How BOC saved over £4 million by acting on customer feedback
BOC is the largest supplier of industrial gases, specialty gases, and gas equipment in the United Kingdom, and a member of The Linde Group. It replaced an annual survey that reached 300 customers with feedback after every interaction, then rolled the program out to 30 countries.
01The challenge
The challenge: an annual B2B customer survey that reached 300 customers
Unhappy customers spent less, and an annual survey could not see them.
BOC collected feedback through a traditional annual survey that reached around 300 customers. Across The Linde Group, 500 complaints an hour led to around 12,000 customers lost each year.
Internal research showed that unhappy customers spent 18% less on average, rising to 23% when the complaint was about pricing. Handling those moments well became a skill BOC had to master.
Average spend of unhappy customers compared with others, from BOC's research.
02What changed
The fix: transactional feedback after every interaction, with a two-hour call back
A score from 1 to 5, and a call back within two hours.
After each interaction, customers receive a simple feedback request on one of several channels, asking them to score the experience from 1 to 5 and say why. Anyone who scores 1 or 2 hears back from BOC within two hours, and what they say is fed back into how BOC works.
Feedback is shared across the business, and employees share their own ideas too, so everyone from the frontline to the board has a voice.
Customers engaged, before and after.
03The result
The result: a Customer Effort Score of +80 and over £4 million saved
Less effort for customers, and millions saved.
BOC's Customer Effort Score in the United Kingdom improved from +42 to +80. Projects built on customer feedback have saved more than £4 million, and more than £2 million of business has been saved globally.
Feedback responses rose by 1,400% a year, customer retention improved significantly, and the experience became more consistent across the 30 countries where the program now runs.
Customer Effort Score, where higher means easier.
BOC results at a glance
BOC supplies industrial and specialty gases in the United Kingdom and Ireland as part of The Linde Group. In business-to-business markets, customer effort is a strong predictor of retention and spend.
| Measure | Before | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Customers heard | About 300 a year | 30,000+ |
| Customer Effort Score, United Kingdom | +42 | +80 |
| Feedback responses | Baseline | 1,400% more a year |
| Savings from feedback-led projects | None | Over £4 million |
| Call back for scores of 1 or 2 | No standard | Within 2 hours |
How to run a program like BOC’s
- Replace the annual surveyAsk for a score from 1 to 5 and a reason after each interaction.
- Call back fastContact anyone who scores 1 or 2 within two hours.
- Quantify the cost of unhappy customersCompare spend between unhappy and happy customers to size the opportunity.
- Roll out by countryStart in one market, then take the same program to every country.
Voice of Customers runs every step on one platform, from the survey to the follow-up.
Customer experience is so important for our company because we cover so many different industries - from life-saving products to small and big businesses. With tools like Rant & Rave we have a solution that works for all of them and gives me the feedback I need to run our business in real-time.
What they use
The parts of Voice of Customers behind BOC’s results.
Every module runs on one platform, with surveys by text message, email, voice, and web form, a sentiment engine that reads every comment, and follow-up that gives each unhappy customer an owner.
- Feedback after every interaction
- Two-hour call backs
- Employee feedback
- Feedback dashboard
Take it with you
Get the BOC case study as a two-page PDF.
The results, the charts, and how they did it, in a format you can forward to your team or bring to a budget meeting.
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