Nikon’s implementation of its customer experience management strategy demonstrates the power of knowing your customers. It also shows the importance of understanding their needs as well as what motivates them to continue doing business with you. With revenues of more than $5.9 billion, the Nikon brand is respected globally by consumers for its innovations in cameras, lenses and other consumer optical products. Despite Nikon’s years of success, however, changing consumer demands and marketplace volatility prompted the company to seek a different business strategy three years ago.

Spotting Challenges Early

“Traditionally, we had been selling high-end photo equipment through specialized dealers,” explains David Dentry, general manager of Nikon’s technical support group. “As a result, we didn’t know who our customers were. As Nikon moved into the digital camera market, we realized customers demanded and expected things faster, so we needed a better handle on directly identifying our customers and their specific needs.”

Nikon also recognized the decreasing amount of brand loyalty in the industry. “With compact cameras everywhere, customers would jump back and forth to lower price points,” says Dentry. “In the Internet age, consumers make quick decisions and want their questions answered at the moment they want to purchase, which could be as they are sitting at their desk.”

To meet shifting consumer needs and mitigate marketplace instability, Nikon began piecing together products and solutions, but it wasn’t enough. Dentry notes, “We sat down as a team and realized that Nikon’s market challenges were not going to get any better, particularly as more of our industry and business became digital. We needed a change.” Dentry claims that customer experience management was a natural strategic choice for Nikon. “We recognized that it was increasingly important to know who our customers are and where they are in the life cycle so we could better recognize and meet their needs,” he says. “Customer experience management means having an ongoing conversation with them to keep them satisfied and loyal for the long term. We needed to know data that would help inform those conversations, such as how we learned about them, how they learned about us, our mutual interaction history and the kinds of products they are looking for.”

First Stop: Customer Service

Customer service was identified as the cornerstone of Nikon’s customer experience management strategy. Part of the reason was just sheer numbers. “Service is the touch point where most of our customer interactions take place, so it jumped out right away,” says Dentry. As the central hub of the customer experience, customer service was also Nikon’s greatest pain point. Nikon decided to focus its strategy on the consistency of response as well as the speed of response, particularly for inbound inquiries. Starting with these goals, the strategy then rippled out to include the people and processes required to enable it. Technology represented the last mile. Dentry analyzed the various technological options to put the company’s strategy into action. Decision criteria ranged from features and functionalities to how well an individual solution synched up with existing operations. Just as it did with its strategy, Nikon wanted to move in manageable steps. “We looked at some of the larger players, but we weren’t looking to do a huge implementation,” says Dentry. “We looked at RightNow Technologies and knew that all of the things we needed – for now and in the future as we grew our plan – were there.”

Plan the Work, Work the Plan and Reap the Benefits

With RightNow in place, Nikon revamped a number of processes; most notably, the automatic routing of customer inquiries. “It used to be that customers would come to our website, enter a question and we’d manually route it within the company. This created too long of a time lag to respond to customers,” says Dentry. “These were prospective and existing customers, so at times we were both pushing away leads and not delivering superior customer service.”

Nikon created automated routing systems based on a customer’s particular question, which has proven to be easier, faster and more effective. Dentry highlights, “Our average email response time used to be 80 hours. Within 30 days of implementing the RightNow solution, it was 20 hours. This past year, we have focused on decreasing that even further by placing dedicated people in particular customer question areas, and now it’s a five-hour turnaround.” Even with just this one initiative, the results speak for themselves. “Every day we get three to four emails from customers who can’t believe how quickly we have responded to customer service emails,” says Dentry. “They get a good, positive experience and walk away with a positive view of the brand and company.”

Nikon’s business results also have been stable over the past three years, with sales volumes increasing and support volumes maintaining a steady pace. “These indicate that our products are easier to use and that our support has done a good job in getting our customers the help they need, whether through self-service or through less expensive channels such as email,” says Dentry. “And all of the improvements have come about by focusing on the customer experience first.”

Staying on Top

The service initiative represents the first step in Nikon’s customer experience journey. Going forward, the company plans to improve the customer experience across all of its customerfacing touch points. A central data repository that consolidates customer information (including data from rebates and trade shows) is also in the works. With key customer information centralized and accessible, employees will be able to tap in to the repository to meet customers’ needs on the fly. Nikon is already a recognized leader in the imaging technology industry. By maintaining its focus on delivering a best-in-class customer experience, Nikon will keep that leadership position for a long time to come.

This case study was excerpted with permission from the Peppers & Rogers white paper “Turning Customer Experiences Into Competitive Edge: Nikon’s Journey to Leadership.”