confirms Mr. Naveteur. "Every year we produce new shows, we feature new talent, and our customers are our mirror." "They tell us what they like, and most importantly, what they don’t like so that we can react quickly and make changes before the next performance." The Solution
"Our main objective was to partner with a firm that could provide a turn-key solution," states Mr. Naveteur. "While my instinct was to go with a traditional market research firm, I quickly realized they were not equipped to deliver the level of real-time, on demand reporting we required," confirms Mr. Naveteur. Just For Laughs selected Agili-T in 2008 and for the past 2 years, has provided an end-to-end customer experience measurement solution. "Agili-T’s customer experience measurement solution and services delivered exactly what we needed – from questionnaire design, to data acquisition and reporting," explains Mr. Naveteur. "Agili-T’s expertise in measuring the client experience, combined with its approach and technology gave us confidence that our business and production teams would benefit from key customer insights regarding the overall level of satisfaction corresponding to each live show performance." The Just For Laughs feedback program allows audience members to provide feedback instantly after the show performance. The survey provides a 360 degree assessment of customer perceptions and feelings regarding the key drivers of the event Just For Laughs experience such as:
The Result
Each year thousands of Festival-goers participate in the survey providing statistically reliable feedback and verbatim comments on the show they attended. Feedback data is instantly available on demand for Just For Laughs personnel through Agili-T’s Web-based reporting platform. More specifically, data is accessible on a "show-by-show" basis allowing producers to see their respective results as well as comparisons to other shows and the overall Festival results. Obtaining customer feedback provides key strategic information for both the business and the production teams. In addition, open-ended comments offer rich insight about the customer experience and provide valuable suggestions on how to improve the show. The Just For Laughs customer experience program not only provides producers with objective satisfaction measures regarding the quality of the festival and talent line-up, but also offers management with feedback regarding overall effectiveness of marketing campaigns, and allows senior management to adequately prioritize future resource allocations to optimize returns. "By inviting our customers to express their voices, we’re able to better understand their need states, values and how well we’re doing in meeting them. This helps us translate customer feedback metrics into business terms we can act upon to further strengthen our brand and the quality of our events," concludes Mr. Naveteur. One additional benefit is that the survey process allows customers to "opt-in" to database enabling Just For Laughs to drive promotional information to subscribers and perform panel-based or ad-hoc market research. "We needed to find a way to stay in touch with our customers beyond the Festival period and test new ideas," says Mr. Naveteur. "This is a great way to reach out to our customers and involve them in the process of improving Festival experience." Key Takeaways
Implement a systematic approach to measuring the customer experience. Do away with manual processes that are time consuming, potentially error-prone and may not deliver statistically reliable results. If customers come first in your organization, then you should leverage customer feedback to your advantage. It can provide rich insights into not only what your customers’ expectations and value preferences are, but allow you to adapt your service and product offering before it’s too late. Acknowledge that you may not know everything about your customers. Don't make assumptions. Incorporate key customer experience indicators as part of your operations. When properly monitored over time, results can uncover both negative and positive trends, pointing to potentially problematic issues that require immediate action, or new market opportunities that will help you to grow your business. Are you optimizing your customer feedback program in a way that can enhance the customer experience? Contact us for an evaluation of your current system. SIMPLY CALL
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