Business Tip

"Pay Attention to the Customer Experience"

By: Ann Thomas and Jill Applegate, WomenEntrepreneur

Every customer is unique. Whether it's a dining experience, shopping for the latest fashions or surfing the web for a great last-minute getaway, each customer has her own expectations of how the experience should play out. In a Pay Attention focus, the goal is to make the experience personal and memorable for each customer.

Consider this example told to us by a seatmate on an airline flight. Needing to take his car in for service, Pete scheduled an appointment with the dealership where he always had his car repaired. His engine light had recently come on and he needed to get it checked out. On arrival, his service agent greeted him warmly by name. As Pete explained his repair needs, the agent carefully made notes, asked relevant questions and confirmed what he heard. After the agent provided an estimate of how long the repair might take, our new acquaintance set off to work in the van provided by the dealership.

Later that day the dealership called Pete. The ensuing conversation delighted the car owner. He learned that the pesky "service engine soon" light had to do with a gas cap that had lost its ability to close tightly and was losing pressure. The fix was not only easy, it was inexpensive. But what made this a positive memorable experience was that the dealership topped off his engine fluids, filled his gas tank to test the new gas cap, and washed his car--at no additional charge. Upon picking up his car, Pete found a reminder sheet of the upcoming warranty-recommended service and a prioritized list of how to schedule the work. Wow!

Contrast this to a similar car repair experience Jill had. Her "service engine soon" light also came on, and she went to her favorite dealership to see what the issue was. After hooking the car up to the computer--the only way for the mechanic to identify the problem--she learned that it was going to cost her $102 just to be told that she had neglected to tighten her gas cap the last time she filled her tank, and that was just the car's way of letting her know. She was not a happy customer, even though she received most of the same perks that Pete received. The clean car and topped-off fluids were nice, but they didn't make up for the $102 she had to cough up due to her own negligence.

Here we have two very similar stories that left two very different impressions on customers. The value-added service provided in both cases was exemplary, but only one customer went away happy. The lesson here is that what is important to one person might not be important to another. Each customer is unique, and determining the different ways they define service quality requires rapt attention and relentless listening.

Make It Personal
Service masters have an obsession with their customers. They listen to them, study them and learn from them. They are constantly trying to crawl inside their heads to find out what makes them tick. However, these masters do not simply take orders from their customers. Rather, they synthesize their sense of customers' wants, needs and expectations into unique, clever and sometimes highly innovative personal solutions.

Take Charles Schwab, the investment services firm. The company was hearing from customers that they didn't like to deal with the company's automated phone line when they had to call Schwab a second time to deal with a question or problem. So the company created a simple new direct-dial feature that lets repeat clients call a Schwab representative directly to resolve an issue, rather than again have to slash through the underbrush of an automated phone system to get what they want.

The company also created a "flex force" service team designed to jump on phone lines in times of high calling demand, such as when the market takes a sharp decline. Both improvements were a result of listening closely to customers for their "pain points" and moving quickly to staunch the bleeding.

JetBlue Airways also understands the importance of value-added, personalized service. The low-cost airline offers a first checked bag free of charge, as well as a live in-flight entertainment system with 36 channels of free DirectTV, 100 channels of free radio and unlimited complimentary in-flight snacks. Customers can enjoy the entertainment in JetBlue's roomy seats, which allow the kind of legroom in coach that's difficult to find on any other U.S. airline. JetBlue is clearly a business that keeps the customer experience top of mind, evidenced by it being named by J. D. Power and Associates, a global market research company, as tops in airline customer satisfaction among low-cost carriers in 2009. It was the fourth year in a row that the company captured the award.

Whether your customer comes to you via the internet, the front door or the telephone, there is gold to mine in the knowledge gained from these interactions. Certainly there are computer systems and software that gather data and offer myriad options for reviewing, analyzing and applying the data. But not every organization can afford such systems.

What all companies do have are human beings that talk to, e-mail, tweet or face the customer every day. In some ways this is the best system of all: employees having daily conversations with customers across channels to find out what pleases them about how you conduct business, what improvements they might suggest to your operations and what makes them want to pull out their hair about the way they're treated or the hoops they're made to jump through.

You'll find that companies with some of the best service reputations welcome and even embrace negative feedback. Although they won't make changes based on all of it, or consider all rants or suggested changes realistic or relevant, they know that only by hearing directly from the customer can they identify weak spots in service delivery that drive people away, often under the company's radar. Each interaction with a customer provides an opportunity to Pay Attention and learn what's important to that individual. From that vantage point, the service provider may customize the outcome to make it unique to that customer. Now, repeated many times over, it might not feel unique to the service associate, but it should always feel unique and personal to the customer.

What is available to help make it so? Well, start with the customer's name. How about buying history? What is evident about the nature of the interaction? Perhaps a sense of urgency? What small, low-cost touches can you add that will make each experience memorable? If customers are repeat visitors, can you do something special to acknowledge their return? When service providers are trained to really know their products and services, they are freed up to focus on improving the customer experience.

Consider websites that personalize the individual online experience when you log in. On Amazon.com, your prior purchase history allows that site to make recommendations of new items that might interest you. When you look up a book or music title, Amazon shows you what others who have looked at those same titles not only reviewed but purchased. At Netflix, customers are provided lists of movies similar in content or style to those they've already rented, a service that's proved highly popular. When you log onto an airline website, it might show you your upcoming travel plans as well as the latest deals on frequently traveled destinations, or perhaps your mileage reward level and current award status. As customers, when we see this personalized information, it makes us feel valued and appreciated--special to that company.

Customer-facing employees have access to vast numbers of customers across multiple touch points, and service-savvy organizations are finding ways to allow them to do the work they do best: connect with and listen to customers. In larger organizations, dedicated service teams are trolling the web with tracking software such as Radian6 to find out what individuals are saying about their organizations, with the goal of gathering feedback and solving problems so that they can enhance the customer experience.

In smaller organizations with more limited resources, employees are carving out parts of work days to monitor customer feedback on review sites such as Yelp or comments left on their own websites, or to alert devoted customers to product deals or coupons by way of their Facebook pages or Twitter accounts.

Corporate websites offer a great place to build communities. Community simply means that a site is more than a place to buy; it's a place to learn, share and communicate with others. It allows visitors to make the site their own by joining a conversation or learning new facts. People have always expected to find communities online, and they search for them. If you've got a product that excites people, give them a chance to share their excitement.

One organization, Norwegian Cruise Lines, discovered that its travelers loved to tell stories of their travel experiences and share reviews and opinions. The cruise line became one of the first to create its own online community forum, called Freestyle Voices. Since its short time online, the site has captured 770 shore reviews, 200 posted stories and some 3,500 submitted questions. The forum allows NCL to gather critical data about and from its customers, better tailor service options to the individual and suggest links to other areas of the NCL site.

NCL also knows that one advantage of creating such forums is that more customers are drawn to its website--not to the blogosphere or social media at large--to discuss their experiences with the organization. That gives it a better chance to identify and address any problems internally before customers opt to take them to, say, Twitter, Facebook or YouTube and potentially do harm to the company's reputation.

Adding community is actually a fairly cheap addition to any website, because visitors create the bulk of the content. One payoff is that visitors feel like the site is a place they'd want to visit again because it appeals to part of the psyche. It gives them a sense that you care about their interests and that you built your site with them in mind. A place that lets the customer link with peers is far more worthy of a bookmark than a strictly e-commerce site, regardless of how attractively it's built. Another huge payoff is that control piece. You have the ability to address problems, questions or misinformation quickly and cleanly.

Whatever strategy you choose, strive to make sure the customer experience is unique and personal. Customers repeatedly tell us how wonderful it is to feel special, and you don't need to break the bank to create that feeling. Sometimes all it takes is using a customer's name, taking a little extra time to let the customer vent or sending a short follow-up note thanking customers for their business.

Remember that the fewer human contacts people have with your organization, the more important each one becomes. Not only that, but people tell us over and over that a personalized service experience plays a significant role in their repurchase intentions. Organizations today need to do everything they can to get an upper hand on the competition, and making service personal goes a long way toward achieving that objective.

Paying attention to the customer experience pays off in dividends, both immediately and over time. Tuning in to customers' perspectives to make their experience the very best it can be creates positive, memorable first impressions. Creating opportunities for customers to make connections and want to come back builds their social capital and investment in your organization. Customer engagement, investment and, ultimately, referral are the true test of loyalty.