It's All About the Customer Experience

Now, you would think I would learn from my years of buying and leasing cars to expect the worst but unfortunately my memory failed me. We had the greatest plan - get in and get out with minimal pain and limited effort. We walked into the showroom with that "we are here to buy a car" look on our faces and, sure enough, we are asked if we need help. So far - so good, no high pressure and the salesperson was very willing to let us test drive a car. Fortunately, this dealer represented both manufacturers of the cars on our short list so we were able to test drive the other car on the same visit. Life is good; one visit, two test drives later, and we've made a selection. At this point, I am thinking - we are going to set a personal best..... Not so fast!

 In my experience, this is where the customer experience starts to deteriorate for most cars dealers. We've all been there - you've gone down the list of options, determined the manufacturers suggested retail price (MSRP), and the question comes out - "what monthly payment are you trying to reach?" This is a perfectly legitimate question except for the next step when the salesperson "needs to speak to the manager". Now, I don't blame the salesperson because this is how they have been trained to sell - so we move on after my response - "the lowest possible", with a smile on my face. We are still on pace to make this a reasonably quick experience. But wait.....there's more......

With today's available technology, any reasonable person would think that this should take no time at all but the visit to the sales manager's office (in this case, an elevated cubical in the middle of the showroom) was a thirty minute waiting game for us. Granted, patience is a virtue, but from our perspective they were wasting our time. We choose to leave without buying a car, which could have easily happened that day, with the agreement that we would call us a call. In the end, we did buy the car from that dealer but it was well over a week later.

This may be the way the game is played but there are plenty of risks - we could have become frustrated and moved to different dealer (that almost happened). We will not recommend this dealer to another person and, worst case, any commentary share regarding our experience will be mostly negative.

The take away from this should have you thinking about your customers' experience. Do you know how they feel about working with your company and willingness to say good things? You may think you do but, using the example above, the dealer feels we are pleased because we ultimately bought the car from them however our experience tells a different story.

Leaders in today's rapidly changing business world have determined that there is more to success than catchy advertising campaigns. Whether it's a business, a professional practice, a health care facility, or a government agency, success comes to organizations that are dedicated to looking after their customers. Quality alone isn't enough.

Here are the steps to improving your customers' experience:

Discover customer expectations - ask them.

Recognize the customer experience.

Define a vision for exceptional customer service.

Enhance customer service associates' skills.

Develop customer service coaching techniques for your managers