Lutron, a global electronics company, is a major player in the Internet of things (Iot) and connected home markets. Products include control systems for lighting, ceiling fans, shading and others, which can be controlled from smartphones, voice assistants (such as Alexa), and other devices.

Matt Dixon, advisor and co-author of The Effortless Experience, and Tim Donchez, Continuous Improvement Director at Lutron Electronics, presented a case study of Lutron’s experience in harnessing strategic value. Lutron’s contact centers handle complex interactions. They come from retail partners, distributors, electricians, architects, individual consumers and others. And they inherently involve products not only from Lutron, but from other companies as well. Tim shared an essential ingredient to success: “We hire great people, and we trust them to use their judgment to serve our customers.”

Lutron records calls and uses analytics to better understand the content of those calls, but not with improving frontline performance as the objective. Instead, the goal is to mine the rich feedback customers provide on Lutron’s products, brand, services, installation experiences and (as Matt puts it) “almost every other thing that leaders at Lutron need to make better products and deliver a better experience to their customers.”

Tim points to numerous insights that have been gleaned through this approach. For example, a particularly vexing installation problem that drove a lot of calls was solved by addressing some confusing language in the installation instructions. In other examples, the contact center partnered with the engineering team on new product launches, and provided guidance to retail partners on products and services.

This case study was published in Leading the Customer Experience: How to Chart a Course and Deliver Outstanding Results by Brad Cleveland.