When you are able to create an outstanding customer experience, your customers return for more of the same and tell their friends about you.
When you adopt this attitude about your products and services, your biggest problem becomes figuring out how to keep on doing it in a way that lets you prosper. It can represent a revolutionary change in your business model and makes life far more enjoyable.
This approach eliminates most of the effort that normally goes into cold calling, upselling, and convincing customers that your pre-packaged solution is right for them.
It encourages you to find out what customer expectations are before you invest a lot of effort and fail to meet them.
To create an outstanding customer experience, your focus must be on the customer and what that customer needs and wants. Once you know his or her expectations, then you can discuss raising of the expectations and what that might entail.
This is a natural and almost effortless process if the customer's expectations are discussed and understood before going on to discuss solutions. It might have profound effects on your life as a business owner.
Most of the transactions that annoy you as a customer involve people who are proposing solutions to problems you don't have or providing solutions you did not ask for. The transactions that customers remember fondly and share with others are the ones where they got more than they expected.
On the other side of the coin, most of the transactions that annoy you as a business person involve doing a lot of work for an unhappy customer. When you exceed customer expectations, everybody wins.
What changes in your business model would it take to provide an outstanding customer experience on a routine basis?
I want to thank you for my wonderful customer experience. Even though you were terribly busy you took the time to show us your new shop and redo a frame because it wasn't absolutely perfect. It has a wonderful new home in Georgia with my brother and his wife, they love it. We are especially fond of the artist too. See you again in the fall, Liska.
Posted by: Liska | May 03, 2008 at 01:33 PM
Customer experience – related to, but not quite the same as customer service – has evolved over the years.
A generation ago, it really meant delivering on your promise. Every Holiday Inn promised to be like every other Holiday Inn and that was perfect for a large slice of the traveling population who wouldn’t pay for more but wouldn’t accept less. Consistency mattered.
The next generation raised the bar on quality and service; excellence became an expectation. Broad and virtually instant accessibility to information made comparison shopping easy. Brands suddenly had to earn their keep. If you couldn’t differentiate yourself, you were a commodity and commodities could always be found cheaper.
The new generation is truly customer-centric. Today’s consumer knows exactly what he or she wants and can most assuredly get it, almost certainly now. It is the world of the long tail. So, yes, as you pointed out, if you are going to sell a solution, it had better be one that fits a problem precisely. If you can’t or won’t, know that without a doubt, someone else can and will.
Posted by: Murray Abramovitch | May 11, 2008 at 10:46 PM