Let me share with you some examples of how companies either hit it out of the park or strike out when it comes to their customer experience management. Customer experience is key to long-term business success, leading to customer relationship management becoming an important differentiator between winning and struggling companies.
I spoke with Davy Kestens, CEO and co-founder at Sparkcentral. There are so many different companies and technologies that help other companies improve. Sparkcentral is a young company with fresh new ideas to help improve customer relationships and experiences. This is how companies need to think going forward.
Treating the customer fairly and with respect is the bare minimum. Treating the customer like gold makes them fall in love with you and keeps them coming back forever. Why is this so difficult to achieve? It should be the focus of every executive and every employee.
Good customer experience used to be center stage, then we lost our way. Now we are refocusing, using new ideas and technologies. The problem is only some companies see this as important right now.
This is the opportunity for those creating a great customer experience. Customer care is the real battleground going forward and it’s important to keep your eyes on the ball. First decide your goal: Is it to win the argument or is it to build your customer base? These have two completely different outcomes.
Win argument and lose customer
It doesn’t pay to win an argument if you lose a customer. I learned long ago, by watching companies that do this really well, how important a great customer experience actually is. New technology helps, but it all starts with a commitment from the top.
Keep the customer happy to keep the customer
The ultimate goal of any good customer service department is to keep the customer happy to keep the customer. If that’s the goal, a good customer experience is key.
Problems, if handled correctly, should be considered an opportunity to get closer to the customer. Problems are an opportunity to win and build a strong customer relationship.
Problem is opportunity to win long-term customer loyalty
Don’t think of problems as problems. Turn things around. Rather consider a problem as that magical moment when the customer decides whether to continue doing business with a company. No customer expects a flawless experience. However, every customer does expect the company they are spending money with to treat them fairly and well.
This is where the rubber meets the road. It is the moment where so many companies lose their way. There is a delightful experience every time I talk with American Express or Ritz-Carlton. They make you “feel” great.
If the customer service representative tries to win the argument rather than keep the customer, they lose no matter what happens next. Any friction is a point against the company – too much friction will break the bond. So companies must continue to lubricate the relationship to keep the customer happy.
Every time you win, the customer loses. This result is often a choice made by the company on whether the customer experience will be good or bad. Train your customer care people well, the results will indicate whether the customer is very happy and very long-term, or not. It’s really as simple as that.
Winners lead. Good companies follow. The rest are doomed. Like you, I have so many experiences with companies, good, bad and neutral. So what is your goal?
Take a look at a few examples of companies and how they handled different situations and you decide which are the real winners and losers.
Apple delights. It is not perfect, believe me, but it does a great job relating to its customers on a very special level. There is an emotional connection between the company and the customer. Sure, there are plenty of things Apple screws up, but it keeps growing because the customers love it and overlook things that go wrong. They don’t just like, they love Apple.
Microsoft Windows 10 is really starting to drive me crazy. It thinks my computer is its marketing tool. However, I paid for the computer and it’s mine. Who gave it permission to paste notes all over my Internet Explorer screen urging me to install Windows 10? How dare it continue to waste my time clicking the notes off my screen. It is driving me away from Internet Explorer and into the arms of Google. If it keeps this up it may drive me into the arms of Apple. Is that what it really wants?
LA Fitness disappointed me when we cancelled a membership. It kept charging my credit card, every month for years, before I caught on. When I called again to request a refund of several thousand dollars for the unused years, the company said no. It could see there was no usage for a long time. The company should have notified me long before I caught it. When I found the error, it should have done the right thing. There were several chances to fix this problem, but it didn’t. This was a short-term win, but the company will lose big time by losing many new members from my friends and family who hear this story.
Sonesta Resort Hilton Head Island is a magical place where my family spends many summer vacations. By magical I don’t mean the property itself, although it is beautiful. By magical I mean they are always there and always delighting us. This is unlike most hotel resort stays: The employees take your happiness seriously. At Sonesta, guest happiness is not business … it’s personal. The company empowers everyone to make sure the guest stays happy, and it works. Great philosophy.
AT&T and Verizon Communications are two of the nation’s largest phone companies. Looking back a few decades, telephone companies had customer care problems. Remember from the 1970s the character Ernestine, the telephone company operator on TV’s “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In?” Since then, telephone companies have improved dramatically with customer experience. Today they not only offer great service, but they also offer great customer care and experience. Today customers love them.
Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Charter are some of the nation’s largest cable television companies. Today they are on a similar path phone companies were on decades ago. Even if they had the best service, customers wouldn’t notice because they don’t think they are treated with respect. Cable TV is getting better, but they must also improve their customer relationship so it gets noticed. They have not mastered that yet.
McDonald’s is a business where it seems like it should be easy to please the customer right? Then why is it every time I order a Quarter Pounder and drive off, I find out it has cheese? I didn’t order a Quarter Pounder with cheese. I don’t like a Quarter Pounder with cheese. I didn’t want a Quarter Pounder with cheese. Yet McDonald’s wants to do things their way, not the customer’s way. Is ticking off the customer the right marketing strategy?
These are just a few of countless examples of companies that do a great job keeping the customer happy, and those that screw up their golden opportunity. We all experience our own list of good and bad experiences don’t we?
So if you are a company contemplating the importance and value of strong relationships with your customer, you have three choices: good, bad or neutral. I shouldn’t have to say this, but continually improving the customer experience and your CRM is one of the keys to long-term business success.
Just a thought … if that were the case, wouldn’t it be in your best interest if your long-term goal was to have your customers love you?
