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Meet Allen Turner, Head of Insights & Market Research

I am a naturally curious person that has spent the last 20 years or so working in retail analytics.  Throughout that time, I can safely say that I have developed a passion for the retail industry and working with different retailers. I consider myself very lucky to be working for Chatter in a role that allows me to do what I do best every day: work with retailers to uncover insights that help improve their customer experience.  

Although I studied Accounting and Finance, I quickly discovered that I was more interested in the customers themselves and what they experience in–store.  At the time, I was working in the accounting department at Hallmark Cards, but I was able to transition into a point-of-sale analyst role and work on some projects that directly impacted the customer experience.  From that point forward, my interest grew into my passion. 

My favorite CX benchmark has to be Net Promoter Score (NPS) in its original 2–question form: “On a scale from 0 to 10, would you recommend this brand to your friends and family?“ followed by “Why did you give us that score?“ Having just finished reading Fred Reichheld’s third book on NPS, Winning on Purpose, I am fascinated that this relatively new KPI (first published in 2003) has become the top benchmark of CX professionals around the world. That being said, I’m very much looking forward to going beyond the NPS at Chatter, digging even deeper to understanding the “why” behind a brand’s satisfaction score. 

Throughout my career in retail analytics, I have always known that the true voice of the customer has been underrepresented.  Most of the time when we mentioned voice of the customer, it was just those who were contacting the call center to complain.  At Chatter, we have thousands of conversations with each client’s customers about what they enjoyed during their shopping experience, as well as areas where they think the retailer can improve. Hearing both sides of the coin, we can paint a holistic picture of the customer experience and provide actionable recommendations that, if implemented today, would greatly improve their CX for tomorrow.