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Guest post by: Action Coach Become an Author

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I was reading a piece in Report on Business,and it got me to thinking:what, exactly, is the customer experience?

You see those two words everywhere–even the people working at burger places are now “customer experience representatives.”

But what do they mean?

To me–to anyone who runs their own business, I think–the words mean thetotal customer experience of your company, including:

• how quickly the phone is answered
• the tone of voice of the person answering the phone
• website–ease of use? informative?
• making the sale–easy or hard?
• delivery of product or service
• invoicing/payment terms

And you could keep going with this list. So, for instance, when I fly, I love the fact that I can check-in online. A huge timesaver. But the flight staff of a lot of airlines are very rude. (A friend of mine says he saw a near-riot develop at LAX last week.) So if this happens they will probably not get my repeat business, since the overall customer experience was negative.

So how to deal with this as a business owner?If we run a small shop, say just 2 or 3 people, it’s a fairly easy problem, because we oversee the whole process ourselves.

But the more stages you add to a process, the more things can go wrong.

Now, don’t mistake my meaning—growth is good. You always want to be going for the next level—and unless you want to work 140 hours a week, that will mean hiring and/or delegation. The trick is to oversee the whole operation without getting involved in every single detail.

Example: You run a heating and air-conditioning company. You have the best sales in town. But you can’t help but notice you don’t get a lot of repeat business. This is probably due to two things—your sales team is over-promising and your technical department is under-delivering. Call 5 customers at random and ask why they didn’t place a repeat order. Chances are they will give you a very clear picture of what needs fixing.

One challenge we all face as business owners is honestly and objectively evaluating ourselves. It’s easy (and human nature) to find excuses, where an outsider would see an inherent problem. So really listen to what your customers are saying; write it down, in fact.

The challenge is to think through the whole process of how your customer interacts with you. If you are easy to reach, that’s half the battle.

And that’s why businesses that employ coaching succeed where others do not. That second set of eyes makes the crucial difference.

ActionCOACH Kent Boehm

403-260-9015

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