Walking in the Customer’s Shoes

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again…walk in the customer’s shoes to understand what it’s like for your customer.

I remember winning a piece of consultancy work once where the client, a large conference venue organisation understood the importance of this metaphor after I described what I saw as a guest that they didn’t. I explained how when I was showering I would see areas of the shower room that the chamber maid wouldn’t because where I stood to shower wasn’t the same perspective from which the cleaning was done. When you stand where the customer stands you see it through their eyes and that can change the way you do business.

Here’s a great example of this with a store in the US spotted by Susan Abbott. In this case the store owners stood in their customer’s shoes and changed the experience for both the employees and the customer.

• So when was the last time you did the same, walked in their shoes?
  
• What changes did you make to the customer’s experience as a result?
• How did it benefit the customer, your employees and the business?

Let me know and I’ll share them on my blog.

Segmenting Customers

Often the words an organisation uses to describe it’s customers says a lot about how employees see them. Punters, tyre kickers, browsers, customers, clients, partners, purchasers, licensees, users, patients, members, franchisees, or buyers and so on.

But choosing what to call your customers and how to describe them internally sets the scene for how employees will view them and potentially treat them. In her post Susan Abbott explains the following three actions you should take when describing your customer segments:

[1] Create evocative descriptions of your market segments
[2] Use the descriptions to help staff stay in tune with the customer
[3] Use the descriptions to help customers find their best fit among your product/service offerings.

See Susan’s post and how Ikea segment some of their customers.

How to Learn From Carphone Warehouse

I took a call this morning from Carphone Warehouse following a recent issue I had over my monthly bill. This morning’s call was the customer satisfaction follow up call. They asked me some preliminary questions to qualify me…over 16?…did I make the original call?…do I work for a market research company?

Once we’d covered these off I was then asked the following:

1. Based upon this recent experience how likely would you be to recommend Carphone Warehouse to a friend, colleague or relative, where 10 is definitely, 0 is definitely not?
2. On a scale of 0 to t0 10 where 10 is excellent how would you rate the knowledge of the person that handled your call?
3. Is there anything that the service agent did that was excellent that?

Question 1 is a derivative of the Net Promoter question and I’m pleased to see they are using it. I’ll be interested to see what their NPS is if they ever publish it.

Question 2 is useful so too is question 3 however they didn’t ask me what more could they have done to improve my experience. Without such a question they aren’t learning about my total experience. Had they have asked I would have mentioned how I felt the service agent wasn’t listening, didn’t summarise his understanding of my needs and the issue involved and that I felt rushed.

The lesson here:

Make sure your ‘voice of the customer’ questions not only establish how good you are doing but also how much better you could be. After all it’s not how good you are that leads you to success but how good you want to be.

When Do You Peak?

Want to make more of an impact with your customers?

According to Wikipedia in the peak-end rule, we judge our past experiences almost entirely on how they were at their peak (pleasant or unpleasant) and how they ended. Other information is not lost, but it is not used. This includes the overall pleasantness or unpleasantness and how long the experience lasted. Nobel-prize winning psychiatrist Daniel Kahneman, conducted experiments to determine how individuals attribute pleasure or pain to a lived experience” leading to his findings on the Peak/End Rule.

In one experiment, one group of people were subjected to loud, painful noises. In a second group, subjects were exposed to the same loud, painful noises as the first group, after which were appended somewhat less painful noises. This second group rated the experience of listening to the noises as much less unpleasant than the first group, despite having been subjected to more discomfort than the first group, as they experienced the same initial duration, and then an extended duration of reduced unpleasantness.

Have a look at another example of peak-end rule in practice at one of my favourite blogs, Work.Play.Experience.

What does this have to do with the customer experience?

Well customer’s will not remember every detail of any given experience but they will remember the overall pleasantness or not due to what happened at the experience’s peak and what happened at the end. So make sure your product handovers are highly positive and memorable.

1. Focus on providing a powerful peak or ending experiences for your prospects or clients.
2. If you have to deliver some bad news always try and finish on something positive that leaves a pleasant emotinal experience for the customer.
3. Create peak experiences by focusing on values – on what’s important to the customer.
   

So how can you improve the experience your customers or clients receive (and therefore, improve your business growth through positive word of mouth) by focusing on the peak or the end experiences?

Parents Take Heed – Children Are Key Influencers

In time of economic hardship and penny saving, parents be warned. Don’t take the children into the supermarket with you. Research shows according to a study by consumer researchers Claus Ebster and Udo Wagner, twice as many purchases in supermarkets are triggered by children than their parents are aware of.

“The two researchers also investigated factors responsible for the number of purchase requests children make. It was found that children primarily request products that are placed at their eye-level, such as sweets and toys strategically positioned by retailers on the lower shelves. The best way for parents to reduce the number of purchase requests from their child is to seat the child in the shopping cart (facing the parent), thereby restricting the child’s field of view. According to Claus Ebster, “Children seated in a stroller are also less likely to bug their parents with purchase requests”.

You have be warned.

Too Much Choice Blows My Mind

I tried going on line recently to book a holiday but gave up in the end as I was overwhelmed by the choice. The Internet has made life so easy in many respects but there is a downside – too much choice. In the end I gave up and deferred the process to another day when I feel more in the mood to take on the challenge.

I was suffering from the “tyranny of choice”. A recent article in ScienceDaily March 18, 2009 describes the phenomenon. The article says

“When options are very similar or the options are difficult to compare, people are likely to leave the store without making a choice. If there isn’t enough time to acquire the necessary information for making a choice, then the individual may leave without choosing anything.”

We see overwhelming choice in all areas of consumer options e.g. car options.

Favourite Customer Blogs

Here’s a list of must have blogs for you. I follow these and they are a mine of great materials, resources and ideas. Add them to your blog reader now. These are in o particular order of greatness but perhaps the most colourful is the first. Andy Nulman’s blog is all about surprising customers with a Pow!

1. Pow! Right Between The Eyes!
2. Church of the Customer
3. Customer Experience Crossroads
4. Flooring the Customer
5. Seth’s Blog
6. Customer Experience Matters
7. Customers Rock!
8. Experience Matters
9. Net Promoter
10. The Engaging Brand
11. Work.Play.Experience

The 6 Gaps Between Intentions and Realities

Blogger and Forrester Research Analyst, Bruce Temkin commented on a CRM Daily article called “Customer Service’s Gap Between Intention and Reality”. Bruce gives his personal take on the article by expanding the article’s point by detailing a total of six distinct gaps between the customer experience intention and the customer experience reality that companies need to pay attention to.

It’s interesting to note Gap #4, comparing the typical experience compared with the deliberately designed experience (on paper). Very few businesses design this experience, which then widens the gap still further between the typical experience that occurs and the brand promise. This expanded approach from Bruce is a useful way of reviewing our approach to our own customer experiences. Thanks Bruce.

How much time and energy are you spending on understanding these gaps? What have you found?

A Lesson For Us All – O’Mara’s Chain Miracle (1951)

In these days of customer experience buzz some say that we’re simply going back to basics and working on the human side of the business offering. We’ve seen the process revolution, we’ve seen systems and productivity rise as we bring in new technologies. We’ve had CRM now CEM but the bottom line is that it’s all about connecting with the emotional side of our interactions with customers.

This simple video clip gives you an insight into the train of thought on how to serve customers back in the 1950’s, it’s as relevant now as it was then. Little has changed in all those years and I suspect that if we were able to reveal the approach of market stall holders and merchants in ancient times we would find the same human qualities demonstrated. In essence this is the emotional connectivity at work – making your customers feel good about doing business with you.

The money trap – putting profits first

As we close the year and the sub-prime lenders drama of 2007 rings in our ears our UK economy faces rising consumer debt yet again. Eighteen months ago Panorama investigated debt-related suicides and interviewed a whistle blower who breaks the silence of the banking industry. The insider talks about how she believes high street bank lending practices put profits before customers at every given opportunity in order to push borrowing.

Never before have putting profits before customers been so devastating on the customer.

This was first broadcast on BBC One and at bbc.co.uk/panorama on Sunday 2 July 2006 at 2215.

If banks were to put the customer first, what we hear of in this broadcast would never happen.