Customer Experiences and Service: Become a Customer-Focused Operation

‘Designing Strategies’ eNewsletter

May – June 2009 Volume 6 – Issue 28

Designing Ways To Survive Turbulent Times

Are you looking for ways to survive these turbulent times? Trying to get designers into your showroom, or
help a distributor attract new customers? We have a number of continuing education programs on a variety of business topics specifically suited for the issues we’re all facing. New topics now being presented include “Develop Your On-line Presence” and “Move Your Firm’s Customer Experience to WOW!” Other presentations on industry trends and topics like generational diversity – designing for the generations, marketing and selling to the generations or recruiting and retaining an age-diverse workforce are also available. For a complete list of programs, please visit our website Speaking/Training page. To check availability and to schedule specific dates for presentations, contact me directly at 330.666.0802 or by email.

Are you driving customers away? I’ve been developing a new customer experience seminar on this topic. Since it is top of mind with me, my radar is on High for recognizing bad…no, miserable…customer experiences and service. I wish I could say there are equal amounts of good and bad service and experiences, but sadly, the bad greatly outnumbers the good, and even the mediocre.
Do you still feel your customer experiences and service are excellent? Everyone says they have excellent customer service and provide exceptional customer experiences, but it isn’t true by a long shot. A friend recently went out to a family style restaurant with a colleague for a late lunch. They walked in the door only to be met by the top of the hostess’s head, looking down at something on the reception desk top. Whatever it was, it must have been really, really important. Important enough to completely ignore customers.

The restaurant was virtually empty with more than a few open tables where they could have been quickly seated. After standing in the lobby several minutes, unacknowledged, the hostess finally looked up. My friend said: “Two, please.” The hostess responded: “Name, please?” to put them on a list! No one else was waiting, plenty of tables were available, but the hostess felt compelled to put them through the paces of a customer walking in on a busy Friday evening. Her actions made absolutely no sense at all.

The important point is: what impression did this experience have on the customers? Needless to say, it was not a good impression. Clearly, the customers’ experience was not exceptional or even mediocre. Do you let your company’s policies and systems get in the way of making a customer’s experience dealing with you positive?

When you wrote policies and procedures for your firm, do they focus on making things easy for you and your staff? Are they more focused to get jobs done, or create a necessary paper trail? Or, is their focus on making it easy for customers to do business with you? My guess is that your focus is likely on the internal, not the external perspective… the much more important customers’ point of view.

Often a customer walks through your door, set on making a purchase. Unfortunately, these willing customers, ready to buy, encounter roadblocks to allowing a sale happen. Or, even after a sale, a customer may have a question or problem which should be easily resolved. Are your policies developed to still maintain an excellent level of customer service? There are plenty of opportunities for a ‘save’; even making the customer pleased enough to share their experience with a few friends. How are you doing so far?

When you opted for that automated phone answering system, who did you do it for? A customer, who has plenty of better things to do with their valuable time, often sits on the phone listening to option after option…push 1 for….push 2 for…push 3 for… Is that what they encounter when calling your firm? All they really want is to make contact with a live human being who can help them.

Do you offer that infamous company directory of names without titles or job descriptions that are useless? My guess is that like most, you put in that system to save a few dollars you’d have to pay a warm, friendly human being. That human life line who could actually be helpful and attentive to your customers. Someone helpful to quickly resolve their issues and make their customer experience positive is far better than an automated phone system.

Start looking at your policies and procedures from your customers’ point of view. Without satisfied customers, you won’t have a business or policies to worry about. Peter Drucker once said: “The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.” Keeping a customer waiting, either in person or on the phone is not going to keep them coming back. Nor will taking days to respond to e-mail or voice mail inquiries.

It’s time to look at company policies and procedures from an external point of view. Make necessary changes that will improve your customer experience and services and set you apart from competitors. In today’s tight economy, differentiating yourself through exceptional customer experiences and service is not just something to do; it is THE thing to do.