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How Much Does The Customer Experience Matter?

Guest post by: Laura Posey

Article Overview: After watching Jeffrey Pine’s video on authenticity and the power of the experience, I decided to conduct my own personal experiment. My lab was the realm of beauty salons. For the last five years, I’ve gotten my hair cut at a local salon known for its fantastic client experience. Total cost of a haircut there is typically $60. Yesterday, I took my appearance in my hands and headed to the local discount haircut chain where I paid $5.99 (with a coupon) for a trim.

How Much Does The Customer Experience Matter?

After watching Jeffrey Pine’s video on authenticity and the power of the experience, I decided to conduct my own personal experiment. My lab was the realm of beauty salons.

For the last five years, I’ve gotten my hair cut at a local salon known for its fantastic client experience. Total cost of a haircut there is typically $60.

Yesterday, I took my appearance in my hands and headed to the local discount haircut chain where I paid $5.99 (with a coupon) for a trim.

Here are my thoughts on whether the experience of the swanky salon was worth the price.

When I go to my favorite salon, the experience of luxury starts when you walk in the door. The lobby is an interior designer’s wet dream. Warm woods, soft paint colors, organic wall hangings, inviting leather chairs and enticing scents greet the visitor. This place says “comfort” in spades.

During the check-in process, I receive a black smock and a key. I walk to a dressing room where I can change out of my shirt so I don’t get little tiny hairs on it. The key is for my personal locker where I can store my clothes, purse, etc.

The second I come out of the dressing area, a friendly staff member asks if I’d like water, coffee or a special herbal tea. Ahhhh. Within two minutes, I’m back with my stylist, discussing what I’d like this time.

From there the experience gets even better. I’m led to a reclining massage chair and given the controls so I can adjust the six rolling bars in the back to my liking. Did I mention the chair is heated?

My stylist proceeds to give me a full five-minute shampoo and head massage followed by a hot towel wrap with a scented conditioner. More than once I’ve nodded off in that chair.

Back at the styling chair, my hairdresser chats happily with me while spending 45 minutes snipping away. She is careful to ask about the details of my life and she remembers key things we discussed last time.

After my cut, I return the to dressing room then meet my stylist at the counter where she says checks again to make sure I’m happy and sets my next appointment for me.

Contrast that experience to yesterday.

At 2:30pm on a Thursday, I walked into a local haircuttery for which I had a discount coupon for 50% off the normal price of $12.

My first thought on walking in the door was, “Dear God, can I go through with this?” The place was small and cramped, with the chairs barely separated from each other by large sail-like dividers. Each chair was filled and there were four people waiting to be seen.

A very pleasant woman checked me in – name, phone, address – and asked me wait. In the time it takes for me to glance through each page of People magazine I was called by my stylist.

I have no idea what her name was as English was not among the languages she spoke well. She couldn’t pronounce my name either so I didn’t feel bad about not knowing hers.

That being said, she was quite pleasant. She asked what I wanted and I did my best to demonstrate how much to cut off, not trusting she’d understand just my words.

My normal relaxing wash was replaced by a few sprays of cold water from a squirt bottle and the snipping began.

I almost forgot to mention that the entire experience was accompanied by a shrieking 2-year old who was having his first haircut. My senses were also assaulted by the conversations in the chairs next to me. The proximity of the chairs made it impossible not to overhear.

Twenty minutes and several revisions later, I was ready to face the world with my new cut. I have to admit whatever-her-name-was did a very nice job. She even called over another stylist to check that the sides were even and neat.

As I checked out and paid (along with a $6 tip), I had the feeling that I had successfully survived a minor ordeal. Maybe it was just the release of the apprehension I had built up going in, but I felt pretty darned happy after I left.

It’s clear that the cheap haircut experience in no way, shape or form compares to the luxury salon experience. So, which place will I go next time?

The cheap place.

Why, you ask and how does this impact the whole “experience is king” philosophy?

It’s simple. Whether experience matters depends on how often you’ll have the experience, how important the event is in your grand scheme of things and several other factors.

Experience does matter to me in many areas. I drive a BMW, I live in an area that is all about experiencing the neighborhood, I shop for groceries at a very nice grocery store and I tend to buy high-end clothes. For me, theses are everyday interactions and it is important that I love them.

Hair is pretty far down on my list of things to care about and so the haircutting experience is something that, as long as it isn’t awful, doesn’t really matter. Paying 1/5 the price for what I perceive to be a comparable outcome is well worth it in my book.

For some of my friends, hair is so important they would gladly pay the higher price to get the whole luxury experience.

It makes sense for the high-end salon to spend money finding more customers like my friends and less like me.

So, what do your customers care about in the experience of your buying and delivery process? Are you seeking new customers who really value your process or are you just blasting advertising everywhere hoping you hit the right ones?

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Article Tags: marketing, motivation, sales, sales tips, small business



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