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19 STEPS FOR CREATING AN
AWESOME
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
Provide a great customer experience.
To have profitable customers who stay with you a long time, your goal
must be to create the kind of experience that will:
1. Attract your customers to purchase your products and services.
2. Persuade your customers to pay the prices you need to charge for them
to be profitable.
3. Encourage them to keep their business with you.
4. Interest them in buying more from you.
5. Inspire them to tell others about you.
Customers are outraged and managers delusional
Research shows that today’s customers, even in New Zealand, are
not disappointed or dissatisfied. They are outraged.
Managers on the other hand, are delusional. They think they are doing
a great job of looking after their customers but their customers do not
agree.
This provides a wonderful opportunity for businesses which want to gain
a competitive advantage. If these businesses were to provide a great experience
for their customers when their competitors were providing an aggravating
one, their customers would not see them as being better but as being different.
How to create an outstanding experience? Become customer driven.
If you agree that the main thing should be to have profitable customers
who stay with you for a long time, you’ll want to become customer
driven. Customer driven organisations know their customers are their
business because without them they would have nothing. Customer driven
organisations therefore put their customers in the centre of their world.
They learn as much about their customers as they can and they use this
information to change the way they run their organisation. People who
run customer driven organisations know they must operate their organisation
in a way that works for their customers, not in a way that works for
them.
In traditional organisations, people think about their customers. In
customer driven organisations, people think like their customers. There’s
a big difference between the two. If you think like your customer, then
you would put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Before you set
any policy, before you spent any money, before you made any decisions,
before you took any action, before you even opened your mouth, you would
ask yourself, “If I was the customer, what would I want to see happen?” Then
that’s what you’d do. Would your customers have a different
experience if your people (including senior managers) put themselves in
their customers’ shoes?
In most organisations, staff are advocates for the organisation. When
a customer complains, or offers a suggestion, staff will explain to the
customer why things have to be done the way they are being done. But
in customer driven organisations, staff are advocates for the customer.
They listen to what the customer has to say and then they pass that information
on to their team
leaders, managers and senior managers. And when they do, these managers
don’t take the view that this is just another whinging employee.
They understand that they are effectively listening to the voice of the
customer, and that’s the most important voice in the organisation.
19 specific ways you can create
an awesome customer experience.
If you have direct contact with the customer, it is your job to behave
in the following ways. If you are a team leader or manager, it is your
job to behave in the following ways to your staff, and to make sure they
behave in these ways to your customers.
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A. Basic Behaviours
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1. Be available |
- In a US study, 33% saw this as the major problem – 6%
defected because staff weren’t available.
- If you are slow to answer
the phone, 31% hang up and call a
competitor and 26% hang up and forget about the whole
thing.
- You need to be mentally available not just physically
available.
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2. Look smart |
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In British research, 92% said the way the staff member
looked affected their perception of how good the customer
experience was. |
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3. Listen |
- 49% of people in one study said staff not listening was
the biggest cause of a bad experience.
- Listen to the customer’s requirements
not through the filter of your products
and services
but with an open mind.
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4. Be fast and easy to do business with. |
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In Canadian research, 24% said it took too long to be
served, and 32% said it took too long to pay. |
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5. Do what you say you are going to do. |
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You want customers who stay with you for a long time. As you have learned in your personal life, long-term relationships are based on trust. If you don’t do what you say you will do, you destroy that trust. |
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6. Keep your customers informed. |
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No news is not good news. Past experience will have taught your customers that 98% of all surprises in business are bad. Therefore they will want to be kept informed. Do this when things are going well and your customers won’t have to worry. Do it when something outside your control is going to cause you to fail to meet a commitment you have made and then your customers can plan an alternative. |
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7. Know your stuff.
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In one study, 40% said the quality of the customer
experience could be improved by better staff training
so they knew more about the business and its
products and services.
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8. Deliver the solution
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At the end of the day the customer wants what they came to get and that is a solution to their problem. They do not want excuses or explanations. They want results. |
B. Intermediate Level Behaviours
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9. Be adaptable and flexible.
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Because no two customers are the same, and because the world of your customer changes quickly, your customers need you to be change according to their needs, preferences and situation. |
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10. Take responsibility.
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- Customers expect you will take immediate action to help
them solve their problem. They hate getting the run- around or
being handed on
- In UK, research found 88% of customers said,
when I ask where a product is, take me to where it is located.
Don’t
send me!
- In other research, 36% said they had a great experience
if staff made a genuine attempt to help them.
- Look for things you can do for your
customers instead of telling them the things you cannot do.
- Managers; Empower staff so they
can take responsibility.
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11. Be genuine and honest.
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Tell no lies – big or small. Be transparent, open and honest or you will destroy trust.
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12. Be polite and respectful.
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A US study found 25% complained staff were impolite
or disrespectful. Three percent defected
as a result.
- Another study found 26% said their customer
experience was made poor by pushy
staff.
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13. Be friendly, caring and enthusiastic.
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- One study showed 36% said this was the most
important ingredient in getting a
great experience.
- Studies show 61% want to be greeted
- Make sure your staff have a can-do, will-do attitude
- One study found 46% said their bad
experience was caused by disinterested staff.
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14. Pay attention to detail
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The devil is in the detail. Many large and costly mistakes are caused by failing to notice a small detail. These mistakes can make you look unprofessional and weaken your brand. |
C. Advanced Level Behaviours
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15. Get to know your customers.
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- Learn about your customers so you can personalise
the experience.
- Use their name and otherwise make them
feel important.
- Recognise their loyalty.
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16. Walk in your customers’ shoes.
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- While you are dealing with your
customer, put yourself in your customer’s shoes and ask yourself: “If I was the
customer would I like what I was hearing? Would I want
to do what I am being asked to do? Would I like what I
see happening?”
This includes what the customer has to do to get in touch
with you, access your place of business,
purchase your product or service, get after sales assistance or
make a
complaint. It also includes the sound
of your voice, the way you look, and the way your place of business
looks.
- Sell what your customers are buying.
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17. Put the customer in control
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- Give them choices in what to buy and how to pay.
- Give them information.
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18. Go the extra mile.
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- Delight your customers by looking for problems your
customers would just love you to solve but cannot
reasonably expect you will – and then solve them!
- Going the extra mile is really important when something
has gone wrong.
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19. Follow up
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- Making a follow up call shows you care and gives you a great opportunity to find out what you are doing right, what you need to improve, what you could start doing and what you don’t need to do.
- It is essential to follow up when dealing with a performance
problem or customer complaint.
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