Why is a great Customer Experience so challenging for businesses to deliver? Shouldn’t delivering an incredible, remarkable, excellent experience to the customer be the most important objective before, during and after every transaction because after all, a happy customer is likely to be a loyal customer, perhaps spend more and even evangelize your brand on your behalf? Shouldn’t extreme customer service be the Holy Grail for every business? Why is Customer Care, Customer Service and Customer Experience still such an afterthought for so many companies?
I think it’s because up until now, if a company provided mediocre or poor customer experiences, it simply didn’t affect them as much – the consquences were minor because customers didn’t have as much power to vent in such a public arena as do they now with blogs, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube at everyone’s fingertips. You might have lost a customer every now and again, but your reputation probably stayed fairly intact – the risk was much lower. Today, the risk is much greater – and the internet is littered with stories of brands (and the resulting PR nightmares) that simply didn’t take the power of social sharing seriously – think of Fedex’s Delivery Fail Video, Dominos Pizza Employee Video, and United Breaks Guitars, just to name a few.
So what defines an excellent customer experience? Well, I think it’s like a great comedian – it depends on your timing, your content, your audience and your delivery.
Umair Haque wrote a great blog yesterday for the Harvard Business Review titled If You Were the Next Steve Jobs (…what problems would you try to solve?) describing an experience in a coffee shop very similar to something that actually happened to me yesterday morning as I went for breakfast with a friend. I walked into my favorite French cafe in Petaluma (Water Street Bistro), where I usually order a Cafe au Lait – very light on the coffee, please…”just the smell of coffee, heavy on the Lait”…and before I had finished saying “Cafe au…”, from behind the counter, Vanessa (one of the amazing staff at WSB) said – “Hi, you want a Cafe au Roohi?”…
It surprised – and delighted – me to realize that not only did she know my name, she remembered what I like, and even named the drink after me 
(Ok, so no-one else probably orders such a spineless coffee, but that’s not the point ). She recognized, acknowledged and created a personalized experience for me – and in that fleeting moment, earned a customer for life.
When we treat our customers like just another transaction, just another name in the sea of possible revenue, just another person or business who can add to our bottom line, we forget that every single one of us is fundamentally human at the basest level and want to be seen, heard and acknowledged whenever possible. The wrong way to personalize the experience? When the Safeway cashier hurriedly reads my name on the receipt, mispronounces my name and says “Thanks for shopping with us today, Miss (how do you say your name?) Moolla?” – it’s just a pointless way to acknowledge my purchase. The right way? When we know our customer’s needs and create an experience that’s tailored to fit, the way Vanessa did.
The point is that to remain relevant and earn loyalty in an increasingly fragmented and multiple-choice world, we have to create exceptional experiences that make our customers feel important, feel valued and feel human. And your business benefits with reduced support calls and costs (fewer complaints, improved call deflection), shared knowledge (tribal knowledge bases, customer-driven communities, Word of Mouth referrals) and increased customer satisfaction and retention (lower marketing/acquisition costs, higher order value, repeat transactions).
Every customer wants to know “What can you do for me?”….so what do you really do for your customer?
And for those of you who need a reminder of the power of social sharing and viral videos, here’s the United Breaks Guitars video:
