Focus on customers, not the money (2)

 – deliver the experience that makes them want to come back for more

As customers, we all reminisce about that one moment of truth when we felt so special and different as a result of an encounter with frontline staff or a representative of a brand or company we engaged with. The natural reaction to any such encounter as a customer is to share how we are feeling with the world. Today, with the power of the Internet behind us, we are able to articulate our feelings to a much larger community. Knowing that your service provider knows who you are is special, and makes you yearn for more of the same.

It makes you feel almost like royalty. As one researcher illustrates the feeling, “They know who I am, and they care about me”. Everybody likes to feel special. A colleague of mine years ago flew on one of the airline brands from London to Accra, flying economy class. On her return to London from Accra, she was upgraded to first-class. Her reaction, as she shared with us later, was one of elation. The hotel I visited outside Accra where a butler had been assigned to me made me feel like I was in dreamland. The butler knocked on my door, introduced himself and said politely to me, “Sir, anything you need just let me know; this is my number”.

This is all about thinking outside-in and responding to needs of the customer intuitively. The effort you make to know your customer yields great dividends. Disneyland used an app to capture customer behaviour and ultimately offered guests the capability to reserve spots for the attractions they want to visit.  Using the benefits technology offers, they have significantly improved the experience for visitors. The result is increased revenues. By focusing on building excitement, personalising information about the experience and constantly changing attractions, they are able to stay up to date with customer interests and trends.

I have shared unendingly about the need to figure out how we can add value to our tourist attractions to enhance the experience and increase their attraction for visitors. A mere visit to an attraction with little or no added value denies us the potential to attract more interest and grow revenues. Imagine a visit to Cape Coast Castle with a cocktail of attractions featuring Abibigromma drama, video-clips and storytelling all packaged to make the visitor’s outing worthwhile. These would create attractions with variety to show beyond the single story of sadness told repeatedly. I am certain that industry experts have much brighter ideas.

According to recent research, 80% of businesses believe they provide ‘superior’ customer service. But only 8% of customers would describe the service they have received in such glowing terms. When customers are not happy, the damage done can be devastating. Therefore, we must be intentional about keeping customers happy by delivering an experience that makes them want some more.  According to research by Gartner, Customer experience isn’t just the latest industry buzzword, it has become a vital business strategy that can sink or swim a brand in today’s highly competitive, multi-channel world.

Your goal is therefore to invest your best efforts into the relationship. Here are a few talking points to help us in this quest. First, be accountable; customers seek support from a reliable and dependable source. Second, engage and place a premium on dialoguing with customers for positive outcomes. Third, go the extra mile to ask questions for clarity, and avoid any ambiguities. Fourth, seize the moment and leverage every opportunity with the customer to demonstrate how good you are. Fifth is recovery – no one said customer service is easy all the time; learn to recover when you fall short of the customer’s expectations.

Be accountable

This reminds me of a story I learned during my early years in school. It was about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody. It goes like this: there was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realised that Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have.

The rationale of this story is not to assume that others know instinctively what to do and when to do it, or even what you expect from them. The customer conversation should be everybody’s responsibility. Accountability goes a notch higher than being reliable and dependable. It means taking deep, personal responsibility for what we do for our customers. Here is a common scenario we can learn from. A customer checks into your hotel room and notices that the bathroom bulb is dead and needs replacement. She goes to the front desk to report the fault, and the front desk manager assures her that she will take care of it and goes on to take care of the burnt bulb.

Later, she sees the customer in the corridor and informs her: “I took care of the burnt bulb in your bathroom, and if you have any other problems don’t hesitate to call me. I am on duty till midnight, and if I am not here one of my colleagues can help you”. The principle here is that everyone takes ownership of the customer’s concerns. When we are accountable, we assume full ownership of the customer experience. Accountability means following-through and ensuring that the issue gets resolved by doing what is expected, and checking to make sure the customer is happy. I have a hotel manager friend who fits this mould perfectly, and she knows herself (smile).

Engage

The Customer Experience ace Shep Hyken shares this example from Ace Hardware, where the culture is to avoid closed-ended questions such as “How are you” to which a reply of “Fine” is likely; or “Can I help you?” to which you may get a standard response like “No, I am just looking”. His advice is that asking open-ended questions instead will elicit more than a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response. He shares that open-ended questions like “Can I help you today?” or “How are you going to use this?” will generate more positive responses.

The fact is we can only achieve results when we engage, whether or not this is desired. Engagement seeks to solve the customer’s problem and ensure that at the end of the process, the customer has a positive feeling about the encounter. Paul Greenberg is an industry luminary and puts it bluntly: “There is no customer experience without customer engagement”. Delivering an experience requires being in control of the customer’s complete context. Note that the experience is the sum total of happenings at all your touchpoints, and these will constitute the customer’s experience whether good or bad.

The goal is to help customers find or learn more about your product or service (non-irritably), and to achieve outcomes that accrue to their benefit. According to Greenberg, “Customer Experience is how a customer feels about a company over time”. In Bruce Temkin’s opinion it’s a bit more transactional, as he defines it as “the perception that customers have of their interactions with your organisation”. He emphasises that Customer Experience is in the eyes of the beholder, it is not what you do as a company or how your employees think about what they do. Therefore, accurately knowing what their needs are is pivotal in aligning with them.

Go the extra mile

Consider this dialogue with a customer who wants something to be done quickly. You may have to confirm with this customer “How quickly?” to know what time-frame the customer has in mind. Asking the extra question is necessary to ensure that you have a good hang on what the need is and can respond appropriately within the context. I recall during the pandemic that some brands went the extra mile by creatively delivering products that helped customers address their health needs. A Gin brand in the UK produced sanitisers in place of Gin to ensure that their customers were healthy.

Kasapreko in Ghana also engaged in the massive production of sanitisers – a move that really paid off. To use a common example, when you engage the customer at your front desk it is helpful to go the extra mile by asking the extra question that will lead you to a more helpful response to the customer’s need. Asking the extra question will get you to clarify what the customer actually seeks. It will help you deliver a Moment of Magic every time a customer comes to you with a question or need. In clear terms, questions are a powerful way to understand expectations, gain clarity and avoid misunderstandings.

To build consistency for your customers in this regard, it is imperative that you invest in standard training for your employees. When employees are aligned with your values, they have a better understanding of the impression they portray – along with the high level of customer service expected from them. Build mechanisms to assess this regularly and see how effectively it is being implemented on your front lines through monitoring phone calls and feedback from existing customers. Avoid asking the common question “Can I help you”, and seek to reach the customer’s core need by asking the extra question.

Seize the moment

Jan Carlzon, the former president of Scandinavian Airlines, in his book ‘Moments of Truth’ defines the moment of truth in business as this: “Anytime a customer comes into contact with any aspect of a business, however remote, is an opportunity to form an impression”. The Moment of Truth is every part of the interaction the (internal and external) customer has with you, from the first moment you engage until the end of the journey. Your motivation should lead you to ask yourself, “Is what I am doing right now going to make the customer want to come back the next time?

When we went to notify the restaurant of this hotel that we were checking out before midday, they informed us we could have lunch before we left. However, we were in a hurry and so we asked if we could pack the lunch to take along with us. Their response was that they hadn’t made provision for takeaways; however, since we asked, they would see what they could do. That’s exactly what they went on to do – providing us with packed lunches to take along with us. Seizing the moment speaks volumes of your customer-centredness. I cringe at service providers who are quick to dismiss a request reactively.

Not being alive to the situation smacks of ‘navel-gazing’. The effect of a team-member seizing the moment in any encounter leads the customer to perceive one as friendly, helpful, kind and any other neighbourly words one can think of. It is an extremely useful tool for demonstrating that the organisation cares. Note that in any such encounter the individual representing a company is the face of that company. Customers speak in general terms when this is commonplace among all employees, in words like “Trust company X to provide you with a great service”. In every interaction, be fully present in the moment.

Learn to recover

I recall a common expression from my boyhood days, “to err is human” – meaning it is natural for human beings to make mistakes. There is no guarantee that customer service is always going to be easy. What’s crucial is how we learn from the fault and quickly bounce back. A bad experience obviously leaves the customer frustrated, which requires that you counteract that emotion by being the calm one. Note that the client is not mad at you, but rather at the company; so don’t take it personally. Allow your customers to freely vent and express their frustrations, it shows them you’re there to listen and help.

A great approach is be to delicately ask them questions to determine what their problem actually is. This gives you an opportunity to find a remedy for the issue they are experiencing, while offering them a safe place to offload the pressure. Listen painstakingly to what they have to say. Empathise with the customer to understand and defuse the situation. It helps to put yourself in your customer’s shoes and see the situation from their perspective. Be quick to apologise for the mishap that caused the customer to be angry or upset. In specific cases, you may need to compensate unhappy customers.

Ensure that you have in place a compensation policy for situations where customers rightfully deserve one. Undeniably, mistakes happen all the time. Dealing with unhappy customers on a daily basis is part of the learning process. Leverage these experiences to improve the overall way you implement feedback and improve communication. Whether it is to enhance your product or tweak your customer service based on insights, you’re taking the next step to go above and beyond. Track common issues that arise through customer feedback, and build a plan on how you will implement them in your product or service.

Learning from your customers is one of the best assets you have to ensure that you build a resilient army of loyal customers who keep coming back to you, and who are willing to be your Advocates by sharing their experiences.