Making an Impact
In this issue:
Experience or Expense?
This is the section where I share with you the good, the bad and the ugly sides of the customer experience, the impact everyone can have on it - in either direction, and the resulting impact on image, reputation, brand, customer relationships, your whole organisation and your bottom line. Does everyone in your organisation understand the importance of the customer experience, and their impact on it?
We have all been customers at some point, and we all give customer experiences to others, whether it's in work or out of it - so our neighbours, friends and relations can all be viewed as our customers too. I have a growing list of experiences which I am looking forward to sharing and in some cases, venting! You'll see that I do rather get on my soapbox about some of these!
Knowing Me Knowing You
I've been using my current supermarket for many years now. It's handy for parking, they have petrol on site, I know the layout and where most things are that I want (except when they decide to switch things around!), so that makes for a rapid shop. I know the quality of their produce and they have many known brands that I like too.
It's not a particularly thrilling experience, but a necessary one. I do prefer to go into the store than to shop online, as I like to see everything in 3D and undertake a hands-on inspection of what I'm going to buy. However, there's one thing that started to make it a different and far more pleasant experience for me than it had previously been.
They quite often change the staff around on different departments, as most supermarkets do, so you see different faces in the same area from one week to the next, which has its own benefits, as some are more helpful and cheery than others. As I go in on a Saturday, there are lots of part-timers, and as the turn around of staff can be quite high, you can go for weeks without seeing the same face twice.
However, they then started to schedule some of the same people at the same time to one area in particular – the deli counter. This is a counter that I regularly visit, but have usually been served by a different set of people every time. I have quite a lot of different things from this counter too, and am quite particular about what I like.
For example, what sorts of meats I will and will not even look at (just the thought of black pudding makes me think of some sacrificial scene from a horror movie!); what quality they have to be before I'll even consider having any of them (I can't abide fat!), and I like the meats to be sliced in a certain way too. I have to have them wafer thin, and anything pre cut at the thickness of shoe leather (ie that actually looks like a piece of meat – I'm a guilt-ridden omnivore!) never makes its way into my shopping basket.
I went to the counter as usual, got a ticket and waited until it was my turn. Whilst I was waiting, to my surprise, I noticed that there was a young girl and a chap who had been serving the week before at the same time too. When it was my turn, it was the young chap who came to serve me again.
He was very smiley and chatty, which made a pleasant change from some of the miserable faces I see elsewhere in the store. He asked me what I would like. I asked for a couple of different kinds of ham to be sliced and commented that one of them was in fact my favourite, but that the quality isn't always so good. Repeating what I had said the week before, as I of course wasn't expecting him to remember, I told him of my wafer thin slice requirements. He then said he now remembered the setting he thought he used the week before, and sure enough they turned out how I liked them.
The following week, he was there again, and before I could say anything, he informed me that my favourite was a better quality than last week. I said I would indeed have some of that, and as I was about to ask for it to be cut wafer thin, I didn't get the chance, as he asked me if that's how I would like it again. I also asked for some turkey this time and said I liked that a bit thicker. I also asked for a couple of other deli items. (Bare with me – there's a point to this list of meat requirements!)
The next week, I ended up being served by him again. I didn't even have to say anything this time. He was again as chatty and smiley as he had been on the previous occasions, and instantly asked if I would like my favourite again. He added that one of the other ones I liked wasn't so good this week, but instead recommended one which was similar and a lot leaner. The cutting thickness didn't even have to be discussed, "Same as usual?" he asked. He even asked if I wanted the amount I had asked for to be wrapped in two separate lots, as he remembered that I do freeze it sometimes. This was certainly impressive that he even remembered one detail I had once asked for two weeks earlier!
Such a refreshing change I thought, to feel noticed as a customer and differentiated from other customers, and not just treated like another one in the queue. This was great not to have to repeat myself so many times and still to come away with what I wanted.
When I went to do my shop the following week, it was the young girl who served me this time, although the chap was there too. He saw me and smiled and said hello. When the girl, who was also very cheerful and enthusiastic, asked me what I would like, when I told her, the chap, whilst he was sorting out an order for another customer, multi-tasked well enough to also hear what I had asked for, and straight away called over to the girl to tell her which setting to use on the slicer for the ham and the different one for the turkey.
Impressive I thought, that he not only remembered, but that he was helping his colleague to deliver the same quality level of service that I had come to expect from him.
Again the following week, I was served by the girl, and to my surprise she also remembered what I liked, how I liked it cut, and the quality I was looking for.
This certainly was a difference, and I realised how much easier and more pleasant it was making the experience for me, to be served by two lovely happy people, who not only knew what I was looking for in terms of products, and even anticipated my needs, but also knew the detail of the delivery of experience I was looking for.
They certainly were tuned into me as the customer, and provided me with a personal, tailored service that made the whole experience far less arduous and repetitively boring than it had been.
This experience might only be buying a selection of meats and other items from a deli counter, but in fact, the way they treated me as the customer and the experience they gave me in their area, sent me to the next area of the store in a far better frame of mind than I would otherwise have been, making the whole store experience less of a chore.
Since those first weeks, at least one of those two, and usually both, has been serving on that counter every week. I have in fact got to know them quite well, as we have time to have a chat about other things, as I hardly ever have to even say what I want or how I want it, unless I decide to deviate wildly from my usual order. I've in fact grown to quite like them both, and on the odd weeks when I've been away or had to go at a different time, they seem very genuine when they say they were wondering where I was.
This is not a usual supermarket service, but these two employees were providing the type of personal service you would expect from an old fashioned corner shop. Whether they knew it or not, they were building the type of anticipating customer needs, personal relationship building experience that is the key to impressing customers, keeping them loyal and coming back to you time after time. I have in fact found myself disappointed if one of them hasn't been there to chat to, and punctuate my otherwise dreary shopping experience.
They were attentive, caring, focused on me as the customer, displayed great attention to detail, anticipated my needs and made me feel that I was valued as a customer and importantly too, as a person. They have turned an experience I never looked forward to, into one that I happily undertake now.
Are your people having that much impact on your customers, and managing to make their experiences of you a far happier event than they might otherwise have been? Do your customers feel special and valued, and want to happily return to you, give you great referrals and want to stay loyal to you, because of the personal interaction individuals in your organisation are having with them, and the relationships you're building as a result?
Of course there are many other aspects of the customer experience that need to support that one to one relationship – such as the quality of the products, the marketing communications and offerings, feedback systems and procedures, customer experience orchestration and management. However, are you giving your people a chance to build relationships with your customers in the first place? Are you giving them the time and understanding of how to build those sorts of relationships, to enable them to deliver that level of personal service, which will substantially strengthen the core of your interaction with your customers, so that your customers don't just feel they're part of a process you're putting them through, but part of a valued relationship?
How much are your people thinking to anticipate your customers' needs to make them feel special? Or are you perhaps in some areas delivering the same standard experience you give to everyone, with no differentiation from one customer to the next? Yes you should of course be providing your customers with the same quality level of service across the board, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be recognised as individuals too.
Could this perhaps be preventing some of your customers feeling loyal to you, or giving you the benefit of the doubt if something does go wrong, because they know you well enough and have a strong enough relationship with you to know that's not the normal experience you give them?
Do you really know them as well as you could, and know what they want from you, to ensure you're giving them the experience they want and need to make them feel special? Do they know you too, know what to expect from you and know they can trust you and your brand, and that you're going to make them feel like one in a million, not one of a million?
Observation Post
Acting on Assumptions?
It's great when people use their initiative, but when they then take it a step further and add other actions to that, based on assumptions, it can all go very wrong.
Why is it that when you go to the trouble of giving someone very precise and clear instructions to, for example, take something to a particular place, adding all sorts of detail about how the item has been labelled, who it's for and where it should go, can they then decide for themselves to put it somewhere different, ignore your instructions, and assume that because the item is, say, a box, that it must need to go with other boxes in that area, that are in fact nothing to do with you, and which played no part in your instructions at all?!
When your box is then carted off with the other boxes which belong to someone else, it's hardly surprising the amount of trouble that you as the customer then have to go to in order to try and retrieve your property. So turning a simple customer service task into a mammoth negative customer experience disaster, which could have been avoided if the person hadn't chosen to make an assumption, without even asking any follow up questions, and ignore what the customer had requested.
Making Your Mark
One in a Million?
Think of one aspect of your customer experience, and consider how and indeed whether you're making your customers feel special in that, and giving them as much of a personalised service as you could be. Are you delivering the kind of experience that's focused on them and what they want from you, rather than on what you want from them?
Would that, is that experience, that interaction, making them feel like one of a million or one in a million? If it's the former, what could you do to personalise the experience more to the individual, to make them feel special and more valued?
Is it perhaps lacking attention to detail, knowledge and understanding about the customer and their needs and wants, or is it perhaps lacking in the way that your people are handling that experience for the customers? Are they so concerned with getting through that aspect of the customer experience process, that their focus is on the process rather than the customer?
Try changing two things to make that experience more personalised for the customer, and watch the change in them, their attitude to the experience and to your brand. You'll also notice a change in your people too.
Speaking Events
I speak at a range of different corporate conferences, both all-staff and management, on the customer experience and my strategy of 'Whole Organisation Marketing' - helping all your people live and deliver your customer experience and brand promise, and promote/ celebrate your organisation through everything they do. The emphasis is on improving the whole customer experience, referrals, reputation, your brand, effectiveness, the amount of customers and partners you keep and attract, and your bottom line success.
I also speak at industry and professional body conferences and events. For example, I have spoken for the Institute of Customer Service, European Customer Experience World, the Institute of Sales and Marketing and the Chartered Institute of Housing.
See the showreel on my website from one of these events.
If you would like to know more about these or the other types of events and conferences I speak at, or indeed have one you would like me to speak at, then do get in touch. If you would like to find out more about the workshops and development sessions I run for organisations, which include ones to develop individuals and teams to improve the customer experience, then just give me a ring or drop me a line. You can see a summary of my workshops on my website too.
Thanks for reading, I hope you found it useful and thought provoking. If we haven't spoken or met already, I hope we get to do so in the not too distant future. If we have, then I look forward to chatting to you again.
See you next time.
Mob: 07787 573539
carolyn@carolyndallaway.com
www.carolyndallaway.com
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